“Lord alive, Miss Christian, ma'am, what feelings now-barefooted boy, you say? You're right there, and cold and hungry too, sleeping in the gable-house with the cow, and not getting much but the milk I was staling from her, and a leathering at the ould man for that. Philip fetched me in here one evenin'--that was the start, ma'am. See that pepper-and-salt egg on the string there? It's a Tommy Noddy's. Philip got it nesting up Gob-ny-Garvain. Nearly cost him his life, though. You see, ma'am, Tommy Noddy has only one, and she fights like mad for it. We were up forty fathom and better, atop of a cave, and had two straight rocks below us in the sea, same as an elephant's hoofs, you know, walking out on the blue floor. And Phil was having his lil hand on the ledge where the egg was keeping, when swoop came the big white wings atop of his bare head. If I hadn't had a stick that day, ma'am, it would have been heaven help the pair of us. The next minute Tommy Noddy was going splash down the cliffs, all feathers and blood together, or Philip wouldn't have lived to be Dempster.... Aw, frightened you, have I, ma'am, for all it's so long ago? The heart's a quare thing, now, isn't it? Got no yesterday nor to-morrow neither. Well, good-night, ma'am.” Pete was making for the door, when he looked down and said, “What's this, at all? Down, Dempster, down!” The dog had came trotting into the hall as Pete was going out. He was perking up his big ears and wagging his stump of a tail in front of him. “My dog, ma'am? Yes, ma'am, and like its master in some ways. Not much of itself at all, but it has the blood in it, though, and maybe it'll come out better in the next generation. Looking for me, are you, Dempster? Let's be taking the road, then.” “Perhaps you're wanted at home, Pete?” “Wouldn't trust. Good night, ma'am.” Auntie Nan hopped upstairs in her rustling dress, relieved and glad in the sweet selfishness of her love to get rid of Pete and have Philip to herself. XVI. Pete went off whistling in the darkness, with the dog driving ahead of him. “I'm to blame, though,” he thought. “Should have gone home directly.” The town was now quiet, the streets were deserted, and Pete began to run. “She'd be alone, too. That must have been Nancy in the crowd yonder by Mistress Beatty's. 'Lowed her out to see the do, it's like. Ought to be back now, though.” As Pete came near to Elm Cottage, the moon over the tree-tops lit up the panes of the upper windows as with a score of bright lamps. One step more, and the house was dark. “She'll be waiting for me. Listening, too, I'll go bail.” He was at the gate by this time, and the dog was panting at his feet with its nose close to the lattice. “Be quiet, dog, be quiet.” Then he raised the latch without a sound, stepped in on tiptoe, and closed the gate as silently behind him. “I'll have a game with her; I'll take her by surprise.”