His face fell a trifle.
"Och, there's work everywhere ye go, bad 'cess to it! It's, 'Darby, lend a hand here!' Or, 'Darby, catch hold o' this rope!' Or, 'Darby, fetch me a pannikin o' rum!' Darby this and Darby that the night long."
His face lightened again.
"But I'm to have my own cutlass and two pistols for my belt, and they say I'm good luck."
"Good luck? How's that?"
"Sure, it's my hair, I think. Flint—him that this crew sail with by usual—he has a liking for a red-headed lad. Such as meself brings him luck, so they swear, and Long John——"
"Who?"
"Long John—Master Silver, to be sure—him with the one leg we talked to by the shore yesterday—he says I'll go far with Flint."
I had to laugh at my own bemusement at the picture Darby's remark called up. Yesterday morning at this hour I had been laboring industriously in the counting-room in Pearl Street. And how much had happened since then! I harked back to my setting-forth for the Bristol packet, the casual conversation with the one-legged mariner—how skilfully he had pumped me and annexed Darby to his plot!—the encounter with the Irish maid——
With this I curbed my recollections. Thought of Moira O'Donnell was unpleasant, for I could not rid my mind of the suspicion that she must be bound up in some way in the schemes her father worked at in coöperation with my great-uncle.