‘Yes,’ said Tom, ’but a little time ago you were singing a Gypsy song—­a downright heathen Gypsy song.  I heard it about half an hour ago when I was in the church.’

The beautiful little head drooped in shame.

’I’m s’prised at you, Winifred.  When I come to think whose daughter you are.—­mine!—­I’m s’prised at you,’ continued Torn, whose virtuous indignation waxed with every word.

‘Oh.  I’m so sorry!’ said the child.  ‘I won’t do it any more.’

This contrition of the child’s only fanned the flame of Tom’s virtuous indignation.

‘Here am I,’ said he, ’the most (hiccup) respectable man in two parishes,—­except Master Aylwin’s father, of course,—­here am I, the organ-player for the Christianest of all the Christian churches along the coast, and here’s my daughter sings heathen songs just like a Gypsy or a tinker.  I’m s’prised at you, Winifred.’

I had often seen Tom in a dignified state of liquor, but the pathetic expression of injured virtue that again overspread his face so changed it, that I had some difficulty myself in realising how entirely the tears filling his eyes and the grief at his heart were of alcoholic origin.  And as to the little girl, she began to sob piteously.

‘Oh dear, oh dear, what a wicked girl I am !’ said she.

This exclamation, however, aroused my ire against Tom; and as I always looked upon him as my special paid henchman, who, in return for such services as supplying me with tiny boxing-gloves, and fishing-tackle, and bait, during my hale days, and tame rabbits now that I was a cripple, mostly contrived to possess himself of my pocket-money, I had no hesitation in exclaiming,

‘Why, Tom, you know you’re drunk, you silly old fool!’

At this Tom turned his mournful and reproachful gaze upon me, and began to weep anew.  Then he turned and addressed the sea, uplifting his hand in oratorical fashion:—­

’Here’s a young gentleman as I’ve been more than a father to—­yes, more than a father to—­for when did his own father ever give him a ferret-eyed rabbit, a real ferret-eyed rabbit thoroughbred?’

‘Why, I gave you one of my five-shilling pieces for it,’ said I; ’and the rabbit was in a consumption and died in three weeks.’

But Tom still addressed the sea.

‘When did his own father give him,’ said he, ’the longest thigh-bone that the sea ever washed out of Raxton churchyard?’

’Why, I gave you two of my five-shilling pieces for that,’ said I, ’and next day you went and borrowed the bone, and sold it over again to Dr. Munro for a quart of beer.’

’When did his own father give him a beautiful skull for a money-box, and make an oak lid to it, and keep it for him because his mother wouldn’t have it in the house?’