tch is a shabby
pirate with only one eye.

BETSY: I am sorry, Patch.

(_She offers him her hand._)

PATCH: Blessed leetle fingers, as twines their selves all 'round me
heart. Patch, yer says, yer sorry. There ain 't no hope at all. Yer
nudges him off the wall, but yer can 't fix him. But I never heard
that Humpty Dumpty did a lot o' squealin' when he bust. He took it
like a pirate. And so does Patch. I does n't sulk. If yer will pardon
me, Betsy, I 'll leave yer. Me feelin 's get lumpy in me throat. I 'll
take a wink o' sleep in the loft.

(_He climbs the ladder, but turns at the top._)

PATCH: There was jest one too many potaters in the pot.

(_He disappears through the hole in the wall. Betsy arranges the mugs
on the table, then stands listening. Presently there is a sound of
footsteps. Red Joe enters at the rear._)

JOE: I slipped the Duke in the dark. I came back to talk with you.
(_Then bluntly, but with kindness._) How old are you, my dear?

BETSY: I don 't know.

JOE: You don 't know? How long have you lived here?

BETSY: In this cabin? Three years.

JOE: And where did you live before?

BETSY: In the village--in Clovelly.

JOE: Did your parents live there?

BETSY: Y-e-s. I think so. I don 't know. Old Nancy, they called
her--she brought me up. But she died three years ago.

JOE: Who was old Nancy?

BETSY: She did washing for the sailormen.

[Illustration: "She did washing for the sailormen"]

JOE: Was she good to you?

BETSY: Oh yes. I think--I do not know--that she was not my mother.

JOE: And Darlin'?

BETSY: Yes. She has been good to me. And the others, too. I seem to
remember someone else. How long have you been a pirate?

JOE: A pirate? Years, it seems, my dear. But I am more used to a
soldier's oaths. I have trailed a pike in the Lowland wars. The roar
of cannon, and siege and falling walls, are gayer tunes than any ocean
tempest. What is this that you remember, Betsy?

BETSY: It is far off. Some one sang to me. It was not Nancy. When
Nancy died, Darlin' took me and brought me up. That was three years
ago. But last year the Captain and Duke and Patch-Eye came climbing up
the rocks. They were sailormen, they said, who had lost a ship. And
these cliffs with the sea pounding on the shore comforted them when
they were lonely. So they stayed. And Darlin' and I cook for them.

JOE: Do you remember who it was who sang to you?

BETSY: No.

JOE: That song you just sang--where did y