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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts, by A. T.
+Quiller-Couch
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts
+
+Author: A. T. Quiller-Couch
+
+Release Date: October 19, 2004  [eBook #13799]
+[Most recently updated October 23, 2006]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD FIRES AND PROFITABLE GHOSTS***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Lionel G. Sear
+
+
+
+OLD FIRES AND PROFITABLE GHOSTS.
+
+A Book of Stories
+
+A. T. QUILLER-COUCH.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+The stories in this book are of _revenants_: persons who either in
+spirit or in body revisit old scenes, return upon old selves or old
+emotions, or relate a message from a world beyond perception.  "Which?"
+was suggested by a passage in Hawthorne's Note-books, where he proposes
+a story or sketch the scene of which is "to be laid within the light of
+a street lantern; the time, when the lamp is near going out; and the
+catastrophe to be simultaneous with the last flickering gleam."
+"The Lady of the Ship" is very nearly historical.  "Prisoners of War"
+rests on the actual adventures of two St. Ives men, Thomas Williams and
+John Short, in the years 1804-1814.  "Frozen Margit" and "The Seventh
+Man" have--if not their originals--at least their suggestions in fact.
+
+One of the tales, "Once Aboard the Lugger," is itself a _revenant_.
+After writing it in the form here presented, I took advice and gave it
+another, under the title of "Ia."  Yet some whose opinion I value prefer
+the original, and to satisfy them (though I think them wrong) it is
+reprinted; not with intent to pad out the volume.  But my readers are
+too generous to need the assurance.
+
+Q.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+I.     OCEANUS.
+
+II.    THE SEVENTH MAN.
+
+III.   THE ROOM OF MIRRORS.
+
+IV.    A PAIR OF HANDS.
+
+V.     THE LADY OF THE SHIP.
+
+VI.    FROZEN MARGIT.
+
+VII.   THE SINGULAR ADVENTURE OF A SMALL FREE-TRADER.
+
+VIII.  THE MYSTERY OF JOSEPH LAQUEDEM.
+
+IX.    PRISONERS OF WAR.
+
+X.     A TOWN'S MEMORY.
+
+XI.    THE LADY OF THE RED ADMIRALS.
+
+XII.   THE PENANCE OF JOHN EMMET.
+
+XIII.  ELISHA.
+
+XIV.   "ONCE ABOARD THE LUGGER".
+
+XV.    WHICH?
+
+
+
+
+
+OCEANUS
+
+I
+
+My Dear Violet,--So you "gather from the tone of two or three recent
+letters that my spirit is creeping back to light and warmth again"?
+Well, after a fashion you are right.  I shall never laugh again as I
+used to laugh before Harry's death.  The taste has gone out of that
+carelessness, and I turn even from the remembrance of it.  But I can be
+cheerful, with a cheerfulness which has found the centre of gravity.
+I am myself again, as people say.  After months of agitation in what
+seemed to be chaos the lost atom has dropped back to its place in the
+scheme of things, and even aspires (poor mite!) to do its infinitesimal
+business intelligently.  So might a mote in a sunbeam feel itself at one
+with God!
+
+But when you assume that my recovery has been a gradual process, you are
+wrong.  You will think me more than ever deranged; but I assure you that
+it has been brought about, not by long strivings, but suddenly--without
+preparation of mine--_and by the immediate hand of our dead brother_.
+
+Yes; you shall have the whole tale.  The first effect of the news of
+Harry's death in October last was simply to stun me.  You may remember
+how once, years ago when we were children, we rode home together across
+the old Racecourse after a long day's skating, our skates swinging at
+our saddle-bows; how Harry challenged us to a gallop; and how, midway,
+the roan mare slipped down neck over crop on the frozen turf and hurled
+me clean against the face of a stone dyke.  I had been thrown from
+horseback more than once before, but somehow had always found the earth
+fairly elastic.  So I had griefs before Harry died and took some rebound
+of hope from each: but that cast repeated in a worse degree the old
+shock--the springless brutal jar--of the stone dyke.  With him the sun
+went out of my sky.
+
+I understand that this torpor is quite common with men and women
+suddenly bereaved.  I believe that a whole week passed before my brain
+recovered any really vital motion; and then such feeble thought as I
+could exert was wholly occupied with the desperate stupidity of the
+whole affair.  If God were indeed shaping the world to any end, if any
+design of His underlay the activities of men, what insensate waste to
+quench such a heart and brain as Harry's!--to nip, as it seemed out of
+mere blundering wantonness, a bud which had begun to open so generously:
+to sacrifice that youth and strength, that comeliness, that enthusiasm,
+and all for nothing!  Had some campaign claimed him, had he been spent
+to gain a citadel or defend a flag, I had understood.  But that he
+should be killed on a friendly mission; attacked in ignorance by those
+East Coast savages while bearing gifts to their king;  deserted by the
+porters whose comfort (on their own confession) he had studied
+throughout the march; left to die, to be tortured, mutilated--and all
+for no possible good: these things I could not understand.  At the end
+he might have escaped; but as he caught hold of his saddle by the band
+between the holsters, it parted: it was not leather, but faced paper,
+the job of some cheating contractor.  I thought of this, too.  And Harry
+had been through Chitral!
+
+But though a man may hate, he cannot easily despise God for long.
+"He is great--but wasteful," said the American.  We are the dust on His
+great hands, and fly as He claps them carelessly in the pauses of His
+work.  Yet this theory would not do at all: for the unlucky particles
+are not dust, not refuse, but exquisite and exquisitely fashioned,
+designed to _live_, and to every small function of life adapted with the
+minutest care.  There were nights indeed when, walking along the shore
+where we had walked together on the night before Harry left England and
+looking from the dark waters which divided me from his grave up to the
+nightly moon and to the stars around her, I could well believe God
+wasteful of little things.  Sirius flashing low, Orion's belt with the
+great nebula swinging like a pendant of diamonds; the ruby stars,
+Betelgueux and Aldebaran--my eyes went up beyond these to Perseus
+shepherding the Kids westward along the Milky way.  From the right
+Andromeda flashed signals to him: and above sat Cassiopeia, her mother,
+resting her jewelled wrists on the arms of her throne.  Low in the east
+Jupiter trailed his satellites in the old moon's path.  As they all
+moved, silent, looking down on me out of the hollow spaces of the night,
+I could believe no splendid waste too costly for their perfection: and
+the Artificer who hung them there after millions of years of patient
+effort, if more intelligible than a God who produced them suddenly at
+will, certainly not less divine.  But walking the same shore by daylight
+I recognised that the shells, the mosses, the flowers I trampled on,
+were, each in its way, as perfect as those great stars: that on these--
+and on Harry--as surely as on the stars--God had spent, if not infinite
+pains, then at least so superlative a wisdom that to conceive of them as
+wastage was to deny the mind which called them forth.
+
+There they were: and that He who had skill to create them could blunder
+in using them was simply incredible.
+
+But this led to worse: for having to admit the infallible design, I now
+began to admire it as an exquisite scheme of evil, and to accuse God of
+employing supreme knowledge and skill to gratify a royal lust of
+cruelty.  For a month and more this horrible theory justified itself in
+all innocent daily sights.  Throughout my country walks I "saw blood."
+I heard the rabbit run squeaking before the weasel; I watched the
+butcher crow working steadily down the hedge.  If I turned seaward I
+looked beneath the blue and saw the dog-fish gnawing on the whiting.
+If I walked in the garden I surprised the thrush dragging worms from the
+turf, the cat slinking on the nest, the spider squatting in ambush.
+Behind the rosy face of every well-nourished child I saw a lamb gazing
+up at the butcher's knife.  My dear Violet, that was a hideous time!
+
+And just then by chance a book fell into my hands--Lamartine's _Chute
+d'un Ange_.   Do you know the Seventh and Tenth Visions of that poem,
+which describe the favourite amusements of the Men-gods?  Before the
+Deluge, beyond the rude tents of the nomad shepherds, there rose city
+upon city of palaces built of jasper and porphyry, splendid and utterly
+corrupt; inhabited by men who called themselves gods and explored the
+subtleties of all sciences to minister to their vicious pleasures.
+At ease on soft couches, in hanging gardens set with fountains, these
+beings feasted with every refinement of cruelty.  Kneeling slaves were
+their living tables; while for their food--
+
+    Tous les oiseaux de l'air, tous les poissons de l'onde,
+    Tout ce qui vole ou nage ou rampe dans le monde,
+    Mourant pour leur plaisir des plus cruels trepas
+    De sanglantes savours composent leurs repas. . . .
+
+In these lines I believed that I discerned the very God of the universe,
+the God whom men worship--
+
+    Dans les infames jeux de leur divin loisir
+    Le supplice de l'homme est leur premier plaisir.
+    Pour que leur oeil feroce a l'envi s'en repaisse
+    Des bourreaux devant eux en immolent sans cesse.
+    Tantot ils font lutter, dans des combats affreux,
+    L'homme contre la brute et les hommes entre eux,
+    Aux longs ruisseaux de sang qui coulent de la veine,
+    Aux palpitations des membres sur l'arene,
+    Se levant a demi de leurs lits de repos
+    Des frissons de plaisir fremissent sur leurs peaux.
+    Le cri de la torture est leur douce harmonie,
+    Et leur oeil dans son oeil boit sa lente agonie.
+
+I charged the Supreme Power with a cruelty deliberate, ruthless, serene.
+Nero the tyrant once commanded a representation in grim earnest of the
+Flight of Icarus; and the unhappy boy who took the part, at his first
+attempt to fly, fell headlong beside the Emperor's couch and spattered
+him with blood and brains.  For the Emperor, says Suetonius, _perraro
+praesidere, ceterum accubans, parvis primum foraminibus, deinde toto
+podio adaperto, spectare consuerat_.  So I believed that on the stage of
+this world men agonised for the delight of one cruel intelligence which
+watched from behind the curtain of a private box.
+
+
+II
+
+In this unhappy condition of mind, then, I was lying in my library chair
+here at Sevenhays, at two o'clock on the morning of January 4th.  I had
+just finished another reading of the Tenth Vision and had tossed my book
+into the lap of an armchair opposite.  Fire and lamp were burning
+brightly.  The night outside was still and soundless, with a touch of
+frost.
+
+I lay there, retracing in thought the circumstances of Harry's last
+parting from me, and repeating to myself a scrap here and there from the
+three letters he wrote on his way--the last of them, full of high
+spirits, received a full three weeks after the telegram which announced
+his death.  There was a passage in this last letter describing a
+wonderful ride he had taken alone and by moonlight on the desert; a ride
+(he protested) which wanted nothing of perfect happiness but me, his
+friend, riding beside him to share his wonder.  There was a sentence
+which I could not recall precisely, and I left my chair and was crossing
+the room towards the drawer in the writing-table where I kept his
+letters, when I heard a trampling of hoofs on the gravel outside, and
+then my Christian name called--with distinctness, but not at all loudly.
+
+I went to the window, which was unshuttered; drew up the blind and flung
+up the sash.  The moon, in its third quarter and about an hour short of
+its meridian, shone over the deodars upon the white gravel.  And there,
+before the front door, sat Harry on his sorrel mare Vivandiere, holding
+my own Grey Sultan ready bridled and saddled.  He was dressed in his old
+khaki riding suit, and his face, as he sat askew in his saddle and
+looked up towards my window, wore its habitual and happy smile.
+
+Now, call this and what follows a dream, vision, hallucination, what you
+will; but understand, please, that from the first moment, so far as I
+considered the matter at all, I had never the least illusion that this
+was Harry in flesh and blood.  I knew quite well all the while that
+Harry was dead and his body in his grave.  But, soul or phantom--
+whatever relation to Harry this might bear--it had come to me, and the
+great joy of that was enough for the time.  There let us leave the
+question.  I closed the window, went upstairs to my dressing-room, drew
+on my riding-boots and overcoat, found cap, gloves, and riding-crop, and
+descended to the porch.
+
+Harry, as I shall call him, was still waiting there on the off side of
+Grey Sultan, the farther side from the door.  There could be no doubt,
+at any rate, that the grey was real horseflesh and blood, though he
+seemed unusually quiet after two days in stall.  Harry freed him as I
+mounted, and we set off together at a walk, which we kept as far as the
+gate.
+
+Outside we took the westward road, and our horses broke into a trot.
+As yet we had not exchanged a word; but now he asked a question or two
+about his people and his friends; kindly, yet most casually, as one
+might who returns after a week's holidaying.  I answered as well as I
+could, with trivial news of their health.  His mother had borne the
+winter better than usual--to be sure, there had been as yet no cold
+weather to speak of; but she and Ethel intended, I believed, to start
+for the south of France early in February.  He inquired about you.
+His comments were such as a man makes on hearing just what he expects to
+hear, or knows beforehand.  And for some time it seemed to be tacitly
+taken for granted between us that I should ask him no questions.
+
+"As for me--" I began, after a while.
+
+He checked the mare's pace a little.  "I know," he said, looking
+straight ahead between her ears; then, after a pause, "it has been a bad
+time for you, You are in a bad way altogether.  That is why I came."
+
+"But it was for _you!_" I blurted out.  "Harry, if only I had known why
+_you_ were taken--and what it was to _you!_"
+
+He turned his face to me with the old confident comforting smile.
+
+"Don't you trouble about _that.  That's_ nothing to make a fuss about.
+Death?" he went on musing--our horses had fallen to a walk again--
+"It looks you in the face a moment: you put out your hands: you touch--
+and so it is gone.  My dear boy, it isn't for us that you need worry."
+
+"For whom, then?"
+
+"Come," said he, and he shook Vivandiere into a canter.
+
+
+
+III
+
+I cannot remember precisely at what point in our ride the country had
+ceased to be familiar.  But by-and-by we were climbing the lower slopes
+of a great down which bore no resemblance to the pastoral country around
+Sevenhays.  We had left the beaten road for short turf--apparently of a
+copper-brown hue, but this may have been the effect of the moonlight.
+The ground rose steadily, but with an easy inclination, and we climbed
+with the wind at our backs; climbed, as it seemed, for an hour, or maybe
+two, at a footpace, keeping silence.  The happiness of having Harry
+beside me took away all desire for speech.
+
+This at least was my state of mind as we mounted the long lower slopes
+of the down.  But in time the air, hitherto so exhilarating, began to
+oppress my lungs, and the tranquil happiness to give way to a vague
+discomfort and apprehension.
+
+"What is this noise of water running?"
+
+I reined up Grey Sultan as I put the question.  At the same moment it
+occurred to me that this sound of water, distant and continuous, had
+been running in my ear for a long while.
+
+Harry, too, came to a halt.  With a sweep of the arm that embraced the
+dim landscape around and ahead, he quoted softly--
+
+    en detithei potamoio mega spenos Okeanoio
+    antyga par pymaten sakeos pyka poietoio . . . .
+
+and was silent again.
+
+I recalled at once and distinctly the hot summer morning ten years back,
+when we had prepared that passage of the Eighteenth Book together in our
+study at Clifton; I at the table, Harry lolling in the cane-seated
+armchair with the Liddell and Scott open on his knees; outside, the
+sunny close and the fresh green of the lime-trees.
+
+Now that I looked more attentively the bare down, on which we climbed
+like flies, did indeed resemble a vast round shield, about the rim of
+which this unseen water echoed.  And the resemblance grew more startling
+when, a mile or so farther on our way, as the grey dawn overtook us,
+Harry pointed upwards and ahead to a small boss or excrescence now
+lifting itself above the long curve of the horizon.
+
+At first I took it for a hummock or tumulus.  Then, as the day whitened
+about us, I saw it to be a building--a tall, circular barrack not unlike
+the Colosseum.  A question shaped itself on my lips, but something in
+Harry's manner forbade it.  His gaze was bent steadily forward, and I
+kept my wonder to myself, and also the oppression of spirit which had
+now grown to something like physical torture.
+
+When first the great barrack broke into sight we must have been at least
+two miles distant.  I kept my eyes fastened on it as we approached, and
+little by little made out the details of its architecture.  From base to
+summit--which appeared to be roofless--six courses of many hundred
+arches ran around the building, one above the other; and between each
+pair a course, as it seemed, of plain worked stone, though I afterwards
+found it to be sculptured in low relief.  The arches were cut in deep
+relief and backed with undressed stone.  The lowest course of all,
+however, was quite plain, having neither arches nor frieze; but at
+intervals corresponding to the eight major points of the compass--so far
+as I who saw but one side of it could judge--pairs of gigantic stone
+figures supported archways pierced in the wall; or sluices, rather,
+since from every archway but one a full stream of water issued and
+poured down the sides of the hill.  The one dry archway was that which
+faced us with open gate, and towards which Harry led the way; for
+oppression and terror now weighted my hand as with lead upon Grey
+Sultan's rein.
+
+Harry, however, rode forward resolutely, dismounted almost in the very
+shadow of the great arch, and waited, smoothing his mare's neck.
+But for the invitation in his eyes, which were solemn, yet without a
+trace of fear, I had never dared that last hundred yards.  For above the
+rush of waters I heard now a confused sound within the building--the
+thud and clanking of heavy machinery, and at intervals a human groan;
+and looking up I saw that the long friezes in bas-relief represented men
+and women tortured and torturing with all conceivable variety of method
+and circumstance--flayed, racked, burned, torn asunder, loaded with
+weights, pinched with hot irons, and so on without end.  And it added to
+the horror of these sculptures that while the limbs and even the dress
+of each figure were carved with elaborate care and nicety of detail, the
+faces of all--of those who applied the torture and of those who looked
+on, as well as of the sufferers themselves--were left absolutely blank.
+On the same plan the two Titans beside the great archway had no faces.
+The sculptor had traced the muscles of each belly in a constriction of
+anguish, and had suggested this anguish again in moulding the neck, even
+in disposing the hair of the head; but the neck supported, and the locks
+fell around, a space of smooth stone without a feature.
+
+Harry allowed me no time to feed on these horrors.  Signing to me to
+dismount and leave Grey Sultan at the entrance, he led me through the
+long archway or tunnel.  At the end we paused again, he watching, while
+I drew difficult breath. . . .
+
+I saw a vast amphitheatre of granite, curving away on either hand and
+reaching up, tier on tier, till the tiers melted in the grey sky
+overhead.  The lowest tier stood twenty feet above my head; yet curved
+with so lordly a perspective that on the far side of the arena, as I
+looked across, it seemed almost level with the ground; while the human
+figures about the great archway yonder were diminished to the size of
+ants about a hole. . . For there were human figures busy in the arena,
+though not a soul sat in any of the granite tiers above.  A million eyes
+had been less awful than those empty benches staring down in the cold
+dawn; bench after bench repeating the horror of the featureless carvings
+by the entrance-gate--repeating it in series without end, and unbroken,
+save at one point midway along the semicircle on my right, where the
+imperial seat stood out, crowned like a catafalque with plumes of purple
+horse-hair, and screened close with heavy purple hangings.  I saw these
+curtains shake once or twice in the morning wind.
+
+The floor of this amphitheatre I have spoken of as an arena; but as a
+matter of fact it was laid with riveted sheets of copper that recalled
+the dead men's shelves in the Paris _morgue_.  The centre had been
+raised some few feet higher than the circumference, or possibly the
+whole floor took its shape from the rounded hill of which it was the
+apex; and from an open sluice immediately beneath the imperial throne a
+flood of water gushed with a force that carried it straight to this
+raised centre, over which it ran and rippled, and so drained back into
+the scuppers at the circumference.  Before reaching the centre it broke
+and swirled around a row of what appeared to be tall iron boxes or
+cages, set directly in face of the throne.  But for these ugly boxes the
+whole floor was empty.  To and from these the little human figures were
+hurrying, and from these too proceeded the thuds and panting and the
+frequent groans that I had heard outside.
+
+While I stood and gazed, Harry stepped forward into the arena.
+"This also?" I whispered.
+
+He nodded, and led the way over the copper floor, where the water ran
+high as our ankles and again was drained off, until little dry spaces
+grew like maps upon the surface, and in ten seconds were flooded again.
+He led me straight to the cages, and I saw that while the roof and three
+sides of these were of sheet iron, the fourth side, which faced the
+throne, lay open.  And I saw--in the first cage, a man scourged with
+rods; in the second, a body twisted on the rack; in the third, a woman
+with a starving babe, and a fellow that held food to them and withdrew
+it quickly (the torturers wore masks on their faces, and whenever blood
+flowed some threw handfuls of sawdust, and blood and sawdust together
+were carried off by the running water); in the fourth cage, a man tied,
+naked and helpless, whom a masked torturer pelted with discs of gold,
+heavy and keen-edged; in the fifth a brasier with irons heating, and a
+girl's body crouched in a corner--
+
+"I will see no more!" I cried, and turned towards the great purple
+canopy.  High over it the sun broke yellow on the climbing tiers of
+seats.  "Harry! someone is watching behind those curtains!  Is it--HE?"
+
+Harry bent his head.
+
+"But this is all that I believed!  This is Nero, and ten times worse
+than Nero!  Why did you bring me here?"  I flung out my hand towards the
+purple throne, and finding myself close to a fellow who scattered
+sawdust with both hands, made a spring to tear his mask away.  But Harry
+stretched out an arm.
+
+"That will not help you," he said.  "The man has no face."
+
+"No face!"
+
+"He once had a face, but it has perished.  His was the face of these
+sufferers.  Look at them."
+
+I looked from cage to cage, and now saw that indeed all these
+sufferers--men and women--had but one face: the same wrung brow, the
+same wistful eyes, the same lips bitten in anguish.  I knew the face.
+_We all know it_.
+
+"His own Son!  O devil rather than God!"  I fell on my knees in the
+gushing water and covered my eyes.
+
+"Stand up, listen and look!" said Harry's voice.
+
+"What can I see?  He hides behind that curtain."
+
+"And the curtain?"
+
+"It shakes continually."
+
+"_That is with His sobs_.  Listen!  What of the water?"
+
+"It runs from the throne and about the floor.  It washes off the blood."
+
+"That water is His tears.  It flows hence down the hill, and washes all
+the shores of earth."
+
+Then as I stood silent, conning the eddies at my feet, for the first
+time Harry took my hand.
+
+"Learn this," he said.  "There is no suffering in the world but
+ultimately comes to be endured by God."
+
+Saying this, he drew me from the spot; gently, very gently led me away;
+but spoke again as we were about to pass into the shadow of the arch--
+
+"Look once back: for a moment only."
+
+I looked.  The curtains of the imperial seat were still drawn close, but
+in a flash I saw the tiers beside it, and around, and away up to the
+sunlit crown of the amphitheatre, thronged with forms in white raiment.
+And all these forms leaned forward and bowed their faces on their arms
+and wept.
+
+So we passed out beneath the archway.  Grey Sultan stood outside, and as
+I mounted him the gate clashed behind. . . .
+
+
+IV
+
+I turned as it clashed.  And the gate was just the lodge-gate of
+Sevenhays.  And Grey Sultan was trampling the gravel of our own drive.
+The morning sun slanted over the laurels on my right, and while I
+wondered, the stable clock struck eight.
+
+The rest I leave to you; nor shall try to explain.  I only know that,
+vision or no vision, my soul from that hour has gained a calm it never
+knew before.  The sufferings of my fellows still afflict me; but always,
+if I stand still and listen, in my own room, or in a crowded street, or
+in a waste spot among the moors, I can hear those waters moving round
+the world--moving on their "priest-like task "--those lustral divine
+tears which are Oceanus.
+
+
+
+THE SEVENTH MAN.
+
+
+In a one-roomed hut, high within the Arctic Circle, and only a little
+south of the eightieth parallel, six men were sitting--much as they had
+sat, evening after evening, for months.  They had a clock, and by it
+they divided the hours into day and night.  As a matter of fact, it was
+always night.  But the clock said half-past eight, and they called the
+time evening.
+
+The hut was built of logs, with an inner skin of rough match-boarding,
+daubed with pitch.  It measured seventeen feet by fourteen; but opposite
+the door four bunks--two above and two below--took a yard off the
+length, and this made the interior exactly square.  Each of these bunks
+had two doors, with brass latches on the inner side; so that the owner,
+if he chose, could shut himself up and go to sleep in a sort of
+cupboard.  But as a rule, he closed one of them only--that by his feet.
+The other swung back, with its brass latch showing.  The men kept these
+latches in a high state of polish.
+
+Across the angle of the wall, to the left of the door, and behind it
+when it opened, three hammocks were slung, one above another.  No one
+slept in the uppermost.
+
+But the feature of the hut was its fireplace; and this was merely a
+square hearth-stone, raised slightly above the floor, in the middle of
+the room.  Upon it, and upon a growing mountain of soft grey ash, the
+fire burned always.  It had no chimney, and so the men lost none of its
+warmth.  The smoke ascended steadily and spread itself under the
+blackened beams and roof-boards in dense blue layers.  But about
+eighteen inches beneath the spring of the roof there ran a line of small
+trap-doors with sliding panels, to admit the cold air, and below these
+the room was almost clear of smoke.  A newcomer's eyes might have
+smarted, but these men stitched their clothes and read in comfort.
+To keep the up-draught steady they had plugged every chink and crevice
+in the match-boarding below the trap-doors with moss, and payed the
+seams with pitch.  The fire they fed from a stack of drift and wreck
+wood piled to the right of the door, and fuel for the fetching strewed
+the frozen beach outside--whole trees notched into lengths by lumberers'
+axes and washed thither from they knew not what continent.  But the
+wreck-wood came from their own ship, the _J. R. MacNeill_, which had
+brought them from Dundee.
+
+They were Alexander Williamson, of Dundee, better known as The Gaffer;
+David Faed, also of Dundee; George Lashman, of Cardiff; Long Ede, of
+Hayle, in Cornwall; Charles Silchester, otherwise The Snipe, of Ratcliff
+Highway or thereabouts; and Daniel Cooney, shipped at Tromso six weeks
+before the wreck, an Irish-American by birth and of no known address.
+
+The Gaffer reclined in his bunk, reading by the light of a smoky and
+evil-smelling lamp.  He had been mate of the _J. R. MacNeill_, and was
+now captain as well as patriarch of the party.  He possessed three
+books--the Bible, Milton's "Paradise Lost," and an odd volume of
+"The Turkish Spy."  Just now he was reading "The Turkish Spy."
+The lamplight glinted on the rim of his spectacles and on the silvery
+hairs in his beard, the slack of which he had tucked under the edge of
+his blanket.  His lips moved as he read, and now and then he broke off
+to glance mildly at Faed and the Snipe, who were busy beside the fire
+with a greasy pack of cards; or to listen to the peevish grumbling of
+Lashman in the bunk below him.  Lashman had taken to his bed six weeks
+before with scurvy, and complained incessantly; and though they hardly
+knew it, these complaints were wearing his comrades' nerves to
+fiddle-strings--doing the mischief that cold and bitter hard work and
+the cruel loneliness had hitherto failed to do.  Long Ede lay stretched
+by the fire in a bundle of skins, reading in his only book, the Bible,
+open now at the Song of Solomon.  Cooney had finished patching a pair of
+trousers, and rolled himself in his hammock, whence he stared at the
+roof and the moonlight streaming up there through the little trap-doors
+and chivying the layers of smoke.  Whenever Lashman broke out into fresh
+quaverings of self-pity, Cooney's hands opened and shut again, till the
+nails dug hard into the palm.  He groaned at length, exasperated beyond
+endurance.
+
+"Oh, stow it, George!  Hang it all, man! . . ."
+
+He checked himself, sharp and short: repentant, and rebuked by the
+silence of the others.  They were good seamen all, and tender dealing
+with a sick shipmate was part of their code.
+
+Lashman's voice, more querulous than ever, cut into the silence like a
+knife--
+
+"That's it.  You've thought it for weeks, and now you say it.
+I've knowed it all along.  I'm just an encumbrance, and the sooner
+you're shut of me the better, says you.  You needn't to fret.  I'll be
+soon out of it; out of it--out there, alongside of Bill--"
+
+"Easy there, matey."  The Snipe glanced over his shoulder and laid his
+cards face downward.  "Here, let me give the bed a shake up.  It'll ease
+yer."
+
+"It'll make me quiet, you mean.  Plucky deal you care about easin' me,
+any of yer!"
+
+"Get out with yer nonsense! Dan didn' mean it."  The Snipe slipped an
+arm under the invalid's head and rearranged the pillow of skins and
+gunny-bags.
+
+"He didn't, didn't he?  Let him say it then . . ."
+
+The Gaffer read on, his lips moving silently.  Heaven knows how he had
+acquired this strayed and stained and filthy little demi-octavo with the
+arms of Saumarez on its book-plate--"The Sixth Volume of Letters writ by
+a Turkish Spy, who liv'd Five-and-Forty Years Undiscovered at Paris:
+Giving an Impartial Account to the _Divan_ at _Constantinople_ of the
+most remarkable Transactions of Europe, And discovering several
+_Intrigues_ and _Secrets_ of the _Christian_ Courts (especially of that
+of _France_)," etc., etc.  "Written originally in _Arabick_.  Translated
+into _Italian_, and from thence into _English_ by the Translator of the
+First Volume.  The Eleventh Edition.  London: Printed for G. Strahan,
+S. Ballard"--and a score of booksellers--"MDCCXLI." Heavens knows why he
+read it; since he understood about one-half, and admired less than
+one-tenth.  The Oriental reflections struck him as mainly blasphemous.
+But the Gaffer's religious belief marked down nine-tenths of mankind for
+perdition: which perhaps made him tolerant.  At any rate, he read on
+gravely between  the puffs of his short clay--
+
+    "_On the 19th of this Moon, the King and the whole Court were
+    present at a Ballet, representing the grandeur of the_ French
+    _monarchy.  About the Middle of the Entertainment, there was an
+    Antique Dance perform d by twelve Masqueraders, in the suppos'd
+    form of_ Daemons.  _But before they had advanc'd far in their
+    Dance, they found an Interloper amongst 'em, who by encreasing
+    the Number to thirteen, put them quite out of their Measure:
+    For they practise every Step and Motion beforehand, till they are
+    perfect.  Being abash'd therefore at the unavoidable Blunders the
+    thirteenth Antique made them commit, they stood still like Fools,
+    gazing at one     another: None daring to unmask, or speak a Word;
+    for that would have put all the Spectators into a Disorder and
+    Confusion_.  Cardinal Mazarini _(who was the chief Contriver of these
+    Entertainments, to divert the King from more serious Thoughts) stood
+    close by the young Monarch, with the Scheme of the Ballet in his
+    Hand.  Knowing therefore that this Dance was to consist but of
+    twelve Antiques, and taking notice that there were actually
+    thirteen, he at first imputed it to some Mistake.  But, afterwards,
+    when he perceived the Confusion of the Dancers, he made a more
+    narrow Enquiry into the Cause of this Disorder.  To be brief, they
+    convinced the_ Cardinal _that it could be no Error of theirs, by a
+    kind of Demonstration, in that they had but twelve Antique Dresses
+    of that sort, which were made on purpose for this particular Ballet.
+    That which made it seem the greater Mystery was, that when they came
+    behind the Scenes to uncase, and examine the Matter, they found but
+    twelve Antiques, whereas on the Stage there were thirteen . . ._"
+
+"Let him say it.  Let him say he didn't mean it, the rotten Irishman!"
+
+Cooney flung a leg wearily over the side of his hammock, jerked himself
+out, and shuffled across to the sick man's berth.
+
+"Av coorse I didn' mane it.  It just took me, ye see, lyin' up yondher
+and huggin' me thoughts in this--wilderness.  I swear to ye, George: and
+ye'll just wet your throat to show there's no bad blood, and that ye
+belave me."  He took up a pannikin from the floor beside the bunk,
+pulled a hot iron from the fire, and stirred the frozen drink.
+The invalid turned his shoulder pettishly.  "I didn't mane it," Cooney
+repeated.  He set down the pannikin, and shuffled wearily back to his
+hammock.
+
+The Gaffer blew a long cloud and stared at the fire; at the smoke
+mounting and the grey ash dropping; at David Faed dealing the cards and
+licking his thumb between each.  Long Ede shifted from one cramped elbow
+to another and pushed his Bible nearer the blaze, murmuring, "Take us
+the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil our vines."
+
+"Full hand," the Snipe announced.
+
+"Ay." David Faed rolled the quid in his cheek. The cards were so thumbed
+and tattered that by the backs of them each player guessed pretty
+shrewdly what the other held.  Yet they went on playing night after
+night; the Snipe shrilly blessing or cursing his luck, the Scotsman
+phlegmatic as a bolster.
+
+"Play away, man.  What ails ye?" he asked.
+
+The Snipe had dropped both hands to his thighs and sat up, stiff and
+listening.
+
+"Whist!  Outside the door. . . ."
+
+All listened.  "I hear nothing," said David, after ten seconds.
+
+"Hush, man--listen!  There, again . . ."
+
+They heard now.  Cooney slipped down from his hammock, stole to the door
+and listened, crouching, with his ear close to the jamb.  The sound
+resembled breathing--or so he thought for a moment.  Then it seemed
+rather as if some creature were softly feeling about the door--fumbling
+its coating of ice and frozen snow.
+
+Cooney listened.  They all listened.  Usually, as soon as they stirred
+from the scorching circle of the fire, their breath came from them in
+clouds.  It trickled from them now in thin wisps of vapour.  They could
+almost hear the soft grey ash dropping on the hearth.
+
+A log spluttered.  Then the invalid's voice clattered in--
+
+"It's the bears--the bears!  They've come after Bill, and next it'll be
+my turn.  I warned you--I told you he wasn't deep enough.  O Lord, have
+mercy . . . mercy . . . !"  He pattered off into a prayer, his voice and
+teeth chattering.
+
+"Hush!" commanded the Gaffer gently; and Lashman choked on a sob.
+
+"It ain't bears," Cooney reported, still with his ear to the door.
+"Leastways . . . we've had bears before.  The foxes, maybe . . . let me
+listen."
+
+Long Ede murmured: "Take us the foxes, the little foxes . . ."
+
+"I believe you're right," the Gaffer announced cheerfully.  "A bear
+would sniff louder--though there's no telling.  The snow was falling an
+hour back, and I dessay 'tis pretty thick outside.  If 'tis a bear, we
+don't want him fooling on the roof, and I misdoubt the drift by the
+north corner is pretty tall by this time.  Is he there still?"
+
+"I felt something then . . . through the chink, here . . . like a warm
+breath.  It's gone now.  Come here, Snipe, and listen."
+
+"'Breath,' eh?  Did it _smell_ like bear?"
+
+"I don't know . . . I didn't smell nothing, to notice.  Here, put your
+head down, close."
+
+The Snipe bent his head.  And at that moment the door shook gently.
+All stared; and saw the latch move up, up . . . and falteringly descend
+on the staple.  They heard the click of it.
+
+The door was secured within by two stout bars.  Against these there had
+been no pressure.  The men waited in a silence that ached.  But the
+latch was not lifted again.
+
+The Snipe, kneeling, looked up at Cooney.  Cooney shivered and looked at
+David Faed.  Long Ede, with his back to the fire, softly shook his feet
+free of the rugs.  His eyes searched for the Gaffer's face.  But the old
+man had drawn back into the gloom of his bunk, and the lamplight shone
+only on a grey fringe of beard.  He saw Long Ede's look, though, and
+answered it quietly as ever.
+
+"Take a brace of guns aloft, and fetch us a look round.  Wait, if
+there's a chance of a shot.  The trap works.  I tried it this afternoon
+with the small chisel."
+
+Long Ede lit his pipe tied down the ear-pieces of his cap, lifted a
+light ladder off its staples, and set it against a roof-beam: then, with
+the guns under his arm, quietly mounted.  His head and shoulders wavered
+and grew vague to sight in the smoke-wreaths.  "Heard anything more?" he
+asked.  "Nothing since," answered the Snipe.  With his shoulder Long Ede
+pushed up the trap.  They saw his head framed in a panel of moonlight,
+with one frosty star above it.  He was wriggling through.  "Pitch him up
+a sleeping-bag, somebody," the Gaffer ordered, and Cooney ran with one.
+"Thank 'ee, mate," said Long Ede, and closed the trap.
+
+They heard his feet stealthily crunching the frozen stuff across the
+roof.  He was working towards the eaves over-lapping the door.
+Their breath tightened.  They waited for the explosion of his gun.
+None came.  The crunching began again: it was heard down by the very
+edge of the eaves.  It mounted to the blunt ridge overhead; then it
+ceased.
+
+"He will not have seen aught," David Faed muttered.
+
+"Listen, you.  Listen by the door again."  They talked in whispers.
+Nothing; there was nothing to be heard.  They crept back to the fire,
+and stood there warming themselves, keeping their eyes on the latch.
+It did not move.  After a while Cooney slipped off to his hammock; Faed
+to his bunk, alongside Lashman's.  The Gaffer had picked up his book
+again.  The Snipe laid a couple of logs on the blaze, and remained
+beside it, cowering, with his arms stretched out as if to embrace it.
+His shapeless shadow wavered up and down on the bunks behind him; and,
+across the fire, he still stared at the latch.
+
+Suddenly the sick man's voice quavered out--
+
+"It's not him they want--it's Bill!  They're after Bill, out there!
+That was Bill trying to get in. . . . Why didn't yer open?  It was Bill,
+I tell yer!"
+
+At the first word the Snipe had wheeled right-about-face, and stood now,
+pointing, and shaking like a man with ague.
+
+"Matey . . . for the love of God . . ."
+
+"I won't hush.  There's something wrong here to-night.  I can't sleep.
+It's Bill, I tell yer.  See his poor hammock up there shaking. . . ."
+
+Cooney tumbled out with an oath and a thud.  "Hush it, you white-livered
+swine!  Hush it, or by--"  His hand went behind him to his knife-sheath.
+
+"Dan Cooney"--the Gaffer closed his book and leaned out--"go back to
+your bed."
+
+"I won't, Sir.  Not unless--"
+
+"Go back."
+
+"Flesh and blood--"
+
+"Go back."  And for the third time that night Cooney went back.
+
+The Gaffer leaned a little farther over the ledge, and addressed the
+sick man.
+
+"George, I went to Bill's grave not six hours agone.  The snow on it
+wasn't even disturbed.  Neither beast nor man, but only God, can break
+up the hard earth he lies under.  I tell you that, and you may lay to
+it.  Now go to sleep."
+
+
+Long Ede crouched on the frozen ridge of the hut, with his feet in the
+sleeping-bag, his knees drawn up, and the two guns laid across them.
+The creature, whatever its name, that had tried the door, was nowhere to
+be seen; but he decided to wait a few minutes on the chance of a shot;
+that is, until the cold should drive him below.  For the moment the
+clear tingling air was doing him good.  The truth was Long Ede had begun
+to be afraid of himself, and the way his mind had been running for the
+last forty-eight hours upon green fields and visions of spring.
+As he put it to himself, something inside his head was melting.
+Biblical texts chattered within him like running brooks, and as they
+fleeted he could almost smell the blown meadow-scent.  "Take us the
+foxes, the little foxes . . . for our vines have tender grapes . . .
+A fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams from Lebanon
+. . . Awake, O north wind, and come, thou south . . . blow upon my
+garden, that the spices thereof may flow out . . ."  He was
+light-headed, and he knew it.  He must hold out.  They were all going
+mad; were, in fact, three parts crazed already, all except the Gaffer.
+And the Gaffer relied on him as his right-hand man.  One glimpse of the
+returning sun--one glimpse only--might save them yet.
+
+He gazed out over the frozen hills, and northward across the ice-pack.
+A few streaks of pale violet--the ghost of the Aurora--fronted the moon.
+He could see for miles.  Bear or fox, no living creature was in sight.
+But who could tell what might be hiding behind any one of a thousand
+hummocks?  He listened.  He heard the slow grinding of the ice-pack off
+the beach: only that.  "Take us the foxes, the little foxes. . ."
+
+This would never do.  He must climb down and walk briskly, or return to
+the hut.  Maybe there was a bear, after all, behind one of the hummocks,
+and a shot, or the chance of one, would scatter his head clear of these
+tom-fooling notions.  He would have a search round.
+
+What was that, moving . . . on a hummock, not five hundred yards away?
+He leaned forward to gaze.
+
+Nothing now: but he had seen something.  He lowered himself to the eaves
+by the north corner, and from the eaves to the drift piled there.
+The drift was frozen solid, but for a treacherous crust of fresh snow.
+His foot slipped upon this, and down he slid of a heap.
+
+Luckily he had been careful to sling the guns tightly at his back.
+He picked himself up, and unstrapping one, took a step into the bright
+moon-light to examine the nipples; took two steps: and stood
+stock-still.
+
+There, before him, on the frozen coat of snow, was a footprint.
+No: two, three, four--many footprints: prints of a naked human foot:
+right foot, left foot, both naked, and blood in each print--a little
+smear.
+
+It had come, then.  He was mad for certain.  He saw them: he put his
+fingers in them; touched the frozen blood.  The snow before the door was
+trodden thick with them--some going, some returning.
+
+"The latch . . . lifted . . ."  Suddenly he recalled the figure he had
+seen moving upon the hummock, and with a groan he set his face northward
+and gave chase.  Oh, he was mad for certain!  He ran like a madman--
+floundering, slipping, plunging in his clumsy moccasins.  "Take us the
+foxes, the little foxes . . . My beloved put in his hand by the hole of
+the door, and my bowels were moved for him . . . I charge you, O
+daughters of Jerusalem . . . I charge you . . . I charge you . . ."
+
+He ran thus for three hundred yards maybe, and then stopped as suddenly
+as he had started.
+
+His mates--they must not see these footprints, or they would go mad too:
+mad as he.  No, he must cover them up, all within sight of the hut.
+And to-morrow he would come alone, and cover those farther afield.
+Slowly he retraced his steps.  The footprints--those which pointed
+towards the hut and those which pointed away from it--lay close
+together; and he knelt before each, breaking fresh snow over the hollows
+and carefully hiding the blood.  And now a great happiness filled his
+heart; interrupted once or twice as he worked by a feeling that someone
+was following and watching him.  Once he turned northwards and gazed,
+making a telescope of his hands.  He saw nothing, and fell again to his
+long task.
+
+
+Within the hut the sick man cried softly to himself.  Faed, the Snipe,
+and Cooney slept uneasily, and muttered in their dreams.  The Gaffer lay
+awake, thinking.  After Bill, George Lashman; and after George? . . .
+Who next?  And who would be the last--the unburied one?  The men were
+weakening fast; their wits and courage coming down at the end with a
+rush.  Faed and Long Ede were the only two to be depended on for a day.
+The Gaffer liked Long Ede, who was a religious man.  Indeed he had a
+growing suspicion that Long Ede, in spite of some amiable laxities of
+belief, was numbered among the Elect: or might be, if interceded for.
+The Gaffer began to intercede for him silently; but experience had
+taught him that such "wrestlings," to be effective, must be noisy, and
+he dropped off to sleep with a sense of failure . . .
+
+The Snipe stretched himself, yawned, and awoke.  It was seven in the
+morning: time to prepare a cup of tea.  He tossed an armful of logs on
+the fire, and the noise awoke the Gaffer, who at once inquired for Long
+Ede.  He had not returned.  "Go you up to the roof.  The lad must be
+frozen."  The Snipe climbed the ladder, pushed open the trap, and came
+back, reporting that Long Ede was nowhere to be seen.  The old man
+slipped a jumper over his suits of clothing--already three deep--reached
+for a gun, and moved to the door.  "Take a cup of something warm to
+fortify," the Snipe advised.  "The kettle won't be five minutes
+boiling."  But the Gaffer pushed up the heavy bolts and dragged the door
+open.
+
+"What in the! . . .Here, bear a hand, lads!"
+
+Long Ede lay prone before the threshold, his out-stretched hands almost
+touching it, his moccasins already covered out of sight by the powdery
+snow which ran and trickled incessantly--trickled between his long,
+dishevelled locks, and over the back of his gloves, and ran in a thin
+stream past the Gaffer's feet.
+
+They carried him in and laid him on a heap of skins by the fire.
+They forced rum between his clenched teeth and beat his hands and feet,
+and kneaded and rubbed him.  A sigh fluttered on his lips: something
+between a sigh and a smile, half seen, half heard.  His eyes opened, and
+his comrades saw that it was really a smile.
+
+"Wot cheer, mate?"  It was the Snipe who asked.
+
+"I--I seen . . ."  The voice broke off, but he was smiling still.
+
+What had he seen?  Not the sun, surely!  By the Gaffer's reckoning the
+sun would not be due for a week or two yet: how many weeks he could not
+say precisely, and sometimes he was glad enough that he did not know.
+
+They forced him to drink a couple of spoonfuls of rum, and wrapped him
+up warmly.  Each man contributed some of his own bedding.  Then the
+Gaffer called to morning prayers, and the three sound men dropped on
+their knees with him.  Now, whether by reason of their joy at Long Ede's
+recovery, or because the old man was in splendid voice, they felt their
+hearts uplifted that morning with a cheerfulness they had not known for
+months.  Long Ede lay and listened dreamily while the passion of the
+Gaffer's thanksgiving shook the hut.  His gaze wandered over their bowed
+forms--"The Gaffer, David Faed, Dan Cooney, the Snipe, and--and George
+Lashman in his bunk, of course--and me."  But, then, _who was the
+seventh?_  He began to count.  "There's myself--Lashman, in his bunk--
+David Faed, the Gaffer, the Snipe, Dan Cooney . . . One, two, three,
+four--well, but that made _seven_.  Then who was the seventh?  Was it
+George who had crawled out of bed and was kneeling there?  Decidedly
+there were five kneeling.  No: there was George, plain enough, in his
+berth, and not able to move.  Then who was the stranger?  Wrong again:
+there was no stranger.  He knew all these men--they were his mates.
+Was it--Bill?  No, Bill was dead and buried: none of these was Bill, or
+like Bill.  Try again--One, two, three, four, five--and us two sick men,
+seven.  The Gaffer, David Faed, Dan Cooney--have I counted Dan twice?
+No, that's Dan, yonder to the right, and only one of him.  Five men
+kneeling, and two on their backs: that makes seven every time.  Dear
+God--suppose--"
+
+The Gaffer ceased, and in the act of rising from his knees, caught sight
+of Long Ede's face.  While the others fetched their breakfast-cans, he
+stepped over, and bent and whispered--
+
+"Tell me.  Ye've seen what?"
+
+"Seen?" Long Ede echoed.
+
+"Ay, seen what? Speak low--was it the sun?"
+
+"The s--"  But this time the echo died on his lips, and his face grew
+full of awe uncomprehending.  It frightened the Gaffer.
+
+"Ye'll be the better of a snatch of sleep," said he; and was turning to
+go, when Long Ede stirred a hand under the edge of his rugs.
+
+"Seven . . . count . . ." he whispered.
+
+"Lord have mercy upon us!" the Gaffer muttered to his beard as he moved
+away.  "Long Ede; gone crazed!"
+
+And yet, though an hour or two ago this had been the worst that could
+befall, the Gaffer felt unusually cheerful.  As for the others, they
+were like different men, all that day and through the three days that
+followed.  Even Lashman ceased to complain, and, unless their eyes
+played them a trick, had taken a turn for the better.  "I declare, if I
+don't feel like pitching to sing!" the Snipe announced on the second
+evening, as much to his own wonder as to theirs.  "Then why in thunder
+don't you strike up?" answered Dan Cooney, and fetched his concertina.
+The Snipe struck up, then and there--"Villikins and his Dinah"!
+What is more, the Gaffer looked up from his "Paradise Lost," and joined
+in the chorus.
+
+By the end of the second day, Long Ede was up and active again.  He went
+about with a dazed look in his eyes.  He was counting, counting to
+himself, always counting.  The Gaffer watched him furtively.
+
+Since his recovery, though his lips moved frequently, Long Ede had
+scarcely uttered a word.  But towards noon on the fourth day he said an
+extraordinary thing.
+
+"There's that sleeping-bag I took with me the other night.  I wonder if
+'tis on the roof still.  It will be froze pretty stiff by this.
+You might nip up and see, Snipe, and"--he paused--"if you find it, stow
+it up yonder on Bill's hammock."
+
+The Gaffer opened his mouth, but shut it again without speaking.
+The Snipe went up the ladder.
+
+A minute passed; and then they heard a cry from the roof--a cry that
+fetched them all trembling, choking, weeping, cheering, to the foot of
+the ladder.
+
+"Boys! boys!--the Sun!"
+
+
+Months later--it was June, and even George Lashman had recovered his
+strength--the Snipe came running with news of the whaling fleet.  And on
+the beach, as they watched the vessels come to anchor, Long Ede told the
+Gaffer his story.  "It was a hall--a hallu--what d'ye call it, I reckon.
+I was crazed, eh?"  The Gaffer's eyes wandered from a brambling hopping
+about the lichen-covered boulders, and away to the sea-fowl wheeling
+above the ships: and then came into his mind a tale he had read once in
+"The Turkish Spy."  "I wouldn't say just that," he answered slowly.
+
+"Anyway," said Long Ede, "I believe the Lord sent a miracle to us to
+save us all."
+
+"I wouldn't say just that, either," the Gaffer objected.  "I doubt it
+was meant just for you and me, and the rest were presairved, as you
+might say incidentally."
+
+
+
+THE ROOM OF MIRRORS
+
+
+A late hansom came swinging round the corner into Lennox Gardens,
+cutting it so fine that the near wheel ground against the kerb and
+jolted the driver in his little seat.  The jingle of bells might have
+warned me; but the horse's hoofs came noiselessly on the half-frozen
+snow, which lay just deep enough to hide where the pavement ended and
+the road began; and, moreover, I was listening to the violins behind the
+first-floor windows of the house opposite.  They were playing the
+"Wiener Blut."
+
+As it was, I had time enough and no more to skip back and get my toes
+out of the way.  The cabby cursed me.  I cursed him back so promptly and
+effectively that he had to turn in his seat for another shot.
+The windows of the house opposite let fall their light across his red
+and astonished face.  I laughed, and gave him another volley.  My head
+was hot, though my feet and hands were cold; and I felt equal to cursing
+down any cabman within the four-mile radius.  That second volley
+finished him.  He turned to his reins again and was borne away defeated;
+the red eyes of his lamps peering back at me like an angry ferret's.
+
+Up in the lighted room shadows of men and women crossed the blinds, and
+still the "Wiener Blut" went forward.
+
+The devil was in that waltz.  He had hold of the violins and was weaving
+the air with scents and visions--visions of Ascot and Henley; green
+lawns, gay sunshades, midsummer heat, cool rivers flowing, muslins
+rippled by light breezes; running horses and silken jackets; white
+tables heaped with roses and set with silver and crystal, jewelled
+fingers moving in the soft candle-light, bare necks bending, diamonds,
+odours, bubbles in the wine; blue water and white foam beneath the
+leaning shadow of sails; hot air flickering over stretches of moorland;
+blue again--Mediterranean blue--long facades, the din of bands and King
+Carnival parading beneath showers of blossom:--and all this noise and
+warmth and scent and dazzle flung out into the frozen street for a
+beggar's portion.  I had gone under.
+
+The door of the house opposite had been free to me once--and not six
+months ago; freer to me perhaps than to any other.  Did I long to pass
+behind it again?  I thrust both hands into my pockets for warmth, and my
+right hand knocked against something hard.  Yes . . . just once. . . .
