"Are you interested in the horse-mackerel, too?" asked Diana.

The two men sat down on the grass near the girls as Barney Kelly answered: "Moderately, Miss Wilbur. Moderately interested. Being allowed to witness anything from terra firma invests it with a certain charm. Barrison has been merciless, I assure you, simply merciless."

"The man came here to fish," said Philip, "and I've only tried to be hospitable."

"Deep-sea fishing," groaned his friend. "If you ever hear any tenderfoot express ambitions to go deep-sea fishing, tell him to see me if possible, otherwise write or wire me before he embarks."

"Did you find the motion disconcerting?" asked Diana.

Barney looked at Philip. "Don't you think I might admit as much as that?"

Philip laughed and bit the red clover he had pulled from a bunch near him.

"First," said Kelly, "you are waked at an hour when all men should sleep; then you are forced to eat at a time when your soul rebels at such outrage; after that, you go aboard beneath the stars, and you chug, chug, miles into the darkness; but the chug-chugging you soon find to be the best part of it for when you arrive midway between here and Liverpool, you anchor. The sky and the sea begin to get hopelessly mixed up. Why should I try to describe the writhings of all nature! They put a heavy rope into your hands, it slides through your fists and removes the skin before any one remembers that you have no gloves on. Oh, let Dante try! I can't!"

Philip laughed. "Then I took him out next day to the pound and let him help draw the net."

"The smell of that boat, Miss Wilbur!" Kelly's eyes rolled fiercely.

"I'm afraid you won't like the island," volunteered Veronica, who, when she laughed had forgotten her nose and dropped her hand.

"My dear Miss Trueman, how can I tell, when I am never allowed to stay on it? This man, when he couldn't think of anything else hydraulic to do, has made me go in bathing in water at a temperature which no humane person will credit when I tell them. To-day, I struck. I said to him, do for Heaven's sake do something to show that you are at least amphibious. So he consented to bring me up here to meet his friends, and I shall be pleasantly surprised if you young ladies don't turn into mermaids right before my eyes, as they do in the movies, and pop off that beach into the water."

Veronica giggled so joyously that the speaker turned away from Diana's serene smile and regarded her. "I assure you," he added slowly and solemnly, "that if you do, I shall not follow you. So if you wish the pleasure of my society you won't unfold any graceful, glittering tails."

Veronica giggled again, and, if she had only known it, her dimples were warranted at any time to divert attention from those afflicting little freckles.

"I can see that Kelly will be fruit for you, Veronica, on that croquet ground," said Philip.

The guest clasped his hands rapturously. "Do you guarantee, Miss Veronica, that croquet at this island is unfailingly played on land?"

"Hold on, Barney, don't go too fast; it's the kind of croquet you play with an alpenstock in one hand and a mallet in the other."

"It is not, Mr. Barrison," declared Veronica stoutly. "Bert has mowed it."

"That poor little chap? Did you work him in? Good for you. It's what he needs."

"When are you going to have Mr. Barrison sing for us, Mr. Kelly?" asked Diana.

Barney shrugged his shoulders. "A poor worm of an accompanist can't answer that, Miss Wilbur."

"But I suppose you will be practicing, or rehearsing at times, will you not?"

"Yes. I understand there is a piano in the little Casino that was pointed out to me. I understand—eh, Barrison?"

Philip nodded. "Yes, they have allowed me to engage an hour a day on that piano for a while, for some work we have to do."

Diana's face lighted beautifully. "And may one—may one sit on the piazza?" she asked beseechingly.

"I should advise one not to," said Philip, "unless one has been inoculated for strong language."

"I should not in the least mind what you said."

"But you would what Barney says, at times."

"The verdure about the hall is free," said Diana doubtfully.

"Yes, if you don't mind a baseball in the eye once in a while. That is where the boys do congregate."

