"Them's good heartsome words!" Davy broke in, tugging energetically at his pockets. "An' spoke like a man, by gum! Let well enough alone, Billy. You an' Janet is goin' t' stay right on at the Light, an' we'll start in fresh from now!" When had Davy been a coward before? But Billy's "works" might take to running down again, and that fear quelled Davy's daring. But again Billy shook his head.
"'Course the government ain't goin' t' take on an old feller like me," he said, "'specially when he has t' be towed in himself when he's most needed t' lend a hand; an' I ain't above takin' a place in the Light, Davy, when I pull myself up sufficient, but I want once an' fur all t' clar the air 'bout Janet." His troubled eyes looked pleadingly across the sunny bay toward the Station that had been his resting place and home for so long.
"The old see mighty clar, Mr. Thornly," he said, turning his gaze to the present. "An' as ye git near port it's amazin' how the big things, the real things, hold yer thoughts an' longin's. I ain't done my whole duty by my little gal, an' the fact shadders my days."
"Don't say that, Cap'n Daddy!" Janet pressed closer to him. "You have done your own duty and the duty of the whole world by me!"
"That's like ye, Janet, t' say them words; but ye don't know all! That's whar I've wronged ye."
Davy saw that he must take a hand in what was going on. It would ease Billy and spare Janet.
"We've got, so t' speak," he commenced with grim determination, "t' open up the grave of the Past." He was always poetical when emotion swayed him. "Ye see, Mr. Thornly, t' put it plain an' square, me an' Billy knows that ye have some idee o' Janet, an' Billy ain't goin' t' let ye take her under no false pretences. As t' givin' our consent t' ye payin' yer respects, so t' speak, t' Janet, me an' Billy don't know, 'cordin t' law, as we have any right fur givin' or holdin' our consent. An' now ye have it straight an' fair!"
"Thank you, Cap'n Davy," Thornly replied, "but, I repeat, the past can never mean anything to me."
"But ye see, Mr. Thornly," Billy clung to his purpose, "this girl, properly speakin', don't b'long t' me. She drifted in t' port early, an' from, as ye may say, a wreck; I kept her, an' loved her, God knows, as if she war my own. But she ain't!"
This confession brought the beads of perspiration to Billy's brow, but Thornly's unmoved expression calmed him.