+
+Suddenly the door opened.  A man stood on the threshold for a moment
+while the butler behind him arranged the collar of his fur overcoat.
+The high light in the portico flung the shadows of both down the crimson
+carpet laid on the entrance-steps.  Snow had fallen and covered the
+edges of the carpet, which divided it like a cascade of blood pouring
+from the hall into the street.  And still overhead the "Wiener Blut"
+went forward.
+
+The man paused in the bright portico, his patent-leather boots twinkling
+under the lamp's rays on that comfortable carpet.  I waited, expecting
+him to whistle for a hansom.  But he turned, gave an order to the
+butler, and stepping briskly down into the street, made off eastwards.
+The door closed behind him.  He was the man I most hated in the world.
+If I had longed to cross the threshold a while back it was to seek him,
+and for no other reason.
+
+I started to follow him, my hands still in my pockets.  The snow muffled
+our footfalls completely, for as yet the slight north-east wind had
+frozen but the thinnest crust of it.  He was walking briskly, as men do
+in such weather, but with no appearance of hurry.  At the corner of
+Sloane Street he halted under a lamp, pulled out his watch, consulted
+it, and lit a cigarette; then set off again up the street towards
+Knightsbridge.
+
+This halt of his had let me up within twenty paces of him.  He never
+turned his head; but went on presenting me his back, a target not to be
+missed.  Why not do it now?  Better now and here than in a crowded
+thoroughfare.  My right hand gripped the revolver more tightly.
+No, there was plenty of time: and I was curious to know what had brought
+Gervase out at this hour: why he had left his guests, or his wife's
+guests, to take care of themselves: why he chose to be trudging afoot
+through this infernally unpleasant snow.
+
+The roadway in Sloane Street was churned into a brown mass like
+chocolate, but the last 'bus had rolled home and left it to freeze in
+peace.  Half-way up the street I saw Gervase meet and pass a policeman,
+and altered my own pace to a lagging walk.  Even so, the fellow eyed me
+suspiciously as I went by--or so I thought: and guessing that he kept a
+watch on me, I dropped still further behind my man.  But the lamps were
+bright at the end of the street, and I saw him turn to the right by the
+great drapery shop at the corner.
+
+Once past this corner I was able to put on a spurt.  He crossed the
+roadway by the Albert Gate, and by the time he reached the Park railings
+the old distance separated us once more.  Half-way up the slope he came
+to a halt, by the stone drinking-trough: and flattening myself against
+the railings, I saw him try the thin ice in the trough with his
+finger-tips, but in a hesitating way, as if his thoughts ran on
+something else and he scarcely knew what he did or why he did it.
+It must have been half a minute before he recovered himself with a shrug
+of his shoulders, and plunging both hands deep in his pockets, resumed
+his pace.
+
+As we passed Hyde Park Corner I glanced up at the clock there: the time
+was between a quarter and ten minutes to one.  At the entrance of Down
+Street he turned aside again, and began to lead me a zigzag dance
+through the quiet thoroughfare: and I followed, still to the tune of the
+"Wiener Blut."
+
+But now, at the corner of Charles Street, I blundered against another
+policeman, who flashed his lantern in my face, stared after Gervase, and
+asked me what my game was.  I demanded innocently enough to be shown the
+nearest way to Oxford Street, and the fellow, after pausing a moment to
+chew his suspicions, walked with me slowly to the south-west corner of
+Berkeley Square, and pointed northwards.
+
+"That's your road," he growled, "straight on.  And don't you forget it!"
+
+He stood and watched me on my way.  Nor did I dare to turn aside until
+well clear of the square.  At the crossing of Davies and Grosvenor
+Streets, however, I supposed myself safe, and halted for a moment.
+
+From the shadow of a porch at my elbow a thin voice accosted me.
+
+"Kind gentleman--"
+
+"Heh?" I spun round on her sharply: for it was a woman, stretching out
+one skinny hand and gathering her rags together with the other.
+
+"Kind gentleman, spare a copper.  I've known better days--I have
+indeed."
+
+"Well," said I, "as it happens, I'm in the same case.  And they couldn't
+be much worse, could they?"
+
+She drew a shuddering breath back through her teeth, but still held out
+her hand.  I felt for my last coin, and her fingers closed on it so
+sharply that their long nails scraped the back of mine.
+
+"Kind gentleman--"
+
+"Ay, they are kind, are they not?"
+
+She stared at me, and in a nerveless tone let one horrible oath escape
+her.
+
+"There'll be one less before morning," said I, "if that's any
+consolation to you.  Good night!"  Setting off at a shuffling run, I
+doubled back along Grosvenor Street and Bond Street to the point where I
+hoped to pick up the trail again.  And just there, at the issue of
+Bruton Street, two constables stood ready for me.
+
+"I thought as much," said the one who set me on my way.  "Hi, you!
+Wait a moment, please;" then to the other, "Best turn his pockets out,
+Jim."
+
+"If you dare to try--" I began, with my hand in my pocket: the next
+moment I found myself sprawling face downward on the sharp crust of
+snow.
+
+"Hullo, constables!" said a voice.  "What's the row?"  It was Gervase.
+He had turned leisurely back from the slope of Conduit Street, and came
+strolling down the road with his hands in his pockets.
+
+"This fellow, Sir--we have reason to think he was followin' you."
+
+"Quite right," Gervase answered cheerfully, "of course he was."
+
+"Oh, if you knew it, Sir--"
+
+"Certainly I knew it.  In fact, he was following at my invitation."
+
+"What for did he tell me a lie, then?" grumbled the constable,
+chapfallen.
+
+I had picked myself up by this time and was wiping my face.
+"Look here," I put in, "I asked you the way to Oxford Street, that and
+nothing else."  And I went on to summarise my opinion of him.
+
+"Oh! it's you can swear a bit," he growled.  "I heard you just now."
+
+"Yes," Gervase interposed suavely, drawing the glove from his right hand
+and letting flash a diamond finger-ring in the lamp-light.  "He _is_ a
+bit of a beast, policeman, and it's not for the pleasure of it that I
+want his company."
+
+A sovereign passed from hand to hand.  The other constable had
+discreetly drawn off a pace or two.
+
+"All the same, it's a rum go."
+
+"Yes, isn't it?" Gervase assented in his heartiest tone.  "Here is my
+card, in case you're not satisfied."
+
+"If _you're_ satisfied, Sir--"
+
+"Quite so.  Good night!" Gervase thrust both hands into his pockets
+again and strode off.  I followed him, with a heart hotter than ever--
+followed him like a whipped cur, as they say.  Yes, that was just it.
+He who had already robbed me of everything else had now kicked even the
+pedestal from under me as a figure of tragedy.  Five minutes ago I had
+been the implacable avenger tracking my unconscious victim across the
+city.  Heaven knows how small an excuse it was for self-respect; but one
+who has lost character may yet chance to catch a dignity from
+circumstances; and to tell the truth, for all my desperate earnestness I
+had allowed my vanity to take some artistic satisfaction in the sinister
+chase.  It had struck me--shall I say?--as an effective ending, nor had
+I failed to note that the snow lent it a romantic touch.
+
+And behold, the unconscious victim knew all about it, and had politely
+interfered when a couple of unromantic "Bobbies" threatened the
+performance by tumbling the stalking avenger into the gutter!  They had
+knocked my tragedy into harlequinade as easily as you might bash in a
+hat; and my enemy had refined the cruelty of it by coming to the rescue
+and ironically restarting the poor play on lines of comedy.  I saw too
+late that I ought to have refused his help, to have assaulted the
+constable and been hauled to the police-station.  Not an impressive
+wind-up, to be sure; but less humiliating than this!  Even so, Gervase
+might have trumped the poor card by following with a gracious offer to
+bail me out!
+
+As it was, I had put the whip into his hand, and must follow him like a
+cur.  The distance he kept assured me that the similitude had not
+escaped him.  He strode on without deigning a single glance behind,
+still in cold derision presenting me his broad back and silently
+challenging me to shoot.  And I followed, hating him worse than ever,
+swearing that the last five minutes should not be forgotten, but charged
+for royally when the reckoning came to be paid.
+
+I followed thus up Conduit Street, up Regent Street, and across the
+Circus.  The frost had deepened and the mud in the roadway crackled
+under our feet.  At the Circus I began to guess, and when Gervase struck
+off into Great Portland Street, and thence by half-a-dozen turnings
+northward by east, I knew to what house he was leading me.
+
+At the entrance of the side street in which it stood he halted and
+motioned me to come close.
+
+"I forget," he said with a jerk of his thumb, "if you still have the
+entry.  These people are not particular, to be sure."
+
+"I have not," I answered, and felt my cheeks burning.  He could not see
+this, nor could I see the lift of his eyebrows as he answered--
+
+"Ah? I hadn't heard of it. . . . You'd better step round by the mews,
+then.  You know the window, the one which opens into the passage leading
+to Pollox Street.  Wait there.  It may be ten minutes before I can
+open."
+
+I nodded.  The house was a corner one, between the street and a by-lane
+tenanted mostly by cabmen;  and at the back of it ran the mews where
+they stabled their horses.  Half-way down this mews a narrow alley cut
+across it at right angles: a passage un-frequented by traffic, known
+only to the stablemen, and in the daytime used only by their children,
+who played hop-scotch on the flagged pavement, where no one interrupted
+them.  You wondered at its survival--from end to end it must have
+measured a good fifty yards--in a district where every square foot of
+ground fetched money; until you learned that the house had belonged, in
+the 'twenties, to a nobleman who left a name for eccentric profligacy,
+and who, as owner of the land, could afford to indulge his humours.
+The estate since his death was in no position to afford money for
+alterations, and the present tenants of the house found the passage
+convenient enough.
+
+My footsteps disturbed no one in the sleeping mews; and doubling back
+noiselessly through the passage, I took up my station beside the one low
+window which opened upon it from the blank back premises of the house.
+Even with the glimmer of snow to help me, I had to grope for the
+window-sill to make sure of my bearings.  The minutes crawled by, and
+the only sound came from a stall where one of the horses had kicked
+through his thin straw bedding and was shuffling an uneasy hoof upon the
+cobbles.  Then just as I too had begun to shuffle my frozen feet, I
+heard a scratching sound, the unbolting of a shutter, and Gervase drew
+up the sash softly.
+
+"Nip inside!" he whispered.  "No more noise than you can help.  I have
+sent off the night porter.  He tells me the bank is still going in the
+front of the house--half-a-dozen playing, perhaps."
+
+I hoisted myself over the sill, and dropped inside.  The wall of this
+annexe--which had no upper floor, and invited you to mistake it for a
+harmless studio--was merely a sheath, so to speak.  Within, a corridor
+divided it from the true wall of the room: and this room had no window
+or top-light, though a handsome one in the roof--a dummy--beguiled the
+eyes of its neighbours.
+
+There was but one room: an apartment of really fine proportions, never
+used by the tenants of the house, and known but to a few curious ones
+among its frequenters.
+
+The story went that the late owner, Earl C--, had reason to believe
+himself persistently cheated at cards by his best friends, and in
+particular by a Duke of the Blood Royal, who could hardly be accused to
+his face.  The Earl's sense of honour forbade him to accuse any meaner
+man while the big culprit went unrebuked.  Therefore he continued to
+lose magnificently while he devised a new room for play: the room in
+which I now followed Gervase.
+
+I had stood in it once before and admired the courtly and costly
+thoroughness of the Earl's rebuke.  I had imagined him conducting his
+expectant guests to the door, ushering them in with a wave of the hand,
+and taking his seat tranquilly amid the dead, embarrassed silence: had
+imagined him facing the Royal Duke and asking, "Shall we cut?" with a
+voice of the politest inflection.
+
+For the room was a sheet of mirrors.  Mirrors panelled the walls, the
+doors, the very backs of the shutters.  The tables had mirrors for tops:
+the whole ceiling was one vast mirror.  From it depended three great
+candelabra of cut-glass, set with reflectors here, there, and
+everywhere.
+
+I had heard that even the floor was originally of polished brass.
+If so, later owners must have ripped up the plates and sold them: for
+now a few cheap Oriental rugs carpeted the unpolished boards.  The place
+was abominably dusty: the striped yellow curtains had lost half their
+rings and drooped askew from their soiled vallances.  Across one of the
+wall-panels ran an ugly scar.  A smell of rat pervaded the air.
+The present occupiers had no use for a room so obviously unsuitable to
+games of chance, as they understood chance: and I doubt if a servant
+entered it once a month.  Gervase had ordered candles and a fire:  but
+the chimney was out of practice, and the smoke wreathed itself slowly
+about us as we stood surrounded by the ghostly company of our reflected
+selves.
+
+"We shall not be disturbed," said Gervase.  "I told the man I was
+expecting a friend, that our business was private, and that until he
+called I wished to be alone.  I did not explain by what entrance I
+expected him.  The people in the front cannot hear us.  Have a cigar?"
+He pushed the open case towards me.  Then, as I drew back, "You've no
+need to be scrupulous," he added, "seeing that they were bought with
+your money."
+
+"If that's so, I will," said I; and having chosen one, struck a match.
+Glancing round, I saw a hundred small flames spurt up, and a hundred men
+hold them to a hundred glowing cigar-tips.
+
+"After you with the match."  Gervase took it from me with a steady hand.
+He, too, glanced about him while he puffed.  "Ugh!"  He blew a long
+cloud, and shivered within his furred overcoat.  "What a gang!"
+
+"It takes all sorts to make a world," said I fatuously, for lack of
+anything better.
+
+"Don't be an infernal idiot!" he answered, flicking the dust off one of
+the gilt chairs, and afterwards cleaning a space for his elbow on the
+looking-glass table.  "It takes only two sorts to make the world we've
+lived in, and that's you and I."  He gazed slowly round the walls.
+"You and I, and a few fellows like us--not to mention the women, who
+don't count."
+
+"Well," said I, "as far as the world goes--if you must discuss it--
+I always found it a good enough place."
+
+"Because you started as an unconsidering fool: and because, afterwards,
+when we came to grips, you were the under-dog, and I gave you no time.
+My word--how I have hustled you!"
+
+I yawned.  "All right: I can wait.  Only if you suppose I came here to
+listen to your moral reflections--"
+
+He pulled the cigar from between his teeth and looked at me along it.
+
+"I know perfectly well why you came here," he said slowly, and paused.
+"Hadn't we better have it out--with the cards on the table?"  He drew a
+small revolver from his pocket and laid it with a light clink on the
+table before him.  I hesitated for a moment, then followed his example,
+and the silent men around us did the same.
+
+A smile curled his thin lips as he observed this multiplied gesture.
+"Yes," he said, as if to himself, "that is what it all comes to."
+
+"And now," said I, "since you know my purpose here, perhaps you will
+tell me yours."
+
+"That is just what I am trying to explain.  Only you are so impatient,
+and it--well, it's a trifle complicated."  He puffed for a moment in
+silence.  "Roughly, it might be enough to say that I saw you standing
+outside my house a while ago; that I needed a talk with you alone, in
+some private place; that I guessed, if you saw me, you would follow with
+no more invitation; and that, so reasoning, I led you here, where no one
+is likely to interrupt us."
+
+"Well," I admitted, "all that seems plain sailing."
+
+"Quite so; but it's at this point the thing grows complicated."
+He rose, and walking to the fireplace, turned his back on me and spread
+his palms to the blaze.  "Well," he asked, after a moment, gazing into
+the mirror before him, "why don't you shoot?"
+
+I thrust my hands into my trouser-pockets and leaned back staring--
+I daresay sulkily enough--at the two revolvers within grasp.  "I've got
+my code," I muttered.
+
+"The code of--these mirrors.  You won't do the thing because it's not
+the thing to do; because these fellows"--he waved a hand and the ghosts
+waved back at him--"don't do such things, and you haven't the nerve to
+sin off your own bat.  Come"--he strolled back to his seat and leaned
+towards me across the table--"it's not much to boast of, but at this
+eleventh hour we must snatch what poor credit we can.  You are, I
+suppose, a more decent fellow for not having fired: and I--By the way,
+you did feel the temptation?"
+
+I nodded.  "You may put your money on that.  I never see you without
+wanting to kill you.  What's more, I'm going to do it."
+
+"And I," he said, "knew the temptation and risked it.  No: let's be
+honest about it.  There was no risk: because, my good Sir, I know you to
+a hair."
+
+"There was," I growled.
+
+"Pardon me, there was none.  I came here having a word to say to you,
+and these mirrors have taught me how to say it.  Take a look at them--
+the world we are leaving--that's it: and a cursed second-hand,
+second-class one at that."
+
+He paced slowly round on it, slewing his body in the chair.
+
+"I say a second-class one," he resumed, "because, my dear Reggie, when
+all's said and done, we are second-class, the pair of us, and pretty bad
+second-class.  I met you first at Harrow.  Our fathers had money: they
+wished us to be gentlemen without well understanding what it meant: and
+with unlimited pocket-money and his wits about him any boy can make
+himself a power in a big school.  That is what we did: towards the end
+we even set the fashion for a certain set; and a rank bad fashion it
+was.  But, in truth, we had no business there: on every point of
+breeding we were outsiders.  I suspect it was a glimmering consciousness
+of this that made us hate each other from the first.  We understood one
+another too well.  Oh, there's no mistake about it!  Whatever we've
+missed in life, you and I have hated."
+
+He paused, eyeing me queerly.  I kept my hands in my pockets.  "Go on,"
+I said.
+
+"From Harrow we went to College--the same business over again.
+We drifted, of course, into the same set; for already we had become
+necessary to each other.  We set the pace of that set--were its apparent
+leaders.  But in truth we were alone--you and I--as utterly alone as two
+shipwrecked men on a raft.  The others were shadows to us: we followed
+their code because we had to be gentlemen, but we did not understand it
+in the least.  For, after all, the roots of that code lay in the
+breeding and tradition of honour, with which we had no concern.  To each
+other you and I were intelligible and real; but as concerned that code
+and the men who followed it by right of birth and nature, we were
+looking-glass men imitating--imitating--imitating."
+
+"We set the pace," said I.  "You've allowed that."
+
+"To be sure we did.  We even modified the code a bit--to its hurt;
+though as conscious outsiders we could dare very little.  For instance,
+the talk of our associates about women--and no doubt their thoughts,
+too--grew sensibly baser.  The sanctity of gambling debts, on the other
+hand, we did nothing to impair:  because we had money.  I recall your
+virtuous indignation at the amount of paper floated by poor W---- towards
+the end of the great baccarat term.  Poor devil!  He paid up--or his
+father did--and took his name off the books.  He's in Ceylon now, I
+believe.  At length you have earned a partial right to sympathise: or.
+would have if only you had paid up."
+
+"Take care, Gervase."
+
+"My good Sir, don't miss my point.  Wasn't I just as indignant with W--?
+If I'd been warned off Newmarket Heath, if I'd been shown the door of
+the hell we're sitting in, shouldn't I feel just as you are feeling?
+Try to understand!"
+
+"You forget Elaine, I think."
+
+"No: I do not forget Elaine.   We left College: I to add money to money
+in my father's office; you to display your accomplishments in spending
+what your father had earned.  That was the extent of the difference.
+To both of us, money and the indulgence it buys meant everything in
+life.  All I can boast of is the longer sight.  The office-hours were a
+nuisance, I admit: but I was clever enough to keep my hold on the old
+set; and then, after office-hours, I met you constantly, and studied and
+hated you--studied you because I hated you.  Elaine came between us.
+You fell in love with her.  That I, too, should fall in love with her
+was no coincidence, but the severest of logic.  Given such a woman and
+two such men, no other course of fate is conceivable.  She made it
+necessary for me to put hate into practice.  If she had not offered
+herself, why, then it would have been somebody else: that's all.
+Good Lord!" he rapped the table, and his voice rose for the first time
+above its level tone of exposition, "you don't suppose all my study--
+all my years of education--were to be wasted!"
+
+He checked himself, eyed me again, and resumed in his old voice--
+
+"You wanted money by this time.  I was a solicitor--your old college
+friend--and you came to me.  I knew you would come, as surely as I knew
+you would not fire that pistol just now.  For years I had trained myself
+to look into your mind and anticipate its working.  Don't I tell you
+that from the first you were the only real creature this world held for
+me?  You were my only book, and I had to learn you: at first without
+fixed purpose, then deliberately.  And when the time came I put into
+practice what I knew: just that and no more.  My dear Reggie, you never
+had a chance."
+
+"Elaine?" I muttered again.
+
+"Elaine was the girl for you--or for me: just that again and no more."
+
+"By George!" said I, letting out a laugh.  "If I thought that!"
+
+"What?"
+
+"Why, that after ruining me, you have missed being happy!"
+
+He sighed impatiently, and his eyes, though he kept them fastened on
+mine, seemed to be tiring.  "I thought," he said, "I could time your
+intelligence over any fence.  But to-night there's something wrong.
+Either I'm out of practice or your brain has been going to the deuce.
+What, man!  You're shying at every bank!  Is it drink, hey?  Or hunger?"
+
+"It might be a little of both," I answered.  "But stay a moment and let
+me get things straight.  I stood between you and Elaine--no, give me
+time--between you and your aims, whatever they were.  Very well.
+You trod over me; or, rather, you pulled me up by the roots and pitched
+me into outer darkness to rot.  And now it seems that, after all, you
+are not content.  In the devil's name, why?"
+
+"Why?  Oh, cannot you see? . . . Take a look at these mirrors again--
+our world, I tell you.  See--you and I--you and I--always you and I!
+Man, I pitched you into darkness as you say, and then I woke and knew
+the truth--that you were necessary to me."
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"_I can't do without you!_"  It broke from him in a cry.  "So help me
+God, Reggie, it is the truth!"
+
+I stared in his face for half a minute maybe, and broke out laughing.
+"Jeshurun waxed fat and--turned sentimental!  A nice copy-book job you
+make of it, too!"
+
+    "_Oh, send my brother back to me--
+    I cannot play alone!_"
+
+"Perhaps you'd like me to buy a broom and hire the crossing in Lennox
+Gardens?  Then you'd be able to contemplate me all day long, and nourish
+your fine fat soul with delicate eating.  Pah! You make me sick."
+
+"It's the truth," said he quietly.
+
+"It may be.  To me it looks a sight more like _foie gras_.  Can't do
+without me, can't you?  Well, I can jolly well do without you, and I'm
+going to."
+
+"I warn you," he said: "I have done you an injury or two in my time, but
+by George if I stand up and let you shoot me--well, I hate you badly
+enough, but I won't let you do it without fair warning."
+
+"I'll risk it anyway," said I.
+
+"Very well." He stood up, and folded his arms.  "Shoot, then, and be
+hanged!"
+
+I put out my hand to the revolver, hesitated, and withdrew it.
+
+"That's not the way," I said.  "I've got my code, as I told you before."
+
+"Does the code forbid suicide?" he asked.
+
+"That's a different thing."
+
+"Not at all.  The man who commits suicide kills an unarmed man."
+
+"But the unarmed man happens to be himself."
+
+"Suppose that in this instance your distinction won't work?  Look here,"
+he went on, as I pushed back my chair impatiently, "I have one truth
+more for you.  I swear I believe that what we have hated, we two, is not
+each other, but ourselves or our own likeness.  I swear I believe we two
+have so shared natures in hate that no power can untwist and separate
+them to render each his own.  But I swear also I believe that if you
+lift that revolver to kill, you will take aim, not at me, but by
+instinct at a worse enemy--yourself, vital in my heart."
+
+"You have some pretty theories to-night," I sneered.  "Perhaps you'll go
+on to tell me which of us two has been Elaine's husband, feeding
+daintily in Lennox Gardens, clothed in purple and fine linen, while the
+other--"
+
+He interrupted me by picking up his revolver and striding to the
+fireplace again.
+
+"So be it, since you will have it so.  Kill me," he added, with a queer
+look, "and perhaps you may go back to Lennox Gardens and enjoy all these
+things in my place."
+
+I took my station.  Both revolvers were levelled now.  I took sight
+along mine at his detested face.  It was white but curiously eager--
+hopeful even.  I lowered my arm, scanning his face still; and still
+scanning it, set my weapon down on the table.
+
+"I believe you are mad," said I slowly.  "But one thing I see--that, mad
+or not, you're in earnest.  For some reason you want me to kill you;
+therefore that shall wait.  For some reason it is torture to you to live
+and do without me: well, I'll try you with that.  It will do me good to
+hurt you a bit."  I slipped the revolver into my pocket and tapped it.
+"Though I don't understand them, I won't quarrel with your sentiments so
+long as you suffer from them.  When that fails, I'll find another
+opportunity for this.  Good night."  I stepped to the door.  "Reggie!"
+
+I shut the door on his cry: crossed the corridor, and climbing out
+through the window, let myself drop into the lane.
+
+As my feet touched the snow a revolver-shot rang out in the room behind
+me.
+
+I caught at the frozen sill to steady myself: and crouching there,
+listened.  Surely the report must have alarmed the house!  I waited for
+the sound of footsteps: waited for three minutes--perhaps longer.
+None came.  To be sure, the room stood well apart from the house: but it
+was incredible that the report should have awakened no one!  My own ears
+still rang with it.
+
+Still no footsteps came.  The horse in the stable close by was still
+shuffling his hoof on the cobbles.  No other sound . . .
+
+Very stealthily I hoisted myself up on the sill again, listened, dropped
+inside, and tip-toed my way to the door.  The candles were still burning
+in the Room of Mirrors.  And by the light of them, as I entered, Gervase
+stepped to meet me.
+
+"Ah, it's you," I stammered.  "I heard--that is, I thought--"
+
+And with that I saw--recognised with a catch of the breath--that the
+figure I spoke to was not Gervase, but my own reflected image, stepping
+forward with pale face and ghastly from a mirror.  Yet a moment before I
+could have sworn it was Gervase.
+
+Gervase lay stretched on the hearthrug with his hand towards the fire.
+I caught up a candle, and bent over him.  His features were not to be
+recognised.
+
+As I straightened myself up, with the candle in my hand, for an instant
+those features, obliterated in the flesh, gazed at me in a ring, a
+hundred times repeated behind a hundred candles.  And again, at a second
+glance, I saw that the face was not Gervase's but my own.
+
+I set down the candle and made off, closing the door behind me.
+The horror of it held me by the hair, but I flung it off and pelted down
+the lane and through the mews.  Once in the street I breathed again,
+pulled myself together, and set off at a rapid walk, southwards, but not
+clearly knowing whither.
+
+As a matter of fact, I took the line by which I had come: with the
+single difference that I made straight into Berkeley Square through
+Bruton Street.  I had, I say, no clear purpose in following this line
+rather than another.  I had none for taking Lennox Gardens on the way to
+my squalid lodgings in Chelsea.  I had a purpose, no doubt; but will
+swear it only grew definite as I came in sight of the lamp still burning
+beneath Gervase's portico.
+
+There was a figure, too, under the lamp--the butler--bending there and
+rolling up the strip of red carpet.  As he pulled its edges from the
+frozen snow I came on him suddenly.
+
+"Oh, it's you, Sir!"  He stood erect, and with the air of a man
+infinitely relieved.
+
+"Gervase!"
+
+The door opened wide and there stood Elaine in her ball-gown, a-glitter
+with diamonds.
+
+"Gervase, dear, where have you been?  We have been terribly anxious--"
+
+She said it, looking straight down on me--on me--who stood in my
+tattered clothes in the full glare of the lamp.  And then I heard the
+butler catch his breath, and suddenly her voice trailed off in wonder
+and pitiful disappointment.
+
+"It's not Gervase!  It's Reg--Mr. Travers.  I beg your pardon.
+I thought--"
+
+But I passed up the steps and stood before her: and said, as she drew
+back--
+
+"There has been an accident.  Gervase has shot himself."  I turned to
+the butler.  "You had better run to the police station.  Stay: take this
+revolver.  It won't count anything as evidence: but I ask you to examine
+it and make sure all the chambers are loaded."
+
+A thud in the hall interrupted me.  I ran in and knelt beside Elaine,
+and as I stooped to lift her--as my hand touched her hair--this was the
+jealous question on my lips--
+
+"What has _she_ to do with it.  It is _I_ who cannot do without him--who
+must miss him always!"
+
+
+
+A PAIR OF HANDS
+
+
+AN OLD MAID'S GHOST-STORY
+
+"Yes," said Miss Le Petyt, gazing into the deep fireplace and letting
+her hands and her knitting lie for the moment idle in her lap.
+"Oh, yes, I have seen a ghost.  In fact I have lived in a house with one
+for quite a long time."
+
+"How you _could_--" began one of my host's daughters; and "_You_, Aunt
+Emily?" cried the other at the same moment.
+
+Miss Le Petyt, gentle soul, withdrew her eyes from the fireplace and
+protested with a gay little smile.  "Well, my dears, I am not quite the
+coward you take me for.  And, as it happens, mine was the most harmless
+ghost in the world.  In fact"--and here she looked at the fire again--
+"I was quite sorry to lose her."
+
+"It was a woman, then?  Now _I_ think," said Miss Blanche, "that female
+ghosts are the horridest of all.  They wear little shoes with high red
+heels, and go about _tap, tap_, wringing their hands."
+
+"This one wrung her hands, certainly.  But I don't know about the high
+red heels, for I never saw her feet.  Perhaps she was like the Queen of
+Spain, and hadn't any.  And as for the hands, it all depends _how_ you
+wring them.  There's an elderly shop-walker at Knightsbridge, for
+instance--"
+
+"Don't be prosy, dear, when you know that we're just dying to hear the
+story."
+
+Miss Le Petyt turned to me with a small deprecating laugh.  "It's such a
+little one."
+
+"The story, or the ghost?"
+
+"Both."
+
+And this was Miss Le Petyt's story:--
+
+
+"It happened when I lived down in Cornwall, at Tresillack on the south
+coast.  Tresillack was the name of the house, which stood quite alone at
+the head of a coombe, within sound of the sea but without sight of it;
+for though the coombe led down to a wide open beach, it wound and
+twisted half a dozen times on its way, and its overlapping sides closed
+the view from the house, which was advertised as 'secluded.'  I was very
+poor in those days.  Your father and all of us were poor then, as I
+trust, my dears, you will never be; but I was young enough to be
+romantic and wise enough to like independence, and this word 'secluded'
+took my fancy.
+
+"The misfortune was that it had taken the fancy, or just suited the
+requirements, of several previous tenants.  You know, I dare say, the
+kind of person who rents a secluded house in the country?  Well, yes,
+there are several kinds; but they seem to agree in being odious.  No one
+knows where they come from, though they soon remove all doubt about
+where they're 'going to,' as the children say.  'Shady' is the word, is
+it not?  Well, the previous tenants of Tresillack (from first to last a
+bewildering series) had been shady with a vengeance.
+
+"I knew nothing of this when I first made application to the landlord, a
+solid yeoman inhabiting a farm at the foot of the coombe, on a cliff
+overlooking the beach.  To him I presented myself fearlessly as a
+spinster of decent family and small but assured income, intending a
+rural life of combined seemliness and economy.   He met my advances
+politely enough, but with an air of suspicion which offended me.
+I began by disliking him for it: afterwards I set it down as an
+unpleasant feature in the local character.  I was doubly mistaken.
+Farmer Hosking was slow-witted, but as honest a man as ever stood up
+against hard times; and a more open and hospitable race than the people
+on that coast I never wish to meet.  It was the caution of a child who
+had burnt his fingers, not once but many times.   Had I known what I
+afterwards learned of Farmer Hosking's tribulations as landlord of a
+'secluded country residence,' I should have approached him with the
+bashfulness proper to my suit and faltered as I undertook to prove the
+bright exception in a long line of painful experiences.  He had bought
+the Tresillack estate twenty years before--on mortgage, I fancy--because
+the land adjoined his own and would pay him for tillage.  But the house
+was a nuisance, an incubus; and had been so from the beginning.
+
+"'Well, miss,' he said, 'you're welcome to look over it; a pretty enough
+place, inside and out.  There's no trouble about keys, because I've put
+in a housekeeper, a widow-woman, and she'll show you round.  With your
+leave I'll step up the coombe so far with you, and put you in your way.'
+As I thanked him he paused and rubbed his chin.  'There's one thing I
+must tell you, though.  Whoever takes the house must take Mrs. Carkeek
+along with it.'
+
+"'Mrs. Carkeek?' I echoed dolefully.  'Is that the housekeeper?'
+
+"'Yes: she was wife to my late hind.  I'm sorry, miss,' he added, my
+face telling him no doubt what sort of woman I expected Mrs. Carkeek to
+be; 'but I had to make it a rule after--after some things that happened.
+And I dare say you won't find her so bad.  Mary Carkeek's a sensible
+comfortable woman, and knows the place.  She was in service there to
+Squire Kendall when he sold up and went: her first place it was.'
+
+"'I may as well see the house, anyhow,' said I dejectedly.  So we
+started to walk up the coombe.  The path, which ran beside a little
+chattering stream, was narrow for the most part, and Farmer Hosking,
+with an apology, strode on ahead to beat aside the brambles.
+But whenever its width allowed us to walk side by side I caught him from
+time to time stealing a shy inquisitive glance under his rough eyebrows.
+Courteously though he bore himself, it was clear that he could not sum
+me up to his satisfaction or bring me square with his notion of a tenant
+for his 'secluded country residence.'
+
+"I don't know what foolish fancy prompted it, but about halfway up the
+coombe I stopped short and asked:
+
+"'There are no ghosts, I suppose?'
+
+"It struck me, a moment after I had uttered it, as a supremely silly
+question; but he took it quite seriously.  'No; I never heard tell of
+any _ghosts_.'  He laid a queer sort of stress on the word.  'There's
+always been trouble with servants, and maids' tongues will be runnin'.
+But Mary Carkeek lives up there alone, and she seems comfortable
+enough.'
+
+"We walked on.  By-and-by he pointed with his stick.  'It don't look
+like a place for ghosts, now, do it?'
+
+"Certainly it did not.  Above an untrimmed orchard rose a terrace of
+turf scattered with thorn-bushes, and above this a terrace of stone,
+upon which stood the prettiest cottage I had ever seen.  It was long and
+low and thatched; a deep verandah ran from end to end.  Clematis,
+Banksia roses and honeysuckle climbed the posts of this verandah, and
+big blooms of the Marechal Niel were clustered along its roof, beneath
+the lattices of the bedroom windows.   The house was small enough to be
+called a cottage, and rare enough in features and in situation to confer
+distinction on any tenant.  It suggested what in those days we should
+have called 'elegant' living.  And I could have clapped my hands for
+joy.
+
+"My spirits mounted still higher when Mrs. Carkeek opened the door to
+us.  I had looked for a Mrs. Gummidge, and I found a healthy
+middle-aged woman with a thoughtful but contented face, and a smile
+which, without a trace of obsequiousness, quite bore out the farmer's
+description of her.  She was a comfortable woman; and while we walked
+through the rooms together (for Mr. Hosking waited outside) I 'took to'
+Mrs. Carkeek.  Her speech was direct and practical; the rooms, in spite
+of their faded furniture, were bright and exquisitely clean; and somehow
+the very atmosphere of the house gave me a sense of well-being, of
+feeling at home and cared for; yes, _of being loved_.  Don't laugh, my
+dears; for when I've done you may not think this fancy altogether
+foolish.
+
+"I stepped out into the verandah, and Farmer Hosking pocketed the
+pruning-knife which he had been using on a bush of jasmine.
+
+"'This is better than anything I had dreamed of,' said I.
+
+"'Well, miss, that's not a wise way of beginning a bargain, if you'll
+excuse me.'
+
+"He took no advantage, however, of my admission; and we struck the
+bargain as we returned down the coombe to his farm, where the hired
+chaise waited to convey me back to the market town.  I had meant to
+engage a maid of my own, but now it occurred to me that I might do very
+well with Mrs. Carkeek.  This, too, was settled in the course of the
+next day or two, and within the week I had moved into my new home.
+
+"I can hardly describe to you the happiness of my first month at
+Tresillack; because (as I now believe) if I take the reasons which I had
+for being happy, one by one, there remains over something which I cannot
+account for.  I was moderately young, entirely healthy; I felt myself
+independent and adventurous; the season was high summer, the weather
+glorious, the garden in all the pomp of June, yet sufficiently unkempt
+to keep me busy, give me a sharp appetite for meals, and send me to bed
+in that drowsy stupor which comes of the odours of earth.  I spent the
+most of my time out of doors, winding up the day's work as a rule with a
+walk down the cool valley, along the beach and back.
+
+"I soon found that all housework could be safely left to Mrs. Carkeek.
+She did not talk much; indeed her only fault (a rare one in
+house-keepers) was that she talked too little, and even when I addressed
+her seemed at times unable to give me her attention.  It was as though
+her mind strayed off to some small job she had forgotten, and her eyes
+wore a listening look, as though she waited for the neglected task to
+speak and remind her.  But as a matter of fact she forgot nothing.
+Indeed, my dears, I was never so well attended to in my life.
+
+"Well, that is what I'm coming to.  That, so to say, is just _it_.
+The woman not only had the rooms swept and dusted, and my meals prepared
+to the moment.  In a hundred odd little ways this orderliness, these
+preparations, seemed to read my desires.  Did I wish the roses renewed
+in a bowl upon the dining-table, sure enough at the next meal they would
+be replaced by fresh ones.  Mrs.  Carkeek (I told myself) must have
+surprised and interpreted a glance of mine.  And yet I could not
+remember having glanced at the bowl in her presence.  And how on earth
+had she guessed the very roses, the very shapes and colours I had
+lightly wished for?  This is only an instance, you understand.
+Every day, and from morning to night, I happened on others, each slight
+enough, but all together bearing witness to a ministering intelligence
+as subtle as it was untiring.
+
+"I am a light sleeper, as you know, with an uncomfortable knack of
+waking with the sun and roaming early.  No matter how early I rose at
+Tresillack, Mrs.  Carkeek seemed to have prevented me.  Finally I had to
+conclude that she arose and dusted and tidied as soon as she judged me
+safely a-bed.  For once, finding the drawing-room (where I had been
+sitting late) 'redded up' at four in the morning, and no trace of a
+plate of raspberries which I had carried thither after dinner and left
+overnight, I determined to test her, and walked through to the kitchen,
+calling her by name.  I found the kitchen as clean as a pin, and the
+fire laid, but no trace of Mrs. Carkeek.  I walked upstairs and knocked
+at her door.  At the second knock a sleepy voice cried out, and
+presently the good woman stood before me in her nightgown, looking (I
+thought) very badly scared.
+
+"'No,' I said, 'it's not a burglar.  But I've found out what I wanted,
+that you do your morning's work over night.  But you mustn't wait for me
+when I choose to sit up.  And now go back to your bed like a good soul,
+whilst I take a run down to the beach.'
+
+"She stood blinking in the dawn.  Her face was still white.
+
+"'Oh, miss,' she gasped, 'I made sure you must have seen something!'
+
+"'And so I have,' I answered, 'but it was neither burglars nor ghosts.'
+
+"'Thank God!' I heard her say as she turned her back to me in her grey
+bedroom--which faced the north.  And I took this for a carelessly pious
+expression and ran downstairs, thinking no more of it.
+
+"A few days later I began to understand.
+
+"The plan of Tresillack house (I must explain) was simplicity itself.
+To the left of the hall as you entered was the dining-room; to the right
+the drawing-room, with a boudoir beyond.  The foot of the stairs faced
+the front door, and beside it, passing a glazed inner door, you found
+two others right and left, the left opening on the kitchen, the right on
+a passage which ran by a store-cupboard under the bend of the stairs to
+a neat pantry with the usual shelves and linen-press, and under the
+window (which faced north) a porcelain basin and brass tap.  On the
+first morning of my tenancy I had visited this pantry and turned the
+tap; but no water ran.  I supposed this to be accidental.  Mrs. Carkeek
+had to wash up glass ware and crockery, and no doubt Mrs. Carkeek would
+complain of any failure in the water supply.
+
+"But the day after my surprise visit (as I called it) I had picked a
+basketful of roses, and carried them into the pantry as a handy place to
+arrange them in.  I chose a china bowl and went to fill it at the tap.
+Again the water would not run.
+
+"I called Mrs. Carkeek.  'What is wrong with this tap?' I asked.
+'The rest of the house is well enough supplied.'
+
+"'I don't know, miss.  I never use it.'
+
+"'But there must be a reason; and you must find it a great nuisance
+washing up the plate and glasses in the kitchen.  Come around to the
+back with me, and we'll have a look at the cisterns.'
+
+"'The cisterns'll be all right, miss.  I assure you I don't find it a
+trouble.'
+
+"But I was not to be put off.  The back of the house stood but ten feet
+from a wall which was really but a stone face built against the cliff
+cut away by the architect.  Above the cliff rose the kitchen garden, and
+from its lower path we looked over the wall's parapet upon the cisterns.
+There were two--a very large one, supplying the kitchen and the bathroom
+above the kitchen; and a small one, obviously fed by the other, and as
+obviously leading, by a pipe which I could trace, to the pantry.
+Now the big cistern stood almost full, and yet the small one, though on
+a lower level, was empty.
+
+"'It's as plain as daylight,' said I.  'The pipe between the two is
+choked.'  And I clambered on to the parapet.
+
+"'I wouldn't, miss.  The pantry tap is only cold water, and no use to
+me.  From the kitchen boiler I gets it hot, you see.'
+
+"'But I want the pantry water for my flowers.'  I bent over and groped.
+'I thought as much!' said I, as I wrenched out a thick plug of cork and
+immediately the water began to flow.   I turned triumphantly on Mrs.
+Carkeek, who had grown suddenly red in the face.  Her eyes were fixed on
+the cork in my hand.  To keep it more firmly wedged in its place
+somebody had wrapped it round with a rag of calico print; and,
+discoloured though the rag was, I seemed to recall the pattern (a lilac
+sprig).  Then, as our eyes met, it occurred to me that only two mornings
+before Mrs. Carkeek had worn a print gown of that same sprigged pattern.
+
+"I had the presence of mind to hide this very small discovery, sliding
+over it some quite trivial remark; and presently Mrs. Carkeek regained
+her composure.  But I own I felt disappointed in her.  It seemed such a
+paltry thing to be disingenuous over.  She had deliberately acted a fib
+before me; and why?  Merely because she preferred the kitchen to the
+pantry tap.  It was childish.  'But servants are all the same,' I told
+myself.  'I must take Mrs. Carkeek as she is; and, after all, she is a
+treasure.'
+
+"On the second night after this, and between eleven and twelve o'clock,
+I was lying in bed and reading myself sleepy over a novel of Lord
+Lytton's, when a small sound disturbed me.  I listened.  The sound was
+clearly that of water trickling; and I set it down to rain.  A shower
+(I told myself) had filled the water-pipes which drained the roof.
+Somehow I could not fix the sound.  There was a water pipe against the
+wall just outside my window.  I rose and drew up the blind.
+
+"To my astonishment no rain was falling; no rain had fallen.  I felt the
+slate window-sill; some dew had gathered there--no more.  There was no
+wind, no cloud: only a still moon high over the eastern slope of the
+coombe, the distant plash of waves, and the fragrance of many roses.
+I went back to bed and listened again.  Yes, the trickling sound
+continued, quite distinct in the silence of the house, not to be
+confused for a moment with the dull murmur of the beach.  After a while
+it began to grate on my nerves.  I caught up my candle, flung my
+dressing-gown about me, and stole softly downstairs.
+
+"Then it was simple.  I traced the sound to the pantry.  'Mrs. Carkeek
+has left the tap running,' said I: and, sure enough, I found it so--a
+thin trickle steadily running to waste in the porcelain basin.  I turned
+off the tap, went contentedly back to my bed, and slept.
+
+"--for some hours.  I opened my eyes in darkness, and at once knew what
+had awakened me.  The tap was running again.  Now it had shut easily in
+my hand, but not so easily that I could believe it had slipped open
+again of its own accord.  'This is Mrs. Carkeek's doing,' said I; and am
+afraid I added 'Bother Mrs. Carkeek!'
+
+"Well, there was no help for it: so I struck a light, looked at my
+watch, saw that the hour was just three o'clock, and descended the
+stairs again.  At the pantry door I paused.  I was not afraid--not one
+little bit.  In fact the notion that anything might be wrong had never
+crossed my mind.  But I remember thinking, with my hand on the door,
+that if Mrs. Carkeek were in the pantry I might happen to give her a
+severe fright.
+
+"I pushed the door open briskly.  Mrs. Carkeek was not there.
+But something _was_ there, by the porcelain basin--something which might
+have sent me scurrying upstairs two steps at a time, but which as a
+matter of fact held me to the spot.  My heart seemed to stand still--so
+still!  And in the stillness I remember setting down the brass
+candlestick on a tall nest of drawers beside me.
+
+"Over the porcelain basin and beneath the water trickling from the tap I
+saw two hands.
+
+"That was all--two small hands, a child's hands.  I cannot tell you how
+they ended.
+
+"No: they were not cut off.  I saw them quite distinctly: just a pair of
+small hands and the wrists, and after that--nothing.  They were moving
+briskly--washing themselves clean.  I saw the water trickle and splash
+over them--not _through_ them--but just as it would on real hands.
+They were the hands of a little girl, too.  Oh, yes, I was sure of that
+at once.  Boys and girls wash their hands differently.  I can't just
+tell you what the difference is, but it's unmistakable.
+
+"I saw all this before my candle slipped and fell with a crash.  I had
+set it down without looking--for my eyes were fixed on the basin--and
+had balanced it on the edge of the nest of drawers.  After the crash, in
+the darkness there, with the water running, I suffered some bad moments.
+Oddly enough, the thought uppermost with me was that I _must_ shut off
+that tap before escaping.   I _had_ to.  And after a while I picked up
+all my courage, so to say, between my teeth, and with a little sob
+thrust out my hand and did it.  Then I fled.
+
+"The dawn was close upon me: and as soon as the sky reddened I took my
+bath, dressed and went downstairs.  And there at the pantry door I found
+Mrs. Carkeek, also dressed, with my candlestick in her hand.
+
+"'Ah!' said I, 'you picked it up.'
+
+"Our eyes met.  Clearly Mrs. Carkeek wished me to begin, and I
+determined at once to have it out with her.
+
+"'And you knew all about it.  That's what accounts for your plugging up
+the cistern.'
+
+"'You saw? . . .' she began.
+
+"'Yes, yes.  And you must tell me all about it--never mind how bad.
+Is--is it--murder?'
+
+"'Law bless you, miss, whatever put such horrors in your head?'
+
+"'She was washing her hands.'
+
+"'Ah, so she does, poor dear!  But--murder!  And dear little Miss
+Margaret, that wouldn't go to hurt a fly!'
+
+"'Miss Margaret?'
+
+"'Eh, she died at seven year.  Squire Kendall's only daughter; and
+that's over twenty year ago.  I was her nurse, miss, and I know--
+diphtheria it was; she took it down in the village.'
+
+"'But how do you know it is Margaret?'
+
+"'Those hands--why, how could I mistake, that used to be her nurse?'
+
+"'But why does she wash them?'
+
+"'Well, miss, being always a dainty child--and the house-work, you
+see--'
+
+"I took a long breath.  'Do you mean to tell me that all this tidying
+and dusting--'  I broke off.  'Is it _she_ who has been taking this care
+of me?'
+
+"Mrs. Carkeek met my look steadily.
+
+"'Who else, miss?'
+
+"'Poor little soul!'
+
+"'Well now'--Mrs. Carkeek rubbed my candlestick with the edge of her
+apron--'I'm so glad you take it like this.  For there isn't really
+nothing to be afraid of--is there?'  She eyed me wistfully.  'It's my
+belief she loves you, miss.  But only to think what a time she must have
+had with the others!'
+
+"'The others?' I echoed.
+
+"'The other tenants, miss: the ones afore you.'
+
+"'Were they bad?'
+
+"'They was awful.  Didn't Farmer Hosking tell you?  They carried on
+fearful--one after another, and each one worse than the last."
+
+"'What was the matter with them?  Drink?'
+
+"'Drink, miss, with some of 'em.  There was the Major--he used to go mad
+with it, and run about the coombe in his nightshirt.  Oh, scandalous!
+And his wife drank too--that is, if she ever _was_ his wife.  Just think
+of that tender child washing Up after their nasty doings!'
+
+"I shivered.
+
+"'But that wasn't the worst, miss--not by a long way.  There was a pair
+here--from the colonies, or so they gave out--with two children, a boy
+and gel, the eldest scarce six.  Poor mites!'
+
+"'Why, what happened?'
+
+"'They beat those children, miss--your blood would boil!--_and_ starved,
+_and_ tortured 'em, it's my belief.  You could hear their screams, I've
+been told, away back in the high-road, and that's the best part of half
+a mile.  Sometimes they was locked up without food for days together.
+But it's my belief that little Miss Margaret managed to feed them
+somehow.  Oh, I can see her, creeping to the door and comforting!'
+
+"'But perhaps she never showed herself when these awful people were
+here, but took to flight until they left.'
+
+"'You didn't never know her, miss.  The brave she was!  She'd have stood
+up to lions.  She've been here all the while: and only to think what her
+innocent eyes and ears must have took in!  There was another couple--'
+Mrs. Carkeek sunk her voice.
+
+"'Oh, hush!' said I, 'if I'm to have any peace of mind in this house!'
+
+"'But you won't go, miss?  She loves you, I know she do.  And think what
+you might be leaving her to--what sort of tenant might come next.  For
+she can't go.  She've been here ever since her father sold the place.
+He died soon after.  You musn't go!'
+
+"Now I had resolved to go, but all of a sudden I felt how mean this
+resolution was.
+
+"'After all,' said I, 'there's nothing to be afraid of.'
+
+"'That's it, miss; nothing at all.  I don't even believe it's so very
+uncommon.  Why, I've heard my mother tell of farmhouses where the rooms
+were swept every night as regular as clockwork, and the floors sanded,
+and the pots and pans scoured, and all while the maids slept.  They put
+it down to the piskies; but we know better, miss, and now we've got the
+secret between us we can lie easy in our beds, and if we hear anything,
+say "God bless the child!" and go to sleep.'
+
+"'Mrs. Carkeek,' said I, 'there's only one condition I have to make.'
+
+"'What's that?'
+
+"'Why, that you let me kiss you.'
+
+"'Oh, you dear!' said Mrs. Carkeek as we embraced: and this was as close
+to familiarity as she allowed herself to go in the whole course of my
+acquaintance with her.
+
+"I spent three years at Tresillack, and all that while Mrs. Carkeek
+lived with me and shared the secret.  Few women, I dare to say, were
+ever so completely wrapped around with love as we were during those
+three years.  It ran through my waking life like a song: it smoothed my
+pillow, touched and made my table comely, in summer lifted the heads of
+the flowers as I passed, and in winter watched the fire with me and kept
+it bright.
+
+"'Why did I ever leave Tresillack?'  Because one day, at the end of five
+years, Farmer Hosking brought me word that he had sold the house--or was
+about to sell it; I forget which.  There was no avoiding it, at any
+rate; the purchaser being a Colonel Kendall, a brother of the old
+Squire.'
+
+"'A married man?' I asked.
+
+"'Yes, miss; with a family of eight.  As pretty children as ever you
+see, and the mother a good lady.  It's the old home to Colonel Kendall.'
