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"It is Noll's signature sure enough," said he, dropping his under jaw; "only, every time of late he has made the Oliver as large as a giant, while the Cromwell creeps after like a dwarf, as if the surname were like to disappear one of these days altogether. She was poor enough when I took her, for as high as Noll holds his head now."
He walked often by the sea, looking toward Hastings, and trying in vain to discern some sail bound hitherward. He walked over to Culm village, and lingered about the little room where Noll's school had been, and resolved that the plan of a new schoolroom, with good seats, benches, and a faithful teacher, should be carried out if ever communication was opened between the Rock and Hastings.
He sat down again, looking at the boy's face from time to time, and wondering if this sending him to Culm Rock was not some of that Lawyer Gray's work. The skipper had not a very high opinion of lawyers. Slowly, slowly the blue point began to take shape, and Noll's glass brought it to his eyes all too faithfully.
The instant these words escaped Noll's lips he half regretted them. He had never before allowed his uncle to know that he thought him sad and gloomy, and he was not quite sure that the careless word would strike agreeably upon his ears. But Trafford only said, "Yes, Noll, I know. We will go out to supper," and rose from the chair and followed after his nephew.
"Why go there till we go for the last time?" Noll's arm went about his uncle's neck. "Don't say such things!" he said. "Perhaps we'll not live here always, Uncle Richard; and, if we do have to be buried up there in the sand, heaven is just as near, after all." Trafford looked at the boy's face, ruddy and glowing from the long walk in the wind, and sighed, "Yes, for you, Noll. But for me, no, no!"
Five infantrymen had been killed, twelve were wounded badly enough to be out of the fighting lists for the present, while twenty-two others, though more or less wounded, were still fit for duty. "Now, chum, you see what follows the fighting," murmured Hal in Noll's ear. "How do you like what follows the fighting?"
I can't see, for the life of me! And why should you spend all your money for them?" Noll hesitated, not feeling certain that Ned would understand his reason, if he told him, and, looking up at the stars, which had come out in great fleets over the sea, was silent. But Ned got up, came to Noll's end of the step, and, sitting down beside him, said, "Now for your reason! I'll not be put off at all.
"You would like to break your neck, I suppose, sir, and give me the pleasure of seeing you brought home bruised and bleeding! No, you shall not go near Wind Cliff!" The angry color came into Noll's face in an instant. "I believe it would be a pleasure for you to see me brought home with a broken neck!" he cried, impetuously; "and oh, I wish I were back in Hastings, where somebody cared for me!"
"Don' know, honey," said she, after a long meditation; "can't tell ye nuffin 'bout dat, nohow. But jes' go right on wid yer plans, an' de Lord'll find a way fur ye. He ken do it, he ken do it, chile." But the question was not settled in Noll's mind. It was not a thing to be undertaken without much deliberation, and, as yet, only the vaguest of schemes floated through his mind.
Noll's heart began to beat somewhat faster as they neared the fishermen's houses, and he kept a keen watch upon his uncle's face in order to detect the first look of surprise and astonishment that should come across it when he perceived how the huts had been improved.
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