“And if you plaze, Capt’n,” said Willie Quarrie, stammering nervously, “Mr. Lovibond, sir, he has borrowed our—our tickets and—and taken them away with him.”
“He’s welcome, boy, he’s welcome,” cried Davy, promptly. “We’re going home instead. Home!” he said again—this time to Nelly, and in a tone of delight, as if the word rolled on his tongue like a lozenge—“that sounds better, doesn’t it? Middling tidy, isn’t it. Not so dusty, eh?”
“We’ll never leave it again,” said Nelly.
“Never!” said Davy. “Not for a Dempster’s palace. Just a piece of a croft and a bit of a thatch cottage on the lea of ould Orrisdale, and we’ll lie ashore and take the sun like the goats.”
“That reminds me of something,” whispered Nelly. “Listen! I’ve had a letter from father. It made me cry this morning, but it’s all right now—Ballamooar is to let!”
“Ballamooar!” repeated Davy, but in another voice. “Aw, no, woman, no! And that reminds me of something.”
“What is it,” said Nelly.
“I should have been telling you first,” said Davy, with downcast head, and in a tone of humiliation.
“Then what?” whispered Nelly.
“There’s never no money at a dirty ould swiper that drinks and gambles everything. I’m on the ebby tide, Nelly, and my boat is on the rocks like a taypot. I’m broke, woman, I’m broke.”