even if she could muster up the courage to tell him the half she was willing to tell him—­that his mother was her friend and on her sick-bed had entrusted her child to her care.  She had wanted to wait until he was old enough to understand, so that she should not lose his love when he came to know the truth.  There had been, moreover, always this fear—­would he love her for shielding his mother, or would he hate Lucy when he came to know?  She had once talked it all over with Captain Holt, but she could never muster up the courage to take his advice.

“Tell him,” he had urged.  “It’ll save you a lot o’ trouble in the end.  That’ll let me out and I kin do for him as I want to.  You’ve lived under this cloud long enough—­there ain’t nobody can live a lie a whole lifetime, Miss Jane.  I’ll take my share of the disgrace along of my dead boy, and you ain’t done nothin’, God knows, to be ashamed of.  Tell him!  It’s grease to yer throat halyards and everything’ll run smoother afterward.  Take my advice, Miss Jane.”

All these things rushed through her mind as she stood leaning against the stone wall, Archie’s hand in hers, his big blue eyes still fixed on her own.

“Who said that to you, my son?” she asked in assumed indifference, in order to gain time in which to frame her answer and recover from the shock.

“Scootsy Mulligan.”

“Is he a nice boy?”

“No, he’s a coward, or he wouldn’t fight as he does.”

“Then I wouldn’t mind him, my boy,” and she smoothed back the hair from his forehead, her eyes avoiding the boy’s steady gaze.  It was only when someone opened the door of the closet concealing this spectre that Jane felt her knees give way and her heart turn sick within her.  In all else she was fearless and strong.

“Was he the boy who said you had no mother?”

“Yes.  I gave him an awful whack when he came up the first time, and he went heels over head.”

“Well, you have got a mother, haven’t you, darling?” she continued, with a sigh of relief, now that Archie was not insistent.

“You bet I have!” cried the boy, throwing his arms around her.

“Then we won’t either of us bother about those bad boys and what they say,” she answered, stooping over and kissing him.

And so for a time the remembrance of Scootsy’s epithet faded out of the boy’s mind.

CHAPTER XIV

HIGH WATER AT YARDLEY

Ten years have passed away.

The sturdy little fellow in knee-trousers is a lad of seventeen, big and strong for his age; Tod is three years older, and the two are still inseparable.  The brave commander of the pirate ship is now a full-fledged fisherman and his father’s main dependence.  Archie is again his chief henchman, and the two spend many a morning in Tod’s boat when the blue-fish are running.  Old Fogarty does not mind it; he rather likes it, and Mother Fogarty is always happier when the two are together.