+
+"'I see.  And that is why you feel bound to sell.'
+
+"'It's a good price, too, that he offers.  You mustn't think but I'm
+sorry enough--'
+
+"'To turn me out?  I thank you, Mr. Hosking; but you are doing the right
+thing.'
+
+"Since Mrs. Carkeek was to stay, the arrangement lacked nothing of
+absolute perfection--except, perhaps, that it found no room for me.
+
+"'_She_--Margaret-will be happy,' I said; 'with her cousins, you know.'
+
+"'Oh yes, miss, she will be happy, sure enough,' Mrs. Carkeek agreed.
+
+"So when the time came I packed up my boxes, and tried to be cheerful.
+But on the last morning, when they stood corded in the hall, I sent Mrs.
+Carkeek upstairs upon some poor excuse, and stepped alone into the
+pantry.
+
+"'Margaret!' I whispered.
+
+"There was no answer at all.  I had scarcely dared to hope for one.
+Yet I tried again, and, shutting my eyes this time, stretched out both
+hands and whispered:
+
+"'Margaret!'
+
+"And I will swear to my dying day that two little hands stole and
+rested--for a moment only--in mine."
+
+
+
+THE LADY OF THE SHIP
+
+
+[_Or so much as is told of her by Paschal Tonkin, steward and major-domo
+to the lamented John Milliton, of Pengersick Castle, in Cornwall: of her
+coming in the Portugal Ship, anno 1526; her marriage with the said
+Milliton and alleged sorceries; with particulars of the Barbary men
+wrecked in Mount's Bay and their entertainment in the town of Market
+Jew._]
+
+My purpose is to clear the memory of my late and dear Master; and to
+this end I shall tell the truth and the truth only, so far as I know it,
+admitting his faults, which, since he has taken them before God, no man
+should now aggravate by guess-work.  That he had traffic with secret
+arts is certain; but I believe with no purpose but to fight the Devil
+with his own armoury.  He never was a robber as Mr. Thomas St. Aubyn and
+Mr. William Godolphin accused him; nor, as the vulgar pretended, a
+lustful and bloody man.  What he did was done in effort to save a
+woman's soul; as Jude tells us, "_Of some have compassion, that are in
+doubt; and others save, having mercy with fear, pulling them out of the
+fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh_"--though this, alas!
+my dear Master could not.  And so with Jude I would end, praying for all
+of us and ascribing praise _to the only wise God, our Saviour, who is
+able to guard us from stumbling and set us faultless before His presence
+with exceeding joy_.
+
+It was in January, 1526, after a tempest lasting three days, that the
+ship called the _Saint Andrew_, belonging to the King of Portugal, drove
+ashore in Gunwallo Cove, a little to the southward of Pengersick.
+She was bound from Flanders to Lisbon with a freight extraordinary
+rich--as I know after a fashion by my own eyesight, as well as from the
+inventory drawn up by Master Francis Porson, an Englishman, travelling
+on board of her as the King of Portugal's factor.  I have a copy of it
+by me as I write, and here are some of Master Porson's items:--
+
+   8,000 cakes of copper, valued by him at      3,224 pounds.
+   18 blocks of silver,    '    '    '          2,250   '.
+   Silver vessels, plate, patens, ewers and
+   pots, beside pearls, precious stones,
+   and jewels of gold.
+   Also a chest of coined money, in amount      6,240   '.
+
+There was also cloth of arras, tapestry, rich hangings, satins, velvets,
+silks, camlets, says, satins or Bruges, with great number of bales of
+Flemish and English cloth; 2,100 barber's basins; 3,200 laten
+candlesticks; a great chest of shalmers and other instruments of music;
+four sets of armour for the King of Portugal, much harness for his
+horses, and much beside--the whole amounting at the least computation to
+16,000 pounds in value. [1]  And this I can believe on confirmation of
+what I myself saw upon the beach.
+
+But let me have done with Master Porson and his tale, which runs that
+the _Saint Andrew_, having struck at the mouth of the cove, there
+utterly perished; yet, by the grace and mercy of Almighty God, the
+greater part of the crew got safely to land, and by help of many poor
+folk dwelling in the neighbourhood saved all that was most valuable of
+the cargo.  But shortly after (says he) there came on the scene three
+gentlemen, Thomas Saint Aubyn, William Godolphin, and John Milliton,
+with about sixty men armed in manner of war with bows and swords, and
+made an assault on the shipwrecked sailors and put them in great fear
+and jeopardy; and in the end took from them all they had saved from the
+wreck, amounting to 10,000 pounds worth of treasure--"which," says he,
+"they will not yield up, nor make restitution, though they have been
+called upon to do so."
+
+So much then for the factor's account, which I doubt not he believed to
+be true enough; albeit on his own confession he had lain hurt and
+unconscious upon the beach at the time, and his tale rested therefore on
+what he could learn by hearsay after his recovery; when--the matter
+being so important--he was at trouble to journey all the way to London
+and lay his complaint before the Portuguese ambassador.  Moreover he
+made so fair a case of it that the ambassador obtained of the English
+Court a Commissioner, Sir Nicholas Fleming, to travel down and push
+enquiries on the spot--where Master Porson did not scruple to repeat his
+accusation, and to our faces (having indeed followed the Commissioner
+down for that purpose).  I must say I thought him a very honest man--not
+to say a brave one, seeing what words he dared to use to Mr. Saint Aubyn
+in his own house at Clowance, calling him a mere robber.  I was there
+when he said it and made me go hot and cold, knowing (if he did not)
+that for two pins Mr. Saint Aubyn might have had him drowned like a
+puppy.  However, he chose to make nothing of an insult from a factor.
+"_Mercator tantum,_" replied he, snapping his fingers, and to my great
+joy; for any violence might have spoiled the story agreed on between
+us--that is, between Mr. Saint Aubyn, Mr. Godolphin, and me who acted as
+deputy for my Master.
+
+This story of ours, albeit less honest, had more colour of the truth
+than Master Porson's hearsay.  It ran that Mr. Saint Aubyn, happening
+near Gunwallo, heard of the wreck and rode to it, where presently Mr.
+Godolphin and my Master joined him and helped to save the men; that, in
+attempting to save the cargo also, a man of Mr. Saint Aubyn's--one Will
+Carnarthur--was drowned; that, in fact, very little was rescued; and,
+seeing the men destitute and without money to buy meat and drink, we
+bought the goods in lawful bargain with the master.  As for the assault,
+we denied it, or that we took goods to the value of ten thousand pounds
+from the sailors.  All that was certainly known to be saved amounted to
+about 20 pounds worth; and, in spite of many trials to recover more,
+which failed to pay the charges of labour, the bulk of the cargo
+remained in the ship and was broken up by the seas.
+
+This was our tale, false in parts, yet a truer one than either of us,
+who uttered it, believed.  The only person in the plot (so to say) who
+knew it to be true in substance was my Master.  I, his deputy, took this
+version from him to Clowance with a mind glad enough to be relieved by
+my duty from having any opinion on the matter.  On the one hand, I had
+the evidence of my senses that the booty had been saved, and too much
+wit to doubt that any other man would conclude it to be in my Master's
+possession.  On the other, I had never known him lie or deceive, or
+engage me to further any deceit; his word was his bond, and by practice
+my word was his bond also.  Further, of this affair I had already begun
+to wonder if a man's plain senses could be trusted, as you will hear
+reason by-and-by.  As for Mr. Saint Aubyn and Mr. Godolphin, they had no
+doubt at all that my Master was lying, and that I had come wittingly to
+further his lie.  They would have drawn on him (I make no doubt) had he
+brought the tale in person.  From me, his intermediate, they took it as
+the best to suit with the known truth and present to the Commissioner.
+All Cornishmen are cousins, you may say.  It comes to this, rather:
+these gentlemen chose to accept my master's lie, and settle with him
+afterwards, rather than make a clean breast and be forced to wring their
+small shares out of the Exchequer.  A neighbour can be persuaded,
+terrified, forced; but London is always a long way off, and London
+lawyers are the devil.  I say freely that (knowing no more than they
+did, or I) these two gentlemen followed a reasonable policy.
+
+But, after we had fitted Sir Nicholas with our common story, and as I
+was mounting my horse in Clowance courtyard, Mr. Saint Aubyn came close
+to my stirrup and said this by way of parting:
+
+"You will understand, Mr. Tonkin, that to-day's tale is for to-day.
+But by God I will come and take my share--you may tell your master--and
+a trifle over!  And the next time I overtake you I promise to put a
+bullet in the back of your scrag neck."
+
+For answer to this--seeing that Master Porson stood at an easy distance
+with his eye on us--I saluted him gravely and rode out of the courtyard.
+
+
+Now the manner of the wreck was this, and our concern with it.
+So nearly as I can learn, the _Saint Andrew_ came ashore at two hours
+after noon: the date, the 20th of January, 1526, and the weather at the
+time coarse and foggy with a gale yet blowing from the south-west or a
+good west of south, but sensibly abating, and the tide wanting an hour
+before low water.
+
+It happened that Mr. Saint Aubyn was riding, with twenty men at his
+back, homeward from Gweek, where he had spent three days on some private
+business, when he heard news of the wreck at a farmhouse on the road to
+Helleston: and so turning aside, he, whose dwelling lay farthest from
+it, came first to the cove.  The news reached us at Pengersick a little
+after three o'clock; as I remember because my Master was just then
+settled to dinner.  But he rose at once and gave word to saddle in
+haste, at the same time bidding me make ready to ride with him, and
+fifteen others.
+
+So we set forth and rode--the wind lulling, but the rain coming down
+steadily--and reached Gunwallo Cove with a little daylight to spare.
+On the beach there we found most of the foreigners landed, but seven of
+them laid out starkly, who had been drowned or brought ashore dead
+(for the yard had fallen on board, the day before, and no time left in
+the ship's extremity to bury them): and three as good as dead--among
+whom was Master Porson, with a great wound of the scalp; also everywhere
+great piles of freight, chests, bales, and casks--a few staved and
+taking damage from salt water and rain, but the most in apparent good
+condition.  The crew had worked very busily at the salving, and to the
+great credit of men who had come through suffering and peril of death.
+Mr. Saint Aubyn's band, too, had lent help, though by this time the
+flowing of the tide forced them to give over.  But the master (as one
+might say) of their endeavours was neither the Portuguese captain nor
+Mr. Saint Aubyn, but a young damsel whom I must describe more
+particularly.
+
+She was standing, as we rode down the beach, nigh to the water's edge;
+with a group of men about her, and Mr. Saint Aubyn himself listening to
+her orders.  I can see her now as she turned at our approaching and she
+and my Master looked for the first time into each other's eyes, which
+afterwards were to look so often and fondly.  In age she appeared
+eighteen or twenty; her shape a mere girl's, but her face somewhat
+older, being pinched and peaked by the cold, yet the loveliest I have
+ever seen or shall see.  Her hair, which seemed of a copper red,
+darkened by rain, was blown about her shoulders, and her drenched blue
+gown, hitched at the waist with a snakeskin girdle, flapped about her as
+she turned to one or the other, using more play of hands than our
+home-bred ladies do.  Her feet were bare and rosy; ruddied doubtless, by
+the wind and brine, but I think partly also by the angry light of the
+sunsetting which broke the weather to seaward and turned the pools and
+the wetted sand to the colour of blood.  A hound kept beside her,
+shivering and now and then lowering his muzzle to sniff the oreweed, as
+if the brine of it puzzled him: a beast in shape somewhat like our
+grey-hounds, but longer and taller, and coated like a wolf.
+
+As I have tried to describe her she stood amid the men and the tangle of
+the beach; a shape majestical and yet (as we drew closer) slight and
+forlorn.  The present cause of her gestures we made out to be a
+dark-skinned fellow whom two of Saint Aubyn's men held prisoner with his
+arms trussed behind him.  On her other hand were gathered the rest of
+the Portuguese, very sullen and with dark looks whenever she turned from
+them to Saint Aubyn and from their language to the English.  He, I could
+see, was perplexed, and stood fingering his beard: but his face
+brightened as he came a step to meet my Master.
+
+"Ha!" said he, "you can help us, Milliton.  You speak the Portuguese, I
+believe?" (For my master was known to speak most of the languages of
+Europe, having caught them up in his youth when his father's madness
+forced him abroad.  And I myself, who had accompanied him so far as
+Venice, could pick my way in the _lingua Franca_.) "This fellow"--
+pointing at the prisoner--"has just drawn a knife on the lady here; and
+indeed would have killed her, but for this hound of hers.  My fellows
+have him tight and safe, as you see: but I was thinking by your leave to
+lodge him with you, yours being the nearest house for the safe keeping
+of such.  But the plague is," says he, "there seems to be more in the
+business than I can fathom: for one half of these drenched villains take
+the man's part, while scarce one of them seems too well disposed towards
+the lady: although to my knowledge she has worked more than any ten of
+them in salving the cargo.  And heaven help me if I can understand a
+word of their chatter!"
+
+My Master lifted his cap to her; and she lifted her eyes to him, but
+never a word did she utter, though but a moment since she had been using
+excellent English.  Only she stood, slight and helpless and (I swear)
+most pitiful, as one saying, "Here is my judge.  I am content."
+
+My Master turned to the prisoner and questioned him in the Portuguese.
+But the fellow (a man taller than the rest and passably
+straight-looking) would confess nothing but that his name was Gil Perez
+of Lagos, the boatswain of the wrecked ship.  Questioned of the assault,
+he shook his head merely and shrugged his shoulders.  His face was
+white: it seemed to me unaccountably, until glancing down I took note of
+a torn wound above his right knee on the inside, where the hound's teeth
+had fastened.
+
+"But who is the captain of the ship?" my Master demanded in Portuguese;
+and they thrust forward a small man who seemed not over-willing.
+Indeed his face had nothing to commend him, being sharp and yellow, with
+small eyes set too near against the nose.
+
+"Your name?" my Master demanded of him too.
+
+"Affonzo Cabral," he answered, and plunged into a long tale of the loss
+of his ship and how it happened.  Cut short in this and asked concerning
+the lady, he shrugged his shoulders and replied with an oath he knew
+nothing about her beyond this, that she had taken passage with him at
+Dunquerque for Lisbon, paying him beforehand and bearing him a letter
+from the Bishop of Cambrai, which conveyed to him that she was bound on
+some secret mission of politics to the Court of Lisbon.
+
+As I thought, two or three of the men would have murmured something
+here, but for a look from her, who, turning to my Master, said quietly
+in good English:
+
+"That man is a villain.  My name is Alicia of Bohemia, and my mission
+not to be told here in public.  But he best knows why he took me for
+passenger, and how he has behaved towards me.  Yourselves may see how I
+have saved his freight.  And for the rest, sir"--here she bent her eyes
+on my Master very frankly--"I have proved these men, and claim to be
+delivered from them."
+
+At this my Master knit his brows: and albeit he was a young man (scarce
+past thirty) and a handsome, the deep wedge-mark showed between them as
+I had often seen it show over the nose of the old man his father.
+
+"I think," said he to Mr. Saint Aubyn, "this should be inquired into at
+greater leisure.  With your leave my men shall take the prisoner to
+Pengersick and have him there in safe keeping.  And if"--with a bow--"
+the Lady Alicia will accept my poor shelter it will be the handier for
+our examining of him.  For the rest, cannot we be of service in rescuing
+yet more of the cargo?"
+
+But this for the while was out of question: the _Saint Andrew_ lying
+well out upon the strand, with never fewer than four or five ugly
+breakers between her and shore; and so balanced that every sea worked
+her to and fro.  Moreover, her mizzen mast yet stood, as by a miracle,
+and the weight of it so strained at her seams that (thought I) there
+could be very little left of her by the next ebb.
+
+By now, too, the night was closing down, and we must determine what to
+do with the cargo saved.  Mr. Godolphin, who had arrived with his men
+during my Master's colloquy, was ready with an offer of wains and
+pack-horses to convey the bulk of it to the outhouses at Godolphin.
+But this, when I interpreted it, the Portuguese captain would not hear.
+Nor was he more tractable to Mr. Saint Aubyn's offer to set a mixed
+guard of our three companies upon the stuff until daybreak.  He plainly
+had his doubts of such protection: and I could not avoid some respect
+for his wisdom while showing it by argument to be mere perversity.
+To my Master's persuasions and mine he shook his head: asking for the
+present to be allowed a little fuel and refreshment for his men, who
+would camp on the beach among their goods.  And to this, in the end, we
+had to consent.  Several times before agreeing--and perhaps more often
+than need was--my Master consulted with the Lady Alicia.  But she seemed
+indifferent what happened to the ship.  Indeed, she might well have been
+overwearied.
+
+At length, the Portugals having it their own way, we parted: Mr. Saint
+Aubyn riding off to lodge for the night with Mr. Godolphin, who took
+charge of the three wounded men; while we carried the Lady Alicia off to
+Pengersick (whither the prisoner Gil Perez had been marched on ahead),
+she riding pillion behind my Master, and the rest of us at a seemly
+distance.
+
+On reaching home I had first to busy myself with orders for the victuals
+to be sent down to the foreigners at the Cove, and afterwards in
+snatching my supper in the great hall, where already I saw my Master and
+the strange lady making good cheer together at the high table.  He had
+bidden the housekeeper fetch out some robes that had been his mother's,
+and in these antique fittings the lady looked not awkwardly (as you
+might suppose), but rather like some player in a masque.  I know not how
+'twas: but whereas (saving my respect) I had always been to my dear
+Master as a brother, close to his heart and thoughts, her coming did at
+once remove him to a distance from me, so that I looked on the pair as
+if the dais were part of some other world than this, and they, pledging
+each other up there and murmuring in foreign tongues and playing with
+glances, as two creatures moving through a play or pisky tale without
+care or burden of living, and yet in the end to be pitied.
+
+My fast broken, I bethought me of our prisoner; and catching up some
+meats and a flask of wine, hurried to the strong room where he lay.  But
+I found him stretched on his pallet, and turning in a kind of fever: so
+returned and fetched a cooling draught in place of the victuals, and
+without questioning made him drink it.  He thanked me amid some
+rambling, light-headed talk--the most of it too quickly poured out for
+me to catch; but by-and-by grew easier and drowsy.  I left him to sleep,
+putting off questions for the morning.
+
+But early on the morrow--between five and six o'clock--came Will Hendra,
+a cowkeeper, into our courtyard with a strange tale; one that disquieted
+if it did not altogether astonish me.  The tale--as told before my
+Master, whom I aroused to hear it--ran thus: that between midnight and
+one in the morning the Portugals in the Cove had been set upon and
+beaten from the spoils by a number of men with pikes (no doubt belonging
+to Saint Aubyn or Godolphin, or both), and forced to flee to the cliffs.
+But (here came in the wonder) the assailants, having mastered the field,
+fell on the casks, chests, and packages, only to find them utterly empty
+or filled with weed and gravel! Of freight--so Will Hendra had it from
+one of Godolphin's own men, who were now searching the cliffs and
+caverns--not twelve-pennyworth remained on the beach.  The Portugals
+must have hidden or made away with it all.  He added that their captain
+had been found at the foot of the cliffs with his head battered in; but
+whether by a fall or a blow taken in the affray, there was no telling.
+
+My Master let saddle at once and rode away for the Cove without breaking
+his fast.  And I went about my customary duties until full daybreak,
+when I paid a visit to the strong room, to see how the prisoner had
+slept.
+
+I found him sitting up in bed and nursing his leg, the wound of which
+appeared red and angry at the edges.  I sent, therefore, for a
+fomentation, and while applying it thought no harm to tell him the
+report from the Cove.  To my astonishment it threw him into a transport,
+though whether of rage or horror I could not at first tell.  But he
+jerked his leg from my grasp, and beating the straw with both fists he
+cried out--
+
+"I knew it!  I knew it would be so!  She is a witch--a daughter of
+Satan, or his leman!  It is her doing, I tell you.  It is she who has
+killed that fool Affonzo.  She is a witch!"  He fell back on the straw,
+his strength spent, but still beat weakly with his fists, gasping
+"Witch--witch!"
+
+"Hush!" said I.  "You are light-headed with your hurt.  Lie quiet and
+let me tend it."
+
+"As for my hurt," he answered, "your tending it will do no good.
+The poison of that hound of hell is in me, and nothing for me but to say
+my prayers.  But listen you"--here he sat up again and plucked me by the
+shoulder as I bent over his leg.  "The freight is not gone, and good
+reason for why: it was never landed!"
+
+"Hey?" said I, incredulous.
+
+"It was never landed.  The men toiled as she ordered--Lord, how they
+toiled!  Without witch-craft they had never done the half of it.  I tell
+you they handled moonshine--wove sand.  The riches they brought ashore
+were emptiness; vain shows that already have turned to chips and straw
+and rubbish.  Nay, sir"--for I drew back before these ravings--"listen
+for the love of God, before the poison gets hold of me!  Soon it will be
+too late. . . .  The evening before we sailed from Dunquerque, we were
+anchored out in the tide.  It was my watch.  I was leaning on the rail
+of the poop when I caught sight of her first.  She was running for her
+life across the dunes--running for the waterside--she and her hound
+beside her.  Away behind her, like ants dotted over the rises of the
+sand, were little figures running and pursuing.  Down by the waterside
+one boat was waiting, with a man in it--or the Devil belike--leaning on
+his oars.  She whistled;  he pulled close in shore.  She leapt into the
+boat with the dog at her heels, and was half-way across towards our ship
+before the first of those after her reached the water's edge.  When she
+hailed us I ran and fetched Affonzo the master.  The rest I charge to
+his folly.  It was he who handed her up the ship's side.  How the dog
+came on board I know not: only that I leaned over the bulwarks to have a
+look at him, but heard a pattering noise, and there he was on deck
+behind me and close beside his mistress.  The boat and rower had
+vanished--under the ship's stern, as I supposed, but now I have my
+doubts.  I saw no more of them, anyhow.
+
+"By this time Affonzo was reading her letter.  The crowd by the water's
+edge had found a boat at length--how, I know not; but it was a very
+little one, holding but six men besides the one rower, and then
+over-laden.  They pulled towards us and hailed just as the lady took the
+master's promise and went down to seek her cabin: and one of the men
+stood up, a tall gentleman with a chain about his neck.  Affonzo went to
+the side to parley with him.
+
+"The tall man with the chain cried out that he was mayor or provost--
+I forget which--and the woman must be given up as a proved witch who had
+laid the wickedest spells upon many citizens of Dunquerque.  All this he
+had to shout; for Affonzo, who--either ignorantly or by choice--was
+already on Satan's side, would not suffer him to come aboard or even
+nigh the ship's ladder.  Moreover, he drove below so many of our crew as
+had gathered to the side to listen, commanding me with curses to see to
+this.  Yet I heard something of the mayor's accusation; which was that
+the woman had come to Dunquerque, travelling as a great lady with a
+retinue of servants and letters of commendation to the religious houses,
+on which and on many private persons of note she had bestowed relics of
+our Lord and the saints, pretending it was for a penance that she
+journeyed and gave the bounties: but that, at a certain hour, these
+relics had turned into toads, adders, and all manner of abominable
+offal, defiling the holy places and private shrines, in some instances
+the very church altars: that upon the outcry her retinue had vanished,
+and she herself taken to flight as we saw her running.
+
+"At all this Affonzo scoffed, threatening to sink the boat if further
+troubled with their importunities.  And, the provost using threats in
+return, he gave order to let weigh incontinently and clear with the
+tide, which by this was turned to ebb.  And so, amid curses which we
+answered by display of our guns, we stood out from that port.  Of the
+master's purpose I make no guess.  Either he was bewitched, or the woman
+had taken him with her beauty, and he dreamed of finding favour with
+her.
+
+"This only I know, that on the second morning, she standing on deck
+beside him, he offered some familiar approach; whereupon the dog flew at
+him, and I believe would have killed him, but was in time called off by
+her.  Within an hour we met with the weather which after three days
+drove us ashore.  Now whether Affonzo suspected her true nature or not--
+as I know he had taken a great fear of her--I never had time to
+discover.  But I know her for a witch, and for a witch I tried to make
+away with her.  For the rest, may God pardon me!"
+
+All this the man uttered not as I have written it, but with many gasping
+interruptions; and afterwards lay back as one dead.  Before I could make
+head or tail of my wonder, I heard cries and a clatter from the
+courtyard, and ran out to see what was amiss.
+
+In the courtyard I found my Master with a dozen men closing the bolts of
+the great gate against a company who rained blows and hammerings on the
+outside of it.  My Master had dismounted, and while he called his orders
+the blood ran down his face from a cut above the forehead.  As for the
+smoking horses on which they had ridden in, these stood huddling,
+rubbing shoulders, and facing all ways like a knot of frightened colts.
+
+All the bolts being shut, my Master steps to the grille and speaking
+through it, "Saint Aubyn," says he, "between gentlemen there are fitter
+ways to dispute than brawling with servants.  I am no thief or robber;
+as you may satisfy yourself by search and question, bringing, if you
+will, Mr. Godolphin and three men to help you under protection of my
+word.  If you will not, then I am ready for you at any time of your
+choosing.  But I warn you that, if any man offers further violence to my
+gate, I send Master Tonkin to melt the lead, of which I have good store.
+So make your choice."
+
+He said it in English, and few of those who heard him could understand.
+And after a moment Saint Aubyn, who was a very courteous gentleman for
+all his hot temper, made answer in the same tongue.
+
+"If I cannot take your word, Pengersick," said he, "be sure no searching
+will satisfy me.  But that some of your men have made off with the
+goods, with or without your knowledge, I am convinced."
+
+"If they have--" my Master was beginning, when Godolphin's sneering
+laugh broke in on his words from the other side of the gate.
+
+"'_If!_' '_If!_' There are too many _if's_ in this parley for my
+stomach.  Look ye, Pengersick, will you give up the goods or no?"
+
+Upon this my Master changed his tone.  "As for Mr. Godolphin, I have
+this only to say: the goods are neither his nor mine; they are not in my
+keeping, nor do I believe them stolen by any of my men.  For the words
+that have passed between us to-day, he knows me well enough to be sure I
+shall hold him to account, and that soon: and to that assurance
+commending him, I wish you both a very good day."
+
+So having said, he strolled off towards the stables, leaving me to
+listen at the gate, where by-and-by, after some disputing, I had the
+pleasure to hear our besiegers draw off and trot away towards Godolphin.
+Happening to take a glance upwards at the house-front, I caught sight of
+the strange lady at the window of the guest-chamber, which faced towards
+the south-east.  She was leaning forth and gazing after them: but,
+hearing my Master's footsteps as he came from the stables, she withdrew
+her eyes from the road and nodded down at him gaily.
+
+But as he went indoors to join her at breakfast I ran after, and
+catching him in the porch, besought him to have his wound seen to.
+"And after that," said I, "there is another wounded man who needs your
+attention.   Unless you take his deposition quickly, I fear, sir, it may
+be too late."
+
+His eyebrows went up at this, but contracted again upon the twinge of
+his wound.  "I will attend to him first," said he shortly, and led the
+way to the strong room.  "Hullo!" was his next word, as he came to the
+door--for in my perturbation and hurry I had forgotten to lock it.
+
+"He is too weak to move," I stammered, as my poor excuse.
+
+"Nevertheless it was not well done," he replied, pushing past me.
+
+The prisoner lay on his pallet, gasping, with his eyes wide open in a
+rigor.  "Take her away!" he panted.  "Take her away!  She has been
+here!"
+
+"Hey?" I cried: but my Master turned on me sharply.  To this day I know
+not how much of evil he suspected.
+
+"I will summon you if I need you.  For the present you will leave us
+here alone."
+
+Nor can I tell what passed between them for the next half-an-hour.
+Only that when he came forth my Master's face was white and set beneath
+its dry smear of blood.  Passing me, who waited at the end of the
+corridor, he said, but without meeting my eyes:
+
+"Go to him.  The end is near."
+
+I went to him.  He lay pretty much as I had left him, in a kind of
+stupor; out of which, within the hour, he started suddenly and began to
+rave.  Soon I had to send for a couple of our stablemen; and not too
+soon.  For by this he was foaming at the mouth and gnashing, the man in
+him turned to beast and trying to bite, so that we were forced to strap
+him to his bed.  I shall say no more of this, the most horrible sight of
+my life.  The end came quietly, about six in the evening: and we buried
+the poor wretch that night in the orchard under the chapel wall.
+
+All that day, as you may guess, I saw nothing of the strange lady.
+And on the morrow until dinner-time I had but a glimpse of her.
+This was in the forenoon.  She stood, with her hound beside her, in an
+embrasure of the wall, looking over the sea: to the eye a figure so
+maidenly and innocent and (in a sense) forlorn that I recalled Gil
+Perez' tale as the merest frenzy, and wondered how I had come to listen
+to it with any belief.  Her seaward gaze would be passing over the very
+spot where we had laid him: only a low wall hiding the freshly turned
+earth.  My Master had ridden off early: I could guess upon what errand.
+
+He returned shortly after noon, unhurt and looking like a man satisfied
+with his morning's work.  And at dinner, watching his demeanour
+narrowly, I was satisfied that either he had not heard the prisoner's
+tale or had rejected it utterly.  For he took his seat in the gayest
+spirits, and laughed and talked with the stranger throughout the meal.
+And afterwards, having fetched an old lute which had been his mother's,
+he sat and watched her fit new strings to it, rallying her over her
+tangle.  But when she had it tuned and, touching it softly, began the
+first of those murmuring heathenish songs to which I have since listened
+so often, pausing in my work, but never without a kind of terror at
+beauty so far above my comprehending--why, then my Master laughed no
+more.
+
+He had met Godolphin that morning and run him through the thigh.
+And that bitterest enemy of ours still wore a crutch a month later, when
+we faced Master Porson before the Commissioner in Saint Aubyn's house at
+Clowance.  At that conference (not to linger over the time between) the
+Commissioner showed himself pardonably suspicious of us all.  He was a
+dry, foxy-faced man, who spoke little and at times seemed scarce to be
+listening; but rather turning over some deeper matters in his brain
+behind his grey-coloured eyes.  But at length, Mr. Saint Aubyn having
+twice or thrice made mention of the Lady Alicia and her presence on the
+beach, this Sir Nicholas looked up at me sharply, and said he--"By all
+accounts this lady was a passenger shipped by the master at Dunquerque.
+It seems she was a foreign lady of birth, bearing letters commendatory
+to the Court of Lisbon."
+
+"That was his story of it," Master Porson assented.  "I was below and
+busy with the cargo at the time, and knew nothing of her presence on
+board until we had cleared the harbour."
+
+"And at this moment she is a guest of Mr. Milliton's at Pengersick?"
+pursued Sir Nicholas, still with his eyes upon mine.  I bowed, feeling
+mightily uneasy.  "It is most necessary that I should take her
+evidence--and Mr. Milliton's.  In all the statements received by me
+Mr. Milliton bears no small part: his house lies at no distance from
+Gunwallo Cove: and I have heard much of your Cornish courtesy.
+It appears to me singular, therefore, that although I have been these
+four days in his neighbourhood no invitation has reached me to visit
+his house and have audience with him: and it argues small courtesy that
+on coming here to-day in full expectation of seeing him, I should be
+fobbed off with a deputy."
+
+"Though but a deputy," I protested, "I have my Master's entire
+confidence."
+
+"No doubt," said he drily.  "But it would be more to the point if you
+had mine.  It is imperative that I see Mr. Milliton of Pengersick and
+hear his evidence, as also this Lady Alicia's: and you may bear him my
+respects and say that I intend to call upon him to-morrow."
+
+I bowed.  It was all I could do: since the truth (for different reasons)
+could neither be told to him nor to the others.  And the truth was that
+for two days my Master and the strange lady had not been seen at
+Pengersick!  They had vanished, and two horses with them: but when and
+how I neither knew nor dared push inquiries to discover.  Only the
+porter could have told me had he chosen; but when I questioned him he
+looked cunning, shook his head, and as good as hinted that I would be
+wiser to question nobody, but go about my business as if I shared the
+secret.
+
+And so I did, imitating the porter's manner even before Dame Tresize,
+the housekeeper.  But it rankled that, even while instructing me--as he
+did on the eve of his departing--in the part I was to play at Clowance,
+my Master had chosen to shut me out of this part of his confidence.
+And now on the road home from Clowance I carried an anxious heart as
+well as a sore.  To tell the truth--that my Master was away--I had not
+been able, knowing how prompt Saint Aubyn and Godolphin might be to take
+the advantage and pay us an unwelcome visit.  "And indeed," thought I,
+"if my Master hides one thing from me, why not another?  The stuff may
+indeed be stored with us: though I will not believe it without proof."
+The Commissioner would come, beyond a doubt.  To discover my Master's
+absence would quicken his suspicions: to deny him admittance would
+confirm them.
+
+I reached home, yet could get no sleep for my quandary.  But a little
+before the dawning, while I did on my clothes, there came a knocking at
+the gate followed by a clatter of hoofs in the courtyard; and hurrying
+down, with but pause to light my lantern, I found my Master there and
+helping the strange lady to dismount, with the porter and two sleepy
+grooms standing by and holding torches.  Beneath the belly of the lady's
+horse stood her hound, his tongue lolling and his coat a cake of mire.
+The night had been chilly and the nostrils of the hard-ridden beasts
+made a steam among the lights we held, while above us the upper frontage
+of the house stood out clear between the growing daylight and the waning
+moon poised above the courtlege-wall in the south-west.
+
+"Hey!  Is that Paschal?"  My Master turned as one stiff with riding.
+His face was ghastly pale, yet full of a sort of happiness: and I saw
+that his clothes were disordered and his boots mired to their tops.
+"Good luck!" cried he, handing the lady down.  "We can have supper at
+once."
+
+"Supper?" I repeated it after him.
+
+"Or breakfast--which you choose.  Have the lights lit in the hall, and a
+table spread.  My lady will eat and drink before going to her room."
+
+"'My lady'?" was my echo again.
+
+"Just so--my lady, and my wife, and henceforward your Mistress.
+Lead the way, if you please!  Afterwards I will talk."
+
+I did as I was ordered: lit the lights about the dais, spread the cloth
+with my own hands, fetched forth the cold meats and--for he would have
+no servants aroused--waited upon them in silence and poured the wine,
+all in a whirl of mind.  My Mistress (as I must now call her) showed no
+fatigue, though her skirts were soiled as if they had been dragged
+through a sea of mud.  Her eyes sparkled and her bosom heaved as she
+watched my Master, who ate greedily.  But beyond the gallant words with
+which he pledged her welcome home to Pengersick nothing was said until,
+his hunger put away, he pushed back his chair and commanded me to tell
+what had happened at Clowance: which I did, pointing out the ticklish
+posture of affairs, and that for a certainty the Commissioner might be
+looked for in within a few hours.
+
+"Well," said my Master, "I see no harm in his coming, nor any profit.
+The goods are not with us: never were with us: and there's the end of
+it."
+
+But I was looking from him to my Mistress, who with bent brows sat
+studying the table before her.
+
+"Master Paschal," said she after a while, as one awaking from thought,
+"has done his business zealously and well.  I will go to my room now and
+rest: but let me be aroused when this visitor comes, for I believe that
+I can deal with him."  And she rose and walked away to the stair, with
+the hound at her heels.
+
+A little later I saw my Master to his room: and after that had some
+hours of leisure in which to fret my mind as well over what had happened
+as what was likely to.  It was hard on noon when the Commissioner
+arrived: and with him Master Porson.  I led them at once to the hall
+and, setting wine before them, sent to learn when my Master and Mistress
+would be pleased to give audience.  The lady came down almost at once,
+looking very rosy and fresh.  She held a packet of papers, and having
+saluted the Commissioner graciously, motioned me to seat myself at the
+table with paper and pen.
+
+Sir Nicholas began with some question touching her business on board the
+_Saint Andrew_: and in answer she drew a paper from the top of her
+packet.  It was spotted with sea-water, but (as I could see) yet
+legible.  The Commissioner studied it, showed it to Master Porson (who
+nodded), and handing it back politely, begged her for some particulars
+concerning the wreck.
+
+Upon this she told the story clearly and simply.  There had been a three
+days' tempest: the ship had gone ashore in such and such a manner: a
+great part of the cargo had undoubtedly been landed.  It was on the
+beach when she had left it under conduct of Mr. Milliton, who had shown
+her great kindness.  On whomsoever its disappearance might be charged,
+of her host's innocence she could speak.
+
+My Master appearing just now saluted the Commissioner and gave his
+version very readily.
+
+"You may search my cellars," he wound up, "and, if you please,
+interrogate my servants.  My livery is known by everyone in this
+neighbourhood to be purple and tawny.  The seamen can tell you if any of
+their assailants wore these colours."
+
+"They assure me," said Sir Nicholas, "that the night was too dark for
+them to observe colours: and for that matter to disguise them would have
+been a natural precaution.  There was a wounded man brought to your
+house--one Gil Perez, the boatswain."
+
+"He is dead, as you doubtless know, of a bite received from this lady's
+hound as he was attacking her with a knife."
+
+"But why, madam"--the factor turned to my Mistress--"should this man
+have attacked you?"
+
+She appeared to be expecting this question, and drew from her packet a
+second paper, which she unfolded quietly and spread on the table, yet
+kept her palm over the writing on it while she answered, "Those who
+engage upon missions of State must look to meet with attacks, but not to
+be asked to explain them.  The mob at Dunquerque pursued me upon a
+ridiculous charge, yet was wisely incited by men who invented it,
+knowing the true purpose of my mission."  She glanced from the
+Commissioner to Master Porson.  "Sir Nicholas Fleming--surely I have
+heard his name spoken, as of a good friend to the Holy Father and not
+too anxious for the Emperor's marriage with Mary Tudor?"
+The Commissioner started in his chair, while she turned serenely upon
+his companion.  "And Master Porson," she continued, "as a faithful
+servant of His Majesty of Portugal will needs be glad to see a princess
+of Portugal take Mary Tudor's place.  Eh?"--for they were eyeing each
+the other like two detected schoolboys--"It would seem, sirs, that
+though you came together, you were better friends than you guessed.
+Glance your eye, Master Porson, over this paper which I shall presently
+entrust to you for furtherance; and you will agree with Sir Nicholas
+that the prudent course for both of you is to forget, on leaving this
+house, that any such person as I was on board the _Saint Andrew._"
+
+The two peered into the parchment and drew back.  "The Emperor--" I
+heard the Commissioner mutter with an intake of breath.
+
+"And, as you perceive, in his own handwriting."  She folded up the paper
+and, replacing it, addressed my Master.  "Your visitors, sir, deserve
+some refreshment for their pains and courtesy."
+
+And that was the end of the conference.  What that paper contained I
+know as little as I know by what infernal sorcery it was prepared.
+Master Porson folded it up tight in his hand, glancing dubiously at Sir
+Nicholas.  My lady stood smiling upon the both for a moment, then
+dismissed me to the kitchens upon a pretended errand.  They were gone
+when I returned, nor did I again set eyes upon the Commissioner or the
+factor.  It is true that the Emperor did about this time break his
+pledge with our King Henry and marry a princess of Portugal; and some of
+high office in England were not sorry therefore.  But of this enough.
+
+
+As the days wore on and we heard no more of the wreck, my Master and
+Mistress settled down to that retirement from the world which is by
+custom allowed to the newly married, but which with them was to last to
+the end.  A life of love it was; but--God help us!--no life of
+happiness; rather, in process of days, a life of torment.  Can I tell
+you how it was?  At first to see them together was like looking through
+a glass upon a picture; a picture gallant and beautiful yet removed
+behind a screen and not of this world.  Suppose now that by little and
+little the glass began to be flawed, or the picture behind it to crumble
+(you could not tell which) until when it smiled it smiled wryly, until
+rocks toppled and figures fell askew, yet still kept up their pretence
+of play against the distorted woodland.  Nay, it was worse than this:
+fifty times worse.  For while the fair show tottered, my Master and
+Mistress clung to their love; and yet it was just their love which kept
+the foundations rocking.
+
+They lived for each other.  They neither visited nor received visits.
+Yet they were often, and by degrees oftener, apart; my Master locked up
+with his books, my Mistress roaming the walls with her hound or seated
+by her lattice high on the seaward side of the castle.  Sometimes (but
+this was usually on moonlit nights or windless evenings when the sun
+sank clear to view over our broad bay) she would take up her lute and
+touch it to one of those outlandish love-chants with which she had first
+wiled my Master's heart to her.  As time went on, stories came to us
+that these chants, which fell so softly on the ears of us as we went
+about the rooms and gardens, had been heard by fishermen riding by their
+nets far in the offing--so far away (I have heard) as the Scillies; and
+there were tales of men who, as they listened, had seen the ghosts of
+drowned mariners rising and falling on the moon-rays, or floating with
+their white faces thrown back while they drank in the music; yea, even
+echoing the words of the song in whispers like the flutter of birds'
+wings.
+
+When first the word crept about that she was a witch I cannot certainly
+say.  But in time it did; and, what is more--though I will swear that no
+word of Gil Perez' confession ever passed my lips--the common folk soon
+held it for a certainty that the cargo saved from the _Saint Andrew_ had
+been saved by her magic only; that the plate and rich stuffs seen by my
+own eyes were but cheating _simulacra_, and had turned into rubbish at
+midnight, scarce an hour before the assault on the Portuguese.
+
+I have wondered since if 'twas this rumour and some belief in it which
+held Messrs. Saint Aubyn and Godolphin from offering any further attack
+on us.  You might say that it was open to them, so believing, to have
+denounced her publicly.  But in our country Holy Church had little
+hold--scarce more than the King's law itself in such matters; and within
+my memory it has always come easier to us to fear witch-craft than to
+denounce it.  Also (and it concerns my tale) the three years which
+followed the stranding of the _Saint Andrew_ were remarkable for a great
+number of wrecks upon our coast.  In that short time we of our parish
+and the men of St. Hilary upon our north were between us favoured with
+no fewer than fourteen; the most of them vessels of good burden.  Of any
+hand in bringing them ashore I know our gentry to have been innocent.
+Still, there were pickings; and finding that my Master held aloof from
+all share in such and (as far as could be) held his servants aloof, our
+neighbours, though not accepting this for quittance, forbore to press
+the affair of the _Saint Andrew_ further than by spreading injurious
+tales and whispers.
+
+The marvel was that we of Pengersick (who reaped nothing of this
+harvest) fell none the less under suspicion of decoying the vessels
+ashore.  More than once in my dealings with the fishermen and tradesmen
+of Market Jew, I happened on hints of this; but nothing which could be
+taken hold of until one day a certain Peter Chynoweth of that town,
+coming drunk to Pengersick with a basket of fish, blurted out the tale.
+Said he, after I had beaten him down to a reasonable price, "Twould be
+easy enough, one would think, to spare an honest man a groat of the
+fortune Pengersick makes on these dark nights."
+
+"Thou lying thief!" said I.  "What new slander is this?"
+
+"Come, come," says he, looking roguish; "that won't do for me that have
+seen the false light on Cuddan Point more times than I can count; and so
+has every fisherman in the bay."
+
+Well, I kicked him through the gate for it, and flung his basket after
+him; but the tale could not be so dismissed.  "It may be," thought I,
+"some one of Pengersick has engaged upon this wickedness on his own
+account"; and for my Master's credit I resolved to keep watch.
+
+I took therefore the porter into my secret, who agreed to let me through
+the gate towards midnight without telling a soul.  I took a sheepskin
+with me and a poignard for protection; and for a week, from midnight to
+dawn, I played sentinel on Cuddan Point, walking to and fro, or
+stretched under the lee of a rock whence I could not miss any light
+shown on the headland, if Peter Chynoweth's tale held any truth.
+
+By the eighth trial I had pretty well made up my mind (and without
+astonishment) that Peter Chynoweth was a liar.  But scarcely had I
+reached my post that night when, turning, I descried a radiance as of a
+lantern, following me at some fifty paces.  On the instant I gripped my
+poignard and stepped behind a boulder.  The light drew nearer, came, and
+passed me.  To my bewilderment it was no lantern, but an open flame,
+running close along the turf and too low for anyone to be carrying it:
+nor was the motion that of a light which a man carries.
+Moreover, though it passed me within half-a-dozen yards and lit up the
+stone I stood behind, I saw nobody and heard no footstep, though the
+wind (which was south-westerly) blew from it to me.  In this breeze the
+flame quivered, though not violently but as it were a ball of fire
+rolling with a flickering crest.
+
+It went by, and I followed it at something above walking pace until upon
+the very verge of the head-land, where I had no will to risk my neck, it
+halted and began to be heaved up and down much like the poop-light of a
+vessel at sea.  In this play it continued for an hour at least; then it
+came steadily back towards me by the way it had gone, and as it came I
+ran upon it with my dagger.  But it slipped by me, travelling at speed
+towards the mainland; whither I pelted after it hot-foot, and so across
+the fields towards Pengersick.  Strain as I might, I could not overtake
+it; yet contrived to keep it within view, and so well that I was bare a
+hundred yards behind when it came under the black shadow of the castle
+and without pause glided across the dry moat and so up the face of the
+wall to my lady's window, which there overhung.  And into this window it
+passed before my very eyes and vanished.
+
+I know not what emboldened me, but from the porter's lodge I went
+straight up to my Master's chamber, where (though the hour must have
+been two in the morning or thereabouts) a light was yet burning.
+Also--but this had become ordinary--a smell of burning gums and herbs
+filled the passage leading to his door.  He opened to my knock, and
+stood before me in his dressing-gown of sables--a tall figure of a man
+and youthful, though already beginning to stoop.  Over his shoulder I
+perceived the room swimming with coils of smoke which floated in their
+wreaths from a brazier hard by the fireplace.
+
+I think his first motion was to thrust me away; but I caught him by the
+hand, and with many protestations broke into my tale, giving him no time
+to forbid me.  And presently he drew me inside, and shutting the door,
+stood upright by the table, facing me with his fingers on the rim as if
+they rested there for support.
+
+"Paschal," said he, when at length I drew back, "this must not come to
+my lady's ears.  She has been ailing of late."
+
+"Ay, sir, and long since: of a disease past your curing."
+
+"God help us! I hope not," said he; then broke out violently: "She is
+innocent, Paschal; innocent as a child!"
+
+"Innocent!" cried I, in a voice which showed how little I believed.
+
+"Paschal," he went on, "you are my servant, but my friend also, I hope.
+Nay, nay, I know.  I swear to you, then, these things do but happen in
+her sleep.  In her waking senses she is mine, as one day she shall be
+mine wholly.  But at night, when her will is dissolved in sleep, the
+evil spirit wakes and goes questing after its master."
+
+"Mahound?" I stammered, quaking.
+
+"Be it Satan himself," said he, very low and resolute, "I will win her
+from him, though my own soul be the ransom."
+
+"Dear my Master," I began, and would have implored him on my knees; but
+he pointed to the door.  "I will win her," he repeated.  "What you have
+seen to-night happens more rarely now.  Moreover, the summer is
+beginning--"
+
+He paused: yet I had gathered his meaning.  "There will be less peril
+for the ships for a while," said I.
+
+Said he: "To _them_ she intends no harm.  It is for her master the light
+waves.  Paschal, I am an unhappy man!"  He flung a hand to his forehead,
+but recovering himself peered at me under the shadow of it.  "If you
+could watch--often--as you have done to-night--you might protect others
+from seeing--"
+
+The wisdom of this at least I saw, and gave him my promise readily.
+Upon this understanding (for no more could be had) I withdrew me.
+
+The next day, therefore, I moved my bed to a turret-chamber on the angle
+of the south-eastern wall whence I could keep my lady's window in view.
+I was never a man to need much sleep: but if, through the year which
+followed, the apparition escaped once or twice without my cognisance, I
+dare take oath this was the extent of it.  It appeared more rarely, as
+my Master had promised: and in the end (I think) scarce above once a
+month.  In form it never varied from the cresseted globe of flame I had
+first seen, and always it took the path across the fields towards Cuddan
+Point.  No sound went with it, or announced its going or return: and
+while it was absent, my lady's chamber would be utterly dark and silent.
+My custom was not to follow it (which I had proved to be useless), but
+to let myself out and patrol the walls, satisfying myself that no
+watchers lurked about the castle.  I understood now that Pengersick was
+reported throughout the neighbourhood to be haunted: and such a report
+is not the worst protection.  These vague tales kept aloof the country
+people who, but for them, had almost certainly happened on the secret.
+And night after night while I watched, my Master wrestled with the Evil
+One in his room.
+
+The last time I saw the apparition was on the night of May 10th, 1529,
+more than three years after my lady's first coming to Pengersick.
+I was prepared for it: for she had been singing at her window a great
+part of the afternoon, and I had learnt to be warned by this mood.
+The night was a dark one, with flying clouds and a stiff breeze blowing
+up from the south-east.  The flame left my lady's window at the usual
+hour--a few minutes after midnight--but returned some while before its
+due time.  In ordinary it would be away for an hour and a half, or from
+that to two hours, but this night I had scarcely begun my rounds before
+I saw it returning across the fields.  Nor was this the only surprise.
+For as I watched it up the wall and saw it gain my lady's window, I
+heard the hound within lift up its voice in a long, shuddering howl.
+
+I lost no time, but made my way to my Master's room.  He, too, had heard
+the dog's howl, and was strangely perturbed.  "It means something.
+It means something," he kept repeating.  He had already run to his
+wife's chamber, but found her in a deep slumber and the hound (which
+always slept on the floor at her bed's foot) composing itself to sleep
+again, with jowl dropped on its fore-paws.
+
+The next morning I had fixed to ride into the Market Jew to fetch a
+packet of books which was waiting there for my Master.  But at the
+entrance of the town I found the people in great commotion, the cause of
+which turned out to be a group of Turk men gathered at the hither end of
+the causeway leading to the Mount.  One told me they were Moslems (which
+indeed was apparent at first sight) and that their ship had run ashore
+that night, under the Mount; but with how much damage was doubtful.
+She lay within sight, in a pretty safe position, and not so badly fixed
+but I guessed the next tide would float her if her bottom were not
+broken.  The Moslems (nine in all) had rowed ashore in their boat and
+landed on the causeway; but with what purpose they had no chance to
+explain: for the inhabitants, catching sight of their knives and
+scymeters, could believe in nothing short of an intent to murder and
+plunder; and taking courage in numbers, had gathered (men and women) to
+the causeway-head to oppose them.  To be sure these fears had some
+warrant in the foreigners' appearance: who with their turbans, tunics,
+dark faces and black naked legs made up a show which Market Jew had
+never known before nor (I dare say) will again.
+
+Nor had the mildness of their address any effect but to raise a fresh
+commotion.  For, their leader advancing with outstretched hands and
+making signals that he intended no mischief but rather sued for
+assistance, at once a cry went up, "The Plague!"  "The Plague!" at which
+I believe the crowd would have scattered like sheep had not a few sturdy
+volunteers with pikes and boat-hooks forbidden his nearer approach.
+
+Into this knot the conference had locked itself when I rode up and--the
+crowd making way for me--addressed the strangers in the _lingua Franca_,
+explaining that my Master of Pengersick was a magistrate and would be
+forward to help them either with hospitality or in lending aid to get
+their ship afloat; further that they need have no apprehension of the
+crowd, which had opposed them in fear, not in churlishness; yet it might
+be wise for the main body to stay and keep guard over the cargo while
+their spokesman went with me to Pengersick.
