Old David, all eagerness to be off, had clambered into the cart in which a quantity of household gear had been packed, and sat there holding the reins; while Zarah Patch helped André bring out the one trunk and several bags and boxes. At last all was in readiness, when Nora Gage discovered an important item of luncheon unprepared for transportation. Several baskets were offered, and in the confusion, Rachel made her escape. Arrived at the bay shore, flushed and panting, she stooped with a graceful movement and laid her cheek against the wreck, while with her hand she patted that shadowy collection of letters that still in washed out reds and blues formed a name no wind nor tide could efface. _Defender_! Warped, dislocated, destroyed, its tarry timbers pierced with innumerable holes, its dismal hulk filled with the last lamentable cargo of seawrack and sand, the wreck lifted its broken ribs like arms toward the girl. From what would it restrain her? From what did it seek to defend her? Rising, she approached and stood before the figure-head, and the figure-head looked back at her and, as it were, over and beyond her. With a timid movement, Rachel kissed this old comrade also. Then she ran away, and a moment later she looked back, and there she saw her--that "great-kneed, deep-breasted" Goddess of Hope--with her face set toward the Unknown,--valiant, free! BOOK II CHAPTER I THE STREET OF MASTS "He saw you in the shop that time long ago, Grandfather, and understood that the paint had affected you?" "Yes, it were the lead in the white paint that poisoned me," agreed David; "I'd been paintin' cattle cars pretty stiddy, which was a job most on 'em tried to skip." "I see, and the superintendent told Mr. Hart how faithfully you'd worked and the result was that he sent you this letter with a deed for the house at the Point. It shows that he thought a great deal of you; and even if we shouldn't be able to find him," she continued with a shade of apprehension, "it seems to me this letter, old as it is, ought to help in getting you some sort of a position, just temporarily." "But it ain't _some_ sort of a position I'm wantin'," the other objected, "it's a railroad position; and though railroad corporations is one thing," he continued, "and car shops is another, still they do business together constant; and I guess we'll find the Big Middletown people know all about Nicholas Hart when we ask 'em." And so these two, the one so lately emerged from childhood and the other just reëntering it, started on their quest, and from their eyes looked out the same innocence, ignorance and unquenchable hope. "I'll feel safer about Grandfather when he's occupied," thought the girl, "but it must be light work, I'll insist upon that; and then directly I'll find something to do myself."