"The little thing who was in Castletown?"
"Yes."
"Then I suppose she belongs to you?"
"Not a bit. I haven't spoken to her from that day to this," said Gell, and then he told of the promise he had made to his father.
"But Lord alive, that was when you were a lad."
"Maybe so, but 'as long as you live'—that was the word, and I mean to keep it. Besides, there's Dan Baldromma."
"That blatherskite?" said Victor.
"He'd be an ugly customer if anything went wrong, you know."
"But, good Lord, man, what is going to go wrong?"
When they had finished breakfast and Gell was washing up at the water's edge, Victor was on a boulder, looking down the glen again, and saying, as if to himself,