+
+To this their leader at once consented; and we presently set forth
+together, he walking by my horse with an agile step and that graceful
+bearing which I had not seen since my days of travel: a bearded swarthy
+man, extraordinarily handsome in Moorish fashion and distinguished from
+his crew not only by authority as patron of the ship, but by a natural
+dignity.  I judged him about forty.  Me he treated with courtesy, yet
+with a reticence which seemed to say he reserved his speech for my
+Master.  Of the wreck he said nothing except that his ship had been by
+many degrees out of her bearings: and knowing that the Moorish disasters
+in Spain had thrown many of their chiefs into the trade of piracy I was
+contented to smoke such an adventurer in this man, and set him down for
+one better at fighting than at navigation.
+
+With no more suspicion than this I reached Pengersick and, bestowing the
+stranger in the hall, went off to seek my Master.  For the change that
+came over my dear lord's face as he heard my errand I was in no way
+prepared.  It was terrible.
+
+"Paschal," he cried, sinking into a chair and spreading both hands
+helplessly on the table before him, "it is _he!_  Her time is come, and
+mine!"
+
+It was in vain that I reasoned, protesting (as I believed) that the
+stranger was but a chance pirate cast ashore by misadventure; and as
+vain that, his fears infecting me, I promised to go down and get rid of
+the fellow on some pretence.
+
+"No," he insisted, "the hour is come.  I must face it: and what is more,
+Paschal, I shall win.  Another time I shall be no better prepared.
+Bring him to my room and then go and tell my lady that I wish to speak
+with her."
+
+I did so.  On ushering in the stranger I saw no more than the bow with
+which the two men faced each other: for at once my Master signalled me
+to run on my further errand.  Having delivered my message at my lady's
+door, I went down to the hall, and lingering there, saw her pass along
+the high gallery above the dais towards my lord's room, with the hound
+at her heels.
+
+Thence I climbed the stair to my own room: locked the door and anon
+unlocked it, to be ready at sudden need.  And there I paced hour after
+hour, without food, listening.  From the courtyard came the noise of the
+grooms chattering and splashing: but from the left wing, where lay my
+Master's rooms, no sound at all.  Twice I stole out along the
+corridors and hung about the stair head: but could hear nothing, and
+crept back in fear to be caught eavesdropping.
+
+It was about five in the afternoon (I think), all was still in the
+courtyard, when I heard the click of a latch and, running to the window,
+saw the porter closing his wicket gate.  A minute later, on a rise
+beyond the wall, I spied the Moor.  His back was towards the castle and
+he was walking rapidly towards Market Jew: and after him padded my
+lady's hound.
+
+I hurried along the passages and knocked at my Master's door.  No one
+answered.  I could not wait to knock again, but burst it open.
+
+
+On the floor at my feet lay my Master, and hard by the window my
+Mistress with her hands crossed upon a crucifix.  My Master had no
+crucifix: but his face wore a smile--a happier one than it had worn for
+years.
+
+[1] About 150,000 pounds in present money.
+
+
+
+FROZEN MARGIT
+
+
+_A Narrative of the sufferings of Mr. Obed Lanyon, of Vellingey-Saint
+Agnes, Cornwall; Margit Lanyon, his wife; and seventeen persons (mostly
+Americans) shipwrecked among the Quinaiult Tribes of the N.W. Coast of
+America, in the winter of 1807-8.  With some remarkable Experiences of
+the said Margit Lanyon, formerly Pedersen.  Written by the Survivor,
+Edom Lanyon, sometime a Commander in the service of the Honourable East
+India Company._
+
+My twin brother Obed and I were born on the 21st of March, 1759
+(he being the elder by a few minutes), at Vellingey-St. Agnes, or
+St. Ann's, a farm on the north coast of Cornwall, owned and cultivated
+by our father Renatus Lanyon.   Our mother was a Falmouth woman,
+daughter of a ship's captain of that port: and I suppose it was this
+inclined us to a sea-faring life.  At any rate, soon after our fifteenth
+birthday we sailed (rather against our father's wish) on a short
+coasting voyage with our grandfather--whose name was William Dustow.
+
+A second voyage in the early summer of 1776 took us as far as the
+Thames.  It happened that the famous Captain Cook was just then
+recruiting for his third and (as it proved) his last voyage of
+discovery.  This set us talking and planning, and the end was that we
+stole ashore and offered ourselves.  Obed had the luck to be picked.
+Though very like in face, I was already the taller by two inches; and no
+doubt the Captain judged I had outgrown my strength.  But it surprised
+me to be rejected when Obed was taken; and disappointed me more: for,
+letting alone the prospect of the voyage, we two (as twins, and our
+parents' only children) were fond of each other out of the common
+degree, and had never thought to be separated.
+
+To speak first of Obed:--Captain Cook put some questions, and finding
+that we were under our grandfather's care, would do nothing without his
+consent.  We returned to the ship and confessed to the old man, who
+pretended to be much annoyed.  But next day he put on his best clothes
+and went in search of the great seaman, to Whitehall; and so the matter
+was arranged.  Obed sailed in July on board the _Discovery_; shared the
+dangers of that voyage, in which the ships followed up the N.W. Coast of
+America and pushed into Behring's Strait beyond the 70th parallel; was a
+witness, on February 4th, 1779, of his commander's tragical end; and
+returned to England in October, 1780.  Eleven years later he made
+another voyage to the same N.W. American Coast; this time as master's
+mate under Vancouver, who had kept an interest in him since they sailed
+together under Cook, and thought highly of him as a practical navigator
+and draughtsman.  It was my brother who, under Vancouver, drew up the
+first chart of the Straits of Fuca, which Cook had missed: and I have
+been told (by a Mr. G--, a clerk to the Admiralty) that on his return he
+stood well for a lieutenant's commission--the rule of the Service being
+stretched now and then to favour these circumnavigating seamen, many of
+whom worked their way aft from the hawse-hole to the quarter deck.
+But my father and mother dying just then, and the former having slipped
+a particular request into his will, Obed threw up the sea and settled
+down in Vellingey as a quiet yeoman farmer.
+
+Meanwhile, in 1779, I had entered the sea service of the Honourable East
+India Company; and with passable good fortune had risen in it pretty
+fast.  Enough to say, that by the spring of 1796 I was looking forward
+to the command of a ship.  Just then my fortune deserted me.  In a
+sudden fear of French invasion, our Government bought the four new ships
+which the Company had building (and a bad bargain they proved).
+This put a stop for the time to all chance of promotion; and a sharp
+attack of jaundice falling on top of my disappointments, I took the
+usual decrease of pay and the Board's promise to remember my services on
+a proper occasion, and hauled ashore to Vellingey for a holiday and a
+thorough refit of health.
+
+I believe that the eight or nine following months which Obed and I spent
+together were the happiest in our two lives.  He was glad enough to
+shoulder off the small business of the farm and turn--as I have seen so
+many men play, in a manner, at the professions they have given over--to
+his favourite amusement of sounding the coast of Vellingey and
+correcting the printed charts.  He kept a small lugger mainly for this
+purpose, and plied her so briskly that he promised to know the
+sea-bottom between Kelsey Head and Godrevy Rock better than his own
+fields.  As for me, after years of salt water and stumping decks, I
+asked nothing better than to steer a plough and smell broken soil, and
+drowse after supper in an armchair, with good tobacco and Obed for
+company.
+
+In this way we passed the winter of 1796-7; until the lambing season,
+which fell midway in February.  The year opened wet, with fresh south
+westerly winds, which in the second week chopped suddenly; and for four
+days a continuous freezing gale blew on us from the N.W. It was then
+that the lambs began to drop; and for three nights I exchanged pipe and
+fireside for a lantern and the lower corner of Friar's Parc at the back
+of the towans, where the ewes were gathered in the lew.[1]  They kept us
+so busy that for forty-eight hours we neither changed our clothes (at
+least, I did not) nor sat down to a meal.  The sand about Vellingey is
+always driving, more or less; and the gale so mixed it up with fine snow
+that we made our journeys to and from the house, so to speak, blindfold,
+and took our chance of the drifts.  But the evening of the 11th promised
+better.  The wind dropped, and in an hour fell to a flat calm: then,
+after another hour, began to draw easily off shore--the draught itself
+being less noticeable than the way in which it smoothed down the heavy
+sea running.  Though the cold did not lift, the weather grew tolerable
+once more: and each time I crossed the townplace[2] with a lamb in my
+arms, I heard the surf running lower and lower in the porth below
+Vellingey.
+
+By day-break (the 12th) it was fallen to nothing: the sky still holding
+snow, but sky and sea the same colour; a heavy blueish grey, like steel.
+I was coming over the towans, just then, with a lamb under either arm
+(making twelve, that night) when I happened to look seaward, and there
+saw a boat tossing, about a gunshot from the shore.
+
+She was a long boat, painted white; very low in the sheer, and curved at
+stem and stern like a Norwegian; her stem rounded off without a transom,
+and scarcely bluffer than her bows.  She carried a mast, stepped right
+forward; but no sail.  She was full of people.  I counted five sitting,
+all white with snow--one by the mast, three amidships, and one in the
+stern sheets, steering.  At least, he had a hand on the tiller: but the
+people had given over pulling, and the boat without steerage-way was
+drifting broadside-on towards the shore with the set of the tide.
+
+While I stood conning her, up at the house the back-door opened, and my
+brother stepped out and across the yard to milk the cows.  His
+milk-pails struck against the door-post, and sounded as clear as bells.
+I shouted to him and pointed towards the boat: and after looking a
+moment, he set down his pails and started off at a run, down towards the
+porth.  I then hurried towards the house, where I found Selina, our old
+housekeeper, in the kitchen, tending the lambs with warm milk.
+Handing the new-comers over to her, I caught up a line and made off
+hot-foot after Obed.
+
+At low-water (and the tide had now scarcely an hour to ebb) the sands in
+Vellingey Porth measure a good half-mile from the footbridge at its head
+to the sea at its base.  My legs were longer than Obed's; but I dare say
+he had arrived five minutes ahead of me.  He was standing and calling to
+the boat's crew to get out an oar and pull her head-to-sea: for although
+the smoothing wind had taken most of the danger out of the breakers,
+they were quite able to capsize and roll over any boat that beached
+herself in that lubberly fashion.
+
+I ran up panting, and shouted with him--"Pull her round head-to-sea, and
+back her in!"
+
+Not a man moved or lifted a hand.  The next moment, a wave tilted and
+ran a dozen yards with her, but mercifully passed before it broke.
+A smaller one curved on the back-draught and splashed in over her
+gunwale as she took ground.  But what knocked the wind out of our sails
+was this--As the first wave canted her up, two men had rolled out of her
+like logs; and the others, sitting like logs, had never so much as
+stirred to help!
+
+"Good Lord!" I called out, and fumbled with my line.  "What's the
+meaning of it?"
+
+"The meaning is," said Obed, "they're dead men, every mother's son.
+They're frozen," said he: "I've seen frozen seamen before now."
+
+"I'll have in the boat, anyway," I said.  "Here, catch hold and pay
+out!"  Running in, I reached her just as she lifted again; and managed
+to slew her nose in-shore, but not in time to prevent half-a-hogshead
+pouring over her quarter.  This wave knocked her broadside-on again, and
+the water shipped made her heavier to handle.  But by whipping my end of
+the line round the thwart in which her mast was stepped, for Obed to
+haul upon, and myself heaving at her bows, we fetched her partly round
+as she lifted again, and ran her into the second line of breakers, which
+were pretty well harmless.
+
+"How many on board?" Obed sang out.
+
+"Five!" called I, having counted them.  Up to this I had had enough to
+do with the boat; besides looking after myself.  For twice the heave had
+tilled me up to the armpits, and once lifted me clean off my feet; and I
+had no wish to try swimming in my sea-boots.  "Five," said I; "and two
+overboard--that makes seven.  Come and look here!"
+
+"Tend to the boat first," he said.  "I've seen frozen seamen."
+
+"You never saw the likes of this," I answered.  So he ran in beside me.
+
+The boat had her name (or that of the ship she belonged to) painted in
+yellow and black on the gunwale strake by her port quarter--
+"MARGIT PEDERSEN, BERGEN": but by their faces we could not miss knowing
+to what country the poor creatures belonged.  They were--
+
+    1.  A tall man, under middle age; seated by the mast and leaning
+    against it (his right arm frozen to it, in fact, from the elbow up)
+    with his back towards the bows.  The snow was heaped on his head and
+    shoulders like a double cape.  This one had no hair on his face; and
+    his complexion being very fresh and pink, and his eyes wide open, it
+    was hard to believe him dead.  Indeed, while getting in the boat,
+    I had to speak to him twice, to make sure.
+
+    2.  A much older man, and shorter, with a rough grey beard.  He sat
+    in the stern sheets, with his right hand frozen on the tiller.
+    Our folk had afterwards to unship the tiller when they came to lift
+    him out: and carried him up to the house still holding it.  Later on
+    we buried it beside him.  This man wore a good blue coat and black
+    breeches; and at first we took him to be the captain.  He turned out
+    to be the mate, Knud Lote, who had put on his best clothes when it
+    came to leaving the ship.  His eyes were screwed up, and the brine
+    had frozen over them, like a glaze, or a big pair of spectacles.
+
+    3.  Against his knee rested the head of a third man--one of the
+    three I had first seen sitting amidships.  When the other two
+    toppled overboard this one had slid off the thwart and fallen
+    against the steersman.  He was an oldish man, yellow and thin and
+    marked with the small-pox; the only one in the boat who might have
+    come from some other country than Norway.  His eyes were cast down
+    in a quiet way, and he seemed to be smiling.  He wore a seaman's
+    loose frock, ragged breeches, and sea-boots.
+
+    4 and 5.  Stretched along the bottom-boards lay a tall young man
+    with straw-coloured hair and beard: and in his arms, tightly
+    clasped, and wrapped in a shawl and seaman's jacket, a young woman.
+    Her arms were about the young man and her face pressed close and
+    hidden against his side.  He must have taken off his jacket to warm
+    her; for the upper part of his body had no covering but a flannel
+    shirt and cinglet.
+
+While we stood there the tide drained back, leaving the bows of the boat
+high and dry.  As I remember, Obed was the first to speak; and he said
+"She has beautiful hair."  This was the bare truth: a great lock of it
+lay along the bottom-board like a stream of guineas poured out of a
+sack.  He climbed into the boat and lifted the shawl from her face.
+
+Those neighbours of ours, friends and acquaintances, who afterwards saw
+Margit Pedersen at Vellingey, and for whom this account is mainly
+written, will not need a description of her.  Many disliked her: but
+nobody denied that she was a lovely woman; and I am certain that nobody
+could see her face and afterwards forget it.  It was, then and always,
+very pale: but this had nothing to do with ill health.  In fact I am not
+sure it would have been noticeable but for the warm colour of her hair
+and her red lips and (especially) her eyebrows and lashes, of a deep
+brown that seemed almost black.  Her lips were blue with the cold, just
+now: but the contrast between her eyebrows and her pale face and yellow
+hair struck me at once and kept me wondering: until Obed startled me by
+dropping the shawl and falling on his knees beside her.  "Good God,
+Dom!" he sang out: "the girl's alive!"
+
+The next moment, of course, I was as wild as he.  "Get her out, then," I
+cried, "and up to the house at once!"
+
+"I can't loosen the man's arms!"  Though less than a yard apart, we both
+shouted at the top of our voices.
+
+"Nonsense!" I answered: but it was true all the same--as I found out
+when I stepped in to Obed's help.  "We must carry up the pair as they
+are," I said.  "There's no time to lose."
+
+We lifted them out, and making a chair of our hands and wrists, carried
+them up to Vellingey; leaving the others in the boat, now for an hour
+well above reach of the tide.  And here I must tell of something that
+happened on the way: the first sign of Obed's madness, as I may call it.
+All of a sudden he stopped and panted, from the weight of our load, I
+supposed.  "Dom," he said, "I believe that nine men out of ten would
+kiss her!"
+
+I told him not to be a fool, and we walked on.  In the town-place we
+happened on the shepherd, Reuben Santo, and sent him off for help, and
+to look after the frozen people in the boat.  The sight of us at the
+door nearly scared Selina into her grave: but we allowed her no time for
+hysterics.  We laid the pair on a blanket before the open fire, and very
+soon Obed was trying to force some warm milk and brandy between the
+girl's lips.  I think she swallowed a little: but the first time she
+opened her eyes was when one of the lambs (which everyone had neglected
+for twenty minutes or so) tottered across the kitchen on his foolish
+legs and began to nuzzle at her face.  Obed at the moment was trying to
+disengage the dead man's arms.  A thought struck Selina at once.
+"Put the lamb close against her heart," she said.  "That'll warm her
+more than any fire."
+
+So we did, making the lamb lie down close beside her; and it had a
+wonderful effect.  In less than half-an-hour her pulse grew moderately
+firm and she had even contrived to speak a word or two, but in
+Norwegian, which none of us understood.  Obed by this time had loosened
+the dead man's arms; and we thought it best to get her upstairs to bed
+before the full sense of her misfortune should afflict her.
+Obed carried her up to the spare-room and there left her to Selina;
+while I saddled horse and rode in to Truro, for Doctor Mitchell.
+
+Much of what followed is matter of public knowledge.  Our folks carried
+the dead Norwegians up to Church-town, including one of the two that had
+fallen overboard (the next tide washed him in; the other never came to
+land); and there buried them, two days later, in separate graves, but
+all close together.  The boat being worthless, we sawed it in two just
+abaft the mast and set the fore-part over the centre grave, which was
+that of Captain Pedersen, the young man we had carried up with Margit.
+The mast rotted and fell, some years ago, although carefully stayed: but
+the boat, with the names painted on it, remains to this day.  Also we
+set up a small wooden cross by each man's grave, with his name upon it.
+Margit was able, from our description, to plan out the right name for
+each.
+
+On the third day an interpreter came over from Penzance.  Margit could
+not yet leave her bed: and before he stepped up to question her, I took
+him aside and showed a small Norwegian Bible we had found in the pocket
+of the seaman's jacket to which she owed her life.  On the first page
+was some foreign writing which I could not make out.  The interpreter
+translated it: first the names "Margit Hansen to Nils Pedersen": and
+after them, this strange verse from the _Song of Solomon_--strange, I
+mean, to find written in such a place--"Let him kiss me with the kisses
+of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine."
+
+The interpreter, Mr. Scammel, went upstairs, and she told him her story.
+"Our vessel," she said (I give it in brief) "was the _Margit Pedersen_,
+brig.  She belonged to me and was called after me.  We were bound for
+the Tagus with a cargo of salted fish which I had bought at Bergen from
+the Lofoden smacks--fish for the Roman Catholics to eat in Lent.
+Nils Pedersen, the captain, was my husband:  Knud Lote was mate."
+Mr. Scammell having expressed some surprise that so young a man should
+have been captain, she explained, "He was twenty-two.  I made him
+captain.  My father and mother died: they had not wished me to marry
+him.  They were proud.  But they left very little money, considering;
+and with it I bought the brig and cargo.  She was an old craft, half
+rotten.  We had fair weather, mostly, down the English Channel and
+almost to Ushant.  There we met a strong southerly gale, and in the
+middle of it a pintle of our rudder gave way and the loose rudder
+damaged our stern-post.  We tried to bear up for Falmouth, but she would
+not steer; and we drove up towards the Irish Coast, just missing Scilly.
+On the 8th the wind changed to N.W. and increased.  That night, as Nils
+tried to lay to, she carried away her fore-mast, which had been shaky
+for days.  She was now leaking fast.  At noon on the 9th we managed to
+launch a boat, and abandoned her.  She sank at four o'clock: we saw her
+go down.  The weather grew colder, that night.  I think it snowed all
+the time: and the seas were too heavy to let the boat run.  The men
+pulled to keep her nose to them and the wind, and so she drifted.
+I forget when they gave over pulling.  For a night and a day I baled
+steadily.  After that I lay most of the time in the bottom of the boat.
+Our food was almost done.  It was very cold.  That is all I can
+remember."
+
+And this, I think, was all we ever heard from her.  On his return to
+Penzance, Mr. Scammell sent me a Norwegian dictionary; and with the help
+of it Obed and I soon managed to talk a little with her, in a mixture of
+Norwegian and English.  But she never wanted to speak of the past, and
+fell silent whenever we spoke of it.  What astonished me more was that,
+though she told us the names of the dead men, she showed no further
+interest in them.  At first, knowing how weak she was, and fearing to
+distress her, I fought shy of the subject; but one day, towards the end
+of the third week--she being strong enough to walk a moderate distance--
+I plucked up courage and asked if she cared to come with me to the
+churchyard.  She agreed, and that afternoon, after a heavy shower, we
+walked thither together.  I feared what effect the first sight of her
+husband's grave might work on her feelings; and all the way kept wishing
+that we had omitted to set up the boat and mast.  But she looked at them
+calmly, and at the graves.  "That is good," she said: "you have done
+great kindness to them.  I will not come any more."  And so she prepared
+to walk away.
+
+I own that this seemed to me unfeeling.  Outside the churchyard I pulled
+from my pocket the small Bible.  "This belongs to you," I said: "I have
+kept it to help me with your language"--but I held it open at the
+fly-leaf.  She glanced at it, "Oh yes, I gave it to Nils, my husband.
+You wish to keep it?"
+
+"You were very fond of him, to judge from this," I said; and halted,
+expecting her to be angry.  But she halted too, and said quite coolly--
+looking at me straight--"Yes?  Oh yes; very much."
+
+That same evening I spoke to Obed as we sat alone with our pipes.
+"I suppose," said I as carelessly as I could, "Margit Pedersen will be
+leaving us before long."  He looked up sharply, and began to shift the
+logs on the hearth.  "What makes you say so?" he asked.  "Well, she will
+have friends in Bergen, and business--"  "Has she written to her
+friends?" he interrupted.  "Not to my knowledge: but she won't be
+staying here for ever, I suppose."  "When she chooses to go, she can.
+Are you proposing to turn her out?  If so, I'd have you to mind that
+Vellingey is my house, and I am master here."
+
+This was an unworthy thing to say, and he said it with a fury that
+surprised me.  Obed and I had not quarrelled since we were boys.  I put
+a stopper on my tongue, and went on smoking: and after a while he began
+to talk again in his natural way on ordinary matters.
+
+Margit stayed on; and to all appearance our life at Vellingey fell back
+into its old groove.  As a matter of fact there was all the difference
+in the world--a difference felt before it was seen, and not to be summed
+up by saying that a woman sat at our table.  I believe I may quite
+fairly lay the blame on Obed.  For the first time in our lives he kept a
+part of his mind hidden from me; he made show enough of frankness in his
+talk, but I knew him far too well to miss the suspicion behind it.  And
+his suspicion bred suspicion in me.  Yet though I searched, I could find
+nothing amiss in his outward bearing.  If he were indeed in love with
+the girl--her age, she told us, was twenty-one--he gave no sign upon
+which one could lay hold.  And certainly Margit's bearing towards us was
+cool and friendly and impartial as the strictest could desire.  Of the
+two, I had, perhaps, more of her company, simply because Obed spent most
+of his time in the lugger, while I worked in the fields and within easy
+reach of an afternoon's stroll.  Margit would be busy with housework
+most of the morning, or in the kitchen, helping Selina--"domineering,"
+Selina preferred to call it.
+
+For, whatever our feelings, Selina had set her face against the
+new-comer from the first.  She started, no doubt, with the old woman's
+whiddle that no good ever comes of a person saved from the sea.  But as
+time went on she picked up plenty of other reasons for dislike.
+Margit took charge from the day she came downstairs, and had a cold way
+of seeing that her orders were attended to.  With about twenty words of
+English she at once gave battle to Selina, who had bullied us two men
+from childhood; and routed her.  The old woman kept up a running fight
+for a week before appealing to Obed, and this delay cost her everything.
+Obed flew in a rage that more than equalled her own, and had the
+advantage to be unusual and quite unexpected by her.  She ran from him
+to the kitchen, in tears; and thenceforth was a beaten woman, however
+much she might grumble at the "foreigner" and "interloper."
+
+For me, I will confess, and have done with it, that before a month was
+out my interest in this pale foreign woman, who moved about the house so
+quietly and surely, had grown to a degree that troubled me.  That Obed
+had suspected me before he had any cause made it no easier now to play a
+concealed game at cross-purposes; and no pleasanter.  In the two months
+that followed I hated myself pretty often, and at times came near to
+despise myself for the thought that before long I might be hating Obed.
+This would never have done: and luckily I saw it in time.  Towards the
+end of June I made application to the Board: and left Vellingey in July,
+to sail for Bombay on board the _Warren Hastings_, in my old capacity of
+first mate.  My abandoning the field to Obed would deserve some credit,
+had Margit ever by word or look given me the slightest reason to hope.
+But she had not; indeed I hoped that she had never guessed the state of
+my feelings.
+
+Eighteen months passed before I returned to Vellingey--this time on a
+short leave.  Obed had written constantly and with all the old
+familiarity; a good deal concerning Margit--her health, her walks, her
+household business--everything, in short, but what I expected and
+dreaded to hear.  "Come," I said to myself, "five minutes' start in life
+and eighteen months in courtship is no such bad allowance for Obed.
+Perhaps he will allow me now to have _my_ turn."
+
+I had this thought in my head as I drew near Vellingey in a light gig
+hired from the Truro post-master.  It was a rainy afternoon in January,
+and a boisterous north-wester blew the Atlantic weather in our teeth as
+we mounted the rise over Vellingey churchtown.  My head being bent down,
+I did not observe the figure of a woman coming up the village street,
+but looked up on hearing the sound of her clogs close beside the gig.
+It was Selina, tearful, carrying a bundle.
+
+"Whatever is the matter?" I asked, on pulling up.
+
+"They've turned me to door!" she moaned.  "My dear, they've turned me to
+door!"
+
+She was tramping home to her cousins in St. Day parish.   Not another
+night would she sleep at Vellingey--to be trampled on.  Of course she
+accused the "foreign woman ": but I, it seemed, had started the quarrel
+this time; or, rather, it started over the preparations for my
+home-coming--some trifling matter of cookery.  Selina knew my tastes.
+Margit professed to know them better.  Such are women.
+
+I own that as I sent the poor soul on her way, with a promise that the
+gig should carry back her boxes from Vellingey and a secret resolve that
+she should return to us within a week, I could not avoid a foolish
+pleasure in the thought that Margit deemed my coming of such importance.
+Then it occurred to me that her position now as a single woman alone at
+Vellingey lay open to scandal.  The sooner I tested my growing hopes,
+the better.
+
+I did so, the second evening, after supper.  Obed had stepped out to
+make the round of the farm buildings and lock up.  Margit had removed
+the white cloth, and was setting the brass candlesticks and tobacco jar
+on the uncovered table.
+
+"What is going to happen about Selina?" I asked, from my chair.
+
+Margit set down a candlestick.  "Selina has gone," she said quietly.
+
+"But people will talk, if you stay here alone with us, or with Obed.
+You mustn't mind my saying this."
+
+"Oh, no.  I suppose they will talk."
+
+I stood up.  "I take it," said I, "you cannot be quite blind to my
+feelings, Margit.  I came home on purpose to speak to you: but perhaps,
+if it had not been for this, I might have put off speaking for some
+days.  If you care for me at all, though, I think you can answer.
+My dear, if you will marry me it will make me a happy man."
+
+She was fingering the candle-base, just touching the brass with her
+finger-tips and withdrawing them gently.  She looked up.  "I rather
+thought," she said, "you would have spoken last night.  Obed asked me
+this morning--he gave you that chance: and I have promised to marry
+him."
+
+"Good Lord! but this is a question of loving a man!"
+
+"I have never said that I like you better.  I shall make Obed a very
+good wife."
+
+Less than a minute later, Obed came into the room, after slamming the
+back-door loudly.  He did not look at our faces: but I am sure that he
+knew exactly what had happened.
+
+They were married in April, a fortnight after my leaving England on
+another voyage.  We parted the best of friends; and in the course of the
+next seven years I spent most of my holidays with them.  No married life
+could well be smoother than was Obed's and Margit's in all this time.
+He worshipped her to fondness; and she, without the least parade of
+affection, seemed to make his comfort and well-being the business of her
+life.  It hardly needs to be said that my unfortunate proposal was
+ignored by all of us as a thing that had never happened.
+
+In October, 1802, I reached the height of my ambition, being appointed
+to the command of the Company's ship _Macartney_, engaged in the China
+traffic.  I call her the _Macartney_: but the reader will presently see
+that I have reasons for not wishing to make public the actual name of
+this vessel, which, however, will be sufficiently familiar to all who
+knew me at that time and who have therefore what I may call a private
+interest in this narrative.  For the same reason I shall say no more of
+her than that she was a new ship, Thames-built, and more than commonly
+fast; and that I commanded her from October 1802 to June 1806.
+
+She carried passengers, of course: and in the autumn of 1805 it
+surprised and delighted me to hear from Obed that he and Margit had
+determined on a sea voyage, and wished to book their passages to the
+Canton River and back in the _Macartney_.  I had often given this
+invitation in jest: but such voyages merely for health and pleasure were
+then far from common.  Yet there was no single impediment to their
+going.  They had no children: they were well-to-do: they had now a hind,
+or steward (one Stephens), to whose care they might comfortably leave
+the farm.  To be short, they sailed with me.
+
+On the 2nd of May 1806, the _Macartney_ dropped anchor in the Canton
+River after a fast and prosperous voyage.  The events I have now to
+relate will appear least extraordinary to the reader who best
+understands under what conditions the English carry on their trade with
+China.  Let me say, then, that in its jealousy of us foreign barbarians
+the Chinese government confines our ships to the one port of Canton and
+reserves the right of nominating such persons as shall be permitted to
+trade with us.  These Hong merchants (in number less than a dozen) are
+each and all responsible to the Emperor for any disturbance that may be
+committed by a person belonging to a foreign ship: and they in turn look
+for compensation to the European factors.  So that, a Chinese mob being
+the most insolent in the world, and the spirit of British seamen
+proverbial, these factors often find themselves in situations of great
+delicacy, and sometimes of more than a little danger.
+
+It happened that on the next day after our arrival a small party of us--
+Margit and Obed, the second officer, Mr. Tomlinson, and I--had taken a
+short stroll ashore and were returning to the boat, which lay ready by
+the landing, manned by six seamen.  The coxswain brought the boat
+alongside: and I, on the lowest step of the landing-stage, stooped to
+hold her steady while Margit embarked.  She and Obed waited on the step
+next above, with Mr. Tomlinson close behind.  A small crowd had followed
+us: and just then one dirty Chinaman reached forward and with a word or
+two (no doubt indecent) laid his open palm on the back of Margit's neck.
+Quick as thought, she lifted a hand and dealt him a rousing box in the
+ear.  I sprang up and pushed him back as he recovered.  He slipped on
+the green ooze of the steps and fell:  this was all I saw, for the crowd
+made a rush and closed.  Obed and Mr. Tomlinson had hurried Margit into
+the boat: I leapt after them: and we pushed off under a brisk shower of
+dirt and stones.  We were soon out of range, and reached the ship
+without mishap.
+
+Knowing the nature of a Chinese rabble, I felt glad enough that the
+affair had proved no worse; and thought little more of it until early
+next morning, when Mr. Findlater, the first officer, came with a puzzled
+face and reported that during the night someone had attached a boat,
+with a dead Chinaman in it, to the chain of our small bower anchor.
+
+I went on deck at once.  A good look at the corpse relieved me: for as
+far as my recollection served, it bore no resemblance to the man I had
+pushed on the landing.  I told off two of the rowers of the previous
+day--the two whose position in the bows had given them the best view of
+the scuffle--to cut the thing adrift.  They did so and came back with
+the report that they had never seen the dead man before in their lives.
+So I tried to feel easy.
+
+But soon after breakfast, and almost in the full heat of the day, there
+came off a galley with two of the Hong merchants and no less a person
+than Mr. '--', the Chief of the H.E.I.C.'s factory.  He brought serious
+news.  The boat had drifted up the river and had been recovered by a
+crowd of Chinese, who took out the dead man and laid him on the doorstep
+of the factory, clamouring that he had been killed, the day before, by
+an Englishwoman; and threatening, unless she were given up, to seize the
+first supercargo that came out and carry him off to be strangled.
+
+I answered, describing the scuffle and declaring my readiness to swear
+that the body bore no resemblance to the fellow whose ear Margit had
+boxed.  But I knew how little this testimony would avail in a Chinese
+court.  The two Hong merchants assured me that their brother, the
+_Macartney's_ guarantor, was already in the hands of the magistrates,
+who had handcuffed him and were threatening him with the bamboo: that an
+interdiction lay on the _Macartney's_ cargo, and Mr. '--' himself ran no
+small risk of imprisonment.
+
+Our position was at once absurd and extremely serious.  To do him
+justice, Mr. '--' at once agreed that there could be no question of
+delivering up Margit: the penalty of her offence, if proved to the
+satisfaction of the Chinese magistrates, being--I can hardly bring
+myself to write it--nothing short of strangulation.  He could only
+promise to accept for the while the risks of delay and do his utmost to
+bribe the magistrates into compromising the matter for a small fine.
+
+He proved as good as his word.  For five weeks the _Macartney_ lay at
+anchor without discharging a pennyweight of her cargo; and every day
+brought a new threat, edict, or proclamation.  At the end of the first
+week the security merchant was allowed to send his agents to offer a
+reward of 10,000 dollars to any man of our crew who would swear to
+having seen the Englishwoman strike the deceased.  The agents conducted
+their parley from a boat, and only made off on being threatened with a
+bucket of slops.  I kept the ship's guns loaded, and set on a double
+watch, night and day.  His wife's peril threw Obed into a state of
+apprehension so pitiable that I began to fear for his mind.  Margit, on
+the other hand, behaved with the coolest composure: and I had some
+trouble in persuading her to remain below decks and out of sight.
+She relied cheerfully on us and on the crew, every man of whom she had
+bound to her (I suppose by her remarkable beauty) in the completest
+loyalty.
+
+In five weeks Mr. '--' had spent at least as many thousands of pounds; and
+still matters were at a stand when, one day, Mr. Tomlinson reported a
+boat under our quarter demanding speech with us.  I went to the side and
+saw a tall lank-haired man, in a suit of white duck, standing in the
+stern-sheets with the tiller-lines in his hands.
+
+"No pigtail on me, Cap!" he bawled.  "I'm Oliphant Q. Wills, of the
+American barque _Independence_: and I want to come aboard."  He pointed
+to his vessel, which had entered the river soon after us, and now lay,
+ready for sea, two cables distant from us.
+
+I saw no reason for refusing; and in less than a minute he came running
+up the ladder, and introduced himself again.  "Business," said he; so I
+led him to my cabin.
+
+"Hullo!" said he, looking over the floor.  "I observe you don't chew."
+He glanced at the stern-window.  I opened it.  Our talk then ran as
+follows:
+
+Capt. W.  "I've come to trade."
+
+Self.     "Then you have come, sir, to a very bad ship."
+
+Capt. W.  "I allowed you would say that.  I know all about it, and came
+           in consequence.  I never miss a chance."
+
+Self.     "You wish to buy, of course."
+
+Capt. W.  "Not at all.  I'm here to sell."
+
+Self.     "What, pray?"
+
+Capt. W.  "A half-hogshead cask of pretty ordinary Geneva: _with_ a
+           Dutchwoman inside."
+
+Self.     "Now, where on earth could you have picked that up?"
+
+Capt. W.  (spitting out of window).  "In latitude 28 degrees; in a flat
+          calm; off a Dutch East Indiaman.  The name I have at home on a
+          bit of paper: you shall have it as warranty with the cask.
+          The captain was drunk, and I traded with the mate.  I never
+          miss a chance.  The mate said nothing of the woman inside.
+          I believe her to be his captain's wife, preserved for burial
+          ashore.  This is painful for me to speak about; for I had the
+          worst of the deal, and such is not my reputation.  But I
+          allowed I would sell that cask at a profit if I carried it
+          around for a hundred years."
+
+Self.     "What do you ask?"
+
+Capt. W.  "Well, I have been enquiring of Mr. '--', your Chief Factor
+          here; and he tells me that your brother, Mr. Obed Lanyon, was
+          with Cook and Vancouver, and knows the coast from Cape
+          Flattery northwards and round by the Aleutians like the palm
+          of his hand.  Now it happens I have business up there among
+          the Russian settlements--part trade, part exploring--
+          I needn't say more, for the United States' Government didn't
+          send me to tell secrets.  A man like your brother would be
+          money in my pocket all the way: and at the end of the job I
+          would undertake to deliver him and his wife safely at any
+          American port within reason, with money to take them home
+          like princes, and a trifle over.  I'm a square man: and if I
+          weren't, you couldn't be in a worse fix than you are."
+
+"I think," said I, "if you do not mind waiting a few minutes, we will
+trade, Mr. Wills."  With this I went on deck and hoisted my private
+signal for Mr. '--', who came alongside in less than half-an-hour.
+He was a practical man, and at once saw the prospect of escape held out
+by the American's offer, ridiculous as it may seem to those who know
+little of Chinese law and custom.  Indeed one of the magistrates had
+frankly appealed to Mr. '--' to hire a substitute for Margit among the
+negro women at Macao: and our friend engaged that by spending a few
+hundred additional dollars he would get the Dutchwoman's corpse accepted
+as full discharge for the offence, provided that Mrs. Lanyon could be
+smuggled out of the Canton River.  This Captain Wills readily undertook
+to do.  Mr. '--' then suggested that his negotiations would be made
+easier by the disappearance of all implicated in the scuffle--i.e.
+Mr. Tomlinson and myself, as well as Obed and Mrs. Lanyon.
+Mr. Findlater, my first officer, could take command and work the
+_Macartney_ home; and Mr. '--' engaged to make our case right with the
+Company, though at the cost to me of the indirect profits which a
+commander looks to make from a homeward voyage.  We discussed this for
+some while, and in the end agreed to it.  Captain Wills, being
+short-handed, was even generous enough to offer me a small sum for my
+services in assisting him with the navigation.
+
+To be short, all was arranged.  That same night a boat from the
+_Independence_ brought the famous cask of Geneva alongside, and took us
+four English people in exchange, and by 4 a.m.  we were under weigh and
+heading for the open sea.
+
+The _Independence_ steered through the Formosa Strait, across the
+Eastern Sea, and on the 25th of July entered the bay of Nangasaki under
+Russian colours, which she thenceforth continued to fly.  Like most
+European captains, our American kept his straightforward dealing for
+certain races only.  He produced his trading articles: but the Japanese
+wanted nothing, and demanded to know what brought him there?
+He answered that he wanted water and fresh provisions (we had a plenty
+of both), and to prove it, ordered several butts to be started, and
+brought empty on deck.  This was enough for the hospitable Japanese; who
+next day brought supplies of hogs, fish, and vegetables, for which they
+asked no payment; besides four dozen large tubs of water, which Captain
+Wills emptied on deck, stopping the scuppers, and removing the plugs at
+night so that the water might not be perceived.  On the fourth day we
+got under weigh again; our deluded friends even going so far in kindness
+as to tow us out of the bay, and parting from us with cheers and much
+waving of hats and  hands.
+
+From Nangasaki we made for Kamschatka and thence for the Aleutian
+Islands and the American coast.  On his way Captain Wills sedulously
+prosecuted the business for which his vessel had been chartered by the
+Russian American Company, and distributed his cargo of nankeens, silks,
+tea, sugar, etc., among the Russian settlements dotted among the
+islands.  So far, Obed's services had been in little request: and I,
+too, had leisure to observe and wonder at a certain remarkable change
+that had come over Margit--as it seemed to me, from the time of our
+entering the parallels above 50 degrees.  Her usual calm bearing had
+given way to succeeding fits of restlessness and apathy.  At times she
+would sit dejected for hours together; at others, she would walk the
+deck without pause, her cloak thrown open to the cold wind, which she
+seemed to drink like a thirsty creature.  One day, the vessel being
+awkwardly becalmed within a mile of an ugly-looking iceberg, her
+excitement rose to something like a frenzy.  The weather being hazy,
+Obed--who was busy with the captain taking soundings--asked me to run
+below for his glass; and there I almost fell Over Margit, who lay on the
+cabin floor, her whole body writhing, her hands tightly clenched upon a
+handkerchief which she had torn to rags.  Of course I asked what ailed
+her, and offered to bring help, medicines, anything.  She rose in
+confusion.  'It was a pain at the heart,' she said; 'nothing more: it
+would quickly pass: the cold brought it on, she thought.  I would oblige
+her by going away; and, above all, by saying nothing to Obed.'
+
+To what extent Obed remarked the change, I cannot tell.  He now began to
+be pretty busy with his soundings and sketches of the coast.  We had
+left Kadjak on the 9th of October, and on the last day of the month were
+cruising off Queen Charlotte's Island.  So far, considering the lateness
+of the season, we had enjoyed remarkable weather.   The natives, too,
+were friendly beyond expectation.  The sight of our vessel brought them
+off in great numbers and at times we had as many as a hundred canoes
+about us, the largest holding perhaps a dozen, some armed with muskets,
+but the most with lances and forks pointed with stags' antlers and a
+kind of scimetar made of whale-rib.  We suffered but two or three
+persons to board us at a time, and traded with them for dried fish,
+sea-otters, beaver and reindeer skins.  A string of glass beads (blue
+was the favourite colour) would buy a salmon of 20 pounds weight: but
+for beaver they would take nothing less valuable than China stuffs.
+
+Obed had warned us against the natives of Queen Charlotte's Island, as
+likely to prove stronger and less friendly than any we had encountered.
+We felt a reasonable anxiety, therefore, when, almost as soon as we
+sighted the island, a thick fog came up with some wind and a heavy swell
+from the south and hid the coast completely.  This lasted until November
+2nd at daybreak, when the weather lifted and we saw land at about eight
+miles' distance.  Unhappily the wind dropped at once, while the motion
+of the waves continued, and our sails being useless, we found ourselves
+drifting rapidly shoreward with the set of the current.  In the height
+of our dismay, however, a breeze sprang up from the north-west, and we
+worked off.
+
+But we were over-hasty in blessing this breeze,  which before midnight
+grew to a violent gale: and for two days we drove before it in much
+distress--Obed and I taking turns at conning the ship, since Captain
+Wills had received an awkward blow between the shoulders from the
+swinging of a loose block, and lay below in considerable pain and
+occasionally spitting blood, which made us fear some inward hurt.
+During the night of the 4th, the wind moderated; but the weather turning
+thick again, we were hardly reassured.
+
+Early on the 6th Captain Wills appeared once more on deck and sent me
+below to get some sleep.  I believe indeed that, had fate allowed, I
+could have slept round the clock.  But at ten that morning a violent
+shock pitched me clean out of my berth.  The _Independence_ was aground.
+
+The place of our shipwreck you will find in 47 degrees 66 minutes N.
+lat., between Vancouver's Cape Flattery and the mouth of the Columbia
+River, but nearer to the former.  Luckily the _Independence_ had run in
+upon soft ground and at high water: so that when the tide dropped she
+still held together, though badly shaken and gaping in all her lower
+seams.  To save her was out of the question.  We therefore made the best
+of our way ashore in the dense fog, taking with us all our guns and the
+best part of our ammunition, as well as provisions and a quantity of
+sails and spars for rigging up tents.  On no side of us could we see
+further than twenty paces.  Of the inhabitants of this dreary spot--if
+indeed it had inhabitants--we knew nothing.  So we first of all cleaned
+and loaded our firearms, and then set to work to light a fire and erect
+a shelter.  We had done better, as it turned out, to have divided our
+company, and told off a fairly strong party to protect the ship.  As it
+was, Captain Wills remained on board with three men to cut away and take
+down some of the heavier tackling.
+
+We had set up one tent and were at work on the second, when I heard an
+exclamation from Margit, who stood by the big cauldron, a few paces off,
+cooking our dinner of salt pork.  Looking up I saw a ring of savages all
+about us on the edge of the fog.
+
+They were brown undersized men, clothed for the most part in dirty
+blankets and armed with short lances shod with iron, though one or two
+carried muskets.  These last I soon discovered to be toens, or elders,
+of the tribe.  They stood and observed us with great gravity (indeed in
+all my acquaintance with them I never knew one to smile) and in
+absolute silence.  I could not tell how many the fog concealed.
+They made no aggressive movement.
+
+I called to Margit, bidding her leave the cauldron and walk quietly
+towards us; and she did so.  Almost at once a savage thrust his lance
+into the pot, drew out our dinner on the end of it, and laid it on the
+sand.  One of the toens then cut up the pork with his knife and handed
+the portions round, retaining a large lump for himself.
+
+Seeing this, some of our men were for hostilities:  but I restrained
+them and we made our meal from a barrel of biscuit, eating in silence
+while the natives chewed away at the pork.  The meal over, we fell to
+work and finished the second tent without opposition, though curiosity
+drew some of our visitors so near as to hamper the workmen.  When thrust
+aside they showed no resentment, but after a minute drew near again and
+impeded us as badly as ever.
+
+Towards nightfall the main body drew off--whither, the fog did not
+reveal: but one or two entered the tents with us, hung around while we
+supped, and without the least invitation stretched themselves down to
+sleep.  I own that this impudence tried my temper sorely, and Obed--the
+only one of us who knew some scraps of the language of these Indians--
+went so far as to remonstrate with them.  But if they understood, they
+gave no sign of understanding: and we resolved to forbear from violence,
+at least so long as Captain Wills and his three comrades remained away
+from our main body and exposed to any vengeance these savages might
+wreak.
+
+And our fears for the Captain were justified about 4 a.m. by a report of
+firearms in the direction of the ship.  I sprang to the door and waved a
+torch, and in a minute or so our comrades came running in through a
+shower of stones and lances, several of which struck the tents.
+The natives, it appeared, had attempted to plunder the ship.  At great
+risk Obed ran out to seek one of the toens and reason with him: but the
+mischief happened too quickly.  Some of our men caught up their muskets
+and fired.  Our assailants at once broke up and fled; and half-a-dozen
+of us charged down to the water's edge, where we saw a score and more
+with torches, busily setting fire to the ship.  They too dispersed
+before us, leaving two of their number dead on the field and carrying
+off several wounded.  But we came too late to save the _Independence_,
+which was already ablaze in a dozen different places; nor could we make
+any effort against the flames, for we knew not how sorely we might be
+wanted at the tents.
+
+So we returned and spent the rest of the night in great discomfort, the
+blaze of the ship colouring the fog all around, but showing us nothing.
+Soon after daybreak the weather lifted a little, and what we saw
+discouraged us yet further.  For, except the beach on which we were
+encamped, we found the whole coast covered with thick forest to the
+water's edge; while our boats, in which we might have made shift to
+escape, had been either fired or taken off by the savages.  At 10 a.m.,
+therefore, Captain Wills called a council of war, and informed us that
+he could think of no better plan than to push on for a harbour
+(its name, if I mistake not, was Gray's Harbour) lying about seventy
+miles to the southward, where a ship of the Company was due to call
+early in the spring.  Obed remembered it, and added that the journey
+might be quickly made, since his map showed no creek or river that
+promised to impede us, and the Indians were not likely to annoy us while
+the camp and the remains of the barque afforded any plunder.
+Accordingly we packed up, and having destroyed what muskets and weapons
+we did not want and thrown our spare gunpowder into the sea, shortly
+after noon began our march through the forest.
+
+We were nineteen persons in all: and each of us carried two muskets, a
+pistol and some pounds of ammunition, besides his share of the
+provisions.  The only ones more lightly laden were Margit and Captain
+Wills.  The latter, indeed, could with pain manage to walk at all, and
+so clogged the pace of the party that we made but eight miles before
+night-fall, when we halted in an open space, set watches, and passed the
+night with no more discomfort than came from the severe cold.
+
+In the morning we started early and made a good ten miles before noon.
+The Captain now seemed at the end of his powers and we allowed him an
+hour's rest while we cleaned our firearms.  Margit gave no sign of
+fatigue: but I observed that she walked alone and in silence.  Indeed
+she had scarcely spoken since our shipwreck.
+
+The ground chosen for our halt lay about mid-way down a stiff slope by
+which the forest descended to the sea, visible here and there between
+the stems of the trees below us.  Shortly before two o'clock, when we
+were preparing to start again, a big stone came crashing down among our
+stores; and, as we scattered in alarm, two or three others followed.
+Looking up, I caught sight of a couple of Indians on the crest of the
+slope, and fired off my rifle to frighten them.  They desisted at once:
+but to prevent further annoyance we made for the crest, where the rocky
+ground made walking difficult, so that we added but another five miles
+or so before nightfall.
+
+During this night the wind rose, and at length it blew and snowed so
+hard as to drive us off the ridge.  Luckily, however, one of the men
+discovered a shallow cave in the hillside, and here we huddled and
+continued all the next day and night, waiting for the storm to abate;
+which no sooner happened than we were assailed again by a perfect
+bombardment of big stones.  These, however, flew harmlessly over our
+shelter.
+
+I was dozing at daybreak on the 10th when a seaman named Hogue woke me
+and called my attention to the Captain.  He was stiff and cold, and had
+died in the night without complaint and, as far as could be learnt,
+without sound.  The rain of stones not being resumed with daylight, we
+left his body in the cave, and pushed on over the snow in sad and sorry
+condition: for our provisions now began to run short.
+
+Obed assumed the lead, with the consent of all.  Once or twice in the
+course of the morning I observed him to pause, as if listening.
+The cause of this became apparent at about one in the afternoon, when I,
+too, heard the sound of running water: and an hour later we halted on
+the edge of a broad valley, with a swift stream running through it,
+black between banks of snow, and on the near bank a few huts and a crowd
+of three hundred Indians at least.
+
+They had already caught sight of us: so we judged it better to advance,
+after looking to our arms.  We were met by a toen (the same that had cut
+up the pork) and a chief of taller stature and pleasanter features than
+we had hitherto happened on in the country.  It now appeared that the
+previous silence of these people had been deliberate: for the toen at
+once began to talk in a language fairly intelligible to Obed.
+He proposed to supply us with boats to cross the river, if we would give
+up our muskets in payment.  This, of course, we refused:  but offered
+him the whole collection of beads and trinkets that we had brought with
+us in the hope of trafficking for food.  After some haggling--to which
+the handsome chief, Yootramaki, listened with seeming disdain--the toen
+undertook to let us have the boats; and presently one appeared, paddled
+by three naked savages.  As this would barely hold a dozen passengers,
+we begged for another, that we might all cross together.  The toen
+complied, and sent a second, but much smaller boat.  In these we allowed
+ourselves to be distributed--Obed and I with ten others in the larger,
+and Margit with five seamen in the smaller.
