The captain always addressed the boy with equal courtesy, and Comethup had learned to reply with gravity. He expressed his willingness now to accompany the captain, and they set out.
In a quaint little street, in the very heart of the town—a place which Comethup had not before explored, and which was reached by diving under an archway and then doubling sharply round a corner—they came upon the shop which the captain sought. He had wrapped the boots neatly in brown paper, and carried them tucked under his arm, probably with the desire that no one should guess his errand; he even glanced about him to right and left for a moment before stepping into the low doorway of the shop.
It was a very little shop, so low and small that it seemed half underground; the captain, although by no means a tall man, had to duck his head a little in entering. Comethup noticed at once that it was not like an ordinary shop, in that it had no counter, and that only a heavy bench ran along one side of it, on which an old man was seated, hammering away with much fierceness on something fastened to his knee. But Comethup had no time to take in more than the bare details of the place, for his eyes were arrested by something else: a little figure perched up on the rough bench beside the man and looking with wide, astonished eyes at the captain and the boy. It was ’Linda.
The man who worked had looked up at them for a moment sharply out of keen black eyes, and then had bent his head again over his leather. He worked as one in a frantic hurry—a man who had no time for thought, scarcely a moment even to breathe; the hammer rose and fell sharply, rising up above the level of his head, so closely were his eyes bent on the work. The child sat quite near to him, smiling at the visitors.
The captain’s voice broke in across the hammering, and stopped it. “Why, little one,” he said, gently, “what are you doing here?”
The hammer rested on the leather, the man’s knotted hand grasping it firmly; his black eyes looked up sideways at the captain. “Why not?” he asked in a quick, harsh voice. “What should harm her?” He did not speak like a countryman. Comethup was a little afraid of him, and of his black eyes, but the child beside him only smiled, and did not move.
“Nothing, nothing,” said the captain, hastily. “I was merely surprised to see the child here; she is a little friend of mine—we are friends, are we not, ’Linda?”
The child nodded, and Comethup, emboldened by her smile, crossed to where she sat and shyly held out his hand. She leaned forward and put her arm about his neck and kissed him. The shoemaker glanced at them sharply, and then, with a grunt, started hammering again at his leather.
“We have been looking for you, ’Linda,” said Comethup, softly.
The old man caught the remark and paused in his hammering, in the same fashion as before, and looked quickly round at them. “Yes, that’s what you do from the time they lift you first into your cradle till the hour they slip a winding sheet round you; it’s the old story, begun by baby lips, and whispered by the dying. Looking for her?” He put out a hand and touched Comethup on the breast and pushed him almost roughly away. “Let be, let be; the little maid can bide here as long as she will.” He spoke with a certain stern sadness, and Comethup and the captain looked at him in perplexity.