Little cared we. That adventure down the slip, ignominious though it was, had put fire into my heart. I entered eagerly into the captain's scheme of hauling and rifling the Millport lobster-traps, in the convenient fog which, as if sent by heaven, hid us for a little space from the land. The blood of ancestral pirates and robbers bounded hilariously once more in my long-easeful, sluggish veins. The floor of our boat was covered with bright sea-spoils, the fog lifted, the wind blew fair and strong. Hungry eternally, we munched our stolen fried cakes with delight. The sun set in a spendthrift glory of state and color, the water was as if translated to celestial climes, languidly the fair moon arose. And I--forever Vesty's face, in some dream of youth and happiness, outlying my estate; pictured, apart from me, yet new-creating me with joy. Afar off in earth-meadows, the love-note of the thrush--not for me, yet passing dear and sweet. That slender, languorous moon pointed me to humble village spires and grass-grown paths, pale lovers whispering at a rustic gate. I, poor sprite, stooped down and loved and blessed them, though I sped away to sail forever and forever on the seas! XVIII UNCLE BENNY SAILS AWAY TO GALILEE Say the philosophers how, to the properly sane mind, there is no sorrow. But Vesty, only a Basin, fighting Christ's war against the flesh--Vesty had sorrow. "It was," she confessed to me alone, I being as a ghost or confessor--"it was like pulling my heart out, to have Notely go away so. It was like taking little Gurd away--but it was the only way." "He has gone back to his wife?" "Yes." Vesty shivered. I had chanced to meet her in the lane, and the wind was chill. "And what are you going to do, Vesty?" "I am going where they want me to help." She held the thin, frayed shawl at her neck, the rosy child wrapped as usual on her arm: "there is always some one wanting me to help, and little Gurd is not so much care now but I can get along with it." "You go out as general drudge or charwoman!" I felt my nostrils quiver and a bitter harshness in my voice. Vesty looked at me with surprise. "I go to help," she said, "just as you helped me, with Uncle Benny, when I was sick." "Oh, I could do"--the child knew not with what a glance I studied her face--"what it is hard to let you do, Vesty." A gentle pallor at that, as though I had been strong and seemly in her sight; the Basin eyes fixed on me as if with a community of experience and sorrow. "Shall you go away from the Basin this winter, as you did before?" "I think so;" for myself, I could not look at her. "You see, I have my--'show,' that I must attend to a little in the winter: and here, exposed to the hard climate, if I were taken ill, or should be in want, there is no one who would care for me, you know." "You should never want or suffer," cried Vesty of the Basins, "while I have two hands to work with!"