+
+The boats pushed out into the stream, the larger leading.  The current
+ran deep and swift: and when, about half-way across, the nearest savage
+ceased paddling, I supposed he did so that the others on the starboard
+side might more easily bring the bows round to it.  Before one could
+guess his true intention he had stooped and whipped out a plug from the
+boat's bottom, at the same time calling to his comrades, who leapt up
+and flung themselves overboard.  The next moment he was after them, and
+the whole party swimming to shore.  The current swept us down and
+carried us so near to a spit of the shore we had left, that the savages,
+who now pelted us with arrows, succeeded in killing one seaman, and
+wounding four others: but here most fortunately it set right across for
+the opposite bank, where we contrived to land just as our boat sank
+beneath us.  Those in the smaller boat, however, fell into our enemy's
+hands, who clubbed the five seamen on the head, sparing only Margit; and
+then, supposing our muskets to be wet and useless, crossed over in a
+canoe to attack us.
+
+But as Providence would have it, we had four muskets left dry--they
+being slung round us in bandoliers--and the greater part of our powder
+unspoiled.  We met the foe with a volley which disposed of three and
+sank the canoe.  The survivors swam for it, and I dare say reached
+shore.  A second canoe put off, and from the bows of it the rascally
+toen (cause of all this misfortune, as we deemed) hailed Obed and
+offered to let us go in peace and even restore Margit if we would
+surrender our firearms.
+
+I think the coldest heart must have pitied my poor brother then.
+He paced the bank like a mad creature, silent, directing the most
+agonised looks at his comrades and at me in particular.  We turned our
+faces aside; for his wishes were madness, yet we were asking him to
+sacrifice what was dearest to him in the world.  In his distraction then
+he tore off most of his clothes, and piling them in a heap besought the
+toen to take them for the ransom; and we too stripped and stood all but
+naked, adding our prayers to his.  But the scoundrel, without regard of
+our offering, spoke to his men, and was paddled away.
+
+I will pass over the hour that followed. We quieted Obed's ravings at
+length; or rather, they ceased out of pure exhaustion. We were all
+starving in fact, and the food left in our wallets would not keep a cat
+alive for another forty-eight hours. Retiring to a clump of firs about
+100 yards back from the river's bank, we scooped a hole in the snow and
+entrenched ourselves as well as we could for the night. Some of us
+managed to sleep a little; the others tried to allay the pangs of hunger
+by chewing their musket-covers, the sponges on their ramrods, even their
+boot-soles.
+
+At midnight came my turn for watching. In my weakness I may have dozed,
+or perhaps was light-headed. At any rate, turning after some time to
+glance at the sleepers, I missed Obed. An ugly suspicion seized me; I
+counted the muskets. Two of these were missing. After shaking one of the
+sleepers by the elbow and bidding him watch, I leaped over our low
+breastwork and ran towards the river in the track of my brother's
+footsteps. Almost as I started, a flash and a report of a musket right
+ahead changed the current of my fears. By the light of the young moon I
+saw two figures struggling and rolling together on the river's brink.
+They were Obed and our peculiar enemy, the toen. The body of a dead
+Indian lad was stretched some ten paces off beside a small canoe which
+lay moored by the bank.
+
+Our comrades came running up as I flung myself into the struggle, and we
+quickly secured the toen. I believe Obed would have killed him.
+"Don't be a fool!" said I; "cannot you see that we now have a hostage
+for Margit?"  I ought at the same time to have begged his pardon for my
+suspicions.  As the reader already knows, Obed had a far keener ear than
+I, and it had warned him of the canoe's approach.  It turned out
+afterwards that the toen had planned this little reconnoitring
+expedition on his own account, and on the chance perhaps of filching a
+musket or two.
+
+We quickly laid our plans; and at daybreak flung my gentleman, bound
+hand and foot, into his own canoe, which Obed and I paddled into
+mid-stream, while our party stood on the bank and watched. The village
+opposite seemed deserted:  but at Obed's hail an Indian woman ran out of
+the largest hut, and returning, must have summoned the good-looking
+chief Yootramaki; who emerged in a minute or so, and came slowly down
+the bank. By this time several groups of Indians had gathered and stood
+looking on, in all perhaps eighty or a hundred people.
+
+Obed pointed to our prisoner and made his demand. I understood him to
+ask for the immediate ransom of Margit, and a supply of salmon and other
+provisions to take us on our journey. The chief stood considering for a
+while; then spoke to a native boy, who ran to the house; and in a minute
+or so Margit herself appeared, with the native woman who had first taken
+word of us.  She came down the bank, and Yootramaki signed to Obed to
+address her; which he did.
+
+"Margit," said he, pointing to the toen, "I believe that in this
+scoundrel here God has provided a way out of all our troubles.
+We caught him last night, and have brought him along as ransom for you.
+But stand close to the water and be ready to jump for the boat if they
+mean treachery.  Edom and I will see that you come to no harm."
+
+"My dear husband," she answered, very quiet and slow, "I think you are
+wasting your time.  I am sorry, but I shall not go with you."
+
+Obed turned a dazed look on me, and then, supposing he had not heard
+aright, began again--
+
+"Stand close by the water, and jump when I give the word.  All may
+depend on your quickness--only be bold, my dear.  I will explain after."
+
+"But it is I that must explain.  I am not going with you: really I am
+not."
+
+Obed turned again to me, this time with wide eyes.  "God of mercy!" he
+cried hoarsely; "her troubles have driven her mad!"
+
+Margit heard.  "Oh no," she said; "I am not mad.  The chief here has
+taken me: he seems to be the most powerful man in this tribe, and at
+least he is kind.  I should be mad, rather, to wander with you through
+the forests, and in the end fall into worse hands, or perhaps die of
+starvation or cold.  I do not want to be frozen--again.  Go away now,
+when you have bartered the man there for food.  You have been very good
+to me, but this cannot be helped."
+
+Obed lifted his gun: then lowered it.  "Dom," he muttered, "can you
+shoot her?  I cannot!"
+
+I was using all my strength, just then, to keep paddling the canoe
+against the current.  I caught a glimpse of our comrades on the further
+bank: and then exactly what happened I know not.  Perhaps Margit, having
+given her answer, turned back towards the house.  At any rate, shrilly
+crying her name, Obed sprang up and discharged his musket.  The shot
+went wide.  With a second furious cry he stooped, caught up the helpless
+toen, and held him high in air.  The canoe lurched heavily, and the next
+instant I was in the water.
+
+I never saw Obed again: and the toen must have gone down like a stone.
+For me, I struck out for the far shore, but the current swept me down on
+the sandy spit where we had nearly come to shipwreck, the day before.
+Several Indians had gathered there.  One ran into the water, waist-high,
+lifting a club.  I turned and made a last effort to swim from him, but
+he flung himself on my back and bore me under.
+
+
+I recovered to find myself in an Indian hut.  Margit had persuaded them
+to spare me, and I was now, in name at least, a slave in Yootramaki's
+possession.  As a matter of fact, however, I was allowed to do pretty
+much as I liked; and my employment (absurd as it may sound) for the most
+part consisted in designing kites and other toys for the natives, who in
+mind and disposition resemble children rather than grown people--sullen
+and rather vicious children, I should say.
+
+I believe that Obed's body never came to land.  Panic-stricken by his
+death (I was told), our surviving comrades turned and fled into the
+woods: and from that hour no more was heard of them.  Probably they
+perished of weariness and hunger; it is at least unlikely in the extreme
+that they found their way back among civilised men.
+
+Though I accompanied my master and his household northward to the
+village near Cape Flattery, where his chief residence lay, and remained
+more than three months in his service, I could never obtain speech with
+Margit.  But I have reason to believe she accepted her new life with
+absolute contentment.  No doubt, though, she found the sight of me an
+irksome reminder: and one day early in April Yootramaki took me aside
+and promised me my liberty if I would travel with him as far as the
+Strait, where an American brig had lately arrived.  Of course I accepted
+his offer with gratitude; and we set forth next day.  The captain of
+this brig (the _Cordelia_) was a Mr. Best, and his business in those
+parts seemed to consist in trading old American muskets in exchange for
+furs and dried fish.  The Indians have no notion of repairing a gun
+which has got out of order, and Captain Best actually carried a gunsmith
+on board, whose knowledge enabled him to buy up at one place all the
+guns that wanted repairing, and sell them as new pieces at another.
+
+It only remains to add that the _Cordelia_ conveyed me to Valparaiso,
+whence I shipped for England, reaching the Downs in safety on the 4th of
+April, 1809.
+
+
+[1] Shelter from the wind.
+[2] Farmyard.
+
+
+
+THE SINGULAR ADVENTURE OF A SMALL FREE-TRADER
+
+
+[_The events which are to be narrated happened in the spring of 1803,
+and just before the rupture of the Peace of Amiens between our country
+and France; but were related to my grandfather in 1841 by one Yann, or
+Jean, Riel, a Breton "merchant," alias smuggler--whether or not a
+descendant of the famous Herve of that name, I do not know.  He chanced
+to fall ill while visiting some friends in the small Cornish
+fishing-town, of which my grandfather was the only doctor; and this is
+one of a number of adventures recounted by him during his convalescence.
+I take it from my grandfather's MSS., but am not able, at this distance
+of time, to learn how closely it follows the actual words of the
+narrator.
+
+Smuggling in 1841 was scotched, but certainly not extinct, and the visit
+of M. Riel to his old customers was, as likely as not, connected with
+business.--Q.]
+
+"_Item, of the Cognac 25 degrees above proof, according to sample in the
+little green flask, 144 ankers at 4 gallons per anker, at 5s. 6d. per
+gallon, the said ankers to be ready slung for horse-carriage._"
+
+"Now may the mischief fly away with these English!" cried my father, to
+whom my mother was reading the letter aloud.  "It costs a man a working
+day, with their gallons and sixpences, to find out of how much they mean
+to rob him at the end of it."
+
+"_Item, 2 ankers of colouring stuff at 4 gallons per anker, price as
+usual.  The place to be as before, under Rope Hauen, east side of
+Blackhead, unless warned: and a straight run.  Come close in, any wind
+but easterly, and can load up horses alongside.  March 24th or 25th will
+be best, night tides suiting, and no moon.  Horses will be there: two
+fenced lights, pilchard-store and beach, showing S 1/4 E to E S E.
+Get them in line.  Same pay for freighting, and crew 17l. per man, being
+a straight run,_"
+
+"And little enough," was my father's comment.
+
+"_Item, 15 little wooden dolls, jointed at the knees and elbows, the
+same as tante Yvonne used to sell for two sols at Saint Pol de Leon--_."
+
+"'Fifteen little wooden dolls'!  'Fifteen little woo--'."  My father
+dropped into his chair, and sat speechless, opening and shutting his
+mouth like a fish.
+
+"It is here in black and white," said my mother.  I found the letter,
+years after, in her kist.  It was written, as were all the letters we
+received from this Cornish venturer, in a woman's hand, small and
+delicate, with upstrokes like spider's thread; written in French, too,
+quite easy and careless.  My mother held it close to the window.
+"'Fifteen little wooden dolls,'" she repeated, "'jointed at the knees
+and elbows.'"
+
+"Well, I've gone to sea with all sorts, from Admiral Brueys upwards; but
+fifteen little wooden dolls--jointed--at--the--knees!"
+
+"I know the sort," I put in from the hearth, where my mother had set me
+to watch the _bouillon_.  "You can get as many as you like in the very
+next street, and at two sols apiece.  I will look to that part of the
+cargo."
+
+"You, for example? . . ."
+
+"Yes, I; since you promised to take me on the very next voyage after I
+was twelve."
+
+"But that's impossible.  This is a straight run, as they call it, and
+not a mere matter of sinking the crop."
+
+"And next time," I muttered bitterly, "we shall be at war with England
+again, and then it will be the danger of privateers--always one excuse
+or another!"
+
+My mother sighed as she looked out of window towards the Isle de Batz.
+I had been coaxing her half the morning, and she had promised me to say
+nothing.
+
+
+Well, the result was that I went.  My father's lugger carried twelve
+hands--I counted myself, of course; and indeed my father did the same
+when it came to charging for the crew.  Still, twelve was not an
+out-of-the-way number, since in these _chasse-marees_ one must lower and
+rehoist the big sails at every fresh tack.  As it happened, however, we
+had a fair wind right across from Roscoff, and made a good landfall of
+the Dodman at four in the afternoon, just twenty hours after starting.
+This was a trifle too early for us; so we dowsed sail, to escape notice,
+and waited for nightfall.  As soon as it grew dark, we lowered the two
+tub-boats we carried--one on davits and the other inboard--and loaded
+them up and started to pull for shore, leaving two men behind on the
+lugger.  My father steered the first boat, and I the other, keeping
+close in his wake--and a proud night that was for me!  We had three good
+miles between us and shore; but the boats were mere shells and pulled
+light even with the tubs in them.  So the men took it easy.  I reckon
+that it was well past midnight before we saw the two lights which the
+letter had promised.
+
+After this everything went easily.  The beach at Rope Hauen is
+steep-to; and with the light breeze there was hardly a ripple on it.
+On a rising tide we ran the boats in straight upon the shingle; and in
+less than a minute the kegs were being hove out.  By the light of the
+lantern on the beach I could see the shifting faces of the crowd, and
+the troop of horses standing behind, quite quiet, shoulder to shoulder,
+shaved from forelock to tail, all smooth and shining with grease.  I had
+heard of these Cornish horses, and how closely they were clipped; but
+these beat all I had ever imagined.  I could see no hair on them;  and I
+saw them quite close; for in the hurry each horse, as his turn came, was
+run out alongside the boat; the man who led him standing knee-deep until
+the kegs were slung across by the single girth.  As soon as this was
+done, a slap on the rump sent the beast shoreward, and the man scrambled
+out after him.  There was scarcely any talk, and no noise except that
+caused by the wading of men and horses.
+
+Now all this time I carried my parcel of little dolls in a satchel slung
+at my shoulder, and was wondering to whom I ought to deliver it.  I knew
+a word or two of English, picked up from the smugglers that used to be
+common as skate at Roscoff in those days; so I made shift to ask one of
+the men alongside where the freighter might be.  As well as I could make
+out, he said that the freighter was not on the beach; but he pointed to
+a tall man standing beside the lantern and gave me to understand that
+this was the "deputy."  So I slipped over the gunwale and waded ashore
+towards him.
+
+As I came near, the man moved out of the light, and strolled away into
+the darkness to the left, I don't know upon what errand.  I ran after
+him, as I thought, but missed him.  I stood still to listen.  This side
+of the track was quite deserted, but the noise of the runners behind me,
+though not loud, was enough to confuse the sound of his footsteps.
+After a moment, though, I heard a slight scraping of shingle, and ran
+forward again--plump against the warm body of some living thing.
+
+It was a black mare, standing here close under the cliff, with the kegs
+ready strapped upon her.  I saw the dark forms of other horses behind,
+and while I patted the mare's shoulder, and she turned her head to sniff
+and nuzzle me, another horse came up laden from the water and joined the
+troop behind, no man leading or following.  The queer thing about my
+mare, though, was that her coat had no grease on it like the others, but
+was close and smooth as satin, and her mane as long as a colt's.
+She seemed so friendly that I, who had never sat astride a horse in my
+life, took a sudden desire to try what it felt like.  So I walked round,
+and finding a low rock on the other side, I mounted it and laid my hands
+on her mane.
+
+On this she backed a foot or two and seemed uneasy, then turned her
+muzzle and sniffed at my leg.  "I suppose," thought I, "a Cornish horse
+won't understand my language."  But I whispered to her to be quiet, and
+quiet she was at once.  I found that the tubs, being slung high, made
+quite a little cradle between them.  "Just a moment," I told myself,
+"and then I'll slip off and run back to the boat"; and twining the
+fingers of my left hand in her mane, I took a spring and landed my small
+person prone between the two kegs, with no more damage than a barked
+shin-bone.
+
+And at that very instant I heard a shrill whistle and many sudden cries
+of alarm; and a noise of shouting and galloping across the beach; and
+was raising my head to look when the mare rose too, upon her hind legs,
+and with the fling of her neck caught me a blow on the nose that made me
+see stars.  And then long jets of fire seemed to mingle with the stars,
+and I heard the _pop-pop_ of pistol-shots and more shouting.
+
+But before this we were off and away--I still flat on the mare's back,
+with a hand in her mane and my knees wedged against the tubs; away and
+galloping for the head of the beach, with the whole troop of laden
+horses pounding at our heels.  I could see nothing but the loom of the
+cliff ahead and the white shingle underfoot; and I thought of nothing
+but to hold on--and well it was that I did, for else the horses behind
+had certainly trampled me flat in the darkness.  But all the while I
+heard shouting, louder and louder, and now came more pounding of hoofs
+alongside, or a little ahead, and a tall man on horseback sprang out of
+the night, and, cannoning against the mare's shoulder, reached out a
+hand to catch her by rein, mane, or bridle.  I should say that we raced
+in this way, side by side, for ten seconds or so.  I could see the gilt
+buttons twinkling on his sleeve as he reached past my nose, and finding
+neither bit nor rein, laid his hand at length right on top of mine.  I
+believe that, till then, the riding-officer--it was he, for the next
+time I saw a riding-officer I recognised the buttons--had no guess of
+anyone's being on the mare's back.  But instead of the oath that I
+expected, he gave a shrill scream, and his arm dropped, for the mare had
+turned and caught it in her teeth, just above the elbow.  The next
+moment she picked up her stride again, and forged past him.  As he
+dropped back, a bullet or two sang over us, and one went _ping!_ into
+the right-hand keg.  But I had no time to be afraid, for the mare's neck
+rose again and caught me another sad knock on the nose as she heaved
+herself up the cliff-track, and now I had work to grip the edge of the
+keg, and twine my left hand tighter in her mane to prevent myself
+slipping back over her tail, and on to those deadly hoofs.  Up we went,
+the loose stones flying behind us into the bushes right and left.
+Farther behind I heard the scrambling of many hoofs, but whether of the
+tub-carriers or the troopers' horses it was not for me to guess.  The
+mare knew, however, for as the slope grew easier, she whinnied and
+slackened her pace to give them time to come up.  This also gave me a
+chance to shift my seat a bit, for the edges of the kegs were nipping my
+calves cruelly.  The beach below us was like the wicked place in a
+priest's sermon--black as pitch and full of cursing--and by this time
+all alive with lanterns; but they showed us nothing.  There was no more
+firing, though, and I saw no lights out at sea, so I hoped my father had
+managed to push off and make for the lugger.
+
+We were now on a grassy down at the head of the cliff, and my mare,
+after starting again at a canter which rattled me abominably, passed
+into an easy gallop.  I declare that except for my fears--and now, as
+the chill of the wind bit me, I began to be horribly afraid--it was like
+swinging in a hammock to the pitch of a weatherly ship.  I was not in
+dread of falling, either; for her heels fell so lightly on the turf that
+they persuaded all fear of broken bones out of the thought of falling;
+but I _was_ in desperate dread of those thundering tub-carriers just
+behind, who seemed to come down like a black racing wave right on top of
+us, and to miss us again and again by a foot or less.  The _weight_ of
+them on this wide, empty down--that was the nightmare we seemed to be
+running from.
+
+We passed through an open gate, then another;  then out upon hard road
+for half-a-mile or so (but I can tell you nothing of the actual distance
+or the pace), and then through a third gate.  All the gates stood open;
+had been left so on purpose, of course; and the grey granite side-posts
+were my only mile-stones throughout the journey.  Every mortal thing was
+strange as mortal thing could be.  Here I was, in a foreign land I had
+never seen in my life, and could not see now; on horseback for the first
+time in my life; and going the dickens knew whither, at the dickens knew
+what pace; in much certain and more possible danger; alone, and without
+speech to explain myself when--as I supposed must happen sooner or
+later--my runaway fate should shoot me among human folk.  And overhead--
+this seemed the oddest thing of all--shone the very same stars that were
+used to look in at my bedroom window over Roscoff quay.  My mother had
+told me once that these were millions of miles away, and that people
+lived in them; and it came into my head as a monstrous queer thing that
+these people should be keeping me in view, and my own folk so far away
+and lost to me.
+
+But the stars, too, began to grow faint; and little by little the fields
+and country took shape around us--plough, and grass, and plough again;
+then hard road, and a steep dip into a valley where branches met over
+the lane and scratched the back of my head as I ducked it; then a
+moorland rising straight in front, and rounded hills with the daylight
+on them.  And as I saw this, we were dashing over a granite bridge and
+through a whitewashed street, our hoofs drumming the villagers up from
+their beds.  Faces looked out of windows and were gone, like scraps of a
+dream.  But just beyond the village we passed an old labourer trudging
+to his work, and he jumped into the hedge and grinned as we went by.
+
+We were climbing the moor now, at a lopping gallop that set the packet
+of dolls bob-bobbing on my back to a sort of tune.  The horses behind
+were nearly spent, and the sweat had worked their soaped hides into a
+complete lather.  But the mare generalled them all the while; and
+striking on a cart-track beyond the second rise of the moor, slowed down
+to a walk, wheeled round and scanned the troop.  As they struggled up
+she whinnied loudly.  A whistle answered her far down the lane, and at
+the sound of it she was off again like a bird.
+
+The track led down into a hollow, some acres broad, like a saucer
+scooped between two slopes of the moor; and in the middle of it--just
+low enough to be hidden from the valley beneath--stood a whitewashed
+farmhouse, with a courtlege in front and green-painted gate; and by this
+gate three persons watched us as we came--a man and two women.
+
+The man by his dress was plainly a farmer; and catching sight of me, he
+called out something I could not understand, and turned towards the
+woman beside him, whom I took to be his wife.  But the other woman, who
+stood some paces away, was a very different person--tall and slight,
+like a lady; grey-haired, and yet not seeming old; with long white hands
+and tiny high-heeled shoes, and dressed in black silk, with a lace shawl
+crossed over her shoulders, and a silver whistle hanging from her neck.
+She came forward, holding out a handful of sugar, and spoke to the mare,
+if you'll believe me, in my very own Breton.
+
+"Good Lilith!" said she.  "Ah, what a mess for me to groom!  See what a
+coat!  Good Lilith!"  Then, as Lilith munched the sugar--"Who are you,
+little boy?  I never saw you before.  Explain yourself, kindly, little
+boy."
+
+"My name is Yann," said I; "Yann Riel.  I am from Roscoff, and--O how
+tired, madame!"
+
+"He is Breton!  He speaks the Breton!"  She clapped her hands, drew me
+down from my seat, and kissed me on both cheeks.
+
+"Yann, you shall sleep now--this instant.  Tell me only how you came--a
+word or two--that I may repeat to the farmer."
+
+So I did my best, and told her about the run, and the dragoons on the
+beach, and how I came on Lilith's back.
+
+"Wonderful, wonderful! But how came she to allow you?"
+
+"That I know not, madame.  But when I spoke to her she was quiet at
+once."
+
+"In the Breton--you spoke in the Breton?  Yes, yes, that explains--_I_
+taught her.  Dear Lilith!"  She patted the mare's neck, and broke off to
+clap her hands again and interpret the tale to the farmer and his wife;
+and the farmer growled a bit, and then they all began to laugh.
+
+"He says you are a 'rumgo,' and you had better be put to bed.  But the
+packet on your back--your night-shirt, I suppose?  You have managed it
+all so complete, Yann!"  And she laughed merrily.
+
+"It holds fifteen little wooden dolls," said I, "jointed at the knees
+and elbows; and they cost two sols apiece."
+
+"My little dolls--you clever boy!  O you clever little boy!"  She kissed
+me twice again.  "Come, and you shall sleep, and then, when you wake,
+you shall see."
+
+She took me by the hand and hurried me into the house, and upstairs to a
+great bedroom with a large oaken four-post bed in it, and a narrow
+wooden bed beside, and a fire lit, and an arm-chair by the hearth.
+The four-post bed had curtains of green damask, all closely pinned
+around it, and a green valance.  But she went to the little bed, which
+was hung with pink dimity, and pulled the white sheets out of it and
+replaced them with others from a great wardrobe sunk in the wall.
+And while I sat in the chair by the fire, munching a crust of bread and
+feeling half inclined to cry and more than half inclined to sleep, she
+left me, and returned with a can of hot water and a vast night-shirt of
+the farmer's, and bade me good-night.
+
+"Be quick and undress, little one."  She turned at the door.  "The tubs
+are all in hiding by this time.  Good-night, Yann."
+
+I believe I slept as soon as my head touched the sweet-smelling pillow;
+and I must have slept the round of the clock before I opened my eyes,
+for the room was now bright with candles, and in the arm-chair by the
+fire sat the Breton lady sewing as if for dear life.
+
+But the wonder of her was that she now wore a short plain dress such as
+girls wear in the convent schools in Brittany, and her grey hair was
+tied just like a girl's.  One little foot rested on the brass fender,
+and the firelight played on its silver shoe-buckle.
+
+I coughed, to let her know that I was awake, and she looked across and
+nodded.
+
+"Almost ten o'clock, Yann, and time for you to rise and have supper.
+And after supper--are you sorry?--another journey for you.  At midnight
+you start in the gig with Farmer Ellory, who will drive you to the
+coast, to a town called Fowey, where some friends of his 'in the trade'
+are starting for Roscoff.  In six hours you will be aboard ship again;
+and in another twenty, perhaps, you will see your mother--and your
+father too, if he escaped clear away.  In little more than a day you
+will be back in Brittany.  But first you must lie quite still, and I
+will show you something."
+
+"To be sure I will, madame."
+
+"You must not call me that.  I am the Demoiselle Heloise Keranguin.
+You know St. Pol de Leon, Yann?"
+
+"Almost as well as my own town, mademoiselle."
+
+"And the Convent of the Grey Nuns, on the road to Morlaix, a little
+beyond the town?"
+
+It was on my tongue to tell her that fire and  soldiery had wiped it
+even with the ground, during the "Terror."  But she interrupted me.
+Setting down her work-basket, which was heaped high with reels and
+parti-coloured rags of silk, she pushed a small table over to the big
+bed and loaded it with candlesticks.  There were three candles already
+alight in the room, but she lit others and set them in line--brass
+candlesticks, plated candlesticks, candlesticks of chinaware--fourteen
+candlesticks in all, and fresh candles in each.  Laying a finger on her
+lip, she stepped to the big bed and unfastened the corking-pins which
+held the green curtains together.  As she pushed the curtains back I
+lifted myself on an elbow.
+
+It was into a real theatre that I looked.  She had transformed the whole
+level of the bed into a miniature stage, with buildings of cardboard,
+cleverly painted, and gardens cut out of silk and velvet and laid down,
+and rose-trees gummed on little sticks, and a fish-pond and brook of
+looking-glass, with embroidered flowers stuck along their edges, and
+along the paths (of real sand) a score of little dolls walking, all
+dressed in the uniform of the Grey Nuns.  I declare it was so real, you
+could almost hear the fountain playing, with its _jet d'eau_ of
+transparent beads strung on an invisible wire.
+
+"But how pretty, mademoiselle!" I cried.
+
+She clasped her hands nervously.  "But is it _like_, Yann?  It is so
+long ago that I may have forgotten.  Tell me if it is like; or if there
+is anything wrong.  I promise not to be offended."
+
+"It is exactly like, mademoiselle."
+
+"See, here is the Mother Superior; and this is Soeur Gabrielle.  I have
+to make the dresses full and stiff, or they wouldn't stand up.
+And that, with the blue eyes, is Soeur Hyacinthe.  She walks with me--
+this is I--as she always did.  And what do you think?  With the fifteen
+dolls that you have brought I am going to have a real Pardon, and
+townspeople and fisher people to stand and worship at the altar of the
+Virgin, there in the corner.  I made it of wax, and stamped the face
+with a seal that Charles gave me.  He was to have been my husband when I
+left the school."
+
+"Indeed, mademoiselle?"
+
+"Yes, but the soldiers burnt his house.  It was but a week after I left
+the school, and the Chateau Sant-Ervoan lay but a mile from my mother's
+house.  He fled to us, wounded; and we carried him to the coast--there
+was a price on his head, and we, too, had to flee--and escaped over to
+England.  He died on this bed, Yann.  Look--"
+
+She lifted a candle, and there on the bed's ledge I read, in gilt
+lettering, some words I have never forgotten, though it was not until
+years after that I got a priest to explain them to me.  They were
+"C. DE. R. COMES ET ECSUL.  MDCCXCIII."
+
+While I stared, she set the candle down again and gently drew the
+curtains round the bed.
+
+"Rise now and dress, dear child, or your supper will be cold and the
+farmer impatient.  You have done me good.  Although I have written the
+farmer's letters for him, it never seemed to me that I wrote to living
+people: for all I used to know in Brittany, ten years ago, are dead.
+For the future I shall write to you."
+
+She turned at the door as she said this, and that was the last I ever
+saw of her.  For when I passed out of the room, dressed and ready for my
+journey, it was quite dark on the landing, where she met and kissed me.
+Then she slipped a little packet into my hand.
+
+"For the dolls," she said.
+
+In the kitchen I slipped it out of my pocket and examined it under the
+table's edge.  It was a little silver crucifix, and I have kept it to
+this day.
+
+
+
+THE MYSTERY OF JOSEPH LAQUEDEM
+
+
+_A Jew, unfortunately slain on the sands of Sheba Cove, in the parish of
+Ruan Lanihale, August 15, 1810: or so much of it as is hereby related by
+the Rev. Endymion Trist, B.D., then vicar of that parish, in a letter to
+a friend._
+
+My dear J--,--You are right, to be sure, in supposing that I know more
+than my neighbours in Ruan Lanihale concerning the unfortunate young
+man, Joseph Laquedem, and more than I care to divulge; in particular
+concerning his tragical relations with the girl Julia Constantine, or
+July, as she was commonly called.  The vulgar knowledge amounts to
+little more than this--that Laquedem, a young Hebrew of extraordinary
+commercial gifts, first came to our parish in 1807 and settled here as
+managing secretary of a privateering company at Porthlooe; that by his
+aptitude and daring in this and the illicit trade he amassed a
+respectable fortune, and at length opened a private bank at Porthlooe
+and issued his own notes; that on August 15, 1810, a forced "run" which,
+against his custom, he was personally supervising, miscarried, and he
+met his death by a carbine-shot on the sands of Sheba Cove; and, lastly,
+that his body was taken up and conveyed away by the girl Julia
+Constantine, under the fire of the preventive men.
+
+The story has even in our time received what I may call some fireside
+embellishments; but these are the facts, and the parish knows little
+beyond them.  I (as you conjecture) know a great deal more; and yet
+there is a sense in which I know nothing more.  You and I, my old
+friend, have come to an age when men do not care to juggle with the
+mysteries of another world, but knowing that the time is near when all
+accounts must be rendered, desire to take stock honestly of what they
+believe and what they do not.  And here lies my difficulty.  On the one
+hand I would not make public an experience which, however honestly set
+down, might mislead others, and especially the young, into rash and
+mischievous speculations.   On the other, I doubt if it be right to keep
+total silence and withhold from devout and initiated minds any glimpse
+of truth, or possible truth, vouchsafed to me.  As the Greek said,
+"Plenty are the thyrsus-bearers, but few the illuminate"; and among
+these few I may surely count my old friend.
+
+It was in January 1807--the year of the abominable business of Tilsit--
+that my churchwarden, the late Mr. Ephraim Pollard, and I, in cleaning
+the south wall of Lanihale Church for a fresh coat of whitewash,
+discovered the frescoes and charcoal drawings, as well as the brass
+plaque of which I sent you a tracing; and I think not above a fortnight
+later that, on your suggestion, I set to work to decipher and copy out
+the old churchwardens' accounts.  On the Monday after Easter, at about
+nine o'clock P.M., I was seated in the Vicarage parlour, busily
+transcribing, with a couple of candles before me, when my housekeeper
+Frances came in with a visiting-card, and the news that a stranger
+desired to speak with me.  I took the card and read "Mr. Joseph
+Laquedem."
+
+"Show the gentleman in," said I.
+
+Now the fact is, I had just then a few guineas in my chest, and you know
+what a price gold fetched in 1807.  I dare say that for twelve months
+together the most of my parishioners never set eyes on a piece, and any
+that came along quickly found its way to the Jews.  People said that
+Government was buying up gold, through the Jews, to send to the armies.
+I know not the degree of truth in this, but I had some five and twenty
+guineas to dispose of, and had been put into correspondence with a Mr.
+Isaac Laquedem, a Jew residing by Plymouth Dock, whom I understood to be
+offering 25s. 6d. per guinea, or a trifle above the price then current.
+
+I was fingering the card when the door opened again and admitted a
+young man in a caped overcoat and tall boots bemired high above the
+ankles.  He halted on the threshold and bowed.
+
+"Mr.--?"
+
+"Joseph Laquedem," said he in a pleasant voice.
+
+"I guess your errand," said I, "though it was a Mr. Isaac Laquedem whom
+I expected.--Your father, perhaps?"
+
+He bowed again, and I left the room to fetch my bag of guineas.
+"You have had a dirty ride," I began on my return.
+
+"I have walked," he answered, lifting a muddy boot.  "I beg you to
+pardon these."
+
+"What, from Torpoint Ferry?  And in this weather?  My faith, sir, you
+must be a famous pedestrian!"
+
+He made no reply to this, but bent over the guineas, fingering them,
+holding them up to the candlelight, testing their edges with his
+thumbnail, and finally poising them one by one on the tip of his
+forefinger.
+
+"I have a pair of scales," suggested I.
+
+"Thank you, I too have a pair in my pocket.  But I do not need them.
+The guineas are good weight, all but this one, which is possibly a
+couple of grains short."
+
+"Surely you cannot rely on your hand to tell you that?"
+
+His eyebrows went up as he felt in his pocket and produced a small
+velvet-lined case containing a pair of scales.  He was a decidedly
+handsome young man, with dark intelligent eyes and a slightly scornful--
+or shall I say ironical?--smile.  I took particular note of the
+steadiness of his hand as he adjusted the scales and weighed my guinea.
+
+"To be precise," he announced, "1.898, or practically one and
+nine-tenths short."
+
+"I should have thought," said I, fairly astounded, "a lifetime too
+little for acquiring such delicacy of sense!"
+
+He seemed to ponder.  "I dare say you are right, sir," he answered, and
+was silent again until the business of payment was concluded.
+While folding the receipt he added, "I am a connoisseur of coins, sir,
+and not of their weight alone."
+
+"Antique, as well as modern?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"In that case," said I, "you may be able to tell me something about
+this": and going to my bureau I took out the brass plaque which Mr.
+Pollard had detached from the planks of the church wall.  "To be sure,
+it scarcely comes within the province of numismatics."
+
+He took the plaque.  His brows contracted, and presently he laid it on
+the table, drew my chair towards him in an absent-minded fashion, and,
+sitting down, rested his brow on his open palms.  I can recall the
+attitude plainly, and his bent head, and the rain still glistening in
+the waves of his black hair.
+
+"Where did you find this?" he asked, but without looking up.
+
+I told him.  "The engraving upon it is singular.  I thought that
+possibly--"
+
+"Oh, that," said he, "is simplicity itself.  An eagle displayed, with
+two heads, the legs resting on two gates, a crescent between, an
+imperial crown surmounting--these are the arms of the Greek Empire, the
+two gates are Rome and Constantinople.  The question is, how it came
+where you found it?  It was covered with plaster, you say, and the
+plaster whitewashed?  Did you discover anything near it?"
+
+Upon this I told him of the frescoes and charcoal drawings, and roughly
+described them.
+
+His fingers began to drum upon the table.
+
+"Have you any documents which might tell us when the wall was first
+plastered?"
+
+"The parish accounts go back to 1594--here they are: the Registers to
+1663 only.  I keep them in the vestry.  I can find no mention of
+plastering, but the entries of expenditure on whitewashing occur
+periodically, the first under the year 1633."  I turned the old pages
+and pointed to the entry  "_Ite paide to George mason for a dayes work
+about the churche after the Jew had been, and white wassche is vjd_."
+
+"A Jew?  But a Jew had no business in England in those days.  I wonder
+how and why he came."  My visitor took the old volume and ran his finger
+down the leaf, then up, then turned back a page.  "Perhaps this may
+explain it," said he.  "_Ite deliued Mr. Beuill to make puision for the
+companie of a fforeste barke yt came ashoare iiis ivd_."  He broke off,
+with a finger on the entry, and rose.  "Pray forgive me, sir;  I had
+taken your chair."
+
+"Don't mention it," said I.  "Indeed I was about to suggest that you
+draw it to the fire while Frances brings in some supper."
+
+To be short, although he protested he must push on to the inn at
+Porthlooe, I persuaded him to stay the night; not so much, I confess,
+from desire of his company, as in the hope that if I took him to see the
+frescoes next morning he might help me to elucidate their history.
+
+I remember now that during supper and afterwards my guest allowed me
+more than my share of the conversation.  He made an admirable listener,
+quick, courteous, adaptable, yet with something in reserve (you may call
+it a facile tolerance, if you will) which ended by irritating me.
+Young men should be eager, fervid, _sublimis cupidusque_, as I was
+before my beard grew stiff.  But this young man had the air of a
+spectator at a play, composing himself to be amused.  There was too much
+wisdom in him and too little emotion.  We did not, of course, touch upon
+any religious question--indeed, of his own opinions on any subject he
+disclosed extraordinarily little: and yet as I reached my bedroom that
+night I told myself that here, behind a mask of good manners, was one of
+those perniciously modern young men who have run through all beliefs by
+the age of twenty, and settled down to a polite but weary atheism.
+
+I fancy that under the shadow of this suspicion my own manner may have
+been cold to him next morning.  Almost immediately after breakfast we
+set out for the church.  The day was sunny and warm;  the atmosphere
+brilliant after the night's rain.  The hedges exhaled a scent of spring.
+And, as we entered the churchyard, I saw the girl Julia Constantine
+seated in her favourite angle between the porch and the south wall,
+threading a chain of daisies.
+
+"What an amazingly handsome girl!" my guest exclaimed.
+
+"Why, yes," said I, "she has her good looks, poor soul!"
+
+"Why 'poor soul'?"
+
+"She is an imbecile, or nearly so," said I, fitting the key in the lock.
+
+We entered the church.  And here let me say that, although I furnished
+you at the time of their discovery with a description of the frescoes
+and the ruder drawings which overlay them, you can scarcely imagine the
+grotesque and astonishing _coup d'oeil_ presented by the two series.
+To begin with the frescoes, or original series.  One, as you know,
+represented the Crucifixion.  The head of the Saviour bore a large crown
+of gilded thorns, and from the wound in His left side flowed a
+continuous stream of red gouts of blood, extraordinarily intense in
+colour (and intensity of colour is no common quality in
+fresco-painting).  At the foot of the cross stood a Roman soldier, with
+two female figures in dark-coloured drapery a little to the right, and
+in the background a man clad in a loose dark upper coat, which reached a
+little below the knees.
+
+The same man reappeared in the second picture, alone, but carrying a
+tall staff or hunting spear, and advancing up a road, at the top of
+which stood a circular building with an arched doorway and, within the
+doorway, the head of a lion.  The jaws of this beast were open and
+depicted with the same intense red as the Saviour's blood.
+
+Close beside this, but further to the east, was a large ship, under
+sail, which from her slanting position appeared to be mounting over a
+long swell of sea.  This vessel had four masts; the two foremost
+furnished with yards and square sails, the others with lateen-shaped
+sails, after the Greek fashion; her sides were decorated with six gaily
+painted bands or streaks, each separately charged with devices--a golden
+saltire on a green ground, a white crescent on a blue, and so on; and
+each masthead bore a crown with a flag or streamer fluttering beneath.
+
+Of the frescoes these alone were perfect, but fragments of others were
+scattered over the wall, and in particular I must mention a group of
+detached human limbs lying near the ship--a group rendered conspicuous
+by an isolated right hand and arm drawn on a larger scale than the rest.
+A gilded circlet adorned the arm, which was flexed at the elbow, the
+hand horizontally placed, the forefinger extended towards the west in
+the direction of the picture of the Crucifixion, and the thumb shut
+within the palm beneath the other three fingers.
+
+So much for the frescoes.  A thin coat of plaster had been laid over
+them to receive the second series, which consisted of the most
+disgusting and fantastic images, traced in black.  One of these drawings
+represented Satan himself--an erect figure, with hairy paws clasped in a
+supplicating posture, thick black horns, and eyes which (for additional
+horror) the artist had painted red and edged with a circle of white.
+At his feet crawled the hindmost limb of a peculiarly loathsome monster
+with claws stuck in the soil.  Close by a nun was figured, sitting in a
+pensive attitude, her cheek resting on the back of her hand, her elbow
+supported by a hideous dwarf, and at some distance a small house, or
+prison, with barred windows and a small doorway crossed with heavy
+bolts.
+
+As I said, this upper series had been but partially scraped away, and as
+my guest and I stood at a little distance, I leave you to imagine, if
+you can, the incongruous tableau; the Prince of Darkness almost touching
+the mourners beside the cross; the sorrowful nun and grinning dwarf side
+by side with a ship in full sail, which again seemed to be forcing her
+way into a square and forbidding prison, etc.
+
+Mr. Laquedem conned all this for some while in silence, holding his chin
+with finger and thumb.
+
+"And it was here you discovered the plaque?" he asked at length.
+
+I pointed to the exact spot.
+
+"H'm!" he mused, "and that ship must be Greek or Levantine by its rig.
+Compare the crowns on her masts, too, with that on the plaque . . ."
+He stepped to the wall and peered into the frescoes.  "Now this hand and
+arm--"
+
+"They belong to me," said a voice immediately behind me, and turning, I
+saw that the poor girl had followed us into the church.
+
+The young Jew had turned also.  "What do you mean by that?" he asked
+sharply.
+
+"She means nothing," I began, and made as if to tap my forehead
+significantly.
+
+"Yes, I do mean something," she persisted.  "They belong to me.
+I remember--"
+
+"What do you remember?"
+
+Her expression, which for a moment had been thoughtful, wavered and
+changed into a vague foolish smile.  "I can't tell . . . something . . .
+it was sand, I think . . ."
+
+"Who is she?" asked Mr. Laquedem.
+
+"Her name is Julia Constantine.  Her parents are dead; an aunt looks
+after her--a sister of her mother's."
+
+He turned and appeared to be studying the frescoes.  "Julia
+Constantine--an odd name," he muttered.  "Do you know anything of her
+parentage?"
+
+"Nothing except that her father was a labourer at Sheba, the manor-farm.
+The family has belonged to this parish for generations.  I believe July
+is the last of them."
+
+He faced round upon her again.  "_Sand_, did you say?  That's a strange
+thing to remember.  How does _sand_ come into your mind?  Think, now."
+
+She cast down her eyes; her fingers plucked at the daisy-chain.  After a
+while she shook her head.  "I can't think," she answered, glancing up
+timidly and pitifully.
+
+"Surely we are wasting time," I suggested.  To tell the truth I
+disapproved of his worrying the poor girl.
+
+He took the daisy-chain from her, looking at me the while with something
+between a "by-your-leave" and a challenge.  A smile played about the
+corners of his mouth.
+
+"Let us waste a little more."  He held up the chain before her and began
+to sway it gently to and fro.  "Look at it, please, and stretch out your
+arm; look steadily.  Now your name is Julia Constantine, and you say
+that the arm on the wall belongs to you.  Why?"
+
+"Because . . . if you please, sir, because of the mark."
+
+"What mark?"
+
+"The mark on my arm."
+
+This answer seemed to discompose as well as to surprise him.
+He snatched at her wrist and rolled back her sleeve, somewhat roughly,
+as I thought.  "Look here, sir!" he exclaimed, pointing to a thin red
+line encircling the flesh of the girl's upper arm, and from that to the
+arm and armlet in the fresco.
+
+"She has been copying it," said I, "with a string or ribbon, which no
+doubt she tied too tightly."
+
+"You are mistaken, sir; this is a birthmark.  You have had it always?"
+he asked the girl.
+
+She nodded.  Her eyes were fixed on his face with the gaze of one at the
+same time startled and confiding; and for the moment he too seemed to be
+startled.  But his smile came back as he picked up the daisy-chain and
+began once more to sway it to and fro before her.
+
+"And when that arm belonged to you, there was sand around you--eh!
+Tell us, how did the sand come there?"
+
+She was silent, staring at the pendulum-swing of the chain.  "Tell us,"
+he repeated in a low coaxing tone.
+
+And in a tone just as low she began, "There was sand . . . red sand
+ . . . it was below me . . . and something above . . . something like a
+great tent."  She faltered, paused and went on, "There were thousands of
+people. . . ."  She stopped.
+
+"Yes, yes--there were thousands of people on the sand--"
+
+"No, they were not on the sand.  There were only two on the sand . . .
+the rest were around . . . under the tent . . . my arm was out . . .
+just like this. . . ."
+
+The young man put a hand to his forehead.  "Good Lord!" I heard him say,
+"the amphitheatre!"
+
+"Come, sir," I interrupted, "I think we have had enough of this
+jugglery."
+
+But the girl's voice went on steadily as if repeating a lesson:--
+
+"And then you came--"
+
+"_I!_" His voice rang sharply, and I saw a horror dawn in his eyes, and
+grow.  "_I!_"
+
+"And then you came," she repeated, and broke off, her mind suddenly at
+fault.  Automatically he began to sway the daisy-chain afresh.  "We were
+on board a ship . . . a funny ship . . . with a great high stern. . . ."
+
+"Is this the same story?" he asked, lowering his voice almost to a
+whisper; and I could hear his breath going and coming.
+
+"I don't know . . . one minute I see clear, and then it all gets mixed
+up again . . . we were up there, stretched on deck, near the tiller
+ . . . another ship was chasing us . . . the men began to row, with long
+sweeps. . . ."
+
+"But the sand," he insisted, "is the sand there?"
+
+"The sand? . . . Yes, I see the sand again . . . we are standing upon it
+. . . we and the crew . . . the sea is close behind us . . . some men
+have hold of me . . . they are trying to pull me away from you. . . .
+Ah!--"
+
+And I declare to you that with a sob the poor girl dropped on her knees,
+there in the aisle, and clasped the young man about the ankles, bowing
+her forehead upon the insteps of his high boots.  As for him, I cannot
+hope to describe his face to you.  There was something more in it than
+wonder--something more than dismay, even--at the success of his
+unhallowed experiment.  It was as though, having prepared himself
+light-heartedly to witness a play, he was seized and terrified to find
+himself the principal actor.  I never saw ghastlier fear on human
+cheeks.
+
+"For God's sake, sir," I cried, stamping my foot, "relax your cursed
+spells!  Relax them and leave us!  This is a house of prayer."
+
+He put a hand under the girl's chin, and, raising her face, made a pass
+or two, still with the daisy-chain in his hand.  She looked about her,
+shivered and stood erect.  "Where am I?" she asked.  "Did I fall?
+What are you doing with my chain?"  She had relapsed into her habitual
+childishness of look and speech.
+
+I hurried them from the church, resolutely locked the door, and marched
+up the path without deigning a glance at the young man.  But I had not
+gone fifty yards when he came running after.
+
+"I entreat you, sir, to pardon me.  I should have stopped the experiment
+before.  But I was startled--thrown off my balance.  I am telling you
+the truth, sir!"
+
+"Very likely," said I.  "The like has happened to other rash meddlers
+before you."
+
+"I declare to you I had no thought--" he began.  But I interrupted him:
+
+"'No thought,' indeed!  I bring you here to resolve me, if you can, a
+curious puzzle in archaeology, and you fall to playing devil's pranks
+upon a half-witted child.  'No thought!'--I believe you, sir."
+
+"And yet," he muttered, "it is an amazing business: the sand--the
+_velarium_--the outstretched arm and hand--_pollice compresso_--the
+exact gesture of the gladiatorial shows--"
+
+"Are you telling me, pray, of gladiatorial shows under the Eastern
+Empire?" I demanded scornfully.
+
+"Certainly not: and that," he mused, "only makes it the more amazing."
+
+"Now, look here," said I, halting in the middle of the road, "I'll hear
+no more of it.  Here is my gate, and there lies the highroad, on to
+Porthlooe or back to Plymouth, as you please.  I wish you good morning,
+sir; and if it be any consolation to you, you have spoiled my digestion
+for a week."
+
+I am bound to say the young man took his dismissal with grace.
+He halted then and there and raised his hat; stood for a moment
+pondering; and, turning on his heel, walked quickly off towards
+Porthlooe.
+
+It must have been a week before I learnt casually that he had obtained
+employment there as secretary to a small company owning the _Lord
+Nelson_ and the _Hand-in-hand_ privateers.  His success, as you know,
+was rapid; and naturally in a gossiping parish I heard about it--a
+little here, a little there--in all a great deal.  He had bought the
+_Providence_ schooner; he had acted as freighter for Minards' men in
+their last run with the _Morning Star_; he had slipped over to Cork and
+brought home a Porthlooe prize illegally detained there; he was in
+London, fighting a salvage case in the Admiralty Court; . . . Within
+twelve months he was accountant of every trading company in Porthlooe,
+and agent for receiving the moneys due to the Guernsey merchants.
+In 1809, as you know, he opened his bank and issued notes of his own.
+And a year later he acquired two of the best farms in the parish,
+Tresawl and Killifreeth, and held the fee simple of the harbour and
+quays.
+
+During the first two years of his prosperity I saw little of the man.
+We passed each other from time to time in the street of Porthlooe, and
+he accosted me with a politeness to which, though distrusting him, I
+felt bound to respond.  But he never offered conversation, and our next
+interview was wholly of my seeking.
+
+One evening towards the close of his second year at Porthlooe, and about
+the date of his purchase of the _Providence_ schooner, I happened to be
+walking homewards from a visit to a sick parishioner, when at Cove
+Bottom, by the miller's footbridge, I passed two figures--a man and a
+woman standing there and conversing in the dusk.  I could not help
+recognising them; and halfway up the hill I came to a sudden resolution
+and turned back.
+
+"Mr. Laquedem," said I, approaching them, "I put it to you, as a man of
+education and decent feeling, is this quite honourable?"
+
+"I believe, sir," he answered courteously enough, "I can convince you
+that it is.  But clearly this is neither the time nor the place."
+
+"You must excuse me," I went on, "but I have known Julia since she was a
+child."
+
+To this he made an extraordinary answer.  "No longer?" he asked; and
+added, with a change of tone, "Had you not forbidden me the vicarage,
+sir, I might have something to say to you."
+
+"If it concern the girl's spiritual welfare--or yours--I shall be happy
+to hear it."
+
+"In that case," said he, "I will do myself the pleasure of calling upon
+you--shall we say to-morrow evening?"
+
+He was as good as his word.  At nine o'clock next evening--about the
+hour of his former visit--Frances ushered him into my parlour.
+The similarity of circumstance may have suggested to me to draw the
+comparison; at any rate I observed then for the first time that rapid
+ageing of his features which afterwards became a matter of common
+remark.  The face was no longer that of the young man who had entered my
+parlour two years before; already some streaks of grey showed in his
+black locks, and he seemed even to move wearily.
+
+"I fear you are unwell," said I, offering a chair.
+
+"I have reason to believe," he answered, "that I am dying."  And then,
+as I uttered some expression of dismay and concern, he cut me short.
+"Oh, there will be no hurry about it! I mean, perhaps, no more than that
+all men carry about with them the seeds of their mortality--so why not
+I?  But I came to talk of Julia Constantine, not of myself."
+
+"You may guess, Mr. Laquedem, that as her vicar, and having known her
+and her affliction all her life, I take something of a fatherly interest
+in the girl."
