It was the most natural thing in the world that Kep should slip his hand into Madge's and be led back to his seat.
"Well," she said a little later on, in answer to a remark of Kep's, "we are both of us sailors already. Haven't we been everywhere in father's yacht? Haven't we lived in sunny Italy, more on its waters than on shore? Have we not lived in France and Spain, and in Algiers itself? Father would let you go anywhere in his yacht, Kep, but you don't want to leave our father's Cornish home. Oh, I should miss you so. There would be nobody but me and Bounder and old nurse Elspet. Bounder is sympathetic, and sits and listens to my stories and licks my cheek or ear now and then, to show he understands. Ah! Kep, if you run away from home as you want to, I'd miss our mother more and more. I'd want to go back and sit and sing on her grave to keep her company."
Kep was silent for a short spell. His eyes were turned towards the horizon, his thoughts were far beyond it.
Oh, that glamour of the ocean!
When he spoke again it was more to himself than to his sister Madge.
"Yes, I must go to sea. Father will not send me. But they call me!"
"Who calls you?"
"The spirits that ride on the clouds, spirits of the wind and the waves. The sea itself is calling me now--listen to its friendly boom. It is the waves that speak. 'You are son of ours,' they are crying. 'Come to us. Come to us.' And the wild mews; Madge, hear you not their voices? 'Come--come--away--away--away--ay!'"
* * * * *
Slowly down the glen, hand in hand, sister and brother, to Martello Castle, and across the Martello lawns, but the lad's mind is made up. Kep will be a sailor.