Tom o' the Gleam listened to this explanation in silence, playing absently with the green tags of ribbon at his waistcoat. Then slowly lifting his eyes he fixed them full on Helmsley, who, despite himself, felt an instant's confusion at the searching intensity of the man's bold bright gaze. "Old and poor!" he ejaculated. "That's a bad lookout in this world! Aren't you tired of living!" "Nearly," answered Helmsley quietly--"but not quite." Their looks met, and Tom's dark features relaxed into a smile. "You're fairly patient!" he said, "for it's hard enough to be poor, but it's harder still to be old. If I thought I should live to be as old as you are, I'd drown myself in the sea! There's no use in life without body's strength and heart's love." "Ah, tha be graat on the love business, Tom!" chuckled "Feathery" Joltram, lifting his massive body with a shake out of the depths of his comfortable chair. "Zeems to me tha's zummat like the burd what cozies a new mate ivery zummer!" Tom o' the Gleam laughed, his strong even white teeth shining like a row of pearls between his black moustaches and short-cropped beard. "You're a steady-going man, Feathery," he said, "and I'm a wastrel. But I'm ne'er as fickle as you think. I've but one love in the world that's left me--my kiddie." "Ay, an' 'ow's the kiddie?" asked Matt Peke--"Thrivin' as iver?" "Fine! As strong a little chap as you'll see between Quantocks and Land's End. He'll be four come Martinmas." "Zo agein' quick as that!" commented Joltram with a broad grin. "For zure 'e be a man grow'd! Tha'll be puttin' the breechez on 'im an' zendin' 'im to the school----" "Never!" interrupted Tom defiantly. "They'll never catch my kiddie if I know it! I want him for myself,--others shall have no part in him. He shall grow up wild like a flower of the fields--wild as his mother was--wild as the wild roses growing over her grave----" He broke off suddenly with an impatient gesture. "Psha! Why do you drag me over the old rough ground talking of Kiddie!" he exclaimed, almost angrily. "The child's all right. He's safe in camp with the women." "Anywheres nigh?" asked Bill Bush. Tom o' the Gleam made no answer, but the fierce look in his eyes showed that he was not disposed to be communicative on this point. Just then the sound of voices raised in some dispute on the threshold of the "Trusty Man," caused all the customers in the common room to pause in their talking and drinking, and to glance expressively at one another. Miss Tranter's emphatic accents rang out sharply on the silence. "It wants ten minutes to ten, and I never close till half-past ten," she said decisively. "The law does not compel me to do so till eleven, and I resent private interference." "I am aware that you resent any advice offered for your good," was the reply, delivered in harsh masculine tones. "You are a singularly obstinate woman. But I have my duty to perform, and as minister of this parish I shall perform it."