replied Ham, ‘all’s told a’most in them words, “Em’ly, Em’ly, for Christ’s sake, have a woman’s heart towards me.

I was once like you!” She wanted to speak to Em’ly. Em’ly couldn’t speak to her theer, for her loving uncle was come home, and he wouldn’t — no, Mas’r Davy,’ said Ham, with great earnestness, ‘he couldn’t, kind-natur’d, tender-hearted as he is, see them two together, side by side, for all the treasures that’s wrecked in the sea.’

I felt how true this was.

I knew it, on the instant, quite as well as Ham.

‘So Em’ly writes in pencil on a bit of paper,’ he pursued,