t was perhaps as well that Chris had more than enough to think of. Otherwise the wrench at leaving home might have been even more distressing than it was. His last day passed like a flash, though from his attitude no one, certainly not Becky, would have guessed that the next morning he would not be there to eat his breakfast in the sunny kitchen window. Amos, quick to sense all Chris's moods, knew something was afoot, and when Chris and Mr. Wicker finally told him of the sailing plan, Amos's eyes grew rounder than ever and sparkled more brightly, but he said never a word.
At ten o'clock that night, when Becky had gone heavily to her room, wondering perhaps why Chris had given her so hard a hug, Ned Cilley knocked at the back door. He had brought a light cart on which there stood a large wicker hamper. Ned and Chris lifted it into the kitchen while Mr. Wicker drew the curtains and then held a candle high. The candlelight flickered and flapped like a trapped bird at the corners of the room, and sharp bird-wing shadows cut across Mr. Wicker's tall dark figure. Yet to Chris, who was to hold the scene ever after in his memory, the kitchen by the light of that one candle, and the figure of his master standing in its center, moved Chris as he had never been touched before. Amos stood near the basket, looking first into its square depth filled with shadow, and then up enquiringly at Mr. Wicker, but he did not speak.
"Be of good heart, Amos," Mr. Wicker said to him kindly, "and look after young Christopher as best you can."
Then, at a gesture from Mr. Wicker, Amos, agog, stepped into the hamper where he stood uncertainly, his expression half terrified and half delighted.
"Yessir, I will!" he piped up, shrill with excitement. "I'll keep my eye on him!" he promised, and then curled up in the hamper. Ned Cilley shut down the top and he and Chris lifted it to the cart. Mr. Wicker spoke low into Ned's ear.
"All is well understood?" he queried. "This is no time for misunderstandings!"
"Aye aye, sir! All is clear!" the good Ned replied.
"Then Godspeed to you all and bring you safely home," said Mr. Wicker. "Be on the lookout for this lad, Ned, when you get past the bar."
