The child looked into her brother's face, and laughed a gleesome laugh, one of those burstings of a joyous heart that come, we know not how, but never come after the dancing pulse of youth changes into a measured time, when we look upon the dial's hand, and note that hours are passing.
"Grandfather," said Hugh, when the mast was fairly established, and the rigging properly arranged, "may I call my vessel the 'Firefly?'"
From whence came the rich warm blood that in a moment suffused the old man's cheek, as his unconscious grandchild pronounced the name of his darling, his long-lost, but not forgotten ship? He grasped the boy's arm with the energy of former times, and shook him as he never thought to have shaken the child of his own Barbara.
"Where heard you those words—where, I say?" he demanded of his namesake, while the boy cowered, and the other children stood aghast.
"I heard that wild old man who died in our barn last week, although mother made him so comfortable, and you and father were so kind to him, say that was the name of a ship you once had," sobbed little Hugh: "and I only thought I should like to call mine after it."
"And was that indeed all?" inquired the aged Buccaneer, relaxing his grasp, but still looking into the boy's ingenuous countenance, as if he expected some evil tidings.
"It was all that I understood," replied the child, now weeping from pain and terror, "except that I remember he asked to be buried at [East-Church], because that was nearer what he called the Gull's Nest Crag than the old church of Minster."
"Poor Jack!—poor Jack Roupall!" exclaimed Dalton, forgetting his momentary displeasure, and musing aloud upon the end of his ever reckless follower—"Poor Jack! The nut had been good, fresh, sweet, wholesome, though the rind was rough and bitter; it was the canker that destroyed it: and I should have been as bad—as blighted—lost—but for my own sweet child." And then Hugh Dalton's eye fell upon the pouting boy, whose arm he had, in the anguish of his remembrance, pressed too roughly, and he caught him to his bosom, and blessed him with all his heart and soul.
Little Con crept round, and, seeing where her brother's arm was still red, held it to her grandfather's lip, saying,
"Kiss, kiss it, and make it well."