"Annoyed? Not I. What should I be annoyed at, so long as the people are all right, and there is no danger of Freddie tumbling into the water?"
"O, there is no danger whatever. A wall runs all round the yard, and Mr. Bramwell was in and out all day looking after the boys."
"How did Freddie get across? Swam?"
"Don't be absurd, Alfred." She knew very well her brother did not ask her seriously if the child had swum across the waters of Crawford's Bay. And she knew equally well that he was not reproaching her for letting the boy cross the water. At an ordinary time she would have passed by such a question from him in silence, disregarded, but there lingered in her mind a vague feeling that she stood on her defence about the expedition of the morning, and she felt timid under anything like levity. "No; when we got down and out by the back door to the wharf we saw Mr. Bramwell pulling a great long floating thing made of timber through the water. He pushed this over to where we stood. It reached across the water. He told us he had another of the same kind on the canal side of the island."
"I know. A floating stage."
"I daresay that is what they call it. I should call it a floating bridge. Well, he walked across this and took little Freddie in his arms and carried him over. I was a good deal frightened, for the thing rocked horribly, but he told me there was no danger."
"Of course, there was no danger while the child was carried by a careful man. We had two of these stages at the works, but we had to get rid of them, for the men were always either going out for drink or getting drink brought in for them."
"And, do you know, Freddie did not cry or seem a bit afraid of the water."
"Hetty, take my word for it that from what you tell me there is the making of a great naval hero in that boy of ours."
"I wish you would try to be sensible for a while."