The young fisherman had become more and
more agitated, as the writing had become clearer
to him. He now left it lying before the captain,
over whose shoulder he had been reading it, and,
dropping into his former seat, leaned forward on
the table and laid his face in his hands.

"What, man," urged the captain, "don't
give in! Be up and doing, like a man!"

"It is selfish, I know—but doing what, doing
what?" cried the young fisherman, in complete
despair, and stamping his sea-boot on the
ground.

"Doing what?" returned the captain.

"Something! I'd go down to the little breakwater
below, yonder, and take a wrench at one
of the salt-rusted iron-rings there, and either
wrench it up by the roots or wrench my teeth
out of my head, sooner than I'd do nothing.
Nothing!" ejaculated the captain. "Any fool
or faint-heart can do that, and nothing can come
of nothing—Which was pretended to be found
out, I believe, by one of them Latin critturs,"
said the captain, with the deepest disdain; "as
if Adam hadn't found it out, afore ever he so
much as named the beasts!"

Yet the captain saw, in spite of his bold
words, that there was some greater reason than
he yet understood for the young man's distress.
And he eyed him with a sympathising curiosity.

"Come, come!" continued the captain.
"Speak out. What is it, boy?"

"You have seen how beautiful she is, sir,"
said the young man, looking up for the moment,
with a flushed face and rumpled hair.

"Did any man ever say she warn't beautiful?"
retorted the captain. "If so, go and lick
him."

The young man laughed fretfully in spite of
himself, and said, "It's not that, it's not
that."

"Wa'al, then, what is it?" said the captain,
in a more soothing tone.

The young fisherman mournfully composed
himself to tell the captain what it was, and
began: "We were to have been married next
Monday week——"

"Were to have been!" interrupted Captain
Jorgan. " And are to be? Hey?"

Young Raybrock shook his head, and traced
out with his forefinger the words "poor father's
five hundred pounds," in the written paper.

"Go along." said the captain. "Five hundred
pounds? Yes?"

"That sum of money," pursued the young
fisherman, entering with the greatest earnestness
on his demonstration, while the captain
eyed him with equal earnestness, "was all my
late father possessed. When he died, he owed
no man more than he left means to pay, but he
had been able to lay by only five hundred pounds."

"Five hundred pounds," repeated the captain.
" Yes?"

"In his lifetime, years before, he had
expressly laid the money aside, to leave to my
mother—like to settle upon her, if I make
myself understood."

"Yes?"

"He had risked it once—my father put down
in writing at that time, respecting the money—
and was resolved never to risk it again."

"Not a spec'lator," said the captain. "My
country wouldn't have suited him. Yes?"

"My mother has never touched the money
till now. And now it was to have been laid out,
this very next week, in buying me a handsome
share in our neighbouring fishery here, to settle
me in life with Kitty."

The captain's face fell, and he passed and
repassed his sun-browned right hand over his thin
hair, in a discomfited manner.

"Kitty's father has no more than enough to
live on, even in the sparing way in which we live
about here. He is a kind of bailiff or steward
of manor rights here, and they are not much,
and it is but a poor little office. He was better
off once, and Kitty must never marry to mere
drudgery and hard living."

The captain still sat stroking his thin hair, and
looking at the young fisherman.

"I am as certain that my father had no knowledge
that any one was wronged as to this
money, or that any restitution ought to be
made, as I am certain that the sun now shines.
But, after this solemn warning from my brother's
grave in the sea, that the money is Stolen
Money," said Young Raybrock, forcing himself
to the utterance of the words, "can I doubt it?
Can I touch it?"

"About not doubting, I ain't so sure,"
observed the captain; "but about not touching—
no—I don't think you can."

"See, then," said Young Raybrock, "why I
am so grieved. Think of Kitty. Think what I
have got to tell her!"

His heart quite failed him again when he had
come round to that, and he once more beat his
sea-boot softly on the floor. But, not for long;
he soon began again, in a quietly resolute tone.

"However! Enough of that! You spoke
some brave words to me just now, Captain
Jorgan, and they shall not be spoken in vain. I
have got to do Something. What I have got to
do, before all other things, is to trace out the
meaning of this paper, for the sake of the Good
Name that has no one else to put it right or
keep it right. And still, for the sake of the Good
Name, and my father's memory, not a word of
this writing must be breathed to my mother, or
to Kitty, or to any human creature. You agree
in this?"

"I don't know what they'll think of us,
below," said the captain, "but for certain I can't
oppose it. Now, as to tracing. How will you
do?"

They both, as by consent, bent over the paper
again, and again carefully puzzled out the whole
of the writing.

"I make out that this would stand, if all the
writing was here, 'Inquire among the old men
living there, for'—some one. Most like, you'll
go to this village named here?" said the captain,
musing, with his finger on the name.

"Yes! And Mr. Tregarthen is a Cornishman,
and—to be sure!—comes from Lanrean."