XI
The WOMEN at The GATE
By and by my sister put me in dry clothes, and bidding me be a good lad, sat me in the best room below, where the maids had laid a fire. And Skipper Tommy Lovejoy, finding me there disconsolate, took me to the seaward hills to watch the break of day: for the rain had ceased, the wind fallen away; and the gray light of dawn was in the eastern sky.
“I’m wantin’ t’ tell you, Davy,” he said, in a confidential way, as we trudged along, “about the gate o’ heaven.”
I took his hand.
“An’ I been wantin’ t’ tell you,” he added, giving his nose a little tweak, “for a long, long time.”
“Is you?”
“Ay, lad; an’ about the women at the gate.”