"Yes, that'll do. Now tell me where they are, just to show me you do trust me."
"Tell you in a minute, Master Lance," cried the lad earnestly, "but I don't know a bit. We did hear from a Falmouth boat as some un' had sin 'em up Middlesbro' way after the herrin'; but that's all, and p'raps they're all drownded. I say, I'll tell you something, though. What d'yer think my old woman said about your mother?"
"I don't know. What did she say?"
"Said she was just a hangel, and she didn't know what she should ha' done all through the stormy time if it hadn't been for her."
"Oh, bother! I didn't want to hear about that," said Lance hurriedly.
"But you ought to hear, and so I telled you. I say, what's gone of your cousin?"
"Never you mind. What is it to you?" said Lance roughly. "You don't want to see him again."
"Nay, I don't want to see him, Master Lance, 'cause I might feel tempted like; and I don't want to run again' him, it might make me feel mad."
"Ah, well, you won't feel mad, Hezz, for he is never likely to come back here again. He's at a big school place, and going to college soon."
"Well, I'm glad he isn't likely to come; not as I should fly out at him, but Billy's wife right down hates him, and there's the other women do too, for getting their lads sent away. You see they've the little uns to keep; and Billy's wife says to me, on'y las' Sunday as we come back along the cliffs from church with the little gal, 'Hezz,' she says, and she burst out crying, 'it's like being a lone widow with her man drowned in a storm, and it's cruel, cruel hard to bear.' "
"And what did you say, Hezz?"
"Nothin', Master Lance. Couldn't say nothing. Made me feel choky and as if my voice was goin' to