+
+"And having known her so long, do you not begin to observe some change
+in her, of late?"
+
+"Why, to be sure," said I, "she seems brighter."
+
+He nodded.  "_I_ have done that; or rather, love has done it."
+
+"Be careful, sir!" I cried.  "Be careful of what you are going to tell
+me!  If you have intended or wrought any harm to that girl, I tell you
+solemnly--"
+
+But he held up a hand.  "Ah, sir, be charitable!  I tell you solemnly
+our love is not of that kind.  We who have loved, and lost, and sought
+each other, and loved again through centuries, have outlearned that
+rougher passion.  When she was a princess of Rome and I a Christian Jew
+led forth to the lions--"
+
+I stood up, grasping the back of my chair and staring.  At last I knew.
+This young man was stark mad.
+
+He read my conviction at once.  "I think, sir,"  he went on, changing
+his tone, "the learned antiquary to whom, as you told me, you were
+sending your tracing of the plaque, has by this time replied with some
+information about it."
+
+Relieved at this change of subject, I answered quietly (while
+considering how best to get him out of the house), "My friend tells me
+that a similar design is found in Landulph Church, on the tomb of
+Theodore Paleologus, who died in 1636."
+
+"Precisely; of Theodore Paleologus, descendant of the Constantines."
+
+I began to grasp his insane meaning.  "The race, so far as we know, is
+extinct," said I.
+
+"The race of the Constantines," said he slowly and composedly, "is never
+extinct; and while it lasts, the soul of Julia Constantine will come to
+birth again and know the soul of the Jew, until--"
+
+I waited.
+
+"--Until their love lifts the curse, and the Jew can die."
+
+"This is mere madness," said I, my tongue blurting it out at length.
+
+"I expected you to say no less.  Now look you, sir--in a few minutes I
+leave you, I walk home and spend an hour or two before bedtime in adding
+figures, balancing accounts; to-morrow I rise and go about my daily
+business cheerfully, methodically, always successfully.  I am the
+long-headed man, making money because I know how to make it, respected
+by all, with no trace of madness in me.  You, if you meet me to-morrow,
+shall recognise none.  Just now you are forced to believe me mad.
+Believe it then; but listen while I tell you this:--When Rome was, I
+was; when Constantinople was, I was.  I was that Jew rescued from the
+lions.  It was I who sailed from the Bosphorus in that ship, with Julia
+beside me; I from whom the Moorish pirates tore her, on the beach beside
+Tetuan; I who, centuries after, drew those obscene figures on the wall
+of your church--the devil, the nun, and the barred convent--when Julia,
+another Julia but the same soul, was denied to me and forced into a
+nunnery.  For the frescoes, too, tell _my_ history.  _I_ was that figure
+in the dark habit, standing a little back from the cross.  Tell me, sir,
+did you never hear of Joseph Kartophilus, Pilate's porter?"
+
+I saw that I must humour him.  "I have heard his legend," said I;[1]
+"and have understood that in time he became a Christian."
+
+He smiled wearily.  "He has travelled through many creeds; but he has
+never travelled beyond Love.  And if that love can be purified of all
+passion such as you suspect, he has not travelled beyond forgiveness.
+Many times I have known her who shall save me in the end; and now in the
+end I have found her and shall be able, at length, to die; have found
+her, and with her all my dead loves, in the body of a girl whom you call
+half-witted--and shall be able, at length, to die."
+
+And with this he bent over the table, and, resting his face on his arms,
+sobbed aloud.  I let him sob there for a while, and then touched his
+shoulder gently.
+
+He raised his head.  "Ah," said he, in a voice which answered the
+gentleness of my touch, "you remind me!"  And with that he deliberately
+slipped his coat off his left arm and, rolling up the shirt sleeve,
+bared the arm almost to the shoulder.  "I want you close," he added with
+half a smile; for I have to confess that during the process I had backed
+a couple of paces towards the door.  He took up a candle, and held it
+while I bent and examined the thin red line which ran like a circlet
+around the flesh of the upper arm just below the apex of the deltoid
+muscle.  When I looked up I met his eyes challenging mine across the
+flame.
+
+"Mr. Laquedem," I said, "my conviction is that you are possessed and are
+being misled by a grievous hallucination.  At the same time I am not
+fool enough to deny that the union of flesh and spirit, so passing
+mysterious in everyday life (when we pause to think of it), may easily
+hold mysteries deeper yet.  The Church Catholic, whose servant I am, has
+never to my knowledge denied this; yet has providentially made a rule of
+St. Paul's advice to the Colossians against intruding into those things
+which she hath not seen.  In the matter of this extraordinary belief of
+yours I can give you no such comfort as one honest man should offer to
+another: for I do not share it.  But in the more practical matter of
+your conduct towards July Constantine, it may help you to know that I
+have accepted your word and propose henceforward to trust you as a
+gentleman."
+
+"I thank you, sir," he said, as he slipped on his coat.  "May I have
+your hand on that?"
+
+"With pleasure," I answered, and, having shaken hands, conducted him to
+the door.
+
+
+From that day the affection between Joseph Laquedem and July
+Constantine, and their frequent companionship, were open and avowed.
+Scandal there was, to be sure; but as it blazed up like straw, so it
+died down.  Even the women feared to sharpen their tongues openly on
+Laquedem, who by this time held the purse of the district, and to offend
+whom might mean an empty skivet on Saturday night.  July, to be sure,
+was more tempting game;  and one day her lover found her in the centre
+of a knot of women fringed by a dozen children with open mouths and
+ears.  He stepped forward.  "Ladies," said he, "the difficulty which
+vexes you cannot, I feel sure, be altogether good for your small sons
+and daughters.  Let me put an end to it."  He bent forward and
+reverently took July's hand.  "My dear, it appears that the depth of my
+respect for you will not be credited by these ladies unless I offer you
+marriage.  And as I am proud of it, so forgive me if I put it beyond
+their doubt.  Will you marry me?"  July, blushing scarlet, covered her
+face with her hands, but shook her head.  There was no mistaking the
+gesture: all the women saw it.  "Condole with me, ladies!" said
+Laquedem, lifting his hat and including them in an ironical bow; and
+placing July's arm in his, escorted her away.
+
+I need not follow the history of their intimacy, of which I saw, indeed,
+no more than my neighbours.  On two points all accounts of it agree: the
+rapid ageing of the man during this period and the improvement in the
+poor girl's intellect.  Some profess to have remarked an equally
+vehement heightening of her beauty; but, as my recollection serves me,
+she had always been a handsome maid; and I set down the
+transfiguration--if such it was--entirely to the dawn and growth of her
+reason.  To this I can add a curious scrap of evidence.  I was walking
+along the cliff track, one afternoon, between Porthlooe and Lanihale
+church-town, when, a few yards ahead, I heard a man's voice declaiming
+in monotone some sentences which I could not catch;  and rounding the
+corner, came upon Laquedem and July.  She was seated on a rock; and he,
+on a patch of turf at her feet, held open a small volume which he laid
+face downwards as he rose to greet me.  I glanced at the back of the
+book and saw it was a volume of Euripides.  I made no comment, however,
+on this small discovery; and whether he had indeed taught the girl some
+Greek, or whether she merely listened for the sake of hearing his voice,
+I am unable to say.
+
+Let me come then to the last scene, of which I was one among many
+spectators.
+
+On the morning of August 15th, 1810, and just about daybreak, I was
+awakened by the sound of horses' hoofs coming down the road beyond the
+vicarage gate.  My ear told me at once that they were many riders and
+moving at a trot; and a minute later the jingle of metal gave me an
+inkling of the truth.  I hurried to the window and pulled up the blind.
+Day was breaking on a grey drizzle of fog which drove up from seaward,
+and through this drizzle I caught sight of the last five or six scarlet
+plumes of a troop of dragoons jogging down the hill past my bank of
+laurels.
+
+Now our parish had stood for some weeks in apprehension of a visit from
+these gentry.  The riding-officer, Mr. Luke, had threatened us with them
+more than once.  I knew, moreover, that a run of goods was contemplated:
+and without questions of mine--it did not become a parish priest in
+those days to know too much--it had reached my ears that Laquedem was
+himself in Roscoff bargaining for the freight.  But we had all learnt
+confidence in him by this time--his increasing bodily weakness never
+seemed to affect his cleverness and resource--and no doubt occurred to
+me that he would contrive to checkmate this new move of the
+riding-officer's.  Nevertheless, and partly I dare say out of curiosity,
+to have a good look at the soldiers, I slipped on my clothes and hurried
+downstairs and across the garden.
+
+My hand was on the gate when I heard footsteps, and July Constantine
+came running down the hill, her red cloak flapping and her hair powdered
+with mist.
+
+"Hullo!" said I, "nothing wrong, I hope?"  She turned a white,
+distraught face to me in the dawn.
+
+"Yes, yes!  All is wrong!  I saw the soldiers coming--I heard them a
+mile away, and sent up the rocket from the church-tower.  But the lugger
+stood in--they _must_ have seen!--she stood in, and is right under Sheba
+Point now--and _he_--"
+
+I whistled.  "This is serious.  Let us run out towards the point; we--
+you, I mean--may be in time to warn them yet."
+
+So we set off running together.  The morning breeze had a cold edge on
+it, but already the sun had begun to wrestle with the bank of sea-fog.
+While we hurried along the cliffs the shoreward fringe of it was ripped
+and rolled back like a tent-cloth, and through the rent I saw a broad
+patch of the cove below; the sands (for the tide was at low ebb) shining
+like silver; the dragoons with their greatcoats thrown back from their
+scarlet breasts and their accoutrements flashing against the level rays.
+Seaward, the lugger loomed through the weather; but there was a crowd of
+men and black boats--half a score of them--by the water's edge, and it
+was clear to me at once that a forced run had been at least attempted.
+
+I had pulled up, panting, on the verge of the cliff, when July caught me
+by the arm.
+
+"_The sand!_"
+
+She pointed; and well I remember the gesture--the very gesture of the
+hand in the fresco--the forefinger extended, the thumb shut within the
+palm.  "_The sand_ . . . he told me . . ."
+
+Her eyes were wide and fixed.  She spoke, not excitedly at all, but
+rather as one musing, much as she had answered Laquedem on the morning
+when he waved the daisy-chain before her.
+
+I heard an order shouted, high up the beach, and the dragoons came
+charging down across the sand.  There was a scuffle close by the water's
+edge; then, as the soldiers broke through the mob of free-traders and
+wheeled their horses round, fetlock deep in the tide, I saw a figure
+break from the crowd and run, but presently check himself and walk
+composedly towards the cliff up which climbed the footpath leading to
+Porthlooe.  And above the hubbub of oaths and shouting, I heard a voice
+crying distinctly, "Run, man!  Tis after thee they are!  _Man, go
+faster!_"
+
+Even then, had he gained the cliff-track, he might have escaped; for up
+there no horseman could follow.  But as a trooper came galloping in
+pursuit, he turned deliberately.  There was no defiance in his attitude;
+of that I am sure.  What followed must have been mere blundering
+ferocity.  I saw a jet of smoke, heard the sharp crack of a firearm, and
+Joseph Laquedem flung up his arms and pitched forward at full length on
+the sand.
+
+The report woke the girl as with the stab of a knife.  Her cry--it
+pierces through my dreams at times--rang back with the echoes from the
+rocks, and before they ceased she was halfway down the cliffside,
+springing as surely as a goat, and, where she found no foothold,
+clutching the grass, the rooted samphires and sea pinks, and sliding.
+While my head swam with the sight of it, she was running across the
+sands, was kneeling beside the body, had risen, and was staggering under
+the weight of it down to the water's edge.
+
+"Stop her!" shouted Luke, the riding-officer.  "We must have the man!
+Dead or alive, we must have'n!"
+
+She gained the nearest boat, the free-traders forming up around her, and
+hustling the dragoons.  It was old Solomon Tweedy's boat, and he,
+prudent man, had taken advantage of the skirmish to ease her off, so
+that a push would set her afloat.  He asserts that as July came up to
+him she never uttered a word, but the look on her face said "Push me
+off," and though he was at that moment meditating his own escape, he
+obeyed and pushed the boat off "like a mazed man."  I may add that he
+spent three months in Bodmin Gaol for it.
+
+She dropped with her burden against the stern sheets, but leapt up
+instantly and had the oars between the thole-pins almost as the boat
+floated.  She pulled a dozen strokes, and hoisted the main-sail, pulled
+a hundred or so, sprang forward and ran up the jib.  All this while the
+preventive men were straining to get off two boats in pursuit; but, as
+you may guess, the free-traders did nothing to help and a great deal to
+impede.  And first the crews tumbled in too hurriedly, and had to climb
+out again (looking very foolish) and push afresh, and then one of the
+boats had mysteriously lost her plug and sank in half a fathom of water.
+July had gained a full hundred yards' offing before the pursuit began in
+earnest, and this meant a good deal.  Once clear of the point the small
+cutter could defy their rowing and reach away to the eastward with the
+wind just behind her beam.  The riding-officer saw this, and ordered his
+men to fire.  They assert, and we must believe, that their object was
+merely to disable the boat by cutting up her canvas.
+
+Their first desultory volley did no damage.  I stood there, high on the
+cliff, and watched the boat, making a spy-glass of my hands.  She had
+fetched in close under the point, and gone about on the port tack--the
+next would clear--when the first shot struck her, cutting a hole through
+her jib, and I expected the wind to rip the sail up immediately; yet it
+stood.  The breeze being dead on-shore, the little boat heeled towards
+us, her mainsail hiding the steerswoman.
+
+It was a minute later, perhaps, that I began to suspect that July was
+hit, for she allowed the jib to shake and seemed to be running right up
+into the wind.  The stern swung round and I strained my eyes to catch a
+glimpse of her.  At that moment a third volley rattled out, a bullet
+shore through the peak halliards, and the mainsail came down with a run.
+It was all over.
+
+The preventive men cheered and pulled with a will.  I saw them run
+alongside, clamber into the cutter, and lift the fallen sail.
+
+And that was all.  There was no one on board, alive or dead.  Whilst the
+canvas hid her, in the swift two minutes between the boat's putting
+about and her running up into the wind, July Constantine must have
+lifted her lover's body overboard and followed it to the bottom of the
+sea, There is no other explanation; and of the bond that knit these two
+together there is, when I ask myself candidly, no explanation at all,
+unless I give more credence than I have any wish to give to the wild
+tale which Joseph Laquedem told me.  I have told you the facts, my
+friend, and leave them to your judgment.
+
+
+[1] The legend is that as Christ left the judgment hall on His way to
+Calvary, Kartophilus smote Him, saying, "Man, go quicker!" and was
+answered, "I indeed go quickly; but thou shalt tarry till I come again."
+
+
+
+PRISONERS OF WAR
+
+
+A REPORTED TALE OF ARDEVORA
+
+You've heard tell, I dare say, about Landlord Cummins and Billy
+Bosistow, and the great jealousy there was between them.  No? Well, I
+see you going about Ardevora, and making a study of us; and I know you
+can read, because I've seen you doing it down to the Institute.
+But sometimes, when I ask you a simple little question like that, you
+force me to wonder what you've been doing with yourself all these years.
+Why, it got into the Law Courts!
+
+I know all about it, being related to them both after a fashion, as you
+might say.   Landlord Cummins--he that used to keep the Welcome Home--
+married an aunt of mine on my mother's side, and that's part of the
+story.  The boys used to call him "Calves-in-front," because of his legs
+being put on in an unusual manner, which made him walk slow all his
+days, and that's another part of the story.  And Billy Bosistow, or
+Uncle Billy, was my father's father's' stepson.  You needn't take any
+trouble to get that clear in your mind, because our family never owned
+him after he came home from the French war prisons and took up with his
+drinking habits; and that comes into the story, too.
+
+As it happens, the occasion that took their quarrel into the Law Courts
+is one of the first things I can remember.  It was in the year
+'twenty-five.  Landlord Cummins, by dint of marrying a woman with means
+(that was my aunt), and walking the paths of repute for eleven years
+with his funny-shaped calves, got himself elected Mayor of the Borough.
+You may suppose it was a proud day for him.  In those times the borough
+used to pay the mayor a hundred pounds a year to keep up appearances,
+and my mother had persuaded my father to hire a window for Election Day
+opposite the Town Hall, so that she might have the satisfaction of
+seeing so near a relative in his robes of dignity.
+
+Well, there in the window we were gathered on that July forenoon (for
+the mayors in those back-a-long days weren't chosen in November as they
+are now), and the sun--it was a bright day--slanting high down our side
+of the street, and my mother holding me tight as we leaned out, for I
+was just rising five, and extraordinary heavy in the head.  And out upon
+the steps of the Town Hall stepped Landlord Cummins, Mayor, with the
+town crier and maces before him, and his robes hanging handsomely
+about his calves, and his beaver hat and all the rest of the
+paraphernalia, prepared to march to church.
+
+While he stood there, bowing to a score of people, and looking as big as
+bull's beef, who should step out from the pavement under us but Uncle
+Billy Bosistow!  He was a ragged old scarecrow, turned a bit grey and
+lean with iniquitous living, but not more than half-drunk; and he
+stepped into the middle of the roadway and cut a low reverence to his
+worship, flinging out his leg like a dancing-master.  And says he, in a
+high cackle, very solemn but mocking:
+
+"I salute thee, O Mayor!  Do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly before
+thy God."
+
+"Put that dam fool in the stocks!" cried his worship, very red in the
+gills, and speaking vicious.  And Uncle Billy was collared and marched
+off between two constables, while the procession formed up to lead the
+new Mayor to church.
+
+Well, that, as it happened, wasn't a lucky start-off for Mr. Cummins's
+year of office.  For no sooner was Billy let out of the stocks than off
+he went to Lawyer Mennear, who was a young man then just set up in
+practice, and as keen for a job as a huer for pilchards; and between
+them they patched up an action for false imprisonment--damages claimed,
+one hundred pounds.
+
+The case came on at Bodmin, and the Mayor was cast in damages,
+twenty-five pounds.  He paid, of course, though with a very long face.
+But Billy's revenge didn't stop here.  Instead of putting the money by,
+the old varmint laid it out in the best way he could to annoy his enemy.
+And the way he contrived it was this.  Every free Saturday he'd put a
+sovereign in his pocket, and start the round of the public-houses--
+always beginning with Cummins's own house, the Welcome Home.  Cummins,
+you see, couldn't refuse to serve him: the law wouldn't allow it.  So
+he'd pull out a brand new sovereign and slap it on the counter and eye
+it.  "Ah!" he'd say, "it was a dear friend gave me that there coin.  His
+heart's in the right place, which is more'n can be said for his calves.
+Two-pennyworth of gin, please, your Worship."  The Mayor's dignity
+wouldn't let him serve it, so, the first day, he called his wife down.
+Mrs. Cummins began by trying argument.  "William," she said, "the Lord
+knows you wouldn't have this money if there was justice in England.  But
+got it you have, and now be a sensible man and put it by for a rainy
+day."  "Mrs. Mayor," answers Billy, slow and vicious, "if there was any
+chance of presentin' you with a silver cradle, I'd save it up and
+subscribe."  After that there was nothing more to say.  It hurt the poor
+soul terrible, and she went upstairs again and cried as she went.  Billy
+sat on and soaked, and the Mayor, across the counter, sat and watched
+his condition, quiet-like, till the time came for refusing any more
+liquor and turning him out.  When that happened the old sinner would
+gather up his change and make off for another public.  And the end was
+that he'd be up before the Mayor on Monday morning, charged with
+drunkenness.  No use to fine him; he wouldn't pay, but went to gaol
+instead.  "Ten years was I in prison," he'd say, addressing the bench,
+"along with his Worship there.  I don't know what 'twould appear to him
+who came back and got the Welcome Home; but I didn't, and ten days don't
+frighten me."
+
+Landlord Cummins would listen to this, looking as unnatural as a blue
+china cat in a thunderstorm.  He fairly hated these appearances of
+Billy, and they spoiled his term of office, I do believe.  But all the
+same he turned out a very passable Mayor.  The townsfolk respected him
+so highly, I've heard my mother say, that they made him Ex-Mayor the
+year following.
+
+Now you'll be wanting to know what made these two men hate each other,
+for friends they had been, as two men ought to be who had been taken
+prisoners together and spent ten years in captivity to the French, and
+come home aboard the same ship like brothers.  The bigger the love the
+bigger the hate, and no difficulty to guess there was a woman in the
+case.  So there was; but the way she came between them was curious, for
+all that.
+
+First of all, you must know, that up to the year 'three Abe Cummins and
+Bill Bosistow hadn't known what it is to quarrel or miss meeting each
+other every day.  They went to school together, and then to the fishing,
+and afterwards they sailed together with the free-traders over to
+Mount's Bay, and good seamen the both, though not a bit alike in looks
+and ways.  Abe, the elder by a year, was a bit slow and heavy on his
+pins; given to reading, too, though he seemed to take it up for peace
+and quietness more than for any show he made of his learning.  Bill was
+smarter altogether and better looking; a bit boastful, after the manner
+of young chaps.  He could read too, but never did much at it, though
+I've heard that on Saturday nights he was fond of ranting verses--stuff
+about drink and such like--out of a book of Robert Burns's poetry he'd
+borrowed off Abe.
+
+You'd hardly have thought two young fellows so different in every way
+could have hit it off as they did.  But these were like two figures in a
+puzzle-block; their very differences seemed to make them fit.
+There never was such a pair since David and Jonathan, and I believe
+'twas partly this that kept them from running after girls.  So far as I
+can see, the most of the lads begin at seventeen; but these two held off
+sweethearting right along until Christmas of the year 'three when they
+came home from Porthleven to spend a fortnight at Ardevora, and they
+both fell in love with Selina Johns.
+
+Selina Johns wasn't but just husband-high; turned sixteen and her hair
+only put up a week before, she having begged her mother's leave to twist
+it in plaits for the Christmas courants.  And Abe and Billy each knew
+the other's secret almost before he knew his own, for each, as you may
+say, kept his heart like a window and looked into his friend's window
+first.
+
+And what they did was to have it out like good fellows, and agree to
+wait a couple of years, unless any third party should interfere.  In two
+years' time, they agreed, Selina Johns would be wise enough to choose--
+and then let the best man win!  No bad blood afterwards, and meanwhile
+no more talk than necessary--they shook hands upon that.  That January,
+being tired of the free-trade, they shipped together on board a coaster
+for the Thames, and re-shipped for the voyage homeward on board the brig
+_Hand and Glove_, of London.
+
+The _Hand and Glove_, Uriah Wilcox, master, was bound for Devonport with
+a cargo of copper and flour for the dockyard there, and came to anchor
+in the Downs on March 24th to join convoy under the _Spider_ gun-brig.
+On the 25th (a Sunday) it blew hard from north to west, and she let go
+sheet anchor.  Next day the weather moderated a bit, and, heaving up her
+sheet anchor, she rode to her best bower.  On the Tuesday, the wind
+having fallen light, the master took off a new longboat from Deal.
+There was some hitch in delivering her, and she was scarcely brought
+alongside by five the next morning when the Commodore signalled to get
+under weigh.
+
+By reason of this delay, the _Hand and Glove_ was taken unawares, and
+started well astern of the fleet, which numbered over twenty sail of
+merchantmen; and, being a sluggard in anything short of half a gale, she
+made up precious little way in the light E.N.E. breeze.
+
+Soon after seven that evening, Beachy Head bearing N.W. by W. four miles
+and a half, Abe Cummins on the look-out forward spied a lugger coming
+towards shore upon a wind.  She crossed well ahead of the _Hand and
+Glove_, and close--as it looked--under the stem of an East Indiaman
+which was then busy reefing topsails before night.  For a while Abe lost
+sight of her under the dark of the land; but by-and-by the wheelman took
+a glance over his shoulder, and there she was, creeping up close astern.
+His call fetched up Captain Wilcox, who ran aft and hailed, but got no
+reply.  And so she came on, until, sheering close up under the _Hand and
+Glove's_ port quarter, she was able to heave a grapnel on board and
+throw twenty well-armed Johnnies into the old brig.  The Englishmen--
+seven in all, and taken unprepared--were soon driven below and shut
+down--four in the cabin, two in the steerage, and one in the forecastle,
+this last being Abe Cummins.  After a while the sentry over the hatchway
+called for him to come up and show where the leading ropes were, which
+he did at the point of a cutlass.  And precious soon the Johnnies had
+altered the brig's course and stood away for the coast of France, the
+lugger keeping her company all night.
+
+Early next morning the two vessels were close off Dieppe Harbour; and
+there, when the tide suited, they were taken inside, and the prisoners
+put ashore at nightfall and lodged for three days in a filthy round
+tower, swarming with vermin.  On April 1--Easter Sunday, I've heard it
+was--they were told to get ready for marching, and handed over, making
+twenty-five in all, with the crews of two other vessels, both brigs--the
+_Lisbon Packet_, bound from London to Falmouth with a general cargo, and
+the _Margaret_, letter of marque of London, bound from Zante, laden with
+currants--to a lieutenant and a guard of foot soldiers.  Not a man of
+them knew where they were bound.  They set out through a main pretty
+country, where the wheat stood nearabouts knee-high, but the roads were
+heavy after the spring rains.  Each man had seven shillings in his
+pocket, given him at parting by the captain of his vessel--the three
+captains had been left behind at Dieppe--and on they trudged for just a
+fortnight on an allowance of 1 lb. of brown bread and twopence-halfpenny
+per man per day; the bread served out regular and the money, so to say,
+when they could get it.  Mostly they came to a town for their night's
+halt, and as often as not the townsfolk drummed them to jail with what
+we call the "Rogue's March," but in France I believe it's "Honours of
+War," or something that sounds politer than 'tis.  But there were times
+when they had to put up at a farm house by the road, and then the poor
+chaps slept on straw for a treat.
+
+Well, on the last day of the fortnight they reached their journey's
+end--a great fortress on a rock standing right over the river, with a
+town lying around the foot of the rock, and a smaller town, reached by a
+bridge of boats, on the far side of the river.  I can't call to mind the
+name of the river, but the towns were called Jivvy--Great and Little
+Jivvy. [1]  The prison stood at the very top of the rock, on the edge of
+a cliff that dropped a clean 300 feet to the river: not at all a pretty
+place to get clear of, and none so cheerful to live in on a day's
+allowance of one pound of brown bread, half a pound of bullock's offal,
+three-halfpence in money (paid weekly, and the most of it deducted for
+prison repairs, if you please!), and now and then a noggin of peas for a
+treat.  They found half a dozen ships' companies already there, and
+enjoying themselves on this diet; the crew of the _Minerva_ frigate, run
+ashore off Cherbourg; the crew of the _Hussar_, wrecked outside Brest;
+and--so queerly things fall out in this world--among them a parcel of
+poor fellows from Ardevora, taken on board the privateer _Recovery_ of
+this port.
+
+To keep to my story, though--which is about Abe Cummins and Billy
+Bosistow.  It was just in these unhappy conditions that the difference
+in the two men came out.  Abe took his downfall very quiet from the
+first.  He had managed to keep a book in his pocket--a book of voyages
+it was--and carry it with him all the way from Dieppe, and it really
+didn't seem to matter to him that he was shut up, so long as he could
+sit in a corner and read about other folks travelling.  In the second
+year of their captivity an English clergyman, a Mr. Wolfe, came to
+Jivvy, and got leave from the Commandant to fit up part of the prison
+granary for a place of worship and preach to the prisoners.  It had a
+good effect on the men in general, and Abe in particular turned very
+religious.  Mr. Wolfe took a fancy to him, and lent him an old book on
+"Navigation"--Hamilton Moore's; and over that Abe would sit by the hour,
+with his room-mates drunk and fighting round him, and copy out tables
+and work out sums.  All his money went in pen and ink instead of the
+liquor which the jailors smuggled in.
+
+Billy Bosistow was a very different pair of shoes.  Although no drinker
+by habit, he fretted and wore himself down at times to a lowness of
+spirits in which nothing seemed to serve him but drinking, and fierce
+drinking.  On his better days he was everybody's favourite; but when the
+mood fell on him he grew teasy as a bear with a sore head, and fit to
+set his right hand quarrelling with his left.  Then came the drinking
+fit, and he'd wake out of that like a man dazed, sitting in a corner and
+brooding for days together.  What he brooded on, of course, was means of
+escape.  At first, like every other prisoner in Jivvy, he had kept
+himself cheerful with hopes of exchange, but it seemed the folks home in
+Ardevora had given up trying for a release, or else letters never
+reached them.  And yet they must have known something of the case their
+poor kinsmen were in, for in the second year the Commandant sent for Abe
+and Billy, and informed them that, by the kindness of a young English
+lady, a Miss Selina Johns, their allowance was increased by two sols a
+day.  He showed them no letter, but the increase was paid regularly for
+eight months; after which a new Commandant came, and it ceased.  They
+could never find out if the supply ceased, or into whose pocket it went
+if it came.
+
+From that time Bosistow had two things to brood upon--escape and Selina.
+But confinement is the ruination of some natures, and as year after year
+went by and his wits broke themselves on a stone wall, he grew into a
+very different man from the handy lad the Johnnies had taken prisoner.
+One thing he never gave up, and that was his pluck; and he had plenty of
+use for it when, after seven years, his chance came.
+
+His first contrivance was to change names with an old American in the
+depot.  It so happened that the captain of a French privateer had
+applied to the prison for a crew of foreigners to man his ship, then
+lying at Morlaix.  The trick, by oiling the jailor's palm, was managed
+easily enough, and away Bosistow was marched with twenty comrades of all
+nations.  But at the first stage some recruiting officers stopped them,
+insisting that they were Irish and not Americans, and must be enlisted
+to serve with Bonaparty's army in Spain.  The prisoners to a man refused
+to hear of it, and the end was they were marched back to prison in
+disgrace, and, to cap everything, had their English allowance stopped on
+pretence that they had been in the French service.  Yet this brought him
+a second chance, for being now declared an Irishman he managed to get
+himself locked up with the Irish, who had their quarters on the handier
+side of the prison; and that same night broke out of window with two
+other fellows, got over the prison wall, and hid in the woods beyond.
+But on the second day a party of wood-rangers attacked them with guns
+and captured them; and back they went, and were condemned to six years
+in irons.
+
+This, as it turned out, didn't amount to much; for, while they were
+waiting to be marched off to the galleys, their jailor came with news
+that a son was born to the Emperor, and they were pardoned in honour of
+it.  But instead of putting them back in their old quarters, he fixed
+them up for a fortnight in a room by themselves, being fearful that such
+bad characters would contaminate the other prisoners.  This room was an
+upstairs one in a building on the edge of the ramparts, and after a few
+nights they broke through the ceiling into an empty chamber, which had a
+window looking on the roof.  With a rope made of their bedclothes they
+lowered themselves clean over the ramparts on to the edge of the
+precipice over the river; and along this they passed--having no daylight
+to make them giddy--and took their way northwards across the fields.
+
+Well, it doesn't come into my tale to tell you what they went through.
+Bosistow wrote out an account of it years after, and you shall read it
+for yourself.  At one place they had to cross a river, and Billy being,
+like the most of our fishermen, no swimmer, his mates stuck him on a
+hurdle and pushed him over while they swam behind.  They steered by the
+Pole Star (for, you understand, they could only travel by night) and
+also by a fine comet which they guessed to be in the north-west quarter.
+
+You see the difference between these two fellows, and how little
+Providence made of it.  Back in Jivvy, Abe Cummins was staring at this
+same comet out of his prison windows, and doing his sums and thinking of
+Selina Johns.  And here was Bosistow following it up for freedom--with
+the upshot that he made the coast and was taken like a lamb in the
+attempt to hire a passage, and marched in irons from one jail to
+another, and then clean back the whole length of France, pretty well to
+the Mediterranean Sea.  And then he was shut up in a prison on the very
+top of the Alps [2] and twice as far from home as he had been in Jivvy.
+That's a moral against folks in a hurry if ever there was one.
+
+Well, let alone that while he was here he received a free pardon from
+the Emperor, which his persecutors took no notice of, he broke out of
+prison again, and was caught and brought back half-starving.
+And 'twasn't till Christmas of the year 'thirteen that orders came to
+march him right away north again, with all the prisoners, to a place in
+the Netherlands; and no sooner arrived than away to go again three
+hundred and fifty miles west-sou'-west for Tours, on the Loire river.
+I've figured it out on the map, and even that is enough to make a man
+feel sore in his feet.  But what made Bosistow glad at the time, and
+vicious after, was that on his way he fell in with a draft of prisoners,
+and, among them, with Abe Cummins, who, so to say, had reached the same
+place by walking a tenth part of the distance.  And, what's more, though
+a man couldn't very well get sleek in Jivvy, Abe had kept his bones
+filled out somehow, and knew enough navigation by this time to set a
+course to the Channel Fleet.  'Deed, that's what he began talking about
+on the first day's journey he and Billy trudged together after their
+meeting.  And he began it after a spell of silence by asking, quiet
+like, "Have you been happening to think much about Selina Johns this
+last year or  two?"
+
+"Most every day," answered Billy.
+
+"So have I," said Abe, and seemed to be pondering to himself.  "She'll
+be a woman growed by this time," he went on.
+
+"Turnin' twenty-seven," Billy agreed.
+
+"That's of it," said Abe.  "I've been thinking about her, constant."
+
+"Well, look'ee here," spoke up Billy, "our little agreement holds, don't
+it?--that is, if we ever get out of this here mess, and Selina hasn't
+gone and taken a husband.  Play fair, leave it to the maid, and let the
+best man win; that's what we shook hands over.  If that holds, seemin'
+to me the rest can wait."
+
+"True, true," says Abe; but after a bit he asks rather sly-like:
+"And s'posin' you're the lucky one, how do'ee reckon you're going to
+maintain her?"
+
+"Why, on seaman's wages, I suppose; or else at the shoe-mending.
+I learnt a little of that trade in Jivvy, as you d'know."
+
+"Well," says Abe, "I was reckonin' to set up school and teach
+navigation.  Back in Ardevora I can make between seventy and eighty
+pounds a year at that game easy."
+
+Bosistow scratched his head.  "You've been making the most of your time.
+Now I've been busy in my way, too, but seemin' to me the only trade I've
+learned is prison-breakin'.  Not much to keep a wife on, as you say.
+Still, a bargain's a bargain."
+
+"Oh, sutt'nly," says Abe; "that is if your conscience allows it."
+
+"I reckon I'll risk that," answers Billy, and no more passed.
+
+From Tours the prisoners tramped south-east again, to a town called
+Riou, in the middle of France, and reached it in a snowstorm on March 1.
+Here they were billeted for five weeks or so, and here, one night, they
+were waked up and told that Bonaparty had gone scat, and they must come
+forth and dance with the townspeople in honour of it.  You may be sure
+they heeled and toed it that night, and no girl satisfied unless she had
+an Englishman for a partner.  But the next day it all turned out to be
+lies, and off they were marched again.  To be short, 'twasn't till the
+end of April that they came to the river opposite Bordeaux, and were
+taken in charge by English red-coats, who told them they were free men.
+On the 28th of that month Abe and Billy, with forty others, were put on
+board a sloop and dropped down the river to the _Dartmouth_ frigate,
+from which they were drafted on to the _Lord Wellington_, and again on
+to the _Suffolk_ transport.  And on May 4 the _Suffolk_, with six other
+transports, having about fifteen hundred released prisoners on board,
+weighed anchor under convoy for Plymouth before a fine breeze, S.E. by
+S.
+
+On Monday, May 9, at half-past two in the afternoon--the wind still
+steady in the same quarter, and blowing fresh--the _Suffolk_ sighted
+land, making out St. Michael's Mount; and fetching up to Mousehole
+Island, the captain hailed a mackerel boat to come alongside and take
+ashore some officers with despatches.
+
+Abe Cummins and Billy Bosistow were both on deck, you may be sure,
+watching the boat as the fishermen brought her alongside.  Not a word
+had been said between them on the matter that lay closest to their
+minds, but while they waited Billy fetched a look at the boat and
+another at Abe.  "The best man wins," he said to himself, and edged away
+towards the ladder.
+
+The breeze, as I said, was a fresh one, with a sea in the bay that kept
+the _Suffolk_ rolling like a porpoise.  A heavier lurch than ordinary
+sent her main channels grinding down on the mackerel boat's gunwale,
+smashing her upper strakes and springing her mizzen mast as she
+recovered herself.
+
+"Be dashed," said one of the officers, "if I trust myself in a boat
+that'll go down under us between this and land!"
+
+The rest seemed to be of his mind, too.  But Billy, being quick as well
+as eager, saw in a moment that the damaged strakes would be to windward
+on the reach into Mousehole, and well out of harm's way in the wind then
+blowing, and also that her mainsail alone would do the job easy.
+So just as she fell off and her crew ran aft to get the mizzen lug
+stowed he took a run past the officer and jumped aboard, with two
+fellows close on his heels--one a Penzance fellow whose name I've
+forgot, and the t'other a chap from Ludgvan, Harry Cornish by name.
+I reckon the sight of the old shores just made them mazed as sheep, and
+like sheep they followed his lead.  The officers ran to stop any more
+from copying such foolishness; and if they hadn't, I believe the boat
+would have been swamped there and then.  As 'twas, she re-hoisted her
+big lug and away-to-go for Mousehole, the three passengers sitting down
+to leeward with their sterns in and out of the water to help keep her
+damaged side above mischief.
+
+So on Mousehole Quay these three stepped ashore, and the first man to
+shake hands with them was Capen Josiah Penny, of the _Perseverance_
+trading ketch, then lying snug in Mousehole Harbour.  Being a hearty man
+he invited them down to his cabin to take a drop of rum.  The Penzance
+fellow, having only a short way to trudge, said "No, thank'ee," and
+started for home with a small crowd after him.  But Bosistow and Cornish
+agreed 'twould be more neighbourly to accept, and, to tell the truth,
+they didn't quite know how to behave with so many eyes upon them.
+Cornish had on a soldier's red jacket with white facings, and a pair of
+blue trousers out at the knees, while Bosistow's trousers were of white
+cloth, and he carried a japanned knapsack at the back of his red shirt:
+and with a white-painted straw hat apiece, you may guess they felt
+themselves looking like two figures of fun.
+
+So down they went to the _Perseverance's_ cabin, and Capen Penny mixed
+them a stiff glass of rum and called them fine fellows, and mixed them
+two more glasses while they talked; and when the time came to say
+"so long," Billy was quite sure he didn't care for appearances one snap
+of his fingers.
+
+They linked arms on the quay, where they found a crowd waiting for them,
+and many with questions to ask about absent friends, so that from
+Mousehole to Penzance it was a regular procession.  And then they had to
+go to the hotel and tell the whole story over again, and answer a
+thousand and one questions about Penzance boys imprisoned at Jivvy.
+And all this meant more rum, of course.
+
+It was seven in the evening, and day closing in, before they took the
+road again.  Billy had fallen into a boastful mood, and felt his heart
+so warm towards Cornish that nothing would do but they must tramp it
+together so far as Nancledrea, which was a goodish bit out of Cornish's
+road to Ludgvan.  By the time they reached Nancledrea Billy was shedding
+tears and begging Cornish to come along to Ardevora.  "I'll make a man
+of 'ee there," he promised: "I will sure 'nough!"  But Cornish weighed
+the offer, and decided that his mother at Ludgvan would be going to bed
+before long.  So coming to a house with red blinds and lights within
+they determined to have a drink before parting.
+
+In the tap-room they found a dozen fellows or so drinking their beer and
+smoking solemn, and an upstanding woman in a black gown attending on
+them.  "Hullo!" says one of the men looking up, "What's this?
+Geezy-dancers?" [3]
+
+"I'll soon tell 'ee about Geezy-dancers," says Billy.  "Here, Missus--a
+pot of ale all round, and let 'em drink to two Cornish boys home from
+festerin' in French war prisons, while they've a'been diggin' taties!"
+
+There was no resisting a sociable offer like this, and in two two's, as
+you might say, Billy was boasting ahead for all he was worth, and the
+company with their mouths open--all but the landlady, who was opening
+her eyes instead, and wider and wider.
+
+"There isn' none present that remembers me, I dare say.  My name's
+Bosistow--Billy Bosistow--from Ardevora parish.  And back there I'm
+going this very night, and why? you ask.  I ben't one of your
+taty-diggin' slowheads--_I_ ben't.  I've broke out of prison three
+times, and now--"  He nodded at the company, whose faces by this time he
+couldn't very well pick out of a heap--"do any of 'ee know a maid there
+called Selina Johns?  Because if so I warn 'ee of her.  'Why?' says you.
+Because that's the maid I'm goin' to marry, and I'm off to Ardevora to
+do it straight.  Another pot of beer, please, missus."
+
+"You've had a plenty, sir, seemin' to me," answered up the landlady,
+while the company tittered.
+
+"And is this the way"--Billy stood up very dignified--"is this the way
+to welcome home a man who bled for his country?  Is this your
+gratitude to a man who's spent ten o' the best years of his life in
+slavery while you've been diggin' taties?"  I can't tell you why
+potatoes ran so much in the poor fellow's head; but they did, and he
+seemed to see the hoeing of them almost in the light of a personal
+injury.  He spat on the floor.  "And as for you, madam, these here boots
+of mine have tramped thousands of miles, and I shake off their dust upon
+you," he says.
+
+"I wish you'd confine yourself to that, with your dirty habits!" the
+landlady answered up again, but Billy marched out with great dignity
+which was only spoiled by his mistaking the shadow across the doorway
+for a raised step.  He didn't forget to slam the door after him; but he
+did forget to take leave of Harry Cornish, who had walked so far out of
+his way in pure friendliness.
+
+For the first mile or so, what with his anger and the fresh air, Billy
+had a to-do to keep his pins and fix his mind on the road.
+But by-and-by his brain cleared a bit, and when he reached the hill over
+Ardevora, and saw the lights of the town below him, his mood changed,
+and he sat down on the turf of the slope with tears in his eyes.
+
+"There you be," said he, talking to the lights, "and here be I; and
+somewheres down amongst you is the dear maid I've come to marry.
+Not much welcome for me in Ardevora, I b'law, though I do love every
+stone of her streets.  But there's one there that didn' forget me in my
+captivity, and won't despise me in these here rags.  I wish I'd seen
+Abe's face when I jumped aboard the boat.  Poor old Abe!--but all's fair
+in love and war, I reckon.  He can't be here till to-morrow at earliest,
+so let's have a pipe o' baccy on it."
+
+He lit up and sucked away at his pipe, still considering the lights in
+the valley.  Somehow they put him in mind of Abe, and how in the old
+days he and Abe used to come on them shining just so on their way home
+on Saturday nights from Bessie's Cove.  Poor old mate!--first of all he
+pictured Abe's chap-fallen face, and chuckled; then he began to wonder
+if Abe would call it fair play.  But all was fair in love and war: he
+kept saying this over to himself, and then lit another pipe to think it
+out.
+
+Well, he couldn't; and so, after a third pipe, he pulled an old French
+cloak out of his knapsack and wrapped himself in it and huddled himself
+to sleep there on the slope of the hillside.
+
+When he woke up the sun was shining and the smoke coming up towards him
+from the chimneys, and all about him the larks a-singing just as they'd
+carried on every fine morning since he'd left Ardevora.  And somehow,
+though he had dropped asleep in a puzzle of mind, he woke up with not a
+doubt to trouble him.  He hunted out a crust from his knapsack and made
+his breakfast, and then he lit his pipe again and turned towards
+Penzance.  He was going to play fair.
+
+On he went in this frame of mind, feeling like a man almost too virtuous
+to go to church, until by-and-by he came in sight of Nancledrea and the
+inn he'd left in such a hurry over night.  And who should be sitting in
+the porchway, and looking into the bottom of a pint pot, but Abe
+Cummins!
+
+"Why, however on earth did you come here?" asked Billy.
+
+"Cap'en landed us between four and five this morning," said Abe.
+
+"Well," said Billy, "I'm right glad to meet you, anyway, for--tell 'ee
+the truth--you're the very man I was looking for."
+
+"Really?" says Abe, like one interested.
+
+"You and no other.  I don't mind telling 'ee I've been through a fire of
+temptation.  You know why I jumped into that boat: it vexed you a bit, I
+dare say.  And strickly speakin', mind you"--Billy took his friend by
+the button-hole--"strickly speakin' I'd the right on my side.  'Let the
+best man win' was our agreement.  But you needn' to fret yourself: _I_
+ben't the man to take an advantage of an old friend, fair though it be.
+Man, I ha'n't been to Ardevora--I turned back.  So finish your beer and
+come'st along with me, and we'll walk down to Selina Johns together and
+ask her which of us she'll choose, fair and square."
+
+Abe set down his mug and looked up, studying the signboard over the
+door.
+
+"Well," says he, "'tis a real relief to my mind to know you've played so
+fair.  For man and boy, Bill, I always thought it of you."
+
+"Yes, indeed," says Billy, "man and boy, it always was my motto."
+
+"But as consarnin' Selina Johns," Abe went on, "there ain't no such
+woman."
+
+"You don't tell me she's dead!"
+
+"No; 'tis her first husband that's dead.  She's Selina Widlake now."
+
+"How long have 'ee knowed that?"
+
+"Maybe an hour, maybe only three-quarters.  Her name's Selina Widlake,
+and she owns this here public.  What's more, her name isn't going to be
+Selina Widlake, but Selina Cummins.  We've fixed it up, and she's to
+leave Nancledrea and take the Welcome Home over to Ardevora."
+
+Billy Bosistow took a turn across the road, and, coming back, stuck his
+hands in his pockets and stared up at the sign overhead.
+
+"Well! And I, that was too honourable--" he began.
+
+"So you was," agreed Abe, pulling out his pipe.  "You can't think what a
+comfort that is to me.  But, as it turns out, 'twouldn't have made no
+difference.  For she see'd you last evenin', and she was tellin' me just
+now that prison hadn't improved you.  In fact she didn't like either
+your looks or your behaviour."
+
+
+I've heard that he was just in time to pop inside and bolt the door
+after him.  And now you know why Billy Bosistow and Abe Cummins could
+never bear the sight of each other from that day.  But there! you can't
+be first and last too, as the saying is.
+
+
+[1] Givet in the Ardennes.  The river, of course, is the Meuse.
+
+[2] Probably Briancon in the Hautes Alpes.
+
+[3] Performers in a Christmas Play.
+
+A TOWN'S MEMORY
+
+
+A PENDANT TO THE FOREGOING
+
+The returned Emigrant was not one of those who sometimes creep back to
+Tregarrick and scan the folk wistfully and the names over the shops till
+they bethink themselves of stepping up the hill to take a look at the
+cemetery, and there find all they sought.  This man stood under the
+archway of the Pack-horse Inn (by A. Walters), with his soft hat tilted
+over his nose, a cigar in his mouth, hands in his trouser pockets, and
+legs a-straddle, and smoked and eyed the passers-by with a twinkle of
+humour.
+
+He knew them all again, or nearly all.  He had quitted Tregarrick for
+the Cape at the age of fifteen, under the wing of a cousin from the
+Mining District, had made money out there, and meant to return to make
+more, and was home just now on a holiday, with gold in his pocket and
+the merest trace of silver in his hair.  He watched the people passing,
+and it all seemed very queer to him and amusing.
+
+They were one and all acting and behaving just as they had used to act
+and behave.  Some were a trifle greyer, perhaps, and others stooped a
+bit; but they went about their business in the old fashion, and their
+occupations had not changed.  It was just as if he had wound up a
+clockwork toy before leaving England, and had returned after many years
+to find it still working.  Here came old Dymond, the postman, with the
+usual midday delivery, light as ever, and the well-remembered
+dot-and-go-one gait.  The maids who came out to take the letters were
+different; in one of them the Emigrant recognised a little girl who had
+once sat facing him in the Wesleyan day-school; but the bells that
+fetched them out were those on which he had sounded runaway peals in
+former days, and with his eyes shut he could have sworn to old Dymond's
+double-knock.  The cart that rattled its load of empty cans up the
+street belonged to Nicholas Retallack ("Old Nick"), the milkman, and
+that was Retallack beside it, returning from his morning round.  The
+Emigrant took the cigar from his mouth and blew a lazy cloud.  But for
+Retallack he might never have seen South Africa or known Johannesburg.
+Retallack had caught him surreptitiously milking the Alderney into a
+battered straw hat, and had threatened a summons.  There had been a
+previous summons with a conviction, and the Mayor had hinted at the
+Reformatory, so the Emigrant had been packed off.  And here he was, back
+again; and here was Retallack trudging around, the same as ever.
+
+In the window across the road a saddler sat cutting out a strap, and
+reminding the Emigrant of a certain First of April when he had ventured
+in and inquired for half a pint of strap-oil.  It might almost be the
+same strap, as it certainly was the same saddler.
+
+Down at the street corner, by the clock, a couple of Town Councillors
+stood chatting.  While the Emigrant looked there came round the corner a
+ruck of boys from school chivvying and shouting after an ungainly man,
+who turned twice and threatened them with a stick.  The Town
+Councillors did not interfere, and the rabble passed bawling by the
+Pack-horse.  Long before it came the Emigrant had recognised the
+ungainly man.  It was Dicky Loony, the town butt.  He had chivvied the
+imbecile a hundred times in just the same fashion, yelling "Black Cat!"
+after him as these young imps were yelling--though why "Black Cat"
+neither he nor the imps could have told.  But Dicky had always resented
+it as he resented it now, wheeling round, shaking his stick, and
+sputtering maledictions.  A stone or two flew harmlessly by.
+The Emigrant did not interfere.
+
+As yet no one had recognised him.  He had arrived the night before, and
+taken a room at the Pack-horse, nobody asking his name; had sat after
+supper in a corner of the smoking-room and listened to the gossip there,
+saying nothing.
+
+"Who's he travellin' for?" somebody had asked of Abel Walters, the
+landlord.  "He ain't a commercial.  He han't got the trunks, only a
+kit-bag.  By the soft hat he wears I should say _a_ agent in advance.
+Likely we'll have a circus before long."
+
+His father and mother were dead these ten years.  He had sent home money
+to pay the funeral expenses and buy a substantial headstone.  But he had
+not been up to the cemetery yet.  He was not a sentimental man.
+Still, he had expected his return to make some little stir in
+Tregarrick, and now a shade of disappointment began to creep over his
+humour.
+
+He flung away the end of his cigar and strolled up the sunny pavement to
+a sweetshop where he had once bought ha'porths of liquorice and
+cinnamon-rock.  The legend, "E. Hosking, Maker of Cheesecakes to Queen
+Victoria," still decorated the window.  He entered and demanded a pound
+of best "fairing," smiling at the magnificence of the order.
+Mrs. Hosking--her white mob--cap and apron clean as ever--offered him a
+macaroon for luck, and weighed out the sweets.  Her hand shook more than
+of old.
+
+"You don't remember me, Mrs. Hosking?"
+
+"What is it you say?  You must speak a little louder, please, I'm deaf."
+
+"You don't remember me?"
+
+"No, I don't," she said composedly.  "I'm gone terrible blind this last
+year or two."
+
+The Emigrant paid for his sweets and walked out.  He had bought them
+with a purpose, and now bent his steps down Market Street.  At the foot
+of the hill he paused before a row of white-washed cottages.  A green
+fence ran along their front, and a pebbled path; and here he found a
+stout, matronly woman bent over a wash-tub.
