The child nodded, and Comethup, emboldened by her smile, crossed to where she sat and shyly held out his hand. She leaned forward and put her arm about his neck and kissed him. The shoemaker glanced at them sharply, and then, with a grunt, started hammering again at his leather.
"We have been looking for you, 'Linda," said Comethup, softly.
The old man caught the remark and paused in his hammering, in the same fashion as before, and looked quickly round at them. "Yes, that's what you do from the time they lift you first into your cradle till the hour they slip a winding sheet round you; it's the old story, begun by baby lips, and whispered by the dying. Looking for her?" He put out a hand and touched Comethup on the breast and pushed him almost roughly away. "Let be, let be; the little maid can bide here as long as she will." He spoke with a certain stern sadness, and Comethup and the captain looked at him in perplexity.
"Oh, they're very good friends, and he's a good boy," said the captain, laughing. "You don't know the boy."
The old man glanced up at him sharply. "No, but they're all alike." He leaned forward suddenly and took Comethup by the shoulder and drew him toward himself, looking straight into his eyes. Comethup's heart beat a little faster than usual, but he did not flinch.
"Well," said the captain, after the scrutiny had lasted for some moments, "what do you make of him?"
The shoemaker, still keeping a grip of Comethup's shoulder, looked up at the captain and spoke in a low voice. "A good face," he said, "and the eyes of one who will dream dreams, and carry them with him always. I've dreamed my dreams, but"--he passed his hand over his forehead in a lost, dazed fashion--"I've lost them all." He sighed, and took up his hammer and fell to work again, muttering to himself. Presently, coming back to realities with a start, he put down the hammer and asked the captain civilly if he could do anything for him.
The captain produced his parcel and began, with great care, to point out exactly what he wanted done and what he desired left undone. The shoemaker obviously saw here a work on which his finest arts could be exercised, and listened with equal care to the minute directions. The business being finished and the price arranged, the captain lingered in the doorway of the little shop and carelessly put a question: