“No, not for him and there was a sadness in her voice which even the big burly Scotchman was not slow to detect.
“Mayhap ye've no longer a right to be lookin' for him on ony o' this world's waters,” said the man, gazing down sympathetically over the ledge of his great folded arms.
Courage bit her lip, and the tears sprang into her eyes, but she managed to answer, “My father died two weeks ago, sir—just two weeks ago to-day,” while the man looked the sympathy he could not speak. “That is why I am watching for Larry,” Courage added.
“For Larry!” he exclaimed. “Is it for Larry Starr ye're watchin'?”
“Why, yes,” said Courage, as though she thought any one should have known that; “do you know him?”
“Of course I do. Every 'longshoreman knows Larry.”
“Have you seen him lately?” very eagerly.
“No, not for a twelvemonth; but come to think of it, he often ties up at this very wharf.”
“Yes, often,” said Courage; “but it's two months now since he's been here, and he never stays away so long as that. You don't think”—she paused a moment, as though afraid to give words to her fears—“you don't think, do you, that he can have died too, somewhere?”
Poor little Courage! with her mother dead since her babyhood and her father lately gone from her, no wonder she felt it more than possible that Larry would never come back.