"But do you know what Fellness is like?" persisted Dick. "There ain't no shops at all--only one, where they sells flour, and bread, and 'bacca, and tea, and sugar, and soap. They has meat there sometimes; but I never sees no books, and I don't believe they ever has 'em there," concluded the boy.
"Perhaps they keeps 'em in a box where you can't see 'em," suggested Tiny, who was very unwilling to relinquish her hope.
"Pigs might fly, and they will when they sells books at Fellness," remarked Dick.
"Where does Harry Hayes get his from?" suddenly asked the girl; and at the same moment she espied a speck on the horizon, which she decided was a fisherman's boat. "He's coming, Dick, dad's coming," she exclaimed. "Make haste--make haste and fill up the baskets;" and she tore away at the seaweed, piling it into the baskets as fast as her small hands would permit. "Now we'll carry one down," she said, taking hold of the handle. "Catch hold, Dick;" for she wanted to be at the edge of the sands by the time the boat touched the shore.
But Dick was in no such hurry to meet his father. "There's plenty of time," he said, leisurely untying a knot in a piece of string.
"No there isn't, Dick; don't you know I'm going to Fellness in the boat."
"But you're afraid," said the boy; "ain't father tried to coax you lots o' times to go out with him, and yer never would? You'll just get to the edge, and when yer sees it rock a bit yer'll run away."
"No, I won't, Dick, this time," said the little girl. But as she spoke a shiver of fear and dread ran through her frame at the thought of the swaying boat.
Dick saw it, and laughed. "Didn't I tell yer you was afraid," he said, in a mocking tone; "what's the good of going down there, when you're frightened?"
"But I want a book, Dick; I must learn to read, and find out what we want to know. Oh, do make haste!" she added, as she saw the boat approaching the shore.
Dick was still laughing, but he helped her carry the basket, though he teased her as they went along about being frightened. They got across the sands with their samphire, just as Coomber and Bob were springing ashore.
"Oh, daddy, take me with yer to Fellness," called Tiny, shutting her eyes as she spoke that she might not see the treacherous waves and the swaying boat.