He might have gone as an apprentice, but Eean greatly loved the lad. He had given him the education of a gentleman, and wished to hurry him on; for after all, in the race of life at sea, the middie has fewer hurdles to leap than the apprentice. And Eean well knew what a sailor's life really meant, and how wild and rough it was in the forecastle. Tippetty wouldn't keep out of his mistress's lap to-night. He seemed to know there was grief of some kind afloat in the air.
"You'll come often and see Toddie, won't you, Frank?"
"Oh, Frank," said Toddie innocently, "I can't live if you don't."
Frank patted her hand, and as he did so Tippetty took the opportunity of licking both their hands at one and the same time.
Then Bunko came in to lay the tea, and by-and-by Daddy Pop himself arrived, and Mammy Mop too, and there were story telling and singing, so that the night did not pass so sadly after all.
The tide was a long way back at nine o'clock, so they all went home to Eean's cottage across the sands, and there Frank stopped all the night.
* * * * * *
Three months passed away and it was winter, a hard and frosty one too; for weeks and weeks the ground was like adamant, and the rocks were masses of crystal. Peat became scarce in the village, and much driftwood and logs of pine were burned.
The yuletide came round, and Fred came home for a few days' holiday.
"We maun keep good fires on while you're here," said Bunko one day in the wood shed. "Here's a log noo," he said, "that'll mak' a fine lowe (blaze)."