“I will come,” said David, simply; and he took the basket from the woman, and flung it lightly over his own shoulder. Then they went together to a house in one of the numerous “closes” running from the main street to the ocean. It was a very small house, but it was clean, and was built upon a rock, the foundations of which were deep down in the sea. When the tide was full David could have sailed his boat under its small seaward window. It contained a few pieces of handsome furniture, and some old Delft earthenware which had been brought from Holland by seafaring kindred long ago; all else savored of narrow means.
But the woman set before David a pot of tea and some oat-cake, and she fried him a fresh herring, and he ate with the delayed hunger of healthy youth, heartily and with pleasure. And as he did so she talked to him of his father Liot, whom she had known in her girlhood; and David told her of Liot’s long, hard fight with death, and she said with a kind of sad pride:
“Yes; that way Liot was sure to fare to his long home. He would set his teeth and fight for his life. Was it always well between him and you?”
“He was hard and silent, but I could always lean on him as much as I liked.”
“That is a good deal to say.”
“So I think.”
Then they drew the past from the eternity into which it had fallen, that they two, brought so strangely together, might look at it between them. They talked of Liot’s hard life and hard death for an hour, and then the woman said:
“Paul Borson was of the same kind–silent, but full of deeds; and his daughter Nanna, she also has a great heart.”
“Show me now where she lives, and I will go and see her. Also, tell me your name.”
“I am Barbara Traill. When you have seen Nanna come back here, and I will give you a place to sleep and a little meat; and as soon as it is well with you it will be easy to pay my charges.”