“But ye been out since mornin’, and tooked nothing wi’ you!”
“True; but you forget who I ha’ been out with. The captain ain’t the man to let his boatman be a hungered. We war down the day far as Symond’s yat, where he treated me to dinner at the hotel. The daintiest kind o’ dinner, too. No wonder at my not havin’ much care for eatin’ now—nice as you’ve made things, mother.”
Notwithstanding the compliment, the old lady is little satisfied—less as she observes the continued abstraction of his manner. He fidgets uneasily in his chair, every now and then giving a glance at the little Dutch clock suspended against the wall, which in loud ticking seems to say, “You’ll be late—you’ll be late.” She suspects something of the cause, but inquires nothing of it. Instead, she but observes, speaking of the patron:—“He be very good to ye, Jack.”
“Ah! that he be; good to every one as comes nigh o’ him—and ’s desarvin’ it.”
“But ain’t he stayin’ in the neighbourhood longer than he first spoke of doin’?”
“Maybe he is. Grand gentry such as he ain’t like us poor folk. They can go and come whens’ever it please ’em. I suppose he have his reasons for remaining.”
“Now, Jack, you know he have, an’ I’ve heerd something about ’em myself.”
“What have you heard, mother?”
“Oh, what! Ye han’t been a rowin’ him up and down the river now nigh on five months without findin’ out. An’ if you haven’t, others have. It’s goin’ all about that he’s after a young lady as lives somewhere below. Tidy girl, they say, tho’ I never seed her myself. Is it so, my son? Say!”
“Well, mother, since you’ve put it straight at me in that way, I won’t deny it to you, tho’ I’m in a manner bound to saycrecy wi’ others. It be true that the Captain have some notion o’ such a lady.”