ughtfully.

"The folk round about are not over partial to strangers," he observed,
"and you'm been away so long I reckon there's not many as'd recollect
you. And as for carpentering jobs, there's Tom Lake over at Lesser
Blakeney and his brother down at Brancaster, besides me on the spot,
as you might say. It's a poor sort of opening there'd be, if you ask my
opinion, especially for one like yourself, as 'as got education."

"I should be satisfied with very little," Tavernake persisted. "I want
to work with my hands. I should like to forget for a time that I have
had any education at all."

"That do seem mightily queer to me," Nicholls remarked, thoughtfully.

Tavernake smiled.

"Come," he said, "it isn't altogether unnatural. I want to make
something with my hands. I think that I could build boats. Why do you
not take me into your yard? I could do no harm and I should not want
much pay."

Matthew Nicholls stroked his beard once more and this time he counted
fifty, as was his custom when confronted with a difficult matter. He had
no need to do anything of the sort, for nothing in the world would have
induced him to make up his mind on the spot as to so weighty a proposal.

"It's not likely that you're serious," he objected. "You are a young man
and strong-limbed, I should imagine, but you've education--one can tell
it by the way you pronounce your words. It's but a poor living, after
all, to be made here."

"I like the place," Tavernake declared doggedly. "I am a man of small
needs. I want to work all through the day, work till I am tired enough
to sleep at night, work till my bones ache and my arms are sore. I
suppose you could give me enough to live on in a humble way?"

"Take a bite of supper with me," Nicholls answered. "In these serious
affairs, my daughter has always her say. We will put the matter before
her and see what she thinks of it."

They lingered about the quay until the light from Wells Lighthouse
flashed across the sea, and until in the distance they could hear the
moaning of the incoming tide as it rippled over the bar and began to
fill the tidal way which stretched to the wooden pier itself. Then the
two men made their way along the village street, through a field, and
into the little yard over which stood the sign of "Matthew Nicholls,
Boat-Builder." At one corner of the yard was the cottage in which he
lived.

"You'll come right in, Mr. Tavernake," he said, the instincts of
hospitality