“I can talk to you, you know, now that your sitting there,” he said, with his foot on the end of the oar-seat, after she had taken the place indicated. “Oh—wait a minute! We were forgetting the gun and bag.”
He ran lightly back to where these things lay upon the strand, and secured them; then, turning, he discovered that Murphy had scrambled over to the middle seat, taken the oars, and pushed the boat off. Suspecting nothing, he walked briskly back to the water’s edge.
“Shove her in a little,” he said, “and I’ll hold her while you get back again into the bow. You mustn’t think of rowing, my good man.”
But Murphy showed no sign of obedience. He kept his burnt, claw-shaped hands clasped on the motionless, dipped oars, and his eager, bird-like eyes fastened upon the face of his young mistress. As for Kate, she studied the bottom of the boat with intentness, and absently stirred the water over the boat-side with her finger-tips.
“Get her in, man! Don’t you hear?” called the stranger, with a shadow of impatience, over the six or seven feet of water which lay between him and the boat. “Or you explain it to him,” he said to Kate; “perhaps he doesn’t understand me—tell him I’m going to row!”
In response to this appeal, Kate lifted her head, and hesitatingly opened her lips to speak—but the gaunt old boatman broke in upon her confused silence:
“Ah, thin—I understand well enough,” he shouted, excitedly, “an’ I’m thankful to ye, an’ the longest day I live I’ll say a prayer for ye—an’ sure ye’re a foine grand man, every inch of ye, glory be to the Lord—an’ it’s not manny w’u’d ’a’ done what ye did this day—and the blessin’ of the Lord rest an ye; but—” here he suddenly dropped his high shrill, swift-chasing tones, and added in quite another voice—“if it’s the same to you, sir, we’ll go along home as we are.”
“What nonsense!” retorted the young man. “My time doesn’t matter in the least—and you’re not fit to row a mile—let alone a long distance.”
“It’s not with me fut I’ll be rowin’,” replied Murphy, rounding his back for a sweep of the oars.
“Can’t you stop him, Miss—eh—young lady!” the young man implored from the sands.