“Rilly gal,” he said at last, “how kind folks are in this world. It’s a pleasant place to be livin’.”
Captain Barney did not realize that the fisher folk about him were but returning a bit of the loving kindness which he had shown to them in their many hours of need.
Glancing at the clock, he said briskly: “Nigh two, Rilly gal. Yer Uncle Barney must be gettin’ ready for the three-forty train up to Boston.”
* * * * * * * *
That evening, when Muriel was telling her grandfather all that had happened, she said: “Grand-dad, I dunno why ’tis, but I feel sorto’ as though things are comin’ out different from the way Uncle Barney’s plannin’.”
“I reckon that’s along of the fact that he’s had his heart sot so many times on his old mither’s cruisin’ over the big pond, but suthin’ allays kept her anchored, seemed like, on ’tother side.”
Then, as the old man rose, he looked out toward the darkening east. “Storm’s a-breedin’ at last, Rilly gal. I swan I never knew an equinoxial to hold off so long. I reckon ’twa’n’t git here till ’round about mornin’.” Then he added: “I dunno why ’tis, Rilly gal, but I’m sort o’ dreadin’ the big storm this year.”
The girl shuddered. A cold night wind was rising. “Grand-dad,” she pleaded, “let’s go in an’ be readin’ in the Good Book.”
Every night since the one on which he had cast hate out of his heart the old man had tried to read from the New Testament to Muriel, and though he stumbled over many of the longer words, the girl caught the spirit of it and retold it with her own interpretation.