Page:The Firm of Gridlestone (1890).djvu/370

358 visitors and broke short off, staring at them with as much surprise as it is possible for human features to express.

"Well, if it ain't the genelman from the Priory!" he exclaimed at last, with a whistle, which seemed to be his way of letting off the astonishment which would otherwise remain bottled up in his system.

"We want a minute's talk with you, Mr. Sampson," said Ezra.

"Surely, sir—sure-ly!" the fisherman cried, bustling indoors and rubbing the top of two stools with his sleeve. "Coom in! 'Ere, Jarge, pull the seats up for the genelmen."

At this summons, a lanky, big-boned hobbledehoy, in sea boots, pushed the stools up towards the fire, on which a log of wood was blazing cheerily. The two Girdlestones sat warming themselves, while the fisherman and his son surveyed them silently with open eyes and mouth, as though they were a pair of strange zoological curiosities cast up by the gale.

"Keep doon, Sammy!" the fisherman said hoarsely to a great collie dog who was licking at Girdlestone's hands. "What be he a suckin' at? Why, sure, sir, there be blood on your hands."

"My father scratched himself," said Ezra promptly. "His hat has blown away too, and we lost our way in the dark, so we're rather in a mess."

"Why, so you be!" Sampson cried, eyeing them up and down. "I thought, when I heard you, as it was they folk from Claxton as comes 'ere for bait whenever they be short. That's nigh about the only visitors we ever gets here; bean't it, Jarge?"

George, thus appealed to, made no articulate reply, but he opened his great mouth and laughed vociferously.

"We've come for something which will pay you better than that," said Ezra. "You remember my meeting you two or three Saturdays ago, and speaking to you about your house and your boat and one thing or another?"

The fisherman nodded.