"I don't think I understand that boy yet," was Toby Tolman's thought. "He is thinking about something, I know."
It was a day near the close of Dave's stay at the lighthouse that the keeper said in the morning,--"Beautiful day! Everything just as calm! It seems as if it would stay so always, but it won't."
How the sea might rock and roar in twenty-four hours! The lighthouse was very peaceful. The morning's work was despatched promptly, and the tower was very quiet. With any rocking, roaring sea would come a change in the life of the tower. There would be hurrying feet, and the fog-signal would shriek out its sharp, piercing warning.
The flow of life in nature, though, out on the sea, up in the sky, was undisturbed all that day, and in the tower of the fog-signal the machinery stirred not, while the light breeze playing around the mouth of the fog-trumpets aroused no answering blast. It was peaceful on the sea and in the tower. And yet in the light-keeper's own bosom it seemed that afternoon as if an ocean tempest had been evoked and was suddenly raging. About three Dave, who chanced to be in the storeroom of the tower, heard a voice outside.
"There's some one down at the foot of the ladder," thought Dave. "I will see who it is."
He went to the door of the signal-tower and looked down.
"Ho! that you, Timothy? Coming back?" said Dave.
Down in a boat lightly resting on the smooth, glassy water was Toby Tolman's assistant, Timothy Waters. Dave knew that Timothy was coming back very soon, and he thought that Timothy might have concluded to anticipate the date appointed for his return and resume work now.
"Not just yet," replied Timothy. "Get the cap'n soon as you can. I won't come up. Spry, please."
The keeper was quickly at the door.