"Zeke's home agen."
"Yes; he was up here two evenin's ago."
"He was here yesterday; he'll be here again to-day. He comes here too often. I've got a telescope, John Penaluna, and I sees what's goin' on. What's more, I guess what'll come of it. So I warn 'ee—as a friend, of course."
John stared down at the polished steel teeth of his pitchfork, glinting under the noonday sun.
"As a friend, of course," he echoed vaguely, still with the meaningless smile on his face.
"I b'lieve she means to be a good 'ooman; but she's listenin' to 'en. Now, I've got 'en a ship up to Runcorn. He shan't sail the Touch-me-not no more. 'Tis a catch for 'en—a nice barquentine, five hundred tons. If he decides to take the post (and I reckon he will) he starts to-morrow at latest. Between this an' then there's danger, and 'tis for you to settle how to act."
A long pause followed. The clock across the harbour struck noon, and this seemed to wake John Penaluna up. "Thank 'ee," he said. "I think I'll be going in to dinner. I'll—I'll consider of it. You've took me rather sudden."
"Well, so long! I mean it friendly, of course."
"Of course. Better take the lower path; 'tis shorter, an' not so many stones in it."
John stared after him as he picked his way down the hill; then fell to rearranging his heaps of dried rubbish in an aimless manner. He had forgotten the dinner-hour. Something buzzed in his ears. There was no wind on the slope, no sound in the air. The shipwrights had ceased their hammering, and the harbour at his feet lay still as a lake. They were memories, perhaps, that buzzed so swiftly past his ears—trivial recollections by the hundred, all so little, and yet now immensely significant.