XI.
The next morning I was down late to breakfast. It was glorious weather, and the blue sparkle of the sea came through the open window, bringing with it a limitless inspiration of hope and wholesomeness. It was difficult to believe that there had ever been any sorrow or wrong in the world.
“Ye’re not looking right hearty,” said Mr. Poyntz, with bluff geniality, while his good wife set before me a huge plate of daintily fried bacon and eggs, and a smoking cup of coffee. “Maybe ye walked a bit too far last night? ’Twas powerful late afore ye got home, anyhow.”
“Yes,” said I, glancing at Agatha, who was knitting a pair of stockings for Peter in the eastern window, the morning sun glistening on the broad plaits of her yellow hair. “Yes, Mr. Poyntz, I think I must have made a very long journey last evening. By-the-way, is not to-day Sunday?”
“Ay, surely!” exclaimed husband and wife in a breath; and then the former added, “Ye’ll be wanting to go to church, I suppose?”
“No, not this Sunday; though I hope to go before long, if Miss Agatha is willing to show me the way.” I glanced at her again as I said this, but she would not look up, and I could not even be sure whether she were listening. “What I want,” I continued, “is for you, Mr. Poyntz, since you’ll be at leisure, to take a stroll with me a little way up the stream. It will be a novelty, perhaps almost as much so to you as to me.”
“Up the stream, is it?” returned he, pausing in the operation of cutting up a piece of tobacco, and turning his blue eyes on me; “why, truly, sir, that’s a trip I’ve not made for a number of years. Howsoever, none knows the road better than I do, and if so be as naught else ’ll do ye, why, I’m your man!”
Accordingly, so soon as I had done breakfast, the sturdy old mariner mounted a wonderful glazed hat and a new pea-jacket of blue pilot cloth, took a fresh clay pipe from the mantelpiece, with a sigh and a shake of the head over the destruction of his beloved meerschaum, and professed himself ready.
“Good-bye, Agatha,” I said, passing the window. “Is there anything you would like me to bring you when we come back?”