“Why, you didn’t think we’d have left you.”

“Lef me?  Nebber.  But den I didn’t tink you’d magine anyting was wrong till too late.  What I wanted was help, den an dar.  De trouble was, when you did come, you all made dat ar circumbendibus, an trabelled clean an clar away from me.”

“We thought at first you could not be so near the point.”

“But de pint was de whole difficulty.  Dat’s de pint.”

“Well, at any rate, you’ve saved the lobsters.”

“Yah! yah! yah!  Yes.  Bound to sabe dem dar.  Loss my ole hat, an nearly loss my ole self; but still I hung on to dem dar lobstas.  Tell you what it is now, dey come nigh onto bein de dearest lobstas you ebber eat.  I’be done a good deal in de way ob puttin myself out to get a dinna at odd times for you, chil’en; but dis time I almost put myself out ob dis mortial life.  So when you get your dinnas to-day, you may tink on what dat ar dinna come nigh to costin.”

“I wonder that you held on to them so tight, when they brought you into such danger.”

“Hole on?  Why, dat ar’s de berry reason why I did hole on.  What, let go ob dem arter all my trouble on dat count?  No.  I was bound to hab somethin to show whenebber I got back, if I ebber did get back; and so here I am, all alibe, an a bringin my lobstas wid me.”

“Well, Solomon,” said Bart, in a kindly tone, “old man, the lobsters have come near costing us pretty dear, and we felt bad enough, I can tell you, when we went up there along the shore calling for you and getting no answer.”

“What, you did car for de ole man, Mas’r Bart—­did you?” said Solomon, in a tremulous voice.  Tears started to his eyes as he said it, and all power of saying anything more seemed to depart from him.  He fell back behind the others, and walked on for the rest of the way in silence, but at times casting upon Bart glances that spoke volumes, and talking to himself in inaudible tones.

In this way they soon reached the wharf where the schooner was lying.

The first thing that they noticed was, that the schooner was aground.  The tide had gone out too far for her to float away, and consequently there was no hope of resuming their voyage for that day.

“We’re in for it, captain,” said Bruce

“Yes; I felt afeard of it,” said the captain.  “We’ve got to wait here till the next tide.”

“We’ll leave to-night, of course.”

“O, yes.  We must get off at the night’s tide, and drop down the bay.”

“How far had we better go?”

“Wal, I ben a thinkin it all over, an it’s my opinion that we’d better go to St. John next.  We may hear of him there, an ef he don’t turn up we can send out some more vessels, an give warnin that he’s astray on the briny biller.”

“At what time will we be able to leave?”

“Wal, it’ll not be high tide till near one o’clock, but we can git off ef thar’s a wind a leetle before midnight.”