No, they hadn’t seen no sailor lad in a red cap, only their own boys, and they were all at home. Had he lost one?
Yes; a boy had come ashore and not returned.
The different men questioned chuckled, and one oracular-looking old fellow spat, wiped his lips on the back of his hand, stared out to sea, and said gruffly,—
“Runned away.”
“Ay,” said another, “that’s it. You won’t see him again.”
“Won’t I?” muttered Gurr between his teeth. “I’ll let some of you see about that, my fine fellows.”
He led his men on, stopping at each cluster of cottages and shabby little farm to ask suspiciously, as if he felt certain the person he questioned was hiding the truth.
But he always came out again to his men with an anxious look in his eyes, and generally ranged up alongside of Dick.
“No, my lad,” he would say, “they haven’t seen ’im there;” and then with his head bent down, but his eyes eagerly searching the road from side to side, he went on towards Shackle’s farm.
“Say, Mester Gurr,” said Dick, after one of these searches, “he wouldn’t run away?”