She did not look at him. Old Phebe pushed her back with a searching look.
"Is it true love you'll give my boy?"
"I'll try." In a lower voice,—"I never loved him so well as when he came back to you."
The old woman was silent a long time.
"Thee's right. It was good for Derrick to come back to me. I don't know what that big world be like where thee an' Derrick's been. The sea keeps talkin' of it, I used to think; it's kep' moanin' with the cries of it. But the true love at home be worth it all. I knowed that always. I kep' it for my boy. He went from it, but it brought him back. Out of the sea it brought him back."
He knew this was not his mother's usual habit of speech. Some great truth seemed coming closer to the old fish-wife, lifting her forever out of her baser self. She leaned on the girl beside her, knowing her, in spite of blood and education, to be no truer woman than herself. The inscrutable meaning of the eyes deepened. The fine, sad smile came on the face, and grew fixed there. She was glad he had come,—that was all. Mary was a woman; her insight was quicker.
"Where are you hurt?" she said, softly.
"Hush! don't fret the boy. It was the pullin' last night, think. I'm not as strong as when I was a gell."
They sat there, watching the dawn break into morning. Over the sea the sky opened into deeps of silence and light. The surf rolled in, in long, low, grand breakers, like riders to a battle-field, tossing back their gleaming white plumes of spray when they touched the shore. But the wind lulled as though something more solemn waited on the land than the sea's rage or the quiet of the clouds.
"Does thee mind, Derrick," said his mother, with a low laugh, "how thee used to play with this curl ahint my ear? When thee was a bit baby, thee begun it. I've kep' it ever since. It be right gray now."