I would have liked to thrash him.
"If I were a lad like you, Halcro," she continued, "it's not long I
would bide at Crua Breck. I would run away to sea. But what can a
helpless lassie do? Nobody has a good word to say for my father
since the Curlew was lost, and--I canna help it--I hae just as
great an ill will at him as anybody else has."
"They say that it was all through Carver that my father was
drowned," I said.
"Tell me, Halcro, what was the quarrel between your father and
mine? What way did it come about?"
"Well, I canna tell ye the ins and outs o' it all, but my father
had some secret about Carver, and Carver was aye afraid o' him. You
see, Thora, folks say that when a man saves another from the sea,
there's sure to be a quarrel between them. And my father saved
Carver Kinlay--not, perhaps, from the sea, but he saved his life."
"How was that, Halcro?"
"It was when you were a bairn, Thora. A ship was wrecked here on
the Gaulton rocks, and all your family were aboard. Your mother and
Tom were picked up by the Curlew, but Carver and you werena found
for some days after the wreck. My father found you both in a cave,
down in the cliff, and if it hadna been for him, I suppose you
wouldna be here now, Thora, to say that Carver had beaten you."
"That's a strange thing you're telling me, Halcro.
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