“I know that, but they don’t often come, do they?”
Ethan looked at his questioner for a moment before he said, “You don’t know much, I see. Lived in the city all yer life, haven’t ye?”
“Yes,” replied Jock, feeling for the moment as if he were guilty of something, though of what he could not just determine; but the boatman’s contempt was so evident that the lad resolved to ask no more questions.
“Then you’re Jock Cope’s boy, be ye?” said Ethan, after a pause.
“Yes. I’ve often heard him speak of you, and tell how you two used to sit together in the same seat over in the little red schoolhouse. Father says it’s still standing, and he wants me to go over and see it some day while we’re here.”
“Wants ye to see it? What fur?”
“Oh, just to see it, that’s all. He wants me to see the place where he went to school when he was a boy.”
“Humph! it isn’t much to see. Jest a little shanty, that’s all. Say, they tell me your pa is worth a lot o’ money. Is that so?”
“I don’t know,” said Jock. “He’s got some, I suppose. Enough to pay for our expenses here this summer, I think.”
“But heow much has he got?” persisted Ethan.