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"Zeke's home agen." "Yes; he was up here two evenin's ago." "He was here yesterday; he'll be here again to-day. He comes here too often. I've got a telescope, John Penaluna, and I sees what's goin' on. What's more, I guess what'll come of it. So I warn 'ee as a friend, of course." John stared down at the polished steel teeth of his pitchfork, glinting under the noonday sun.
"There'll be nine to-day, as I makes it out. I counted 'em up several times last night." It was evidently a great day in her eyes. "But you've allowed room for many more than nine," I pointed out. "Why, of course. There's some brings their elder childer for a treat an' there's always 'Melia Penaluna."
The Touch-me-not made two successful voyages under Zeke's command, and was home again and discharging beside the Town Quay, when, one summer's day, as John Penaluna leaned on his pitchfork beside a heap of weeds arranged for burning he glanced up and saw Captain Tangye hobbling painfully towards him across the slope.
She heard him laugh as he kissed her in the tangled screen of it. The next moment she had snatched the bundle and sprung to her feet and away. But as she passed by the trapdoor and hurriedly retwisted her hair before descending, she heard him there, beyond the parapet, laughing still. Three weeks later she married John Penaluna. They spent their honeymoon at home, as sober folks did in those days.
"An advance on your earnings," said I. "My orders are that you leave the trooper here with me, ride back instantly to your chief, report that your work has been well done and successfully, and the money for which he holds an order shall be forwarded as soon as I return and report to Lord Wellington in Beira." In the course of an eventful life John Penaluna did three very rash things.
I was on the point of asking who Amelia Penaluna might be, when my attention was drawn to the small eastern window. Just outside, and but a dozen paces from the house, there stretched a sullen pond, over which the wind drove in scuds and whipped the sparse reeds that encroached around its margin.
I won't go up with 'ee; my back's too stiff. Go an' make your adoos to her; she's cleverer than I be, and maybe will tell 'ee what we've both got in our minds." This was the third rash thing that John Penaluna did. He watched Zeke up the hill, till the smoke hid him. Then he picked up his spade. "Shall I find her, when I step home this evening? Please God, yes." And he did.
The old man hauled ashore to a cottage with a green door and a brass knocker and a garden high over the water-side. In this he spent the most of his time with a glittering brass telescope of uncommon length, and in the intervals of studying the weather and the shipping, watched John Penaluna at work across the harbour.
Then on the leaden plain a glare of white light fell, twinkling in innumerable stars on the water. Everything promised a clear, bright day. As a last resource he thought he would go and get Juliott Penaluna, and persuade that young lady to come and be introduced to the Rosewarnes. At first Miss Penaluna refused point-blank. She asked him how he could expect her to do such a thing.
A long pause followed. The clock across the harbour struck noon, and this seemed to wake John Penaluna up. "Thank 'ee," he said. "I think I'll be going in to dinner. I'll I'll consider of it. You've took me rather sudden." "Well, so long! I mean it friendly, of course." "Of course. Better take the lower path; 'tis shorter, an' not so many stones in it."
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