The man was crying his heart out. "I come'd hereto 'cause it don' seem 's if I can stay in house. Went in for some supper a while ago, but I cuden' eat nort. 'Tisn' 's if he'd ever been away from home before, yu know."
"Come along down to the Shore Road, Tony."
It seemed wrong, hardly decent, to let his grief spend itself in the lighted-up street. The Front was deserted and dark, for there was rain in the wind, and the sound of the surf had a quick savage chop in it. Away, over the sea, was a great misty blackness.
As we walked up and down, Tony talked between tears and anger—tears for himself and George, anger at the cussedness of things. He looked straight before him, to where the row of lamps divided the lesser from the greater darkness, the town noises from the chafing surf; it is the only time I have ever seen a fisherman walk along shore without a constant eye on the sea.
"He's taken and gone away jest as he was beginning to be o' some use wi' the boats, an' I thought he wer settling down. I didn' know what wer going on, not till he came an' told me he wer off. But 'tisn' that, though I bain't so strong as I was to du all the work be meself; 'tis what he's a-thinking now he've a-lef' home an' 'tis tu late to come back if he wants tu. He's ther, sure 'nuff, an' that's all about it."
In the presence of grief, we are all thrown back on the fine old platitudes we affect to despise. "You mustn't get down over it, Tony," I said. "That won't make it a bit the better. If he's steady—woman, wine and the rest—he'll get on right enough. He's got his wits about him; knows how to sail a boat and splice a rope. That's the sort they want in the Navy, I suppose. He'll make his way, never fear. Think how you'll trot him out when he comes home on leave. Why, they say a Devon man's proper place is the Navy."
"Iss, they du. I should ha' been there meself if it hadn' been for the rheumatics—jest about coming out on a pension now, or in the coastguards. I be in the Royal Naval Reserve, but I ain't smart enough, like, for the Navy. The boy...."
"He's as smart and strong as they make 'em."
"Aye! he's smart, or cude be, but he'll hae to mind what he's a-doin' there. They won't put up wi' no airs like he've a-give'd me. Yu've got to du what yu'm told, sharp, an' yu mustn't luke [look] what yu thinks, let 'lone say it, or else yu'll find yourself in chokey [cells] 'fore yu knows where yu are. 'Tis like walking on a six-inch plank, in the Navy, full o' rules an' regylations; an' he won't get fed like he was at home nuther, when us had it."
GROG AS A SLEEPING DRAUGHT