"He's a most ungrateful ass—Barrison," said Barney warmly. "Of course you shall sit on the piazza if you care about it. I promise to restrain my penchant for calling him pet names in private. I have to do it, you see, to strike a balance. At performances, who so meek as the accompanist! Barrison stands there, dolled up in his dress-clothes, probably a white carnation in his buttonhole; the women down front gazing at him and ruining their best gloves. I gaze at him, too,"—Kelly looked up with meek worship,—"like a flower at the sun, waiting for the sultan to throw the handkerchief, or, in other words, give me a careless nod, indicating that I may come to life. At last he does so, and I begin to play—subserviently, unostentatiously. Very few in the house know that I am there. He reaches his climax, he finishes with a pianissimo that curls around all the women's hearts, draws them out and strings them on a wire before him. Then the applause bursts forth. He bows over and over again, until he looks like a blond mandarin, and I rise, but nobody knows it, and when he has passed me on his way off the stage, I come to heel like a well-trained dog, and—there we are!"

As Kelly finished his harangue with a gesture of both hands, the girls were laughing and Diana was quite flushed.

"What a fool you are, Barney," said Philip calmly, still biting the honey out of the red clover. "He plays like a house afire," he added, turning to the girls. "You will be delighted."

"Oh, yes," said Kelly. "On the road I get a group. I play the Chopin and Grieg things that the girls practice at home, and they get out their vanity cases and prink and wait for Barrison to come on again."

"Oh, cut it out, you idiot!" exclaimed Philip, jumping up. "I don't believe they're going to get one of those mackerel. Let's amuse little Veronica and go up and have a game of croquet."

Meanwhile Mr. Gayne had again taken his nephew with him to the farm.

"In spite of all I say," he told the boy, "you will bother those ladies at the Inn. So if you come along with me, I'll know where you are." And the lad answered him not at all, but plodded up the road.

He did, however, think of some of the things Mrs. Lowell had said to him. Some of the love and courage that emanated from her gave him a novel certainty that he was not altogether friendless, and the wild roses that began to peep at him from the roadside suggested the idea that she would like it if he brought some home to her. In the idle hours of the afternoon he might gather some, and some of the myriad daisies and Indian paintbrush that decked the fields. But his heart sank at the prospect of what his uncle would say if he attempted to carry back a bouquet when they returned.

Gayne forbade the boy to enter the house when they reached their destination, just as he had done in the morning. So Bertie, his hands in his pockets, wandered about the surrounding fields and in the spruce groves, and picked up the shells the crows had dropped and emptied. Once he found a ridge of grass unusually long and green, and heard a whispering, and investigating found a narrow brook which murmured as it flowed. He followed along its bank until he came to the cove it had named, and watched the sparse stream cascade over the granite and fall thinly down its steep wall. The wet rock glistened in the sun, it seemed to the boy as if with tears. He threw himself down beside it and, leaning on his elbow, rested his head on his hand. Through the cut between this island and the next, boats were passing coming in from the foaming waves of the sea to the quiet waters of the sound. Life, beauty, peace. The boy closed his eyes. The longing to portray it all rose in him like an anguish. He felt his old torpidity to be better than this. Why should his new friend stir up a craving for the impossible? She meant to be kind. She seemed really to like him; and she had liked his drawing and had wanted him to do more. She would find that it was impossible, and he hoped that she would make no more effort. He squeezed his eyelids together to keep back stinging drops. He felt shame at his own weakness. Uncle Nick had said he had no more backbone than a jellyfish and he felt this was true. He had no physical strength to defend himself, none to take his fortunes into his own hands, as he felt most boys would do, run away and do something to keep himself from starvation.

For years he had been fed as an animal might have been fed: at any hour that suited Cora, and with anything she might happen to have in the house. He was undernourished, neglected, crushed, and spiritless. He despised his weakness as much as his uncle despised him, and he was conscious that it was a new estimate of himself that he was now making, an estimate due to the awakening of thought that had come to him through that lady who meant to be kind. He felt very bitterly toward her as he lay there, his eyes closed to the loveliness of sea and sky.

