"Poor old Jim!" "And if he has passed," said I, "why, then of course he will put up his plate and have his own house, and we shall be losing our Edie." I tried to make a jest of it and to speak lightly, but the words still stuck in my throat.
"Poor old Jim!" said she again, and there were tears in her eyes as she said it.

"And poor old Jock!" she added, slipping her hand into mine as we walked.

"You cared for me a little bit once also, didn't you, Jock?
Oh, is not that a sweet little ship out yonder!" It was a dainty cutter of about thirty tons, very swift by the rake of her masts and the lines of her bow.

She was coming up from the south under jib, foresail, and mainsail; but even as we watched her all her white canvas shut suddenly in, like a kittiwake closing her wings, and we saw the splash of her anchor just under her bowsprit.

She may have been rather less than a quarter of a mile from the shore--so near that I could see a tall man with a peaked cap, who stood at the quarter with a telescope to his eye, sweeping it backwards and forwards along the coast.
"What can they want here ?" asked Edie.
"They are rich English from London," said I; for that was how we explained everything that was above our comprehension in the border counties.