Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/331

321 "Yes," said Joe. "They don't have much use for men in my fix."

"Got leisure to look round ye, a little, now, then," said the first speaker.

"Yes," said Joe.

They could not make anything out of him, and the street speculated no little before it went to sleep that night, as to what that "army feller" was after. If anybody had said that the "army feller" had come all the way to Provincetown solely to see what "Tilly Bennet was like," the town would have given utterance to one ejaculation of astonishment, and wondered what on earth there was in Tilly Bennet to bring a man all that distance.

But Joe did not think so the next morning, when, having hired a man to take him over to the light house, he landed on the rocks at noon, just as Tilly was hanging out clothes. The clothes-line was fastened to iron stanchions in the light-house itself, and in high cliffs to the back of it; a gale was blowing; in fact, it had been so high that the boatman had demurred at first about taking Joe across, as he was not used to the sea.

"Go ahead," said Joe. "If you can stand it, I can."

But, if the truth were told, Joe was pretty white about the lips, and not very steady on the legs when he stepped ashore.