“Well, really,” he said, after a few moments’ hesitation, “there are circumstances sometimes in a man’s life which render it difficult for him to explain things, but—but I have a reason for wishin’ to buy this library in Yarmouth, an’ it seems to me a good one. Besides, I’ve got a likin’ for sea-air, bein’ my native air, so to speak, and I’ve no doubt that theology would come more easy to me if I was in a snug little room facin’ the sea, where I could see the blue waters dancin’, an’ the shipping go by, an’ the youngsters playin’ on the sands. Yes, it must be done at Yarmouth. London would never do; it’s too hot an’ stuffy. Not that I care for that, but then you might—ah—that is—I mean to say—you might agree with me on this point if you were there. But why,” he added with fresh animation as he saw the way opening up before him, “why, Miss Kate, since you are so kind as to say you’d like to help me, why might you not take a run down to Yarmouth with me, an’ help me there?”
“Because,” answered Kate, laughing, “I could not very well leave my sister alone.”
“Of course not—quite right, but there’s no need for that; she could come too, and it would do you both much good, not to speak o’ the immense advantage to me! I do assure you I’d feel well-nigh as helpless as an infant, if left to tackle this business alone.”
From this point there began a regular skirmish between the captain and the sisters; the one trying to convince the others that it would be doing him a favour for which he could never find words to thank them, and the others endeavouring to show by every sort of argument that the thing was utterly unpossible, that the captain little knew what a burden he proposed to take on his shoulders, and that there was no use whatever in talking about it.
But Captain Bream was a man of resolution. He stuck to his point and pleaded his own cause so powerfully that the sisters began to waver.
“But think,” urged Kate, who did the most of the fighting, “you forget Liffie Lee. She is no longer a mere visitor for an hour or two of a morning, as she used to be, but a regular hired servant and we could not leave her behind.”
“I know that. It was my coming that made you hire her; and, now I think of it, I’ve a right to claim at least part of her, so she can come too, an’ we’ll lock up the house an’ get Mr Green-grocer to look after it—air it now and then. Come, just make up your minds. Only think, how beautiful the blue sea will be just now, an’ the sunny skies, an’ the yellow sands—I declare it makes me long to go. An’ then you’ll see that pretty boy you’ve taken such a fancy to—what’s ’is name?”
“Billy Bright,” said Kate.
“Just so—Billy Bright—though I can’t say that I’m over fond o’ pretty little boys. They’re too often soft an’—”
“But I tell you he’s as bold as a lion, and wise as a man, and tough as—as—”