They closed the door again, went down the steps and along the road and parted on the beach.
“I’m glad you came,” said Sally; “you must come again. Now hurry, or the tide will catch you. I think Harvey Jarreth has gone on to Captain Saulsby’s ahead of you. Good-bye.”
As Billy hastened across the stepping-stones and through the meadow, he looked very sharply and very often down toward the rocks, but could see no signs of any one’s presence. Sally was right; Harvey Jarreth had gone ahead of him and was standing now by the bench near the hedge, in hot dispute with the old Captain.
“I never saw a man so blind to his own interests,” he was saying. “I believe you are out of your senses. Come now, say what figure you will really take.”
“You could cover the land with gold pieces for me and I wouldn’t sell,” returned the old sailor with determination. “I’m not saying that it isn’t a good offer for me in some ways, but I will part with no property to a man who won’t give his name or state his business. If I’m to take his money, I must know where it comes from.”
“It is perfectly natural that my friend should ask me not to give his name,” Jarreth insisted. “And as for the money, what do you care where it comes from, just so you make something? What do you want with all those acres your father left you, when you only can dig up one corner of it to plant a few miserable poppies in?”
“What does your friend want of it?” retorted the Captain; “and by the way, how does it happen you have such a friend? How long have you known him?”
“Why—why, not long,” admitted Jarreth, “but he’s all right, I know that, and able to buy the whole of Appledore Island twice over. Well, I suppose you are standing out for a bigger price and I will just have to tell him so.”
“I’m standing out for nothing of the sort, you everlasting lunkhead,” roared the old man, completely exasperated, “and I’ll waste no more time talking to you.”
“I’ll just step up to the house and rest a little there in the shade,” Jarreth said. “I have a long walk home, so I might as well give you time first to think this well over. You will see reason in the end.”