Davie looked up at him wonderingly; he seemed to think that everybody knew what his profession was booked as.
“Oh, a sailor of course, sir.”
“Well, I thought so, you know; but, Davie, I’m going to get a nice ship of my own, and Barclay’s coming. You had better make up your mind to come too.”
“When, sir?”
“Well, it may be a year, or a year and a half yet. Meanwhile, you know, you can take a cruise or two, just to get up to the ropes and get your sea-legs.”
“And you’re going round the world, sir?”
“I’m going, Davie, where you and Barclay will have a real good time of it.”
That was a most pleasant evening, which they all spent at Barclay’s mother’s cottage; everybody, including the cat, had been happy.
“As bees flee hame wi’ lades o’ treasure,
The minutes winged their way wi’ pleasure.”
And it wasn’t the last happy evening, either. But when the five days of Barclay’s suspension, let me call it, were at an end, the weird little man came to the cottage to bring him and Phœbe to the old windmill, and pussy came trotting up behind.