"I apologise for him, Mrs. Rimmer; perhaps he found the long walk through the sand too much for him."
"Ay; he wasn't much of a man," said Rimmer quietly. "Yo're a different breed, I'm thinking. Yo're tackling them Carron lads, an' that's a good job. I seen yo' about the sands with 'em."
"Yes; they're worth tackling, aren't they?"
"Surely; and yo're the man for the job! Now I mun get along or I'll miss tide. Yo'll excuse me, an' if yo'll talk a while with the missus she'll be glad. She dunnot get too many visitors. Good-bye, wife!" And he went out quietly and tramped sturdily away to his work.
"He's a right good mon," said his wife fervently. "And he aye bids me good-bye in case he nivver comes back, and he aye says a prayer for me outside the door. It's a bad, bad coast this," she said, with a sigh. "It took his feyther, an' his grandfeyther, and it's aye on his mind that sometime it'll take him too. An' it may be onytime."
"He's in better hands than his own, Mrs. Rimmer," said Eager.
"Aye, I. know, and so was they, an' it's no good thinking o' death and drownin's till you see 'em. But I seen so many it's not easy to get away from 'em, lying here all alone."
"Where's your little girl?" asked Gracie suddenly.
"Kattie? She should be in by this. She stops chattin' wi' th' neebors now an' then. It's lonesome here for childer, yo' see. I sometimes wish we was nearer folk, but we've lived here all our lives an' I wouldna like to move now."
"And who are your nearest neighbours, Mrs. Rimmer?" asked Eager.