Gilbot looked up.
“I had forgot,” he said. “I had forgot; it is a long time since I went out on the mud—ah, well! Hal, bring me some rum.”
The sky was a pale gray in which two or three late stars still shone faintly, and there was a sharp twang of frost in the air, when two men, carrying the body of a third between them, four great weights slung over their shoulders, stumbled out of the old Ship’s kitchen, leaving behind them a girl asleep by the empty grate and an old man lying drunk upstairs.
As they came out into the yard they both turned instinctively to a patch of newly disturbed earth on their right from the side of which rose a dark figure, who glided off into the grayness beyond.
The shorter of the two men spoke gruffly.
“The witch was fond enough of the lass,” he said. “I wonder she didn’t do more to save her.”
The other answered him bitterly:
“It wasn’t her place, Joe. ’Twas mine. And I did naught. God knows I—I thought she loved him,” he added, giving the slim little figure whose shoulders he held a violent shake.
Pullen shook his head, and a drop of pure sentiment crept into his bright blue eyes.
“’Tis a wonderful pity,” he said slowly, “a wonderful pity—poor little lass—and him, too—he must have loved her, or he’d never have killed hisself.”