"We shall have to watch her very carefully all day, Jim," he remarked. "Because you see she may know that father has gone, and try to take advantage. We had a dog who used to do that once. Mother always said he took advantage when father had gone off for the day. It wouldn't do for things to go wrong before he came back. You and I will have to be very careful. Shall we go up and look how she seems now?—and whether she is all asleep and quiet?"
Jim grinned in his queer way, but assented at once.
"All right, little master, we'll go. I've got to clean her up. But I think she'll be quiet like all day. She's a wonderful one for sleeping so long as the sun shines—that she is!"
"Yes, rather like a bat, isn't it, Jim? I read a tale once in a book about a big bat with a funny name. I think it was called a vampire. I know it was very big indeed, and rather fierce. Perhaps she's a kind of vampire; only you've made her tame, and she doesn't hurt people now. Did she ever hurt you, Jim? You don't seem afraid of her a bit."
"Nay, she's never hurt I," answered Jim. "She don't hurt them as know how to humour her. She did break the arm of one man once; but he was a rare fool and deserved what he got. You've got to be a bit careful of her when she's going; but if you mind her well she won't hurt nobody."
They were mounting the stairs now, and Pat seated himself to watch Jim at his mysterious duties about the great She, as he had come to call her in his own mind. He had seen everything done a dozen times before; but the interest and fascination was always new. To-day he was permitted to help Jim a little by holding his leathers and rubbers from time to time; and he felt that he should soon be able to climb about and clean himself, so familiar did he grow with all his companion's evolutions.
It took the best part of the morning to do all that was needed to make things ship-shape for night, and Pat presently went downstairs to get ready the simple mid-day meal his mother had prepared for them. He thought that it would be pleasant to eat it down on the rocks, for the tide was out, and as it was a spring tide there was more rock than usual uncovered. He carried everything carefully down, and presently Jim joined him, and they sat down together. Pat thought it was quite the nicest dinner he had ever tasted, down in the cool shadow of the rocks, with the waves washing up and down only a few feet away. He got Jim to light his pipe by-and-by, and to tell him some of his sailor stories (Jim, he noticed, always talked better when he was smoking), and after an hour had passed like that, Jim suggested to him that it was his turn to tell a tale.
Now Pat was very willing to take his turn, but he had not any big store of stories, and such as his mother had told him had all been related to Jim before—all but the Bible stories, of which, to be sure, there were plenty left to tell. Pat sat nursing his knees and thinking. At last he looked up into his companion's face and asked reflectively—
"I don't think I've ever told you about Jesus, have I? We've not got to Him yet in reading out of the Book. But there's lots and lots of stories about Him—real pretty ones, too. I could tell you some of them, if you liked. I don't think you know about Jesus yet; do you, Jim?"