"Ah-h, Sammie!" murmured Bess blissfully. "An' now you'll bring me home, Sammie?"
"Ay, home, Bess."
"Ah-h! An' my mother'll no ha' to cry for me, arter all. An' father, too, he'll ha' no cause to—Ah-h, God love you, Sammie."
By the light of the kerosene lamp in John Lowe's kitchen sat John Lowe reading his favorite volume, harrowing tales of religious persecution centuries agone. And Mrs. Lowe sat rocking herself by the stove. Every once in a while she would hide her head in her skirt, and, on withdrawing it, wipe her eyes.
Now and again she would sigh wearily. "Too harsh, too harsh we were on the lass. The blood runs warm at her age."
Whereat John Lowe would turn and look fixedly at her, open his lips as if to say something but, always without speaking, refix his attention on the fine black print before him.
A knock on the door and a tall man in oilskins and sea-boots entered. "I've come to say—" he began: but by then John Lowe was on his feet.
"Captain Leary is it?"
"Captain Leary it is."