Archie leaned over the rotten rail and saw the
old salt stop a little way from the hulk and stand
looking at them for some minutes and then wave his
hand, at which the boys waved back, but the lad
did not see the tears that lingered for an instant on
the captain's eyelids, and which the sea-breeze caught
away; nor did he hear the words, as the captain
resumed his walk: "He's all I've got left, and yet
he don't know it and I can't tell him. Ain't it hell?"
Neither did they notice that he never once raised
his eyes toward the House of Refuge as he passed
its side. A new door and a new roof had been
added, but in other respects it was to him the same
grewsome, lonely hut as on that last night when he
had denounced his son outside its swinging door.
Often the boys made neighborly visits to friendly
tribes and settlers. Fogarty was one of these, and
Doctor Cavendish was another. The doctor's country
was a place of buttered bread and preserves and
a romp with Rex, who was almost as feeble as Meg
had been in his last days. But Fogarty's cabin was a
mine of never-ending delight. In addition to the
quaint low house of clapboards and old ship-timber,
with its sloping roof and little toy windows, so unlike
his own at Yardley, and smoked ceilings, there was
a scrap heap piled up and scattered over the yard
which in itself was a veritable treasure-house.
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