There was a twinkle in the grey eye that was nearest her.
“I cal-late as ’twould add to ol’ Cap’n Barney’s cheer if the stewardess herself toted them cookies to his stranded ol’ craft on the dunes. Was that what yo’ was figgerin’ on doin’, fust mate?”
“If yo’d like to take me, Grand-dad.” This very demurely. The old sea captain put down his knife and fork and laughed heartily.
“I reckon a gal who knows how to sail a boat better’n most folks don’ need a boatman to cruise her over to the mainland. Sho now, Rilly! Navigate yer own craft. The embargo’s lifted, as the newspapers put it. Come and go when it’s to yer likin’. Jest be lettin’ me know.” Then he added, as though it were an after-thought: “When yo’ carry yer cargo o’ cakes to town, if I was yo’ I’d leave a few at Miss Brazilla’s cottage. I reckon yer new friend might be likin’ the taste o’ suthin’ differ’nt.”
Muriel’s cheeks were rosy. “Grand-dad,” she protested, “I wa’n’t thinkin’ of Gene Beavers, honest I wa’n’t! I just reckoned ’twasn’t fair for me to be spendin’ a whole arternoon wi’ a new friend when an ol’ one who’s been lovin’ me for years back is laid up in drydock an’ needs me even more.”
The hazel eyes looked across the table so frankly that the teasing twinkle faded in the grey eyes and an expression of infinite tenderness took its place.
“I reckon I understand, fust mate,” the old man said. “Cap’n Barney’s got a heart in him as big as the hold in a freight boat, but thar’s a powerful lot of loneliness in it, for all that he’s allays doin’ neighborly things for the folks on the dunes. Barney’s been hankerin’ for years to be goin’ back to his ol’ mother, but she keeps writin’ him to be stayin’ in America, and that she’ll come to keep his house as soon as her duty’s done, but she don’ come, for it’s this un’ and that un’ over thar that’s in need of her ministrin’. Some day, I reckon, Barney’ll pull up anchor and set sail for his Emerald Isle.”
“Oh, Grand-dad,” Rilla said, with sudden tears in her eyes, “you’n me’ll be that lonely if he goes.”
During the morning, while Muriel busied herself with making the little “Irishy” cakes, she did not sing, nor was she thinking of Gene Beavers, for all of her thoughts were of her dear friend, old Captain Barney. Somehow she hadn’t realized before how lonesome he must be so far away from kith and kin. The fisherfolk living about him on the dunes were not from his country, nor were their interests his interests. They loved him, but could not understand him, for, as Mrs. Sam Peters had said one day to a group of the wives: “How can a body understand a man with grey hair on the top o’ his head who believes in the fairies?”
Muriel understood him, and so no wonder was it that they two were the closest of friends.