"
"Never!--so long as she's here. I'll never bring me sorrow between her
and the sun again-so help me, Heaven! And if the Lord gives me
strength, I'll never see her face again, so long as I live!"
"Go to bed, boy; go to bed. You are tired out. We will ship you off to
the university next week."
"Can't I be going to-morrow? Friday, then? I'd never dare trust meself
over the week."
"Friday, then. But mind, no more prancing to-night; we must both go to
bed."
Neither of them did so, however. Sandy went to his room and sat in
his window, watching a tiny light that flickered, far across the
valley, in the last bend of the river before it left the town. His
muscles were tense, his nerves a-tingle, as he strained his eyes in
the darkness to keep watch of the beacon. It was the last glimpse of
home to a sailor who expected never to return.
Down in the sitting-room the judge was lost in the pages of a worn old
copy of Tom Moore. He fingered the pages with a tenderness of other
days, and lingered over the forgotten lines with a half-quizzical,
half-sad smile on his lips. For he had been a lover once, and Sandy's
romance stirred dead leaves in his heart that sent up a faint perfume
of memory.
"Yes," he mused half aloud; "I marked that one too:
"Be it bliss to remember that thou wert the star
That arose on his darkness and guided him home.
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