The wind was blowing cold as they reached the dock, and Huntoon wrapped the gray cloak close about his wife, as they seated themselves under the shelter of a pile of logs to watch the approaching vessel.
"Dost thou remember, Betty, the day I set sail from James City in The Red Fox?"
"Ay, that I do, and I watching thee from the window of the Carys' cottage, with my heart in my throat."
"And I that disappointed I could have cried like a schoolboy, because thou camest not to see me off."
"I dared not."
"If I could only have known that!"
"Poor fool, too dull to ask what thou wast aching to know!"
"Ay, poor fool indeed, and much needless trouble my dulness and diffidence together brought upon me, and on thee too; but in the end all came out right, and I sometimes think we could not have loved each other so well but for all the trials we went through."
For all answer Elizabeth Huntoon slipped her hand into her husband's.
"Yet such inconsistent creatures are we, I own I would not our boy should suffer as I did."