“Who be ye?” he demanded. “My back is that stiff with rheumatiz, and my neck is that wincy that I can’t lift myself up anyhow!”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” said Boy, in his sweet little childish voice. “Couldn’t I carry your basket for you?”
Stiff in the back and “wincy” in the neck as he declared himself to be, Rattling Jack did manage to raise his stooping figure a little at this question, and to stare through fuzzy tangles of hair, eyebrow, and whisker at his small friend, whom he gradually recognized.
“Oh, it be ye, be it?” he grunted then, not unkindly. “Ye went to Scotland, didn’t ye, awhile sen?”
“Yes,” said Boy. “And—and—next week I’m going away again,—to school.”
“That’s right!” said Rattling Jack approvingly. “That’s the best thing for yer! There be nothin’ like a good English school for boys——”
“But it isn’t an English school!” said Boy. “I’m going to France——”
“Fra—ance!” roared the old seaman. “What d’ye know of France?”
“Nothing!” said Boy dispiritedly. “I shall be all alone out there,—and I don’t speak a word of French!”
Rattling Jack surveyed him for a few minutes in grim silence. The situation appeared to interest him, for he unslung his basket and set it down on the shore. Whatever the basket’s business, it was evident it could wait. Then partly straightening himself with an effort, he said slowly,—