"That poor lad loves you as his very life," continued Tom, warming with his subject; "aye, far beyond it, for, when compared with you, he don't value it more than a bit of old rope-yarn! Many an hour has he walked the deck by my side, speaking of you, and praising you; and even when he didn't speak, by his silence and his sighs, I knew well enough that he was thinking all the deeper."
"My poor Morley?" said Ethel, who heard all this with joyous tears in her eyes.
As soon as they came on deck, Noah Gawthrop presented himself in his peculiar attire, the black dress-coat and crimson vest, and doffing his sou'-wester at the break of the quarter-deck, twitched his grizzled forelock, and beckoned Morley.
"Mr. Ashton," said he, in a stage whisper, "wot's this I hear forward among that rum lot in the fok'stle?"
"Really, Noah, I cannot say. What have you heard?"
"Why, sir, they says as your sweetheart, Miss Basset—she you were always raving about on the wreck—is aboard o' this here craft."
"Yes, Noah, she is," replied Morley, laughing.
"Is that dainty little 'un her?"
"Which?"
"She with the pork-pie hat, red stockings, and red cheeks, the jigamaree jacket, and crinnyline?" said Noah.