Chops was by her side now, looking seaward also. She handed him the field-glass, and he took but one 'squint,' as he termed it, and immediately his behaviour became most mysterious. He suddenly doubled himself up like a jack-knife in a seemingly uncontrollable spasm, straightened up again, thrust his handkerchief into his mouth and laughed 'in'ardly,' as he would have called it, until his fat face grew as purple as a pickled cabbage.
Lotty, quite alarmed, smote him on the back and hurt her hand. 'Chops, Chops, what can be the matter?'
'W'ich it's me as knows all about it, Miss Lotty; an' I told Mr Blake as 'ow I wouldn't tell you, no more I won't if I goes to death on't, Lotty.'
But the girl was far enough away by this time, leaving him to finish the sentence to the wind. Lotty and her companion, Wallace, who was quite as excited as she, never halted until they reached their own little caravan; and here, coming down the back steps, every step creaking with her weight, was good-natured, rosy-cheeked Mary herself.
'Have you seen it, Mrs Pendlebury—seen the lovely boat?'
'Just been looking at it, my dearie; but it's time for rehearsal, and there's going to be a ploughman's ball to-night, and rare doings, so'——
'Never mind rehearsal,' cried Lotty; 'rehearsal must wait. Come to the beach with me, Mary. I'm all in a twitter and fluff.'
She made the fat lady almost run, but both were in time to see the bonny wee craft lower sail and come floating up the stream. Two well-dressed sailor youths in blue worsted nightcaps manned her, and the foremost had his boat-hook up and caught neatly on to the small shed in which Lotty Lee's skiff used to repose. The steersman touched his forelock a little shyly to Mary.
'This is Biffins Lee's camp, I'm thinkin'?'
'Ye dinna think wrang,' said Mary, in the broad Scots.