Deeply delighted with his trust, and putting his heart into it, he raised the latch of the post-office parlour where Mrs. Raybrock and the young widow sat, and said,—­

“May I come in?”

“Sure you may, Captain Jorgan!” replied the old lady.  “And good reason you have to be free of the house, though you have not been too well used in it by some who ought to have known better.  I ask your pardon.”

“No you don’t, ma’am,” said the captain, “for I won’t let you.  Wa’al, to be sure!”

By this time he had taken a chair on the hearth between them.

“Never felt such an evil spirit in the whole course of my life!  There!  I tell you!  I could a’most have cut my own connection.  Like the dealer in my country, away West, who when he had let himself be outdone in a bargain, said to himself, ’Now I tell you what!  I’ll never speak to you again.’  And he never did, but joined a settlement of oysters, and translated the multiplication table into their language,—­which is a fact that can be proved.  If you doubt it, mention it to any oyster you come across, and see if he’ll have the face to contradict it.”

He took the child from her mother’s lap and set it on his knee.

“Not a bit afraid of me now, you see.  Knows I am fond of small people.  I have a child, and she’s a girl, and I sing to her sometimes.”

“What do you sing?” asked Margaret.

“Not a long song, my dear.

   Silas Jorgan
   Played the organ.

That’s about all.  And sometimes I tell her stories,—­stories of sailors supposed to be lost, and recovered after all hope was abandoned.”  Here the captain musingly went back to his song,—­

   Silas Jorgan
   Played the organ;

repeating it with his eyes on the fire, as he softly danced the child on his knee.  For he felt that Margaret had stopped working.

“Yes,” said the captain, still looking at the fire, “I make up stories and tell ’em to that child.  Stories of shipwreck on desert islands, and long delay in getting back to civilised lauds.  It is to stories the like of that, mostly, that

   Silas Jorgan
   Plays the organ.”

There was no light in the room but the light of the fire; for the shades of night were on the village, and the stars had begun to peep out of the sky one by one, as the houses of the village peeped out from among the foliage when the night departed.  The captain felt that Margaret’s eyes were upon him, and thought it discreetest to keep his own eyes on the fire.

“Yes; I make ’em up,” said the captain.  “I make up stories of brothers brought together by the good providence of GOD,—­of sons brought back to mothers, husbands brought back to wives, fathers raised from the deep, for little children like herself.”

Margaret’s touch was on his arm, and he could not choose but look round now.  Next moment her hand moved imploringly to his breast, and she was on her knees before him,—­supporting the mother, who was also kneeling.