“No, Davy,” said he.
I sighed.
“For,” he added, sighing, too, “I have something to tell you, which must now be told.”
Whatever it was—however much he wished it said and over with—he was in no haste to begin. While, for a long time, I kicked at the rock, in anxious expectation, he sat with his hands clasped over his knee, staring deep into the drear mist at sea—beyond the breakers, past the stretch of black and restless water, far, far into the gray spaces, which held God knows what changing visions for him! I stole glances at him—not many, for then I dared not, lest I cry; and I fancied that his disconsolate musings must be of London, a great city, which, as he had told me many times, lay infinitely far away in that direction.
“Well, Davy, old man,” he said, at last, with a quick little laugh, “hit or miss, here goes!”
“You been thinkin’ o’ London,” I ventured, hoping, if might be, for a moment longer to distract him.
“But not with longing,” he answered, quickly. “I left no one to wish me back. Not one heart to want me—not one to wait for me! And I do not wish myself back. I was a dissipated fellow there, and when I turned my back on that old life, when I set out to find a place where I might atone for those old sins, ’twas without regret, and ’twas for good and all. This,” he said, rising, “is my land. This,” he repeated, glancing north and south over the dripping coast, the while stretching wide his arms, “is now my land! I love it for the opportunity it gave me. I love it for the new man it has made me. I have forgotten the city. I love this life! And I love you, Davy,” he cried, clapping his arm around me, “and I love——”
He stopped.
“I knows, zur,” said I, in an awed whisper, “whom you love.”
“Bessie,” said he.