He had lain there half an hour when Matt Blake came across from the road and passed near him.

"Poor youngster," he thought. "I guess it's true he ain't all there." The feeling that the boy was not capable of responding kept him from calling out some sort of greeting as he passed, and he went on through the spruce grove to the farm-house. "Hello the house," he called.

"That you, Blake?" came from within. "Yes, I'm out here at the back. Come in."

The carpenter made his way through to the studio, and there Nicholas Gayne rose from an armchair to meet him, and swayed slightly as he stood.

"You sent for me," said Blake, regarding the other's red-rimmed eyes.

"Yes, and you'll be glad I did when you see this, eh, old man?"

Gayne lurched toward the screen and took a bottle from behind it, and held it out triumphantly. "Kind o' dizzy 'cause I been asleep and you waked me sudden. 'Twas the shock, you see, the shock." He lurched back toward the table where there was a glass. He filled this half-full and offered it to his caller. "It's the real thing, the real thing," he said.

"I smell that it is," returned Blake dryly. "That's too stiff for me. No, no, Gayne," he added as the latter started to raise it to his own lips, and he took the glass from him, "you've had too much now. If you want anything of me, tell me while you've got sense enough to talk."

"You insult me, Blake," said the other with dignity. "I'm a gentleman and I know when I've had enough, and I know when I've had too much. Some folks never know that, but I do."

The carpenter regarded him impassively, and set the bottle and glass out of his reach. "Now go ahead. Tell me what you want."

"Want you to shingle the kitchen so's I can—can cook there. Come and I'll show you." He opened a door in the studio which led into a damp room where the rain had fallen unmolested. "Want you to shingle this room."

"Nothing doing," said the carpenter.

"You won't say that when I show you what I've got here." Gayne's speech was thick and he took Blake's arm and led him across to a large covered stone crock sitting on a bench. "Home brew, Matt. Home brew. We can have many a cozy evening here when this gets into shape."

"Going to keep a horse?" asked the carpenter, lifting up what appeared to be a nosebag.

"No, no, that's strainer. You leave it to me, Matt. I'll give you something'll make your hair curl. All you got to do is shingle—"

"You ain't going to pay for having somebody else's property shingled?"

"'Tain't going to be somebody else's. Going to be mine. I'm going to buy the farm. There's a fortune on it." The speaker's legs were planted far apart to preserve his equilibrium, but even at that he swayed so far toward his visitor that Blake put up his hand to hold him off.

"Which have you found, gold or oil?" he asked, laughing.

His host assumed an impressive dignity. "Not gold, not oil. Spring."

"A spring? Of course you have. They're all over the lots. You'd better patronize 'em, too. You certainly need to put more water in it."

"I'm goin' tell you secret, Blake," said Gayne.

"Better not," said the carpenter good-naturedly.

"Goin' tell you. I've found mineral spring here."

"That so?" was the unperturbed reply.

"Great and won-wonderful water. Don't tell anybody."

"All right."

"Had chemist 'zamine it. Says it's got everything in it to cure you. Fortune in it. Fortune. You don't b'lieve me."

"Sounds a little fishy," remarked Blake.

"Lemme take your arm—I'll lead you to it."

The visitor supplied the arm and Gayne's heavy weight hung upon it. They went out of doors and Gayne stopped and looked around cautiously. "Where's that brat?" he demanded.

"Do you mean the boy? He's over there by the cove. Asleep, I think."

"Then come on. Can't trust him 'cause they're the kind that speak the truth. Fools, you know. Can trust you, Blake. Trust you anywhere."

"Thank you," returned the visitor dryly.

At some distance from the house, in a hollow overhung with rocks, the heavy weight on Matt's arm became heavier and Gayne pushed away some turf and stones with his foot, disclosing a puddle of dark-colored water. He stooped and, picking up a rusty tin cup, half-filled it, and presented it to his companion whose arm he released.

"There, if you don't b'lieve me!" he said triumphantly.

