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"Do you want me to go? Are you tired of me?" Heavier and heavier grew that weight on Captain January's chest: shorter and harder came his breath. His eyes met the child's for a moment, then wavered and fell. "Why honey " he said, slowly, "I I'm an old man now a very old man. And and an old man likes quiet, ye see: and I'd be quieter by myself, like; and and so, honey I I'd like ye to go."
"Why do you talk as if I belonged to you?" Then seeing the trouble in Mrs. Morton's face, she added, "I will love you, truly I will, and I will call you Aunt Isabel; but I cannot belong to different people, 'cause I'm only just one. Just Captain January's Star." She looked up in the old man's face with shining eyes, but no tender, confident look returned her glance.
Star blushed, and hung her head for a moment, remembering Captain January's lessons on politeness and "quarter-deck manners." The lady sat down, and taking the child's hand, drew her gently towards her. "Were you playing fairy, dear?" she asked, smoothing back the golden hair with loving touch. Star nodded. "I was delicate Ariel," she said.
Suddenly, at the window, there was a gleam of yellow, a flitting shape, a look, a pause; then a great glad cry, and Star flitted like a ray of moonlight through the window, and fell on Captain January's breast. "Daddy," she said, breaking the long, happy silence, "dear Daddy, I am sorry I burned your horrid old cap!"
And with a friendly gesture, the old man stepped into his red dory, and rowed away with long, sturdy strokes. Captain Nazro gazed after him meditatively, took out his pipe and looked at it, then gazed again. "January's cracked," he said; "that's what's the matter with him. He's a good man, and a good lighthouse-keeper, and he's been an able seaman in his day, none better; but he's cracked!"
This is Light Island; and it was in this direction that Captain January's red dory was headed when he took his leave of his brother-captain, and rowed away from the wharf. It was a long pull; in fact, it took pretty nearly the whole afternoon, so that the evening shadows were lengthening when at length he laid down his oars, and felt the boat's nose rub against the sand of the little home-cove.
Sir Marmaduke Dorrillon's possessions were vast enough to satisfy any ambition, and his years put love out of the question. His friends had been as prophetic in their warnings as January's were, but even, they never guessed what he would have to endure at the hands of that cruel May.
From the Mayne kitchen-steps came, faintly, Daddy January's sweet quavering old voice: " Gwine tuh climb up higher 'n' higher, Some uh dese days " John Flint, silent, depressed, with folded lips and somber eyes, hobbled about awkwardly, savagely training himself to use the crutches Westmoreland had lately brought him. Very unlovely he looked, dragging himself along like a wounded beast.
They were grand fish undaunted, afraid of no man or his paltry obstacles to liberty, up to every cunning manoeuvre. Were we to be beaten by a lot of silly, slippery fish in a shallow stream? Never! January's unsheltered sun played upon my tanned, wet, and shameless back; the salt sweat coursed down my shoulders and dripped from my face.
It is a far cry from St Alban's to Bungay which village of the good ford lies somewhat south-east of Norwich, five leagues distant and the journey is doubled in the winter time. Hilarius and the Friar were long on the road, for January's turbulent mood had imprisoned them many days, and early February had proved little kinder.
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