"The shore's no fit place for a young gal arter dark," said Ben gruffly, but pushing his boat out into the stream. "For my part, I can't make out what brings you up into the hills so often. Why don't you come home for good and all? Miss Lina don't want any more vacation, I reckon."
"Oh, my health isn't quite established yet, Mr. Benson," said the girl, looking at the boatman with a sidelong glance of her black, almond-shaped eyes, a glance that Ben was internally comparing to that of the rattlesnake, when he shrank off into a hollow of the rocks.
"I shouldn't think it very wholesome to be out so much at night!" said Ben.
"Oh, I live on fresh air, and love it best when moist with dew!" answered the girl.
"If it ain't moist with something stronger than dew afore long, I lose my guess!" muttered Ben, looking upward. "If this night don't see a reg'lar tornado, I'll give up—beat."
For a short time Ben plied his oars, casting anxious glances down the shore, hoping to find Mrs. Harrington and her boat safe in some inlet or cove, waiting for them.
"In course," said Ben, muttering as usual to himself. "In course, she'd know, as I was sure to come. What on the Lord's arth is Ben Benson good for, but to follow arter and tend on her? The king of all the Sandwich Islands couldn't have a higher business than that, let alone a poor feller of a boatman, as has circumwented his sea voyages down to a pair of oars and a passenger that's not over agreeable."
"Whom are you talking to, Mr. Benson?" inquired the young lady, wasting a smile on the moody boatman, though the threatening sky made her somewhat anxious about her own safety.
"To an individual as calls hisself Ben Benson. He's a feller as bears with my faults better than anybody else, as I knows on, and one as is rather particular about being intruded on, when he's holding a private conversation with hisself. That's the individual, Miss Agnes, as I was a holding a council with."
"And you would a little rather have no interruption—is that it?" said the lady. "Well, well, I can be silent, you shall see that!"