“Dear man! but I’m wonderful crafty, Dannie,” he explained, with a sly twitch of the eye. “An they’re at table, lad, with fish an’ brewis sot out, I’m sure t’ cotch the maid within.”
“The maid?” I inquired.
“Ay, lad; ’tis a maid. I’m told they’s a new baggage come t’ Skipper Eli’s for a bit of a cruise.”
I caught a bashful flush mounting to his ears and the rumble of a chuckle in his throat.
“She’ve come from Tall Pine Harbor,” said he, “with a cask o’ liver; an’ I’m told she’ve her heart dead sot on matrimony.”
“Larry Hull’s maid?”
“No, lad; ’tis not she. She’ve declined. Las’ fall, Dannie, bein’ wind-bound in a easterly gale, I cotched she at Skipper Jonathan Stark’s. No; she’ve declined.”
“’Tis Maria Long, then,” said I.
“No, lad; she’ve declined, too.”