The carpenter accepted the cup doubtfully and smelled of it. "Phew!" he exclaimed with a grimace.

"'Course," said the other. "Sulphur. Won'ful sulphur spring. Cure you of ever'thing. Had it an'lyzed. Drink it."

Blake took a cautious sip.

"Tell you, Matt," said Gayne, speaking slowly and nodding with tipsy solemnity, "'twas m' guardian angel guided me to that spring."

The carpenter glanced at him with disfavor. "One sniff's enough to convince anybody o' that," he remarked. "At that, it's better for you than the stuff you've got in there on the table. Now, look here, Gayne, you're going to be sorry to-morrow you told me about this—"

"Wouldn't tell anybody else," vowed Gayne, solemnly, seizing his companion by the arm and pushing back the concealing turf and stones with his foot. "Nobody else on this earth. Fools own the farm put up the price if they knew."

"But what I was going to say is you needn't be sorry," went on Blake. "I'm not going to tell a soul. I don't want to be mixed up in your affairs, but do you think you can understand if I talk to you?"

"Un'stand! Well!" exclaimed Gayne. "I'm a man o' brains I'll have you know."

"Well, if you've got any, use 'em now," said Blake impatiently. "There ain't any money in a mineral spring unless you've got piles o' dough to put it on the market. Don't you know that?"

"I sh'd say so," nodded Gayne, triumphant again. "That's just what I'm goin' to have: piles o' dough. Bushels."

"Where are you goin' to get it?"

"Well, I'll tell you, Matt, 'cause you're a good friend and you know how to hold your tongue. That boy out there, that poor numskull is the heir to a big enough fortune to f'nance twenty springs."

"He is?" returned Blake, astonished. "What do you mean?"

"His grandfather is one of the richest men in Boston. Went to see him once. Took my proofs with me. Wouldn't look at 'em. Turned me out. He's sick as the devil. Always travelin' 'round tryin' to get well. I wouldn't—I would not give him one cup o' this water." Gayne gestured impressively as he made the ferocious declaration. "Just come home from Europe now. Saw it in the paper," he added.

"Then he'll leave his money where it won't do you any good," said Blake.

"I'll break the will. I've thought it all out. I'm a man o' brains. Bert'll get the money."

"Perhaps the boy won't want to spend it on springs."

A crafty change came over Gayne's face and he smiled. "He won't have any say. I'm his guardian, ain't I? And he's non compos, ain't he? He'll be put where he belongs, believe me."

"You'll shut him up, do you mean?" asked Blake, frowning.

"F'r his own good. You understand?"

"Your guardian angel suggested that to you, too, probably."

"Prob'bly did, Matt," was the pious reply. "If all his kind was shut up there'd be less crime in the papers. I put it off and put it off, but I ought to do it and do it soon."

The carpenter regarded the speaker in silence for some moments. Gayne's eyes were closing and opening sleepily.

"Now, see here, man. You go in the house and sleep this off. I'll take the boy down-along with me."

"I won't allow it," Gayne shook his head. "Women at the house pamperin' him. I won't have it. He'll stay where I am till I get him settled for life."

"I'm goin' to take the boy along with me," repeated Blake, speaking louder. "You're in no state for him to see you. Where'd you get your stuff, anyway?"

"Chemist p'esc'iption," said Gayne, as his companion drew him along at as swift a pace as possible.

"Well, next time, drink out o' your own mud puddle. I think it comes from the lower regions, anyway. You might as well be getting used to it."

Gayne laughed, but rather feebly. He was beginning to wonder just what he had said to his friend.

Matt got him into the house and into the lop-sided armchair where he had found him, and he fell asleep at once. Then the carpenter took the partly filled glass from the table and held it up to the light.

"I'd like it," he mused, "but, by thunder, that loafer's worse 'n a temperance lecture." And he threw the whiskey out of an open window.

The bottle he placed behind the screen; then, with one last disgusted look at his host, whose head was hanging sideways with the mouth open, he left the house.