Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/149

Rh Four of the sailors bore the old captain down to the shore while Billy went home with  Sally Shute through the woods. The fog was clearing and it was getting light at last; the  stars were growing dimmer and dimmer and  the eastern horizon showed a streak of gold. The two stumbled along, too weary to watch the coming dawn, to hear the birds that were  beginning to sing, or even to say much to each  other. They plodded down the lane in silence and reached Sally’s gate at last.

“You’re a fine, brave girl, Sally,” Billy said, as they came up the path. But she would have none of his praise.

“I was just so curious to see what was up there,” she said, “that I could not possibly  help going to find out. I—I wish I hadn’t screamed so when the rifle went off.”

Early as it was, there proved to be a visitor there before them. Some one was sitting on the doorstone with his face buried in his  hands, some one whose shock of rumpled yellow hair told plainly that it could be no other than Johann Happs.

“I—I came to see about the clocks, if they were running—” he began to explain lamely.

“It is rather a queer time to come,” Sally