The captain would not have stripped away that dream from the man for the world. He was so touched that he begged quite humbly that he might be permitted to come again to see him; and finally went out into the darkness and took his way homeward. But the captain was troubled in spirit, and the shining heavens above him did not seem to have quite the clear and fine message of peace that they had held so long for his simple soul. He took a circuitous route, and came again to the great dreary place where the child lived and looked in through the dilapidated gates. He sighed a little as he turned away, and whispered softly, "God keep you, baby--God keep you!" CHAPTER VII. IN WHICH SEPARATIONS ARE SUGGESTED. In quite the strangest and yet the most natural way the old shoemaker was drawn into that little circle which revolved round the captain. It was a curious little band in most respects, formed of strange beings, with nothing of the practical about them; the captain seemed sometimes to be the youngest of them all. Comethup's life, at that enchanting time, was very full indeed--so full that he had sometimes to stop and gasp with wonder at all the extraordinary things and the extraordinary people that filled it. The captain had been something to be grateful about, and to hug one's self over; the ghost in the garden had resolved itself into a very sweet and tender personality. And now came this wonderful old man, who hammered away half underground, and talked sometimes like a book and sometimes like scraps out of twenty books, all disjointed; whose hair was wild and whose eyes shone, and who was something to be a little afraid of at first and to love desperately afterward, although, for that matter, there were but few people who came into Comethup's life that he was not able to give some part of his heart to. There was but one little hunger in his heart, and that was that he could not bring Brian into what he would have termed the chief glory of his life, for he had that keen and unerring instinct which told him that Brian would be impatient of the old shoemaker, and as scornful of him as he was of every one else who did not exactly please him.