"You have a nurse, I see," he added, looking at Valmai with a shrewd, pleasant glance.
"Yes," said the captain, "nurse and housekeeper in one. She is may niece, poor Robert's daughter, you know."
"Ah! to be sure," said the doctor, shaking hands with her. "He went out as a missionary, didn't he?"
"Yes, to Patagonia, more fool he," said the captain. "Leaving his country for the sake of them niggers, as if there wasn't plenty of sinners in Wales for him to preach to. But there, he was a good man, and Ay'm a bad 'un," and he laughed, as though very well satisfied with this state of affairs.
"Have you heard the news?" said the doctor, while he examined the splints of the broken leg.
"No, what is it?" rumbled the captain.
"Why, the Burrawalla has put back for repairs, Just seen her tugged in—good deal damaged; they say, a collision with the steam-ship, Ariadne.
"By gosh! that's bad. That's the first accident that's ever happened to Captain Owen, and he's been sailing the last thirty years to my knowledge. Well, Ay'm tarnished, but Ay'm sorry."
"Always stops with you?" inquired the doctor.
"Yes, has all his life. There's the little back parlour and the bedroom behind it always kept for him."