“I should have thought no man would mind doing a man’s work to save a woman’s hands.”
The fisherman puffed away at his dirty little pipe for a few moments in silence.
“Them’s fine words,” he said, at last. “An’ maybe I’d say the same of some women. But not for a little light-fingered hussy like yon,” and he jerked his head viciously in the direction of the Blue Lion.
“Light-fingered!” exclaimed Clifford, with some indignation. “Do you know what you mean by that?”
“Sh’d just think I did! Why, you ask the folks about here what sort o’ character the Blue Lion’s had since young miss was about. Ask if it’s a honest house to stay the night in if you’ve money on yer. Just you ask that, an’ put two and two together like what I do, an’ like what everybody does as knows what the place was afore she came an’ what it is now.”
Clifford shivered under the hot sun of the September afternoon as he listened to this torrent of accusation, and saw by the passion in the young fisherman’s face that he was in earnest.
Before he could answer, Nell’s sweet voice, addressing himself, startled him.
CHAPTER II.
“I’m so much obliged to you, so very much obliged to you.”
Clifford looked round, and saw pretty Nell Claris standing beside the two boats which he had pulled up on the bank by her direction.