I knew that my company was accepted,
and we walked together a little way.
"You mean to have a good supper," I ventured to say, by way of
friendliness.
"Goin' to have this 'ere haddock an' some o' my good baked
potatoes; must eat to live," responded my companion with great
pleasantness and open approval. I found that I had suddenly left
the forbidding coast and come into the smooth little harbor of
friendship.
"You ain't never been up to my place," said the old man.
"Folks don't come now as they used to; no, 'tain't no use to
ask folks now. My poor dear she was a great hand to draw young
company."
I remembered that Mrs. Todd had once said that this old
fisherman had been sore stricken and unconsoled at the death of his
wife.
"I should like very much to come," said I. "Perhaps you are
going to be at home later on?"
Mr. Tilley agreed, by a sober nod, and went his way bent-
shouldered and with a rolling gait. There was a new patch high on
the shoulder of his old waistcoat, which corresponded to the
renewing of the Miranda's mainsail down the bay, and I wondered if
his own fingers, clumsy with much deep-sea fishing, had set it in.
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