Page:Cup of Gold-1929.djvu/64

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Cup of Gold

there.” The master smiled and paced away from Tim.

“You can be going with us in the ship,” the sailor cried, and Henry could not move for his pleasure. “But,” Tim continued seriously, ‘the four pound is not enough for passage. You'll be working a bit in the galley and we sailing.”

“Anything,” Henry said, “anything I'll do, so only I can go with you.”

“Then let's ourselves go ashore and have a toast to a fine, free voyage; uisquebaugh for me, and that same grand wine for you.”

They sat in a dusty shop whose walls were lined with bottles of all shapes and volumes, little pudgy flasks to giant demijohns. After a time they sang together, beating out the measures with their hands and smiling foolishly at each other. But at length the warm wine of Oporto filled the boy with a pleasant sadness. He felt that there were tears coming to his eyes, and he was rather glad of it. It would show Tim that he had his sorrows—that he was not just a feather-head boy with a craving to go to the Indies. He would reveal his depths.

“Do you know, Tim,” he said, “there was a girl I came away from, and she was named Elizabeth. Her hair was gold—gold like the morning. And on the night before I came away, I called to her and she came to me in the dark: the dark was all about us like a tent, and cold. She cried and cried for me to stay, even when I told her of the fine things and the trinkets and the silks I would bring back to her in a little time. She would not be com-

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