+
+"Does Mrs. Best live here?" he asked.
+
+The woman withdrew about a dozen pins from her mouth and answered all in
+one breath:--
+
+"She isn't called Best any longer; she married agen five year ago;
+second husbing, he died too; she doesn' live here any more."
+
+With this she stuck the pins very deliberately, one by one, in the bosom
+of her print gown, and plunged her hands into the wash-tub again.
+
+The Emigrant stood nonplussed for a moment and scratched the back of his
+head, tilting his soft hat still further forward on his nose.
+
+"She used to be very fond of me when I was a boy," he said lamely.
+
+"Yes?"  The tone seemed to ask what business that could be of hers.
+
+"She came as nurse to my mother when I was born.  I suppose that made
+her take a fancy to me."
+
+"Ah, no doubt," replied the woman vaguely,  and added, while she soaped
+a long black stocking, "she did a lot o' that, one time and another."
+"She had a little girl of her own before I left Tregarrick," the
+Emigrant persisted, not because she appeared interested--she did not, at
+all--but with some vague hope of making himself appear a little less
+trivial.  "Lizzie she called her.  I suppose you don't know what has
+become of the old woman?"
+
+"Well, considerin' that I'm her daughter Elizabeth"--she lengthened the
+name with an implied reproof--"I reckon I ought to know."
+
+The Emigrant's hand sought and crushed the big packet of sweets well
+into his pocket.  He flushed scarlet.  At the same time he could hardly
+keep back a smile at his absurd mistake.  To be here with lollipops for
+a woman of thirty and more!
+
+"You haven't any little ones of your own?"
+
+"No, I haven't.  Why?"
+
+"Oh, well; only a question.  My name is Peter Jago--Pete, I used to be
+called."
+
+"Yes?"
+
+He took notice that she had said nothing of her mother's whereabouts;
+and concluded, rightly, that the old woman must be in the workhouse.
+
+"Well, I'm sorry," he said.  "I thought I might be able to do something
+for her."
+
+The woman became attentive at last.
+
+"Any small trifle you might think o' leavin' with me, sir, it should
+duly reach her.  She've failed a lot, lately."
+
+"Thank you; I'll think it over.  Good-day."
+
+He strolled back to the Pack-horse and ate his dinner.  Abel Walters,
+coming in after with a pint of port to his order, found the Emigrant
+with a great packet of sugared almonds and angelica  spread open beside
+his cheese.
+
+"I suppose, sir," said Mr. Walters, eyeing the heap, "you've travelled a
+great deal in foreign parts."
+
+
+Two days passed.  The Emigrant visited the cemetery, inspected his
+parents' tombstone, and found about it a number of tombstones belonging
+to people whose faces he had not hitherto missed.  But after his
+experiment upon Elizabeth Best he had not declared himself a second
+time.  Indeed, his humour by this had turned sour, and his mind was made
+up that, if no one recognised him spontaneously, he would leave his
+native town as quietly as he had come--would go back without revealing
+himself to a soul.  It would be unfair to say that he felt aggrieved;
+but he certainly dismissed a project, with which he had often played in
+South Africa, of erecting a public drinking-fountain on Mount Folly, as
+the citizens of Tregarrick call the slope in front of the County Assize
+Hall.
+
+The third day was Sunday, and he went to church in the morning.
+The Vicar who preached was a stranger to him; but in the sidesman who
+came down the aisle afterwards with the offertory-plate he recognised
+one Billy Smithers, who had been a crony of his some twenty years ago;
+who had, in fact, helped him more than once to milk Retallack's
+Alderney.  He felt in his pocket and dropped a sovereign into the plate.
+The sidesman halted and rubbed his chin.
+
+"Han't you made a mistake?" he asked in a stage whisper.
+
+The Emigrant waved his hand in rather a lordly manner, and William
+Smithers, sidesman, proceeded down the aisle, wondering, but not
+suspecting.
+
+The Vicar recited the prayer for the whole state of Christ's Church
+militant here on earth, and the Emigrant joined the crowd trooping out
+by the western door.
+
+But in the press just outside the door two hands suddenly seized his
+right hand and shook it violently.  He turned and faced--Dicky Loony.
+
+"Me know, eh?  Pete--Mas'r Pete!"  The idiot bent over his hand and
+mumbled it with his wry mouth, then shook it again, peering up in his
+face.  "Eh? Pete--Pete.  Yes.  All right!"
+
+The Emigrant looked down on this poor creature at whom he had flung
+scores of stones, but never a kind word.  And the idiot ran on:--
+
+"Dicky, eh?"--tapping his chest.  "You know--Dicky.  Pete--Pete, eh?"--
+and he made the gesture of one flinging a stone.  "Often, ha, ha!
+_So_ high."  He spread his hand, palm downward, about five feet from the
+ground.
+
+"Well I'm blest!" said the Emigrant softly.  They stood now on the green
+together, a little apart from the crowd.
+
+"So high, eh?  Li'l boy, eh?  Fling--me know!"  He took the emigrant's
+hand again and shook it, smiling and looking him straight in the eyes
+with innocent gaiety.  "These boys--no good; no good now.  Pete, _he_
+fling _so_.  Li'l boy--quite li'l boy.  Me know, eh? Dicky know!"
+
+"Well," repeated the Emigrant; "I'm blest, but this is funny!"
+
+
+
+THE LADY OF THE RED ADMIRALS
+
+
+"_All day within the dreamy house
+   The doors upon their hinges creak'd,
+The blue fly sung in the pane; the mouse
+   Behind the mouldering wainscot shrieked,
+Or from the crevice peer'd about,
+   Old faces glimmer'd thro' the doors,
+   Old footsteps trod the upper floors,
+Old voices called her from without._"--MARIANA.
+
+My eyes had been occupied with the grey chimneys below, among the
+Spanish chestnuts, at the very moment when I slipped on the northern
+face of Skirrid and twisted my ankle.  This indeed explains the
+accident; and the accident explains why my interest in the house with
+the grey chimneys suddenly became a personal one.  Five miles separated
+me from my inn in Aber town.  But the white smoke of a goods train went
+crawling across the green and cultivated plain at my feet; and I knew,
+though I carried no map, that somewhere under the slope to my left must
+hide the country station of Llanfihangel.  To reach it I must pass the
+house, and there, no doubt, would happen on someone to set me on the
+shortest way.
+
+So I picked up my walking-stick and hobbled down the hillside, albeit
+with pain.  Where the descent eased a little I found and followed a
+foot-track, which in time turned into a sunk road scored deep with old
+cart-ruts, and so brought me to a desolate farmstead, slowly dropping to
+ruin there in the perpetual shadow of the mountain.  The slates that had
+fallen from the roof of byre and stable lay buried already under the
+growth of nettle and mallow and wild parsnip; and the yard-wall was down
+in a dozen places.  I shuffled through one of these gaps, and almost at
+once found myself face to face with a park-fence of split oak--in yet
+worse repair, if that were possible.  It stretched away right and left
+with promise of a noble circumference; but no hand had repaired it for
+at least twenty years.  I counted no less than seven breaches through
+which a man of common size might step without squeezing; availed myself
+of the nearest; and having with difficulty dragged my disabled foot up
+the ha-ha slope beyond, took breath at the top and looked about me.
+
+The edge of the ha-ha stood but fifty paces back from an avenue of the
+most magnificent Spanish chestnuts I have ever seen in my life.  A few
+of them were withering from the top; and under these many dead boughs
+lay as they had fallen, in grass that obliterated almost all trace of
+the broad carriage-road.  But nine out of ten stood hale and stout, and
+apparently good for centuries to come.  Northward, the grey facade of
+the house glimmered and closed their green prospective, and towards it I
+now made my way.
+
+But, I must own, this avenue daunted me, as a frame altogether too
+lordly for a mere limping pedestrian.  And therefore I was relieved, as
+I drew near, to catch the sound of voices behind the shrubberies on my
+right hand.  This determined me to take the house in flank, and I
+diverged and pushed my way between the laurels in search of the
+speakers.
+
+"A horse, a horse!  My kingdom for a horse!  Lobelia, how many horses
+has your father in stable?  Red, white, or grey?"
+
+"One, Miss Wilhelmina; an' that's old Sentry-go, and father says _he'll_
+have to go to the knacker's before another winter."
+
+"Then he shall carry me there on his back: with rings on my fingers and
+bells on my toes"--
+
+   She rode unto the knacker's yard,
+      And tirled at the pin:
+   Right glad were then the cat's-meat men
+      To let that lady in!
+
+--especially, Lobelia, when she alighted and sat upon the ground and
+began to tell them sad stories of the death of kings.  But they cut off
+Sentry-go's head and nailed it over the gate.  So he died, and she very
+imprudently married the master knacker, who had heard she was an heiress
+in her own right, and wanted to decorate his coat-of-arms with an
+escutcheon of pretence; and besides, his doctor had recommended a
+complete change "--
+
+"Law, miss, how you _do_ run on!"
+
+The young lady who had given utterance to this amazing rigmarole stood
+at the top of a terrace flight (much cracked and broken) between two
+leaden statuettes (headless)--a willowy child in a large-brimmed hat,
+with a riding-switch in one hand and the other holding up an old tartan
+shawl, which she had pinned about her to imitate a horse-woman's habit.
+As she paced to and fro between the leaden statuettes--
+
+              pedes vestis defluxit ad imos
+           Et vera incessu patuit dea,
+
+--and I noted almost at once that two or three butterflies ("red
+admirals" they were) floated and circled about her in the sunlight.
+A child of commoner make, and perhaps a year older, dressed in a buff
+print frock and pink sunbonnet, looked up at her from the foot of the
+steps.  The faces of both were averted, and I stood there for at least a
+minute on the verge of the laurels, unobserved, considering the picture
+they made, and the ruinous Jacobean house that formed its background.
+
+Never was house more eloquent of desolation.  Unpainted shutters,
+cracking in the heat, blocked one half of its windows.  Weather-stains
+ran down the slates from the lantern on the main roof.  The lantern over
+the stable had lost its vane, and the stable-clock its minute-hand.
+The very nails had dropped out of the gable wall, and the wistaria and
+Gloire de Dijons they should have supported trailed down in tangles,
+like curtains.  Grass choked the rain-pipes, and moss dappled the gravel
+walk.  In the border at my feet someone had attempted a clearance of the
+weeds; and here lay his hoe, matted with bindweed and ring-streaked with
+the silvery tracks of snails.
+
+"Very well, Lobelia.  We will be sensible house-maid and cook, and talk
+of business.  We came out, I believe, to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an
+apple-pie"--
+
+At this point happening to turn her head she caught sight of me, and
+stopped with a slight, embarrassed laugh.  I raised my hat.
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir, but no strangers are admitted here."
+
+"I beg your pardon"--I began; and with that, as I shifted my
+walking-stick, my foolish ankle gave way, and plump I sat in the very
+middle of the bindweed.
+
+"You are ill?"  She came quickly towards me, but halted a pace or two
+off.  "You look as if you were going to faint."
+
+"I'll try not to," said I.  "The fact is, I have just twisted my ankle
+on the side of Skirrid, and I wished to be told the shortest way to the
+station."
+
+"I don't believe you can walk; and"--she hesitated a second, then went
+on defiantly--"we have no carriage to take you."
+
+"I should not think of putting you to any such trouble."
+
+"Also, if you want to reach Aber, there is no train for the next two
+hours.  You must come in and rest."
+
+"But really "--
+
+"I am mistress here.  I am Wilhelmina Van der Knoope."
+
+Being by this time on my feet again, I bowed and introduced myself by
+name.  She nodded.  The child had a thoughtful face--thoughtful beyond
+her years--and delicately shaped rather than pretty.
+
+"Lobelia, run in and tell the Admirals that a gentleman has called, with
+my permission."
+
+Having dismissed the handmaiden, she observed me in silence for a few
+moments while she unpinned her tartan riding-skirt.  Its removal
+disclosed, not--as I had expected--a short frock, but one of quite
+womanly length; and she carried it with the air of a grown woman.
+
+"You must make allowances, please.  I think," she mused, "yes, I really
+think you will be able to help.  But you must not be surprised, mind.
+Can you walk alone, or will you lean a hand on my shoulder?"
+
+I could walk alone.  Of what she meant I had of course no inkling; but I
+saw she was as anxious now for me to come indoors as she had been prompt
+at first to warn me off the premises.  So I hobbled after her towards
+the house.  At the steps by the side-door she turned and gave me a hand.
+We passed across a stone-flagged hall and through a carpetless corridor,
+which brought us to the foot of the grand staircase: and a magnificent
+staircase it was, ornate with twisted balusters and hung with fine
+pictures, mostly by old Dutch masters.  But no carpet covered the broad
+steps, and the pictures were perishing in their frames for lack of
+varnish.  I had halted to stare up at a big Hondecoeter that hung in the
+sunlight over the first short flight of stairs--an elaborate "Parliament
+of Fowls"--when the girl turned the handle of a door to my right and
+entered.
+
+"Uncle Peter, here is the gentleman who has called to see you."
+
+As I crossed the threshold I heard a chair pushed back, and a very old
+gentleman rose to welcome me at the far end of the cool and shadowy
+room; a tall white-haired figure in a loose suit of holland.  He did not
+advance, but held out a hand tentatively, as if uncertain from what
+direction I was advancing.  Almost at once I saw that he was
+stone-blind.
+
+"But where is Uncle Melchior?" exclaimed Wilhelmina.
+
+"I believe he is working at accounts," the old gentleman answered--
+addressing himself to vacancy, for she had already run from the room.
+He shook hands courteously and motioned me to find a chair, while he
+resumed his seat beside a little table heaped with letters, or rather
+with bundles of letters neatly tied and docketed.  His right hand rested
+on these bundles, and his fingers tapped upon them idly for a minute
+before he spoke again.
+
+"You are a friend of Fritz's? of my grandson?"
+
+"I have not the pleasure of knowing him, sir.  Your niece's introduction
+leaves me to explain that I am just a wayfarer who had the misfortune to
+twist an ankle, an hour ago, on Skirrid, and crawled here to ask his
+way."
+
+His face fell.  "I was hoping that you brought news of Fritz.  But you
+are welcome, sir, to rest your foot here; and I ask your pardon for not
+perceiving your misfortune.  I am blind.  But Wilhelmina--my grandniece
+--will attend to your wants."
+
+"She is a young lady of very large heart," said I.  He appeared to
+consider for a while.  "She is with me daily, but I have not seen her
+since she was a small child, and I always picture her as a child.
+To you, no doubt, she is almost a woman grown?"
+
+"In feeling, I should say, decidedly more woman than child; and in
+manner."
+
+"You please me by saying so.  She is to marry Fritz, and I wish that to
+happen before I die."
+
+Receiving no answer to this--for, of course, I had nothing to say--he
+startled me with a sudden question.  "You disapprove of cousins
+marrying?"
+
+I could only murmur that a great deal depended on circumstances.
+
+"And there are circumstances in this case.  Besides, they are second
+cousins only.  And they both look forward to it.  I am not one to force
+their inclinations, you understand--though, of course, they know it to
+be my wish--the wish of both of us, I may say; for Melchior is at one
+with me in this.  Wilhelmina accepts her future--speaks of it, indeed,
+with gaiety.  And as for Fritz--though they have not seen each other
+since he was a mere boy and she an infant--as for Fritz, he writes--but
+you shall judge from his last letter."
+
+He felt among the packets and selected one.  "I know one from t'other by
+the knots," he explained.  "I am an old seaman!  Now here is his last,
+written from the South Pacific station.  He sends his love to 'Mina, and
+jokes about her being husband-high: 'but she must grow, if we are to do
+credit to the Van der Knoopes at the altar.'  It seems that he is
+something below the traditional height of our family; but a thorough
+seaman, for all his modesty.  There, sir: you will find the passage on
+the fourth page, near the top."
+
+I took the letter; and there, to be sure, read the words the old Admiral
+had quoted.  But it struck me that Fritz Van der Knoope used a very
+ladylike handwriting, and of a sort not usually taught on H.M.S.
+_Britannia_.
+
+"In two years' time the lad will be home, all being well.  And then, of
+course, we shall see."
+
+"Of what rank is he?"
+
+"At present a second lieutenant.  His age is but twenty-one.   The Van
+der Knoopes have all followed the sea, as the portraits in this house
+will tell you.  Ay, and we have fought against England in our time.  As
+late as 1672, Adrian Van der Knoope commanded a ship under De Ruyter
+when he outgeneralled the English in Southwold Bay.  But since 1688 our
+swords have been at the service of our adopted country; and she has used
+them, sir."
+
+I am afraid I was not listening.  My chair faced the window, and as I
+glanced at the letter in my hands enough light filtered through the
+transparent "foreign" paper to throw up the watermark, and it bore the
+name of an English firm.
+
+This small discovery, quite unwillingly made, gave me a sudden sense of
+shame, as though I had been playing some dishonourable trick.  I was
+hastily folding up the paper, to return it, when the door opened and
+Wilhelmina came in, with her uncle Melchior.
+
+She seemed to divine in an instant what had happened; threw a swift
+glance at the blind Admiral, and almost as swiftly took the letter from
+my hand and restored it to the packet.  The next moment, with perfect
+coolness she was introducing me to her uncle Melchior.
+
+Melchior Van der Knoope was perhaps ten years younger than his brother,
+and carried his tall figure buttoned up tightly in an old-fashioned
+frockcoat: a mummy of a man, with a fixed air of mild bewilderment and a
+trick of running his left hand through his white hair--due, no doubt, to
+everlasting difficulty with the family accounts.  He shook hands as
+ceremoniously as his brother.
+
+"We have been talking of Fritz," said old Peter.
+
+"Oh yes--of Fritz.  To be sure."  Melchior answered him vaguely, and
+looked at me with a puzzled smile.  There was silence in the room till
+his brother spoke again.  "I have been showing Mr.--Fritz's last
+letter."
+
+"Fritz writes entertainingly," murmured Melchior, and seemed to cast
+about for another word, but repeated, "--entertainingly.  If the state
+of your ankle permits, sir, you will perhaps take an interest in our
+pictures.  I shall be happy to show them to you."
+
+And so, with the occasional support of Melchior's arm, I began a tour of
+the house.  The pictures indeed were a sufficient reward--seascapes by
+Willem Van der Velde, flower-portraits by Willem Van Aslet,
+tavern-scenes by Adrian Van Ostade; a notable Cuyp; a small Gerard Dow
+of peculiar richness; portraits--the Burgomaster Albert Van der Knoope,
+by Thomas de Keyser--the Admiral Nicholas, by Kneller--the Admiral Peter
+(grand-uncle of the blind Admiral), by Romney. . . . My guide seemed as
+honestly proud of them as insensible of their condition, which was in
+almost every case deplorable.  By-and-by, in the library we came upon a
+modern portrait of a rosy-faced boy in a blue suit, who held (strange
+combination!) a large ribstone pippin in one hand and a cricket bat in
+the other--a picture altogether of such glaring demerit that I wondered
+for a moment why it hung so conspicuously over the fireplace, while
+worthier paintings were elbowed into obscure corners.  Then with a
+sudden inkling I glanced at Uncle Melchior.  He nodded gravely.
+
+"That is Fritz."
+
+I pulled out my watch.  "I believe," I said, "it must be time for me to
+bid your brother good-bye."
+
+"You need be in no hurry," said Miss Wilhelmina's voice behind me.
+"The last train to Aber has gone at least ten minutes since.
+You must dine and sleep with us to-night."
+
+I awoke next morning between sheets of sweet-smelling linen in a carved
+four-post bed, across the head-board of which ran the motto "STEMMATA
+QVID FACIVNT" in faded letters of gilt.  If the appearance of the room,
+with its tattered hangings and rickety furniture, had counted for
+anything, my dreams should certainly have been haunted.  But, as a
+matter of fact, I never slept better.  Possibly the lightness of the
+dinner (cooked by the small handmaid Lobelia) had something to do with
+it; possibly, too, the infectious somnolence of the two Admirals, who
+spoke but little during the meal, and nodded, without attempt at
+dissimulation, over the dessert.  At any rate, shortly after nine
+o'clock--when Miss Wilhelmina brought out a heavy Church Service, and
+Uncle Melchior read the lesson and collect for the day and a few
+prayers, including the one "For those at Sea"--I had felt quite ready
+for bed.  And now, thanks to a cold compress, my ankle had mended
+considerably.  I descended to breakfast in very cheerful mind, and found
+Miss Wilhelmina alone at the table.
+
+"Uncle Peter," she explained, "rarely comes down before mid-day; and
+Uncle Melchior breakfasts in his room.  He is busy with the accounts."
+
+"So early?"
+
+She smiled rather sadly.  "They take a deal of disentangling."
+
+She asked how my ankle did.  When I told her, and added that I must
+catch an early train back to Aber, she merely said, "I will walk to the
+station with you, if I may."
+
+And so at ten o'clock--after I had bidden farewell to Uncle Melchior,
+who wore the air of one interrupted in a long sum of compound addition--
+we set forth.  I knew the child had something on her mind, and waited.
+Once, by a ruinous fountain where a stone Triton blew patiently at a
+conch-shell plugged with turf, she paused and dug at the mortared joints
+of the basin with the point of her sunshade; and I thought the
+confidence was coming.  But it was by the tumble-down gate at the end of
+the chestnut avenue that she turned and faced me.
+
+"I knew you yesterday at once," she said.  "You write novels."
+
+"I wish," said I feebly, "the public were as quick at discovering me."
+
+"Somebody printed an 'interview' with you in '--'s Magazine a month or
+two ago."
+
+"There was not the slightest resemblance."
+
+"Please don't be silly.  There was a photograph."
+
+"Ah, to be sure."
+
+"You can help me--help us all--if you will."
+
+"Is it about Fritz?"
+
+She bent her head and signed to me to open the gate.  Across the
+high-road a stile faced us, and a little church, with an acre framed in
+elms and set about with trimmed yews.  She led the way to the low and
+whitewashed porch, and pushed open the iron-studded door.  As I
+followed, the name of Van der Knoope repeated itself on many mural
+tablets.  Almost at the end of the south aisle she paused and lifted a
+finger and pointed.
+
+I read--
+
+                            SACRED
+                       To the Memory of
+                FRITZ OPDAM DE KEYSER VAN DER KNOOPE
+                  A Midshipman of the Royal Navy
+                Who was born Oct. 21st MDCCCLXVII.
+                       And Drowned
+                 By the Capsizing of H.M.S. Viper
+                  off the North Coast of Ireland
+                 On the 17th of January MDCCCLXXXV.
+              A youth of peculiar promise who lacked
+                  but the greater indulgence of
+                     an all-wise Providence
+             to earn the distinction of his forefathers
+            (of whom he was the last male representative)
+                   in his Country's service
+                          in which
+                    he laid down his young life
+
+                         ----------
+             Heu miserande puer! Si qua fata aspera rumpas
+                    Tu Marcellus eris.
+
+"Uncle Melchior had it set up.  I wonder what Fritz was really like."
+
+"And your Uncle Peter still believes--?"
+
+"Oh yes.  I am to marry Fritz in time.  That is where you must help us.
+It would kill Uncle Peter if he knew.  But Uncle Melchior gets puzzled
+whenever it comes to writing; and I am afraid of making mistakes.
+We've put him down in the South Pacific station at present--that will
+last for two years more.  But we have to invent the gossip, you know.
+And I thought that you--who wrote stories--"
+
+"My dear young lady," I said, "let me be Fritz, and you shall have a
+letter duly once a month."
+
+And my promise was kept--until, two years ago, she wrote that there was
+no further need for letters, for Uncle Peter was dead.  For aught I
+know, by this time Uncle Melchior may be dead also.  But regularly, as
+the monthly date comes round, I am Fritz Opdam de Keyser van der Knoope,
+a young midshipman of Her Majesty's Navy; and wonder what my affianced
+bride is doing; and see her on the terrace steps with those butterflies
+floating about her.  In my part of the world it is believed that the
+souls of the departed pass into these winged creatures.  So might the
+souls of those many pictured Admirals: but some day, before long, I hope
+to cross Skirrid again and see.
+
+
+
+THE PENANCE OF JOHN EMMET.
+
+
+I have thought fit in this story to alter all the names involved and
+disguise the actual scene of it: and have done this so carefully that,
+although the story has a key, the reader who should search for it would
+not only waste his time but miss even the poor satisfaction of having
+guessed an idle riddle.  He whom I call Parson West is now dead.  He was
+an entirely conscientious man; which means that he would rather do wrong
+himself than persuade or advise another man--above all, a young man--to
+do it.  I am sure therefore that in burying the body of John Emmet as he
+did, and enlisting my help, he did what he thought right, though the
+action was undoubtedly an illegal one.  Still, the question is one for
+casuists; and remembering how modest a value my old friend set on his
+own wisdom, I dare say that by keeping his real name out of the
+narrative I am obeying what would have been his wish.  His small breach
+of the law he was (I know) prepared to answer for cheerfully, should the
+facts come to light.  He has now gone where their discovery affects him
+not at all.
+
+Parson West, then, when I made his acquaintance in 188-, had for thirty
+years been vicar of the coast-parish of Lansulyan.  He had come to it
+almost fresh from Oxford, a young scholar with a head full of Greek,
+having accepted the living from his old college as a step towards
+preferment.  He was never to be offered another.  Lansulyan parish is a
+wide one in acreage, and the stipend exiguous even for a bachelor.  From
+the first the Parson eked out his income by preparing small annotated
+editions of the Classics for the use of Schools and by taking occasional
+pupils, of whom in 188- I was the latest.  He could not teach me
+scholarship, which is a habit of mind; but he could, and in the end did,
+teach me how to win a scholarship, which is a sum of money paid
+annually.  I have therefore a practical reason for thinking of him with
+gratitude: and I believe he liked me, while despising my Latinity and
+discommending my precociousness with tobacco.
+
+His pupils could never complain of distraction.  The church-town--a
+single street of cottages winding round a knoll of elms which hide the
+Vicarage and all but the spire of St. Julian's Church--stands high and a
+mile back from the coast, and looks straight upon the Menawhidden reef,
+a fringe of toothed rocks lying parallel with the shore and half a mile
+distant from it.  This reef forms a breakwater for a small inlet where
+the coombe which runs below Lansulyan meets the sea.  Follow the road
+downhill from the church-town and along the coombe, and you come to a
+white-washed fishing haven, with a life-boat house and short sea-wall.
+The Porth is its only name.  On the whole, if one has to live in
+Lansulyan parish the Porth is gayer than the church-town, where from the
+Vicarage windows you look through the trees southward upon ships moving
+up or down Channel in the blue distance and the white water girdling
+Menawhidden; northward upon downs where herds of ponies wander at will
+between the treeless farms, and a dun-coloured British earthwork tops
+the high sky-line.  Dwellers among these uplands, wringing their
+livelihood from the obstinate soil by labour which never slackens, year
+in and year out, from Monday morning to Saturday night, are properly
+despised by the inhabitants of the Porth, who sit half their time
+mending nets, cultivating the social graces, and waiting for the harvest
+which they have not sown to come floating past their doors.
+By consequence, if a farmer wishes to learn the spiciest gossip about
+his nearest neighbour, he must travel down to the Porth for it.
+
+And this makes it the more marvellous that what I am about to tell,
+happening as it did at the very gates of the Porth, should have escaped
+the sharpest eyes in the place.
+
+The Vicar's custom was to read with me for a couple of hours in the
+morning and again for an hour and a half before dinner.  We had followed
+this routine rigidly and punctually for three months or so when, one
+evening in June, he returned from the Porth a good ten minutes late,
+very hot and dusty, and even so took a turn or two up and down the room
+with his hands clasped behind his coat-tails before settling down to
+correct my iambics.
+
+"John Emmet is dead," he announced, pausing before the window with his
+back towards me and gazing out upon the ill-kept lawn.
+
+"Wasn't he the coxswain of the life-boat?" I asked.
+
+"Ah, to be sure, you never saw him, did you?  He took to his bed before
+you came . . . a long illness.  Well, well, it's all over!" Parson West
+sighed.  "He saved, or helped to save, a hundred and fifteen lives,
+first and last.  A hundred and fifteen lives!"
+
+"I've heard something of the sort down at the Porth.  A hundred and
+fifty, I think they said.  They seemed very proud of him down there."
+
+"Why?"  The Vicar faced round on me, and added after a moment abruptly--
+"He didn't belong to them: he was not even born in this parish."
+
+"Where then?"
+
+He disregarded the question. "Besides, the number was a hundred and
+fifteen: that's just the pity."
+
+I did not understand: but he had seated himself at table and was running
+through my iambics.  In the third verse he underlined a false quantity
+with blue pencil and looked up for an explanation.  While I confessed
+the fault, his gaze wandered away from me and fell upon his fingers
+drumming upon the table's edge.  A slant of red sunshine touched the
+signet-ring on his little finger, which he moved up and down watching
+the play of light on the rim of the collet.  He was not listening.
+By-and-by he glanced up, "I beg your pardon--" stammered he, and leaving
+the rest of my verses uncorrected, pointed with his pencil to the
+concluding one.  "That's not Greek," he said.
+
+"It's in Sophocles," I contended: and turning up the word in "Liddell
+and Scott," I pushed the big lexicon under his nose.
+
+For a moment he paid no heed to the action; did not seem to grasp the
+meaning of it.  Then for the first and last time in my acquaintance with
+him he broke into a passion of temper.
+
+"What do you mean, Sir?  It's offensive, I tell you: a downright
+offensive, ungentlemanly thing to do!  Yes, Sir, ungentlemanly!"
+He crumpled up my verses and tossed them into the waste-paper basket.
+"We had better get on with our Tacitus."  And "Offensive!" I heard him
+muttering once more, as he picked up the book and found his place.
+I began to construe.  His outburst had disconcerted me, and no doubt I
+performed discreditably: but glancing up in some apprehension after a
+piece of guess-work which even to me carried no conviction, I saw that
+again he was not attending.  After this, by boldly skipping each
+difficulty as it arose I managed to cover a good deal of ground with
+admirable fluency.
+
+We dined together in silence that evening, and after dinner strolled out
+to the big filbert-tree under which, for a few weeks in the year, Parson
+West had his dessert laid and sipped his thin port--an old common-room
+fashion to which he clung.  To the end of his days he had the white
+cloth removed before dessert, and the fruits and the one decanter set
+out upon polished mahogany.
+
+I glanced at him while helping myself to strawberries and cream.  He sat
+nervously folding and refolding the napkin on his knee.   By-and-by he
+spoke, but without looking at me.
+
+"I lost my temper this afternoon, and I beg your pardon, my boy."
+
+I began to stammer my contrition for having offended him: but he cut me
+short with a wave of the hand.  "The fact is," he explained, "I was
+worried by something quite different."
+
+"By John Emmet's death," I suggested.  He nodded, and looked at me
+queerly while he poured out a glass of Tarragona.
+
+"He was my gardener years ago, before he set up market-gardening on his
+own account."
+
+"That's queer too," said I.
+
+"What's queer?"  He asked it sharply.
+
+"Why, to find a gardener cox'n of a life-boat."
+
+"He followed the sea in early life.  But I'll tell you what _is_ queer,
+and that's his last wish.  His particular desire was that I, and I
+alone, should screw down the coffin.  He had Trudgeon the carpenter up
+to measure him, and begged this of me in Trudgeon's presence and the
+doctor's.  What's more, I consented."
+
+"That's jolly unpleasant," was my comment, for lack of a better.
+
+The Vicar sat silent for a while, staring across the lawn, while I
+watched a spider which had let itself down from a branch overhead and
+was casting anchor on the decanter's rim.  With his next question he
+seemed to have changed the subject.
+
+"Where do you keep your boat now?"
+
+"Renatus Warne has been putting in a new strake and painting her.
+I shall have her down on the beach to-morrow."
+
+"Ah, so that's it?  I cast my eye over the beach this afternoon and
+couldn't see her.  You haven't been trying for the conger lately."
+
+"We'll have a try to-morrow evening if you'll come, Sir.  I wish you
+would."
+
+The Vicar, though he seldom found time for the sport, was a famous
+fisherman.  He shook his head; and then, leaning an arm on the table,
+gazed at me with sudden seriousness.
+
+"Look here: could you make it convenient to go fishing for conger this
+next night or two--_and to go alone?_"
+
+I saw that he had something more to say, and waited.
+
+"The fact is," he went on after a glance towards the house, "I have a
+ticklish job to carry through--the queerest in all my experience; and
+unfortunately I want help as well as secrecy.  After some perplexity
+I've resolved to ask you: because, upon my word, you're the only person
+I can ask.  That doesn't sound flattering--eh?  But it isn't your
+fitness I doubt, or your nerve.  I've hesitated because it isn't fair to
+drag you into an affair which, I must warn you, runs counter to the law
+in a small way."
+
+I let out a low whistle.  "A smuggling job?" I suggested.
+
+"Good Heavens, boy!  What do you take me for?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, then.  But when you talk of a row-boat--at night--a
+job that wants secrecy--breaking the law--"
+
+"I'll have to tell you the whole tale, I see: and it's only fair."
+
+"Not a bit," said I stoutly.  "Tell me what you want done and I'll do
+it.  Afterwards tell me your reasons, if you care to.  Indeed, Sir, I'd
+rather have it that way, if you don't mind.  I was abominably
+disrespectful this afternoon--"
+
+"No more about _that_."
+
+"But I _was_: and with your leave, Sir, that's the form of apology I'll
+choose."
+
+And I stood up with my hands in my pockets.
+
+"Nonsense, nonsense," said the Vicar, eyeing me with a twinkle.
+But I nodded back in the most determined manner.
+
+"Your instructions, sir--that is, unless you prefer to get another
+helper."
+
+"But I cannot," pleaded he.  "That's the mischief."
+
+"Very well, then.  Your instructions, please."  And thus I had my way.
+
+This happened on a Tuesday.  The next evening I walked down to the Porth
+and launched my boat.  A row of idlers watched me from the long bench
+under the life-boat house, and a small knot on the beach inspected my
+fishing-gear and lent a hand to push off.  "Ben't goin' alone, be 'e?"
+asked Renatus Warne.  "Yes," said I.  "The conger'll have 'ee then, sure
+enough."  One or two offered chaffingly to come out and search for me if
+I shouldn't return before midnight; and a volley of facetious warnings
+followed me out upon the calm sea.
+
+The beach was deserted, however, when I returned.  I had hooked three
+fine conger; and having hauled up the boat and cleaned her, I made my
+way back to the vicarage, well pleased, getting to bed as the clock
+struck two in the morning.
+
+This was Thursday; and in the evening, between seven and eight o'clock,
+I launched the boat again under the eyes of the population and started
+fishing on the inner grounds, well in sight of the Porth.  Dusk fell,
+and with it the young moon dropped behind the western headland.  Far out
+beyond Menawhidden the riding-lights of a few drifters sparkled in the
+darkness: but I had little to fear from them.
+
+The moon had no sooner disappeared than I shifted my ground, and pulling
+slowly down in the shore's shadow (I had greased the leathers of my oars
+for silence), ran the boat in by the point under Gunner's Meadow,
+beached her cunningly between two rocks, and pulled a tarpaulin over to
+hide her white-painted interior.  My only danger now lay in blundering
+against the coastguard: but by dodging from one big boulder to another
+and listening all the while for footsteps, I gained the withy bed at the
+foot of the meadow.  The night was almost pitch-black, and no one could
+possibly detect the boat unless he searched for it.
+
+I followed the little stream up the valley bottom, through an orchard,
+and struck away from it across another meadow and over the rounded
+shoulder of the hill to my right.  This brought me in rear of a
+kitchen-garden and a lonely cob-walled cottage, the front of which faced
+down a dozen precipitous steps upon the road leading from Lansulyan to
+the Porth.  The cottage had but one window in the back, in the upper
+floor; and just beneath it jutted out a lean-to shed, on the wooden side
+of which I rapped thrice with my knuckles.
+
+"Hist!"  The Vicar leaned out from the dark window above.  "Right: it's
+all ready.  We must stow it in the outhouse.  Trudgeon is down in the
+road below, waiting for me to finish."
+
+No more was said.  The Vicar withdrew: after a minute I heard the
+planking creak: then something white glimmered in the opening of the
+window--something like a long bundle of linen, extruded inch by inch,
+then lowered on to the penthouse roof and let slide slowly down towards
+me.
+
+"Got it?"
+
+"Right." I steadied it a moment by its feet, then let it slide into my
+arms, and lowered it on to the gravelled path.  It was the body of John
+Emmet, in his winding-sheet.
+
+"Carry it into the shed," whispered the Vicar.  "I must show Trudgeon
+the coffin and hand him the keys.  When I've got rid of him I'll come
+round."
+
+Somehow, the second time of handling it was far worse than the first.
+The chill of the corpse seemed to strike through its linen wrappers.
+But I lifted it inside, shut the door upon it, and stood wiping my
+forehead, while the Vicar closed the window cautiously, drew the blind,
+and pressed-to  the clasp.
+
+A minute later I heard him calling from the front, "Mr. Trudgeon--Mr.
+Trudgeon"; and Trudgeon's hob-nailed boots ascending the steps.
+Silence followed for many minutes: then a slant of candlelight faded off
+the fuchsia-bush round the corner, and the two men stumbled down the
+staircase--stood muttering on the doorstep while a key grated in the
+lock--stumbled down the steps and stood muttering in the sunken roadway.
+At length they said "Good-night" and parted.  I listened while the sound
+of their footsteps died away: Trudgeon's down the hill towards the
+Porth, the Vicar's up towards the church-town.
+
+After this I had some painful minutes.  As they dragged by, an
+abominable curiosity took hold of me, an itch to open the door of the
+shed, strike a match, and have a look at the dead face I had never seen.
+Then came into my mind a passage in the _Republic_ which I had read a
+fortnight before--how that one Leontius, the son of Aglaion, coming up
+one day from the Piraeus under the north wall of the city, observed some
+corpses lying on the ground at the place of execution; and how he fought
+between his desire to look and his abhorrence until at length, the
+fascination mastering him, he forced his eyes open with his fingers and
+ran up exclaiming, "Look, wretches, look!  Feed your fill on the fair
+sight!" . . . My seat was an inverted flower-pot, and clinging to it I
+began to count.  If the Vicar did not arrive before I reached five
+hundred, why, then . . .
+
+"_Hist!_"  He had fetched his compass round by the back of the garden,
+treading so softly that the signal sounded almost in my ear and fetched
+me off my flower-pot in a nervous quake.  He wore a heavy pea-jacket,
+and, as a smell of hot varnish announced, carried a dark lantern beneath
+it.  He had strapped this to his waist-belt to leave both hands free.
+
+We lifted the body out and carried it across the meadow, the Vicar
+taking the shoulders and I the heels.  And now came the real hazard of
+the night.  If the coastguard or any belated wanderer should blunder
+upon us, we stood convicted of kidnapping a corpse, and (as the Vicar
+afterwards allowed) there was simply no explanation to be given.
+When we gained the orchard and pushed through the broken fence, every
+twig that crackled fetched my heart into my mouth: and I drew my first
+breath of something like ease when at length, in the withy bed at the
+foot of Gunner's Meadow, we laid our burden down behind the ruin of an
+old cob-wall and took a short rest before essaying the beach.
+
+But that breath was hardly drawn before I laid a warning hand on the
+Vicar's sleeve.  Someone was coming down the cliff-track: the
+coastguard, no doubt.  He halted on the wooden footbridge, struck a
+match and lit his pipe.  From our covert not ten yards away I saw the
+glow on his face as he shielded the match in the hollow of both his
+hands.  It was the coastguard--a fellow called Simms.  His match lit, I
+expected him to resume his walk.  But no: he loitered there.  For what
+reason, on earth?  Luckily his back was towards us now: but to me, as I
+cowered in the plashy mud and prayed against sneezing, it seemed that
+the damnatory smell of the Vicar's lantern must carry for half a mile at
+least.
+
+And now I heard another footstep, coming from the westward, and a loose
+stone kicked over the cliff.  Another coastguard!  The pair hailed each
+other, and stood on the footbridge talking together for a good three
+minutes.
+
+Then to our infinite relief they parted with a "So long!" and each made
+slowly off by the way he had come.  It was just a meeting of the patrols
+after all.
+
+Another ten minutes must have gone by before we dared to lift the body
+again: and after a nervous while in crossing the beach we found the boat
+left high and dry by the ebb, and had an interminable job to get her
+down to the water without noise.  I climbed in and took the oars: the
+Vicar lifted a sizeable stone on board and followed.
+
+"The Carracks," he whispered.  "That's the spot he named to me."
+
+So I pulled out towards the Carracks, which are three points of rock
+lying just within the main barrier of Menawhidden, where it breaks up
+towards its western end into a maze of islets.  While I pulled, the
+Vicar knelt on the bottom-boards and made fast the stone to John Emmet's
+feet.
+
+Well, I need not tell the rest of our adventure at length.  We reached
+the Carracks, and there the Vicar pulled out a short surplice from the
+immense inner pocket of his pea-jacket, donned it, and read the burial
+service in due form by the light of his dark lantern: and by the light
+of it, as I arranged John Emmet's shroud, I had my first and last
+glimpse of his face--a thin face, old and hollow, with grey
+side-whiskers: a face extraordinarily pallid: in other circumstances
+perhaps not noticeable unless it were for a look of extreme weariness
+which had lasted even into the rest of death.
+
+"We therefore commit his body to the deep, to be turned into corruption,
+looking for the resurrection of the body (when the sea shall give up her
+dead), and the life of the world to come. . . ."
+
+Together we balanced it on the gunwale, and with the help of the
+stern-board tilted it over.  It dropped, into fifteen fathoms of water.
+
+
+There was another funeral next day in Lansulyan churchyard--where so
+many have come to be buried who never in life heard the name of
+Lansulyan: the harvest of Menawhidden, commemorated on weather-beaten
+stones and, within the church, on many tablets which I used to con on
+Sundays during the Vicar's discourses.  The life-boat men had mustered
+in force, and altogether there was a large attendance at the graveside.
+At one point a fit of coughing interrupted the Vicar in his recital of
+the service.  I was the one auditor, however, who understood the meaning
+of it.
+
+
+That evening we took our dessert again under the great elm.  Somehow I
+felt certain he would choose this hour for his explanation: and in due
+course it came.
+
+"I'm a truth-speaking man by habit," he began after a long gaze upwards
+at the rooks now settling to roost and making a mighty pother of it.
+"But I'm afraid there's no getting round the fact that this afternoon I
+acted a lie.  And yet, on the whole, my conscience is easy."
+
+He sipped his wine, and went on meditatively--
+
+"Morals have their court of equity as well as the law of the land: and
+with us"--the Vicar was an old-fashioned Churchman--"that court is the
+private conscience.  In this affair you insisted on putting your
+conscience into my hands.  Well, I took the responsibility, and charge
+myself with any wrong you have committed, letting your confidence stand
+to your credit, as well as the service you have done for me--and
+another.  Do you know the grey marble tablet on the south wall of the
+church--the _Nerbuddha_ monument?"
+
+I nodded.
+
+"'_Sacred to the memory of Lieutenant-Colonel Victor Stanhope, C.B., and
+105 Officers and Men of Her Majesty's 2-th Regiment of Foot, lost in the
+wreck of the Nerbuddha, East Indiaman, on Menawhidden, January 15th,
+1857. . . ._'  Then follows a list of the officers.  Underneath, if you
+remember, is a separate slab to the officers and crew of the
+_Nerbuddha_, who behaved admirably, all the senior officers keeping
+order to the last and going down with the ship."
+
+I nodded again, for I knew the inscriptions pretty well by heart.
+
+"The wreck happened in the first winter of my incumbency here.  Then, as
+now, I had one pupil living with me, an excellent fellow.  Dick Hobart
+was his name, his age seventeen or thereabouts, and my business to put
+some polish on a neglected education before he entered the Army.
+His elder brother had been a college friend of mine, and indeed our
+families had been acquainted for years.
+
+"Dick slept in the room you now occupy.  He had a habit, which I never
+cured, of sitting up late over a pipe and a yellow-backed novel: and so
+he happened to be dressed that night when he saw the first signal of
+distress go up from Menawhidden.  He came to my room at once and called
+me up: and while I tumbled out and began to dress, he ran down to Porth
+to give the alarm.
+
+"The first signal, however, had been seen by the folks down there, and
+he found the whole place in a hubbub.  Our first life-boat had arrived
+less than three months before; but the crew got her off briskly, and
+were pulling away lustily for the reef when it occurred to a few of
+those left behind that the sea running was not too formidable for a
+couple of seine-boats lying high on the beach: and within five minutes
+these were hauled down and manned with scratch crews--Dick Hobart among
+them.
+
+"Three days of east wind had knocked up a heavy swell: but the wind was
+blowing a moderate gale only--nothing to account for a big ship (as she
+was already reported to be) finding herself on Menawhidden.
+Three signals only had been shown, and these in quick succession.
+We learned afterwards that she went down within twelve minutes of
+striking.  She had dashed straight on the Carracks, with the wind well
+behind her beam, topmasts housed for the night, but, barring that,
+canvassed like a well-found ship sure of her sea-room.  And the Carracks
+had torn the bottom out of her.
+
+"The difficulty with the life-boat and two seine-boats was to find the
+position of the wreck, the night being pitch dark and dirty, and the
+calls and outcries of the poor creatures being swept down the wind to
+the westward.  Our fellows pulled like Trojans, however, hailing and
+ahoying as they went; and about half-way down the line of Menawhidden
+they came on the first of the _Nerbuddha's_ boats, laden with women and
+children, in charge of the fourth officer and half-a-dozen seamen.
+From her they learned the vessel's name and whereabouts, and having
+directed her on her way to the Porth, hurried forward again.
+They passed another boat similarly laden, and presently heard the
+distracting cries of swimmers, and drove straight into the wreckage and
+the struggling crowd of bodies.  The life-boat rescued twenty-seven, and
+picked up four more on a second journey: the first seine-boat accounted
+for a dozen:  the second (in which Hobart pulled an oar) was less
+fortunate, saving five only--and yet, as I shall tell you, my young
+friend had (and, for that matter, still has) abundant reason to be
+thankful for his voyage in her; for on that night he plucked from the
+sea the greatest treasure of his life.
+
+"She--for it was a small girl of seven, and he took her from the arms of
+a seaman who died soon after being lifted into the boat-turned out to be
+the Colonel's daughter.  She had stood by her mother's side above the
+gangway while the women passed down the side into the boats: for that
+noble English lady had insisted that as it was the Colonel's duty to
+follow his men, so it was for the Colonel's wife to wait until every
+other woman and every child had filed past.  The _Nerbuddha_ had gone
+down under her as she stood there beside her husband, steadied by his
+hand on her shoulder.  Both bodies were afterwards recovered.
+
+"Altogether fifty-two were buried in this parish: other bodies were
+washed ashore or picked up from time to time, some at great distances up
+and down the Channel.  In the end the list of those unaccounted for came
+to forty, or by other accounts thirty-six.  That was my first experience
+of what Menawhidden could do.  I have had many since: but to this day
+our little church--yes, even when we decorate it for harvest-festival
+and pile the sheaves within the Communion rails--remains for me the dark
+little building where the bodies lay in rows waiting to be identified,
+and where I and half-a-dozen volunteers took turns in keeping watch day
+and night while the windows shook and the damp oozed down the walls.
+
+"The cause of the wreck was never made clear.  The helmsman had gone,
+and the captain (his body was among the missing), and the first, second,
+and third officers.  But two seamen who had been successively relieved
+at the wheel in the early hours of the night agreed on the course set by
+the captain.  It was a course which must finally bring them straight on
+Menawhidden.  Yet there was no evidence to show that the captain changed
+it.  The men knew nothing of Channel navigation, and had simply obeyed
+orders.  She had struck during the first mate's watch.  The fourth
+officer (survivor) had also been on deck.  He gave evidence that his
+superior, Mr. Rands, had said nothing about the course.  For his own
+part he had supposed the ship to be a good fifteen miles from the coast.
+They had sighted no shore-lights to warn them: but the weather was hazy.
+Five minutes before the catastrophe Mr. Rands had remarked that the wind
+was increasing, but had deferred shortening sail.  The ship was an old
+one, but newly rigged throughout.  Her compasses had been adjusted and
+the ship swung at Greenhithe, just before the voyage.  Mr. Murchison,
+the captain, was a trusted commander of the H.E.I.C.: he came originally
+from Liverpool, and had worked his way up in the company's service: a
+positive man and something of a disciplinarian, almost a martinet--not a
+man who would bear crossing easily.  He was in his cabin, but came on
+deck at once, ready dressed; and had, with Colonel Stanhope's
+assistance, kept admirable order, getting out the three boats as
+promptly as possible.  A fourth had actually been launched, and was
+being manned when the vessel plunged and stove her in as she went down.
+
+"That is as much as needs be told about the _Nerbuddha_.  Let me get on
+to the happier part of the story, that which concerns Dick Hobart and
+the small girl whom by Heaven's mercy he helped to save.  Her name was
+Felicia--Felicia Rose Derwent Stanhope in full.  Her uncle and guardian,
+Sir John Derwent, came down and fetched her home, with the bodies of her
+father and mother.  I have told you that Dick was just then waiting for
+his commission, which, by the way, his family could poorly afford to
+purchase.  Well, in recognition of his 'gallantry' (as the old gentleman
+was good enough to term it) Sir John, who possessed a good deal of
+influence, had him gazetted within six weeks, and to the 2-th Regiment--
+'for which,' so ran the gracious letter bringing the news, 'you have
+performed the first of what I hope will be a long list of distinguished
+services.'
+
+"Pretty, was it not?  Yes, but there's prettier to come.  Felicia, who
+was an only child and quite an heiress in a small way, kept up from the
+first a steady correspondence with her 'preserver': childish letters, to
+begin with, but Dick kept them all.  In Bombay, in Abyssinia, for a few
+weeks in England (when he saw her for the first time since the wreck),
+then back in India again, he has told me since that the world held but
+one woman for him, and that was the little girl growing up to womanhood
+in her Bedfordshire home.
+
+"Well it all happened as you are guessing.  Dick, who had inherited a
+little money by this time, and was expecting his majority, returned to
+England in '72 on a long furlough.  Needless to say he paid a visit to
+Cressingham, where Felicia lived under the wing of a widowed aunt:
+equally needless to say what happened there.  The engagement was a short
+one--six weeks: and Dick flattered me immensely with an invitation to
+come up and perform the ceremony."
+
+The Vicar paused, refilled his glass, and leaning back gazed up at the
+now silent nests.  "All this," thought I, "may be mighty interesting in
+its way, but what--"
+
+"But what, you'll be asking, has all this to do with John Emmet?
+I'm coming to that.  On the evening of my arrival at Cressingham, Dick,
+who was lodging at the village inn where I too had a room, took me over
+to pay my respects to the ladies.  We had taken our leave and were
+passing down the pretty avenue of limes to the entrance gates, when he
+paused and hailed a man stooping over a fountain in the Italian garden
+on our left, and apparently clearing it of dead leaves.
+
+"'Hi! John Emmet!'
+
+"The man straightened his back, faced round, and came towards us,
+touching his hat.
