She laughed quietly. Any reflection on the spanking powers of his pilchard-driver would rouse Ben instantly.
"As if I didn't know all you could teach me," she cried, "and as if anyone in all Cornwall could teach me better."
The old fisherman was mollified. He looked along the quay.
"Time we'm cast off," he said. "Miss Constance be a plaguey long time fetchin' them wraps."
"Oh, Ben, how can you say that? She had to go all the way to the Cottage. Why, if she ran—"
"Here she be," he broke in, "an' she b'ain't runnin' neither. Her's got a young man in tow."
What announcement would straighten the back of any girl of nineteen like unto that? Enid Trevillion turned and stood upright.
"Why, it's Jack!" she cried, waving a delighted hand.
"So it be," admitted Pollard, after a surprised stare. "When I look landward my eyes b'ain't so good as they was."
He stated this fact regretfully. No elderly sea-dog will ever acknowledge to failing vision when he gazes at the level horizon he knows so well. This is no pretence of unwilling age: it is wholly true. The settled chaos of the shore bewilders him. The changeful sea cannot.