"I feel some like stomping in my stall, too," was his comment upon Lorna's emphatic punctuation of her whispered defiance. "Bear a hand with the supper, Heppy. I've got to go up to the gallery again and clear the snow off the lamp. It surely does stick to-night. I was just getting the glass clear when I heard you young folks shouting for rescue.
"Come, Miss Lorna! Come, Ralph! Pull up cheers for yourselves. Supper's ready, I cal'late, ain't it, Heppy?"
CHAPTER II
CONFIDENCES
The blast struck the light tower so heavily that Ralph Endicott felt the whole structure vibrate as he followed Tobias up the spiral stairway after supper. In spite of the lightkeeper's jollity and Miss Heppy's kindness, the supper had seemed to hearten but little the spirits of the young man.
He had offered to attend Tobias in his duty at the top of the tower more for the purpose of getting away from the women than for any other reason. He seized the broom and followed Tobias with the scraper out upon the open gallery. If the storm had seemed furious before supper, it had risen to a top gale now. The two men could scarcely face it on the windward side.
The gale came in blasts that slapped their burden of snow against the lighthouse with great force. Ralph was barely able to keep his feet. But the sturdy lightkeeper went about the task with a certain phlegm.
They managed to free the glass of its curtain of snow. Then Ralph staggered around to the sheltered gallery, on the heels of Tobias. The younger man's was a gloomy face when they once more entered the lamp room.
"Cheer up," said Tobias, getting his breath and eyeing Ralph aslant. "They tell me the worst is yet to come. Though I tell you fair, Ralphie, if the last end o' my life is anywhere as hard as what happened me when I shipped cabin boy on the old Sarah Drinkwater, the good Lord help me to bear it!
"Why, Ralphie, from the time she was warped out o' the dock at Provincetown till we unloaded them box shocks at Santiago I didn't git to git my clothes off—no, sir!