"Oh yes; I know all about that," said Dick; "but what do you suppose God thinks of dad when he makes himself cross with the whisky?"
"Oh! He's dreadfully sorry, Dick, I know He is, for He makes me afraid of him sometimes, when he's had a big lot; and he's just the dearest daddy when he forgets to bring the bottle home from Fellness."
"Ah, but that ain't often," grunted Dick; "and if God wouldn't like you to talk to Harry Hayes, 'cos dad says you musn't, I'd like to know what He thinks of dad sometimes, that's all." And then Dick ran away, for if he could not speak to the farm children, he liked to be near them when they came to play on the sands.
A minute or two after Dick had left her, Tiny was startled by a sound close at hand, and, looking round, she saw Coomber coming from the other side of the sandhill.
"Oh, dad, I thought you was out in the boat," she said.
"'I WANT YOU TO SING A BIT, WHILE I RUB AWAY AT THIS OLD GUN.'" [See page 81.
"Bob and Tom have gone by themselves to-day, for I wanted to clean the gun ready for winter," said the fisherman, still rubbing at the lock with a piece of oiled rag.
Tiny looked up at him half shyly, half curiously, for if he had only been on the other side of the sand-ridge, he must have heard all she and Dick had been talking about.
But if he had heard the fisherman took no notice of what had passed.