“Then I’ll wait, Aunt Biddy,” said the girl. “Then, if you are my aunt, and Tom is my cousin, you must be the same relation to him as you are to me.”
The Irishwoman stared with a love-light shining in her eyes.
“I told you not to worry your little head,” said she, “for when Tom comes home you can ask him everything you want to.”
So the girl had to be silent. She swayed softly to and fro, and after a while she sank into a sleep.
It might be well while the girl is sleeping and the quiet summer sun is shining upon a peaceful river, to go back a while to that night fifteen years ago when Tom Cooper had saved the child in the river.
Jim Farren sailed down the stormy river toward Hell Gate. He was no sailor, but he steered his boat as best he could. Then for a long time after he was in the sea, he knew not what to do. He had not dared to go toward the city, for fear of being tracked, although he knew that Biddy would take him in.
But Biddy’s welcome must wait until there was a better chance of not being detected.
He watched every light, fearing that one might be a boat to pick up the escaped convicts, who had long ago been missed.
It was the puffing of a great steamer that made him rise high in his boat and give screams that rang over the water. Soon he saw the great searchlight turn in his direction and then drop. He hastily skinned off his clothes and dropped them into the sea. He knew that his head looked badly, for it had been only so lately shaved. But this had been his day for a hair cut, so that there was a little growth upon his head.