+
+"'This is the gentleman, John, who has come expressly to tie the knot
+next Wednesday.  You must know,' said Dick, turning to me, 'that Miss
+Felicia and John Emmet are sworn friends, and he owes me a mighty grudge
+for taking her away.  He's been gardener here for fifteen--sixteen--how
+many years is it, John?'
+
+"'Then,' said I, 'I suppose you were here before the wreck of the
+_Nerbuddha_, and knew Miss Felicia's parents?'
+
+"The man gave a start, and his hat, which he had pulled off, and with
+the brim of which he was fumbling, slipped from his fingers and rolled
+on the turf.
+
+"'Oh, yes, I forgot!' put in Dick.  'I ought to have told you that Mr.
+West here is the Rector of Lansulyan, and was at the time of the wreck."
+
+"'Indeed, Sir!' John Emmet had recovered his hat, and confronted me with
+a face for which I spared a glance before bending my eyes on the daisies
+at my feet.  'I--I took service here some months after that event.'
+
+"'Come, Padre'--these were the next words I heard--'if you wish to prod
+up all the daisies on Felicia's property, arise early to-morrow and
+begin.  But if we're to dine at the Hall to-night it's time to be
+getting back to the inn and changing our clothes.'
+
+"I looked up, and my eyes fell on the retreating back of John Emmet,
+already half-way towards the Italian garden."
+
+
+"'Queer fellow, that--what's his name?--John Emmet,' said I late that
+night on our return to the inn, as Dick and I mixed our whiskey and
+prepared for a smoke before his sitting-room fire.
+
+"'Tile loose, I fancy,' answered Dick, pausing with a lighted match in
+his hand.  'I've an idea that he owes me a grudge for coming here and
+carrying off Felicia.'
+
+"'What gives you that notion?'
+
+"'Well, you see he has always been a favourite of hers.  She tells me
+that the hours she managed to steal and spend in the garden, chatting
+with John Emmet while he worked, were the happiest in her childhood.
+He seems to have been a kind of out-of-door protector to her, and I'll
+bet she twisted him round her small thumb.'
+
+"'That's little enough to go upon,' was my comment.  'It struck me, on
+the contrary, that the man eyed you with some affection, not to say
+pride.'
+
+"'Well, it's a small thing, but I can't help remembering how he took the
+news of Felicia's--of our engagement.  You see, it happened at a
+fancy-dress dance.'
+
+"'What happened?'
+
+"'Don't be dense, Padre.  Why, _it_--the engagement.  The dance was
+given by some people who live two miles from here--people called
+Bargrave.  Felicia and I drove over.  She wore an old Court dress of her
+grandmother's or great-grand-mother's: I'm no hand at costumes, and can
+only tell you that she looked particularly jolly in it.  I went in
+uniform--mess uniform, that is.  It's one of the minor advantages of the
+service that on these occasions a man hasn't to put on a cavalier's wig
+and look like a goat out for a holiday.  Well, as I was saying, at this
+particular dance _it_ happened.  It was daybreak when we started to
+drive home; a perfect midsummer morning, sun shining, dew on the hedges,
+and the birds singing fit to split themselves.  Felicia and I had a lot
+to say to each other, naturally;  and it occurred to us to stop the
+carriage at the gates and send it on while we walked up to the house
+together.  We took the path leading through the Italian garden, and
+there--pretty well in the same place where you saw him this afternoon--
+we came on John Emmet, already out and at work: or rather he was leaning
+on a hoe and staring after the carriage as it moved up the avenue behind
+the limes.  We came on him from behind, and, I suppose, suddenly.
+Anyhow, we scared him.  I never saw such a face in my life as he turned
+on us!  It went all white in an instant, and then slowly whiter.
+No doubt our dress was unusual: but I'm not accustomed to be taken for a
+ghost--'
+
+"'Was it _you_ who frightened him?'
+
+"'Yes, I think so.  He kept his eyes on me, anyway: and at first, when
+Felicia asked him to congratulate her, he didn't seem to hear.  After a
+bit, however, he picked up his speech and muttered something about fate,
+and wishing her joy--I forget what.  Felicia confessed afterwards that
+his face had fairly frightened her.'
+
+"'Look here,' I asked; 'it may seem an irrelevant question, but has the
+2-th made any changes in its uniform lately?--any important changes, I
+mean.'
+
+"'No: the War Office has been obliging enough to leave us alone in that
+respect: out of sight out of mind, I suppose.  In point of fact we've
+kept the same rig--officers and men--for something like a quarter of a
+century.'  He paused.  'I see what you're driving at.  The man, you
+think, may be an old deserter!'
+
+"'Not so fast, please.  Now here's another question.  You remember the
+night after the wreck of the _Nerbuddha_: the night you took a turn in
+Lansulyan Church, watching the bodies?  You came to me in the morning
+with a story which I chose to laugh at--'
+
+"'About the face at the window, you mean?' Dick gave a mock shudder.
+'I suppose my nerves were shaken.  I've been through some queer things
+since: but upon my soul I'd as soon face the worst of them again as take
+another spell with a line of corpses in that church of yours.'
+
+"'But--the face?'
+
+"'Well, at the time I'd have sworn I saw it: peering in through the last
+window westward in the south aisle--the one above the font.  I ran out,
+you remember, and found nobody: then I fetched a lantern and flashed it
+about the churchyard.'
+
+"'There were gravestones in plenty a man could hide behind.  Should you
+remember the face?'
+
+"Dick considered for a while.  'No: it didn't strike me as a face so
+much as a pair of eyes; I remember the eyes only.  They were looking
+straight into mine."
+
+"'Well, now.  I've always guessed there was something queer about that
+_Nerbuddha_ business:  though till now I've never told a soul my chief
+reason for believing so.  After you left me that night, and while I was
+dressing, it occurred to me from the last of the three signals--the only
+one I saw--that the wreck must be somewhere near the Carracks, and that
+Farmer Tregaskis had a seine-boat drawn up by the old pallace [1] at
+Gunner's Meadow, just opposite the Carracks.'"
+
+"'It struck me that if it were possible to knock up Tregaskis and his
+boys and the farmhand who slept on the premises, and get this boat
+launched through the surf, we should reach the wreck almost as soon as
+the life-boat.  So I took a lantern and ran across the fields to the
+farm.  Lights were burning there in two or three windows, and Mrs.
+Tregaskis, who answered my knock, told me that her husband and the boys
+had already started off--she believed for Gunner's Meadow, to launch
+their boat.  There had been talk of doing so, anyhow, before they set
+out.  Accordingly, off I pelted hot-foot for the meadow, but on reaching
+the slope above it could see no lanterns either about the pallace or on
+the beach.  It turned out afterwards that the Tregaskis family had
+indeed visited the beach, ten minutes ahead of me, but judging it beyond
+their powers to launch the boat short-handed through the surf, were by
+this time on their way towards the Porth.  I thought this likely enough
+at the time, but resolved to run down and make sure.
+
+"'Hitherto I had carried my lantern unlit: but on reaching the coombe
+bottom I halted for a moment under the lee of the pallace-wall to strike
+a match.  In that moment, in a sudden lull of the breakers, it seemed to
+me that I heard a footstep on the loose stones of the beach; and having
+lit my candle hastily I ran round the wall and gave a loud hail.  It was
+not answered: the sound had ceased:  but hurrying down the beach with my
+lantern held high, I presently saw a man between me and the water's
+edge.  I believe now that he was trying to get away unobserved: but
+finding this hopeless he stood still with his hands in his pockets, and
+allowed me to come up.  He was bare-headed, and dressed only in shirt
+and trousers and boots.  Somehow, though I did not recognise him, I
+never doubted for a moment that the man belonged either to my own or the
+next parish.  I was a newcomer in those days, you remember.
+
+"'"Hulloa!" said I, "where do you come from?"'
+
+"'He stared at me stupidly and jerked his thumb over his shoulder
+towards the west.  I inferred that he came from one of the shore-farms
+in that direction.  He looked like a middle-aged farmer--a grizzled man
+with a serious, responsible face.  "But you're wet through," I said, for
+his clothes were drenched.
+
+"'For answer he pointed towards the surf, and lifting my lantern again,
+I detected a small cask floating a little beyond the breakers.
+Now before coming to Lansulyan I had heard some ugly tales of the
+wrecking done in these parts, and at the sight of this I fairly lost my
+temper.  'It seems to me,' said I, "a man of your age should be ashamed
+of himself, lurking here for miserable booty when there are lives to
+save!  In God's name, if you have a spark of manhood in you, follow me
+to the Porth!"  I swung off in a rage, and up the beach: after a moment
+I heard him slowly following.  On the cliff track I swallowed down my
+wrath and waited for him to come up, meaning to expostulate more gently.
+He did not come up.  I hailed twice, but he had vanished into the night.
+
+"'Now this looked ugly.  And on reflection, when I reached the Porth and
+heard men wondering how on earth a fine ship found herself on
+Menawhidden in such weather, it looked uglier yet.  The fellow--now I
+came to think it over--had certainly shrunk from detection.
+Then, thirty hours later, came your story of the face, and upset me
+further.  I kept my suspicions to myself, however.  The matter was too
+grave for random talking: but I resolved to keep eyes and ears open, and
+if this horrible practice of wrecking did really exist, to expose it
+without mercy.
+
+"'Well I have lived some years since in Lansulyan: and I am absolutely
+sure now that no such horrors exist, if they ever existed.'
+
+"'But the man?' was Dick's query.
+
+"'That's what I'm coming to.  You may be sure I looked out for him: for,
+unlike you, I remembered the face I saw.  Yet until to-day I have never
+seen it since.'
+
+"'Until to-day?'
+
+"'Yes.  The man I saw on the beach was Miss Felicia's gardener, John
+Emmet.  He has shaved his beard; but I'll swear to him.'
+
+"All that Dick could do was to pull the pipe from his mouth and give a
+long whistle.  'But what do you make of it?' he asked with a frown.
+
+"'As yet, nothing.  Where does the man live?'
+
+"'In a small cottage at the end of the village, just outside the gate of
+the kitchen-garden.'
+
+"'Married?'
+
+"'No: a large family lives next door and he pays the eldest girl to do
+some odd jobs of housework.'
+
+"'Then to-morrow,' said I, 'I'll pay him a call.'
+
+"'Seen your man?' asked Dick next evening, as we walked up towards the
+house, where again we were due for dinner.
+
+"'I have just come from him: and what's more I have a proposition to
+make to Miss Felicia, if you and she can spare me an hour this evening.'
+
+"The upshot of our talk was that, a week later, as I drove home from the
+station after my long railway journey, John Emmet sat by my side.
+He had taken service with me as gardener, and for nine years he served
+me well.  You'll hardly believe it"--here the Vicar's gaze travelled
+over the unkempt flower-beds--"but under John Emmet's hand this garden
+of mine was a picture.  The fellow would have half a day's work done
+before the rest of the parish was out of bed.  I never knew a human
+creature who needed less sleep--that's not the way to put it, though--
+the man _couldn't_ sleep: he had lost the power (so he said) ever since
+the night the _Nerbuddha_ struck.
+
+"So it was that every afternoon found the day's work ended in my garden,
+and John Emmet, in my sixteen-foot boat, exploring the currents and
+soundings about Menawhidden.  And almost every day I went with him.
+He had become a learner--for the third time in his life; and the
+quickest learner (in spite of his years) I have ever known, for his mind
+was bent on that single purpose.  I should tell you that the Trinity
+House had discovered Menawhidden at last and placed the bell-buoy there
+--which is and always has been entirely useless:  also that the Lifeboat
+Institution had listened to some suggestions of mine and were
+re-organising the service down at the Porth.  And it was now my hope
+that John Emmet might become coxswain of the boat as soon as he had
+local knowledge to back up the seamanship and aptitude for command in
+which I knew him to excel every man in the Porth.  There were
+jealousies, of course: but he wrangled with no man, and in the end I had
+my way pretty easily.  Within four years of his coming John Emmet knew
+more of Menawhidden than any man in the parish; possibly more than all
+the parish put together.  And to-day the parish is proud of him and his
+record.
+
+"But they do not know--and you are to be one of the four persons in the
+world who know--that _John Emmet was no other than John Murchison, the
+captain who lost the 'Nerbuddha'!_  He had come ashore in the darkness
+some five minutes before I had surprised him on the beach: had come
+ashore clinging to the keg which I saw floating just beyond the
+breakers.  Then and there, stunned and confounded by the consequences of
+his carelessness, he had played the coward for the first and last time
+in his life.  He had run away--and Heaven knows if in his shoes I should
+not have done the same.  For two nights and a day a hideous fascination
+tied him to the spot.  It was his face Dick had seen at the window.
+The man had been hiding all day in the trench by the north wall of the
+churchyard; as Dick ran out with a lantern he slipped behind a
+gravestone, and when Dick gave up the search, he broke cover and fled
+inland.  He changed his name: let this be his excuse, he had neither
+wife nor child.  The man knew something of gardening: he had a couple of
+pounds and some odd shillings in his pocket--enough to take him to one
+of the big midland towns--Wolverhampton, I think--where he found work as
+a jobbing gardener.  But something of the fascination which had held him
+lurking about Lansulyan, drove him to Cressingham, which--he learned
+from the newspaper accounts of the wreck--was Colonel Stanhope's country
+seat.  Or perhaps he had some vague idea that Heaven would grant him a
+chance to make amends.  You understand now how the little Felicia became
+his idol.
+
+"At Lansulyan he had but two desires.  The first was to live until he
+had saved as many lives as his carelessness had lost in the _Nerbuddha_.
+For it was nothing worse, but mere forgetfulness to change the course:
+one of those dreadful lapses of memory which baffle all Board of Trade
+inquiry.  You may light, and buoy, and beacon every danger along the
+coast, and still you leave that small kink in the skipper's brain which
+will cast away a ship for all your care.  The second of his desires you
+have helped me to fulfil.  He wished in death to be John Murchison
+again, and lie where his ship lies: lie with his grand error atoned for.
+John Emmet needs no gravestone: for John Emmet lived but to earn John
+Murchison's right to a half-forgotten tablet describing him as a brave
+man.  And I believe that Heaven, which does not count by tally, has
+granted his wish."
+
+
+[1] Pilchard store.
+
+
+
+ELISHA
+
+A rough track--something between a footpath and a water course--led down
+the mountain-side through groves of evergreen oak, and reached the Plain
+of Jezreel at the point where the road from Samaria and the south
+divided into two--its main stem still climbing due north towards
+Nazareth, while the branch bent back eastward and by south across the
+flat, arable country to join the Carmel road at Megiddo.
+
+An old man came painfully down the mountain-track.  He wore a white
+burnoos, and a brown garment of camel's hair, with a leathern belt that
+girt it high about his bare legs.  He carried a staff, and tapped the
+ground carefully before planting his feet.   It was the time of barley
+harvest, and a scorching afternoon.  On the burnt plain below, the road
+to Megiddo shone and quivered in the heat.  But he could not see it.
+Cataract veiled his eyes and blurred the whole landscape for them.
+
+The track now wound about a foot-hill that broke away in a sharp slope
+on his right and plunged to a stony ravine.  Once or twice he paused on
+its edge and peered downward, as if seeking for a landmark.  He was
+leaning forward to peer again, but suddenly straightened his body and
+listened.
+
+Far down in the valley a solitary dog howled.  But the old man's ear had
+caught another sound, that came from the track, not far in front.
+
+_Cling--cling--clink!  Cling--clink!_
+
+It was the sound of hammering; of stone on metal.
+
+_Cling--cling--clink!_
+
+He stepped forward briskly, rounded an angle of rock, and found himself
+face to face with a man--as well as he could see, a tall man--standing
+upright by a heap of stones on the left edge of the path.
+
+"May it be well with you, my son: and with every man who repairs a path
+for the traveller.  But tell me if the way be unsafe hereabouts?  For my
+eyes are very dim, and it is now many years since last I came over the
+hills to Shunem."
+
+The man did not reply.
+
+"--So many years that for nigh upon an hour I have been saying, 'Surely
+here should Shunem come in sight--or here--its white walls among the
+oaks below--the house of Miriam of Shunem'.  But I forget the curtain on
+my eyes, and the oaks will have grown tall."
+
+Still there came no answer.  Slightly nettled, the old man went on--
+
+"My son, it is said 'To return a word before hearing the matter is
+folly.'  But also, 'Every man shall kiss the lips of him who answereth
+fit words.'  And further, 'To the aged every stranger shall be a staff,
+nor shall he twice inquire his way.'  Though I may not scan thy face,
+thou scannest mine; and I, who now am blind, have been a seer in
+Israel."
+
+As he ceased, another figure--a woman's--stepped out, as it seemed to
+him, from behind the man; stepped forward and touched him on the arm.
+
+"Hail, then, Elisha, son of Shaphat!"
+
+"Thou knowest? . . ."
+
+"Who better than Miriam of Shunem?  Put near thy face and look."
+
+"My eyes are very dim."
+
+"And the oaks are higher than Shunem.  My face has changed: my voice
+also."
+
+"For the moment it was strange to me.  As I came along I was reckoning
+thy years at three-score."
+
+"Mayst add five."
+
+"We may not complain.  And thy son, how fares he?"
+
+"That is he, behind us.   He is a good son, and leaves his elders to
+speak first.  If we sit awhile and talk he will wait for us."
+
+"And thy house and the farm-steading?"
+
+The woman threw a glance down towards the valley, and answered quickly--
+
+"My master, shall we not sit awhile?  The track here looks towards the
+plain.  Sit, and through my eyes thou shalt see again distant Carmel and
+the fields between that used so to delight thee.  Ah! not there!"
+
+The old man had made as if to seat himself on one of the larger stones
+on the edge of the heap.  But she prevented him quickly; was gone for a
+moment; and returned, rolling a moss-covered boulder to the right-hand
+of the path.  The prophet sat himself down on this, and she on the
+ground at his feet.
+
+"Just here, from my window below, I saw thee coming down the mountain
+with Gehazi, thy servant, on that day when it was promised to me that I
+should bear a son."
+
+He nodded.
+
+"For as often as we passed by," he said, "we found food and a little
+room prepared upon the wall.  'Thou hast been careful for us,' said I,
+'with all this care.  What is to be done for thee?  Shall I speak to the
+King for thee, or to the captain of the host?'  Thine answer was,
+'I dwell in Shunem, among my own people.'"
+
+"There is no greener spot in Israel."
+
+"'But,' said my servant Gehazi, 'Every spot is greener where a child
+plays.'  Therefore this child was promised thee."
+
+She said, "But once a year the plain is yellow and not green; yellow
+away to the foot of Carmel; and that is in this season of the barley
+harvest.  It was on such a day as this that my son fell in the field
+among the reapers, and his father brought him in and set him on my
+knees.  On such a day as this I left him dead, and saddled the ass and
+rode between the same yellow fields to Megiddo, and thence towards
+Carmel, seeking thee.  See the white road winding, and the long blue
+chine yonder, by the sea.  By and by, when the sun sinks over it, the
+blue chine and the oaks beneath will turn to one dark colour; and that
+will be the hour that I met thee on the slope, and lighted off the ass
+and caught thee by the feet.  As yet it is all parched fields and sky of
+brass and a white road running endless--endless."
+
+"But what are these black shadows that pass between me and the sun?"
+
+"They are crows, my master."
+
+"What should they do here in these numbers?"
+
+The woman rose and flung a stone at the birds.  Seating herself again,
+she said--
+
+"Below, the reapers narrow the circle of the corn; and there are conies
+within the circle.  The kites and crows know it."
+
+"But that day of which thou hast spoken--it ended in gladness.
+The Lord restored thy son to thee."
+
+"Thou rather, man of God."
+
+"My daughter, His mercy was very great upon thee.  Speak no blasphemy,
+thou of all women."
+
+"The Lord had denied me a son; but thou persuadedst Him, and He gave me
+one.  Again, the Lord had taken my child in the harvest-field, but on
+thy wrestling gave him back.  And again the Lord meditated to take my
+child by famine, but at thy warning I arose and conveyed him into the
+land of the Philistines, nor returned to Shunem till seven years' end.
+My master, thou art a prophet in Israel, but I am thinking--"
+
+She broke off, rose, and flung another stone at the birds.
+
+"My daughter, think not slightly of God's wisdom."
+
+"Nay, man of God, I am thinking that God was wiser than thou or I."
+
+The old prophet rose from his stone.  His dull eyes tried to read her
+face.  She touched his hand.
+
+"Come, and see."
+
+The figure of the man still stood, three paces behind them, upright
+against the hillside, as when Elisha had first turned the corner and
+come upon him.  But now, led by Miriam, the prophet drew quite close and
+peered.  Dimly, and then less dimly, he discerned first that the head
+had fallen forward on the breast, and that the hair upon the scalp was
+caked in dry blood; next, that the figure did not stand of its own will
+at all, but was held upright to a stout post by an iron ring about the
+neck and a rope about the waist.  He put out a finger and touched the
+face.  It was cold.
+
+"Thy son?"
+
+"They stoned him with these stones.  His wife stood by."
+
+"The Syrians?"
+
+"The Syrians.  They went northward before noon, taking her.  The plain
+is otherwise burnt than on the day when I sought across it for his sake
+to Carmel."
+
+"Well did King David entreat the hand of the Lord rather than the hand
+of man.  I had not heard of thy son's marrying."
+
+"Five years ago he went down with a gift to Philistia, to them that
+sheltered us in the famine.  He brought back this woman."
+
+"She betrayed him?"
+
+"He heard her speak with a Syrian, and fled up the hill.  From the
+little window in the wall--see, it smokes yet--she called and pointed
+after him.  And they ran and overtook him.  With this iron they fastened
+him, and with these stones they stoned him.  Man of God, I am thinking
+that God was wiser than thou or I."
+
+The old man stood musing, and touched the heap of stones gently, stone
+after stone, with the end of his staff.
+
+"He was wiser."
+
+_Cling--cling--clink!_
+
+Miriam had taken up a stone, and with it was hammering feebly,
+impotently, upon the rivets in the iron band.
+
+As the sun dropped below Carmel the prophet cast down his staff and
+stretched out two groping hands to help her.
+
+
+
+"ONCE ABOARD THE LUGGER"
+
+
+Early last Fall there died in Troy an old man and his wife.  The woman
+went first, and the husband took a chill at her grave's edge, when he
+stood bareheaded in a lashing shower.  The loose earth crumbled under
+his feet, trickled over, and dropped on her coffin-lid.  Through two
+long nights he lay on his bed without sleeping and listened to this
+sound.  At first it ran in his ears perpetually, but afterwards he heard
+it at intervals only, in the pauses of acute suffering.  On the seventh
+day he died, of pleuro-pneumonia; and on the tenth (a Sunday) they
+buried him.  For just fifty years the dead man had been minister of the
+Independent chapel on the hill, and had laid down his pastorate two
+years before, on his golden wedding-day.  Consequently there was a
+funeral sermon, and the young man, his successor, chose II. Samuel,
+i. 23, for his text--"Lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their
+death they were not divided."  Himself a newly-married man, he waxed
+dithyrambic on the sustained affection and accord of the departed
+couple.  "Truly," he wound up, "such marriages as theirs were made in
+Heaven."  And could they have heard, the two bodies in the cemetery had
+not denied it; but the woman, after the fashion of women, would have
+qualified the young minister's assertion in her secret heart.
+
+
+When, at the close of the year 1839, the Rev. Samuel Bax visited Troy
+for the first time, to preach his trial sermon at Salem Chapel, he
+arrived by Boutigo's van, late on a Saturday night, and departed again
+for Plymouth at seven o'clock on Monday morning.  He had just turned
+twenty-one, and looked younger, and the zeal of his calling was strong
+upon him.  Moreover he was shaken with nervous anxiety for the success
+of his sermon; so that it is no marvel if he carried away but blurred
+and misty impressions of the little port and the congregation that sat
+beneath him that morning, ostensibly reverent, but actually on the
+pounce for heresy or any sign of weakness.  Their impressions, at any
+rate, were sharp enough.  They counted his thumps upon the desk, noted
+his one reference to "the original Greek," saw and remembered the flush
+on his young face and the glow in his eyes as he hammered the doctrine
+of the redemption out of original sin.  The deacons fixed the subject of
+these trial sermons, and had chosen original sin on the ground that a
+good beginning was half the battle.  The maids in the congregation knew
+beforehand that he was unmarried, and came out of chapel knowing also
+that his eyes were brown, that his hair had a reddish tinge in certain
+lights; that one of his cuffs was frayed slightly, but his black coat
+had scarcely been worn a dozen times; with other trifles.  They loitered
+by the chapel door until he came out in company with Deacon Snowden, who
+was conveying him off to dinner.  The deacon on week days was
+harbour-master of the port, and on Sundays afforded himself roasted duck
+for dinner.  Lizzie Snowden walked at her father's right hand.  She was
+a slightly bloodless blonde, tall, with a pretty complexion, and hair
+upon which it was rumoured she could sit if she were so minded.
+The girls watched the young preacher and his entertainers as they moved
+down the hill, the deacon talking and his daughter turning her head
+aside as if it were merely in the half of the world on her right hand
+that she took the least interest.
+
+"That's to show 'en the big plait," commented one of the group behind.
+"He can't turn his head t'wards her, but it stares 'en in the face."
+
+"An' her features look best from the left side, as everybody knows."
+
+"I reckon, if he's chosen minister, that Lizzie'll have 'en," said a
+tall, lanky girl.  She was apprenticed to a dressmaker and engaged to a
+young tin-smith.  Having laid aside ambition on her own account, she
+flung in this remark as an apple of discord.
+
+"Jenifer Hosken has a chance.  He's fair-skinned hissel', an' Lizzie's
+too near his own colour.  Black's mate is white, as they say."
+
+"There's Sue Tregraine.  She'll have more money than either, when her
+father dies."
+
+"What, marry one o' Ruan!" the speaker tittered despitefully.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+The only answer was a shrug.  Ruan is a small town that faces Troy
+across the diminutive harbour, or perhaps I should say that Troy looks
+down upon it at this slight distance.  When a Trojan speaks of it he
+says, "Across the water," with as much implied contempt as though he
+meant Botany Bay.  There is no cogent reason for this, except that the
+poorer class at Ruan earns its livelihood by fishing.  In the eyes of
+its neighbours the shadow of this lonely calling is cast upwards upon
+its wealthier inhabitants.  Troy depends on commerce, and in the days of
+which I write employed these wealthier men of Ruan to build ships for
+it.  Further it did not condescend.  Intermarriage between the towns was
+almost unheard of, and even now it is rare.  Yet they are connected by a
+penny ferry.
+
+"Her father's a shipbuilder," urged Sue Tregraine's supporter.
+
+"He might so well keep crab pots, for all the chance she'll have."
+
+Now there was a Ruan girl standing just outside this group, and she
+heard what was said.  Her name was Nance Trewartha and her father was a
+fisherman, who did in fact keep crab-pots.  Moreover, she was his only
+child, and helped him at his trade.  She could handle a boat as well as
+a man, she knew every sea mark up and down the coast for thirty miles,
+she could cut up bait, and her hands were horny with handling ropes from
+her childhood.  But on Sundays she wore gloves, and came across the
+ferry to chapel, and was as wise as any of her sex.  She had known
+before coming out of her pew that the young minister had a well shaped
+back to his head and a gold ring on his little finger with somebody's
+hair in the collet, under a crystal.  She was dark, straight, and lissom
+of figure, with ripe lips and eyes as black as sloes, and she hoped that
+the hair in the minister's ring was his mother's.  She was well aware of
+her social inferiority; but--the truth may be told--she chose to forget
+it that morning, and to wonder what this young man would be like as a
+husband.  She had looked up into his face during sermon time, devouring
+his boyish features, noticing his refined accent, marking every gesture.
+Certainly he was comely and desirable.  As he walked down the hill by
+Deacon Snowden's side, she was perfectly conscious of the longing in her
+heart, but prepared to put a stop to it, and go home to dinner as soon
+as he had turned the corner and passed out of sight.  Then came that
+unhappy remark about the crab-pots.  She bit her lip for a moment,
+turned, and walked slowly off towards the ferry, full of thought.
+
+
+Three weeks after, the Rev. Samuel Bax received his call.
+
+He arrived, to assume his duties, in the waning light of a soft January
+day.  Boutigo's van set him down, with a carpet-bag, band-box, and chest
+of books, at the door of the lodgings which Deacon Snowden had taken for
+him.  The house stood in the North Street, as it is called.  It was a
+small, yellow-washed building, containing just half-a-dozen rooms, and
+of these the two set apart for the minister looked straight upon the
+harbour.  Under his sitting-room window was a little garden, and at the
+end of the garden a low wall with a stretch of water beyond it, and a
+barque that lay at anchor but a stone's throw away, as it seemed, its
+masts stretching high against the misty hillside.  A green-painted door
+was let into the garden wall--a door with two flaps, the upper of which
+stood open; and through this opening he caught another glimpse of grey
+water.
+
+The landlady, who showed him into this room, and at once began to
+explain that the furniture was better than it looked, was hardly
+prepared for the rapture with which he stared out of the window.
+His boyhood had been spent in a sooty Lancashire town, and to him the
+green garden, the quay-door, the barque, and the stilly water, seemed to
+fall little short  of Paradise.
+
+"I reckoned you'd like it," she said.  "An' to be sure, 'tis a blessing
+you do."
+
+He turned his stare upon her for a moment.  She was a benign-looking
+woman of about fifty, in a short-skirted grey gown and widow's cap.
+
+"Why do you say that?"
+
+"Because, leavin' out the kitchen, there's but four rooms, two for you
+an' two for me; two facin' the harbour, an' two facin' the street.  Now,
+if you'd took a dislike to this look-out, I must ha' put you over the
+street, an' moved in here myself.  I _do_ like the street, too.  There's
+so much more goin' on."
+
+"I think this arrangement will be better in every way," said the young
+minister.
+
+"I'm glad of it.  Iss, there's no denyin' that I'm main glad.
+From upstairs you can see right down the harbour, which is prettier
+again.  Would'ee like to see it now?  O' course you would--an' it'll be
+so much handier for me answerin' the door, too.  There's a back door at
+the end o' the passage.  You've only to slip a bolt an' you'm out in the
+garden--out to your boat, if you choose to keep one.  But the garden's a
+tidy little spot to walk up an' down in an' make up your sermons, wi'
+nobody to overlook you but the folk next door; an' they'm church-goers."
+
+
+After supper that evening, the young minister unpacked his books and was
+about to arrange them, but drifted to the window instead.  He paused for
+a minute or two with his face close to the pane, and then flung up the
+sash.  A faint north wind breathed down the harbour, scarcely ruffling
+the water.  Around and above him the frosty sky flashed with innumerable
+stars, and over the barque's masts, behind the long chine of the eastern
+hill, a soft radiance heralded the rising moon.  It was a young moon,
+and, while he waited, her thin horn pushed up through the furze brake on
+the hill's summit and she mounted into the free heaven.  With upturned
+eye the young minister followed her course for twenty minutes, not
+consciously observant; for he was thinking over his ambitions, and at
+his time of life these are apt to soar with the moon.  Though possessed
+with zeal for good work in this small seaside town, he intended that
+Troy should be but a stepping-stone in his journey.  He meant to go far.
+And while he meditated his future, forgetting the chill in the night
+air, it was being decided for him by a stronger will than his own.
+More than this, that will had already passed into action.  His destiny
+was actually launched on the full spring tide that sucked the crevices
+of the grey wall at the garden's end.
+
+A slight sound drew the minister's gaze down from the moon to the
+quay-door.  Its upper flap still stood open, allowing a square of
+moonlight to pierce the straight black shadow of the garden wall.
+
+In this square of moonlight were now framed the head and shoulders of a
+human being.  The young man felt a slight chill run down his spine.
+He leant forward out of the window and challenged the apparition, bating
+his tone as all people bate it at that hour.
+
+"Who are you?" he demanded.
+
+There was no reply for a moment, though he felt sure his voice must have
+carried to the quay-door.  The figure paused for a second or two, then
+unbarred the lower flap of the door and advanced across the wall's
+shadow to the centre of the bright grass-plat under the window.  It was
+the figure of a young woman.  Her head was bare and her sleeves turned
+up to the elbows.  She wore no cloak or wrap to cover her from the night
+air, and her short-skirted, coarse frock was open at the neck.  As she
+turned up her face to the window, the minister could see by the moon's
+rays that it was well-favoured.
+
+"Be you the new preacher?" she asked, resting a hand on her hip and
+speaking softly up to him.
+
+"I am the new Independent minister."
+
+"Then I've come for you."
+
+"Come for me?"
+
+"Iss; my name's Nance Trewartha, an' you'm wanted across the water,
+quick as possible.  Old Mrs. Slade's a-dyin' to-night, over yonder."
+
+"She wants me?"
+
+"She's one o' your congregation, an' can't die easy till you've seen
+her.  I reckon she's got something 'pon her mind; an' I was to fetch you
+over, quick as I could."
+
+As she spoke the church clock down in the town chimed out the hour, and
+immediately after, ten strokes sounded on the clear air.
+
+The minister consulted his own watch and seemed to be considering.
+
+"Very well," said he after a pause.  "I'll come.  I suppose I must cross
+by the ferry."
+
+"Ferry's closed this two hours, an' you needn't wake up any in the
+house.  I've brought father's boat to the ladder below, an' I'll bring
+you back again.  You've only to step out here by the back door.  An'
+wrap yourself up, for 'tis a brave distance."
+
+"Very well.  I suppose it's really serious."
+
+"Mortal.  I'm glad you'll come," she added simply.
+
+The young man nodded down in a friendly manner, and going back into the
+room, slipped on his overcoat, picked up his hat, and turned the lamp
+down carefully.  Then he struck a match, found his way to the back-door,
+and unbarred it.  The girl was waiting for him, still in the centre of
+the grass-plat.
+
+"I'm glad you've come," she repeated, but this time there was something
+like constraint in her voice.  As he pulled-to the door softly she
+moved, and led the way down to the water-side.
+
+From the quay-door a long ladder ran down to the water.  At low water
+one had to descend twenty feet and more; but now the high tide left but
+three of its rungs uncovered.  At the young minister's feet a small
+fishing-boat lay ready, moored by a short painter to the ladder.
+The girl stepped lightly down and held up a hand.
+
+"Thank you," said the young man with dignity, "but I do not want help."
+
+She made no answer to this; but as he stepped down, went forward and
+unmoored the painter.  Then she pushed gently away from the ladder,
+hoisted the small foresail, and, returning to her companion, stood
+beside him for a moment with her hand on the tiller.
+
+"Better slack the fore-sheet," she said suddenly.
+
+The young man looked helplessly at her.  He had not the slightest idea
+of her meaning, did not in fact know the difference between a fore-sheet
+and a mainsail.  And it was just to find out the depth of his ignorance
+that she had spoken.
+
+"Never mind," she said, "I'll do it myself."  She slackened and made
+fast the rope, and took hold of the tiller again.  The sails shook and
+filled softly as they glided out from under the wall.  The soft breeze
+blew straight behind them, the tide was just beginning to ebb.
+She loosed the main sheet a little, and the water hissed as they spun
+down under the grey town towards the harbour's mouth.
+
+A dozen vessels lay at anchor below the town quay, their lamps showing a
+strange orange yellow in the moonlight; between them the minister saw
+the cottages of Ruan glimmering on the eastern shore, and over it the
+coast-guard flagstaff, faintly pencilled above the sky-line.  It seemed
+to him that they were not shaping their course for the little town.
+
+"I thought you told me," he said at length, "that Mrs.--the dying
+woman--lived across there."
+
+The girl shook her head.  "Not in Ruan itsel'--Ruan parish.  We'll have
+to go round the point."
+
+She was leaning back and gazing straight before her, towards the
+harbour's mouth.  The boat was one of the class that serves along that
+coast for hook-and-line as well as drift net fishing, clinker-built,
+about twenty-seven feet in the keel, and nine in beam.  It had no deck
+beyond a small cuddy forward, on top of which a light hoar-frost was
+gathering as they moved.  The minister stood beside the girl, and
+withdrew his eyes from this cuddy roof to contemplate her.
+
+"Do you mean to say," he asked, "that you don't take cold, wearing no
+wrap or bonnet on frosty nights like this?"
+
+She let the tiller go for a moment, took his hand by the wrist, and laid
+it on her own bare arm.  He felt the flesh, but it was firm and warm.
+Then he withdrew his hand hastily, without finding anything to say.
+His eyes avoided hers.  When, after half a minute, he looked at her
+again, her gaze was fixed straight ahead, upon the misty stretch of sea
+beyond the harbour's mouth.
+
+In a minute or two they were gliding out between the tall cliff and the
+reef of rocks that guard this entrance on either side.  On the reef
+stood a wooden cross, painted white, warning vessels to give a wide
+berth; on the cliff a grey castle, with a battery before it, under the
+guns of which they spun seaward, still with the wind astern.
+
+Outside, the sea lay as smooth as within the harbour.  The wind blew
+steadily off the shore, so that, close-hauled, one might fetch up or
+down Channel with equal ease.  The girl began to flatten the sails, and
+asked her companion to bear a hand.  Their hands met over a rope, and
+the man noted with surprise that the girl's was feverishly hot.
+Then she brought the boat's nose round to the eastward and, heeling
+gently over the dark water, they began to skirt the misty coast with the
+breeze on their left cheeks.
+
+"How much farther?" asked the minister.
+
+She nodded towards the first point in the direction of Plymouth.
+He turned his coat-collar up about his ears and wondered if his duty
+would often take him on such journeys as this.  Also he felt thankful
+that the sea was smooth.  He might, or might not, be given to
+sea-sickness: but somehow he was sincerely glad that he had not to be
+put to the test for the first time in this girl's presence.
+
+They passed the small headland and still the boat held on its way.
+
+"I had no idea you were going to take me this distance.  Didn't you
+promise me the house lay just beyond the point we've just passed?"
+
+To his amazement the girl drew herself up, looked him straight in the
+face and said--
+
+"There's no such place."
+
+"_What?_"
+
+"There's no such place.  There's nobody ill at all.  I told you a lie."
+
+"You told me a lie--then why in the name of common sense am I here?"
+
+"Because, young man--because, sir, I'm sick o' love for you, an' I
+want'ee to marry me."
+
+"Great heaven!" the young minister muttered, recoiling.  "Is the girl
+mad?"
+
+"Ah, but look at me, sir!"  She seemed to grow still taller as she stood
+there, resting one hand on the tiller and gazing at him with perfectly
+serious eyes.  "Look at me well before you take up with some other o'
+the girls.  To-morrow they'll be all after 'ee, an' this'll be my only
+chance; for my father's no better'n a plain fisherman, an' they're all
+above me in money an' rank.  I be but a Ruan girl, an' my family is
+naught.  But look at me well; there's none stronger nor comelier, nor
+that'll love thee so dear!"
+
+The young man gasped.  "Set me ashore at once!" he commanded, stamping
+his foot.
+
+"Nay, that I will not till thou promise, an' that's flat.  Dear lad,
+listen--an' consent, consent--an' I swear to thee thou'll never be sorry
+for't."
+
+"I never heard such awful impropriety in my life.  Turn back; I order
+you to steer back to the harbour at once!"
+
+She shook her head.  "No, lad; I won't.  An' what's more, you don't know
+how to handle a boat, an' couldn't get back by yoursel', not in a
+month."
+
+"This is stark madness.  You--you abandoned woman, how long do you mean
+to keep me here?"
+
+"Till thou give in to me.  We'm goin' straight t'wards Plymouth now, an'
+if th' wind holds--as 'twill--we'll be off the Rame in two hours.
+If you haven't said me yes by that maybe we'll go on; or perhaps we'll
+run across to the coast o' France--"
+
+"Girl, do you know that if I'm not back by day-break, I'm ruined!"
+
+"And oh, man, man!  Can't 'ee see that I'm ruined, too, if I turn back
+without your word?  How shall I show my face in Troy streets again, tell
+me?"
+
+At this sudden transference of responsibility the minister was
+staggered.
+
+"You should have thought of that before," he said, employing the one
+obvious answer.
+
+"O' course I thought of it.  But for love o' you I made up my mind to
+risk it.  An' now there's no goin' back."  She paused a moment and then
+added, as a thought struck her, "Why, lad, doesn' that prove I love 'ee
+uncommon?"
+
+"I prefer not to consider the question.  Once more--will you go back?"
+
+"I can't."
+
+He bit his lips and moved forward to the cuddy, on the roof of which he
+seated himself sulkily.  The girl tossed him an end of rope.
+
+"Dear, better coil that up an' sit 'pon it.  The frost'll strike a chill
+into thee."
+
+With this she resumed her old attitude by the tiller.  Her eyes were
+fixed ahead, her gaze passing just over the minister's hat.  When he
+glanced up he saw the rime twinkling on her shoulders and the star-shine
+in her dark eyes.  Around them the heavens blazed with constellations.
+Never had the minister seen them so multitudinous or so resplendent.
+Never before had the firmament seemed so alive to him.  He could almost
+hear it breathe.  And beneath the stars the little boat raced eastward,
+with the reef-points pattering on its tan sails.
+
+Neither spoke.  For the most part the minister avoided the girl's eyes,
+and sat nursing his wrath.  The whole affair was ludicrous; but it meant
+the sudden ruin of his good name, at the very start of his career.
+This was the word he kept grinding between his teeth--"ruin," "ruin."
+Whenever it pleased this mad creature to set him ashore, he must write
+to Deacon Snowden for his boxes and resign all connection with Troy.
+But would he ever get rid of the scandal?  Could he ever be sure that,
+to whatever distance he might flee, it would not follow him?  Had he not
+better abandon his calling, once and for all?  It was hard.
+
+A star shot down from the Milky Way and disappeared in darkness behind
+the girl's shoulders.  His eyes, following it, encountered hers.
+She left the tiller and came slowly forward.
+
+"In three minutes we'll open Plymouth Sound," she said quietly, and then
+with a sharp gesture flung both arms out towards him.  "Oh, lad, think
+better o't an' turn back wi' me!  Say you'll marry me, for I'm perishin'
+o' love!"
+
+The moonshine fell on her throat and extended arms.  Her lips were
+parted, her head was thrown back a little, and for the first time the
+young minister saw that she was a beautiful woman.
+
+"Ay, look, look at me!" she pleaded.  "That's what I've wanted 'ee to do
+all along.  Take my hands: they'm shapely to look at and strong to work
+for 'ee."
+
+Hardly knowing what he did, the young man took them; then in a moment he
+let them go--but too late; they were about his neck.
+
+With that he sealed his fate for good or ill.  He bent forward a little
+and their lips met.
+
+So steady was the wind that the boat still held on her course; but no
+sooner had the girl received the kiss than she dropped her arms, walked
+off, and shifted the helm.
+
+"Unfasten the sheet there," she commanded, "and duck your head clear."
+
+As soon as their faces were set for home, the minister walked back to
+the cuddy roof and sat down to reflect.  Not a word was spoken till they
+reached the harbour's mouth again, and then he pulled out his watch.
+It was half-past four in the morning.
+
+Outside the Battery Point the girl hauled down the sails and got out the
+sweeps; and together they pulled up under the still sleeping town to the
+minister's quay-door.  He was clumsy at this work, but she instructed
+him in whispers, and they managed to reach the ladder as the clocks were
+striking five.  The tide was far down by this time, and she held the
+boat close to the ladder while he prepared to climb.  With his foot on
+the first round, he turned.  She was white as a ghost, and trembling
+from top to toe.
+
+"Nance--did you say your name was Nance?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"What's the matter?"
+
+"I'll--I'll let you off, if you want to be let off."
+
+"I'm not sure that I do," he said, and stealing softly up the ladder,
+stood at the top and watched her boat as she steered it back to Ruan.
+
+Three months after, they were married, to the indignant amazement of the
+minister's congregation.  It almost cost him his pulpit, but he held on
+and triumphed.  There is no reason to believe that he ever repented of
+his choice, or rather of Nance's.  To be sure, she had kidnapped him by
+a lie; but perhaps she wiped it out by fifty years of honest affection.
+On that point, however, I, who tell the tale, will not dogmatise.
+
+
+
+WHICH?
+
+
+The scene was a street in the West End of London, a little south of
+Eaton Square: the hour just twenty-five minutes short of midnight.
+
+A wind from the North Sea had been blowing all day across the Thames
+marshes, and collecting what it could carry; and the shop-keepers had
+scarcely drawn their iron shutters before a thin fog drifted up from
+lamp-post to lamp-post and filled the intervals with total darkness--all
+but one, where, half-way down the street on the left-hand side, an
+enterprising florist had set up an electric lamp at his private cost, to
+shine upon his window and attract the attention of rich people as they
+drove by on their way to the theatres.  At nine o'clock he closed his
+business: but the lamp shone on until midnight, to give the rich people
+another chance, on their way home, of reading that F. Stillman was
+prepared to decorate dinner-tables and ball-rooms, and to supply bridal
+bouquets or mourning wreaths at short notice.
+
+The stream of homeward-bound carriages had come to a sudden lull.
+The red eyes of a belated four-wheeler vanished in the fog, and the
+florist's lamp flung down its ugly incandescent stare on an empty
+pavement.  Himself in darkness, a policeman on the other side of the
+street flashed his lantern twice, closed the slide and halted for a
+moment to listen by an area railing.
+
+Halting so, he heard a rapid footfall at the upper corner of the street.
+It drew nearer.  A man suddenly stepped into the circle of light on the
+pavement, as if upon a miniature stage; and as suddenly paused to gaze
+upward at the big white globe.
+
+He was a middle-aged man, dressed in an ill-fitting suit of broad-cloth,
+with a shabby silk hat and country-made boots.  He stared up at the
+globe, as if to take his bearings in the fog; then pulled out a watch.
+
+As the light streamed down upon its dial, a woman sidled out from the
+hollow of a shop-door behind him, and touched his elbow.
+
+"Deary!" she began.  "Going home, deary?"
+
+"Heh?  Let me alone, please," said the man roughly.  "I am not that
+sort."  She had almost slipped her arm in his before he turned to speak;
+but now she caught it away, gasping.  Mock globes danced before his eyes
+and for the moment he saw nothing but these: did not see that first she
+would have run, then moved her hands up to cover her face.  Before they
+could do so he saw it, all white and damned.
+
+"Annie!"
+
+"Oh, Willy . . ."  She put out a hand as if to ward him off, but dropped
+both arms before her and stood, swaying them ever so slightly.
+
+"So this . . . So _this_ . . ."  He choked upon the words.
+
+She nodded, hardening her eyes to meet his.  "He left me.  He sent no
+money--"
+
+"I see."
+
+"I was afraid."
+
+"Afraid?"
+
+"Afraid to do it . . . suddenly . . . to put an end. . . .  It's not so
+easy to starve, really.  Oh, Willy, can't you hit me?"
+
+He seemed to be reflecting.  "I--I say," he said abruptly, "can't we
+talk?  Can't we get away somewhere and talk?"
+
+Her limp arms seemed to answer: they  asked, as plainly as words,
+"What is there to say?"
+
+"I don't know. . . .  Somewhere out of this infernal light.  I want to
+think.  There must be somewhere, away from this light . . ."  He broke
+off.  "At home, now, I can think.  I am always thinking at home."
+
+"At home . . ." the woman echoed.
+
+"And you must think too?"
+
+"Always: everywhere."
+
+"Ah!" he ran on, as one talking against time:  "but what do you suppose
+I think about, nine times out of ten?  Why"--and he uttered it with an
+air of foolish triumph--"of the chances that we might meet . . . and
+what would happen.  Have you ever thought of that?"
+
+"Always: everywhere . . . of that . . . and the children."
+
+"Grace looks after them."
+
+"I know.  I get word.  She is kind."
+
+"You think of them?"
+
+"Don't, Willy!"
+
+He harked back.  "Do you know, whenever I've thought of it . . . the
+chance of our meeting . . . I've wondered what I should say.  Hundreds
+and hundreds of times I've made up my mind what to say.  Why, only just
+now--I've come from the theatre: I still go to the theatre sometimes;
+it's a splendid thing to distract your thoughts: takes you out of
+_yourself--Frou--Frou_, it was . . . the finest play in the world . . .
+next to _East Lynne_.  It made me cry, to-night, and the people in the
+pit stared at me.  But one mustn't be ashamed of a little honest
+emotion, before strangers.  And when a thing comes _home_ to a man . . .
+So you've thought of it too--the chance of our running against one
+another?"
+
+"Every day and all the day long I've gone fearing it: especially in
+March and September, when I knew you'd be up in town buying for the
+season.  All the day long I've gone watching the street ahead of me
+ . . . watching in fear of you. . . ."
+
+"But I never guessed it would happen like this."  He stared up
+irritably, as though the lamp were to blame for upsetting his
+calculations.  The woman followed his eyes.
+
+"Yes . . . the lamp," she assented.  "Something held my face up to it,
+just now, when I wanted to hide.  It's like as if our souls were naked
+under it, and there is nothing to say."
+
+"Eh? but there is.  I tell you I've thought it out so often!
+I've thought it all out, or almost all; and that can't mean nothing."
+He cleared his throat.  "I've made allowances, too--" he began
+magnanimously.
+
+But for the moment she was not listening.  "Yes, yes . . ."  She had
+turned her face aside  and was gazing out into the darkness.  "Look at
+the gas-jets, Willy--in the fog.   What do they remind you of?
+That Christmas-tree . . . after Dick was born. . . . Don't you remember
+how he mistook the oranges on it for lanterns and wanted to blow them
+out . . . how he kicked to get at them . . ."
+
+"It's odd: I was thinking of Dick, just now, when you--when you spoke to
+me.  The lamp put me in mind of him.  I was wondering what it cost.
+We have nothing like it at home.  Of course, if I bought one for the
+shop, people would talk--'drawing attention,' they'd say, after what has
+happened.  But I thought that Dick, perhaps . . . when he grows up and
+enters the business . . . perhaps he might propose such a thing, and
+then I shan't say no.  I should carry it off lightly . . . After all,
+it's the shop it would call attention to . . . not the house.  And one
+must advertise in these days."
+
+She was looking at him steadily now.  "Yes," she assented, "people would
+talk."
+
+"And they pity me.  I do hate to be pitied, in that way.  Even the
+people up here, at the old lodgings . . . I won't come to them again.
+If I thought the children . . . One never can tell how much children
+know--"
+
+"Don't, Willy!"
+
+He plunged a hand into his pocket.  "I daresay, now, you're starving?"
+
+Her arms began to sway again, and she laughed quietly, hideously.
+"Don't--don't--don't!  I make money.  That's the worst.  I make money.
+Oh, why don't you hit me?  Why was you always a  soft man?"
+
+For a moment he stood horribly revolted.  But his weakness had a better
+side, and he showed it  now.
+
+"I say, Annie . . . is it so bad?"
+
+"It is hell."
+
+"'Soft'?" he harked back again.  "It might take some courage to be
+soft."
+
+She peered at him eagerly; then sighed.  "But you haven't that sort of
+courage, Willy."
+
+"They would say . . ." he went on musing, "I wonder what they would say?
+. . . Come back to the lamp," he cried with sudden peevishness.
+"Don't look out there . . . this circle of light on the pavement . . .
+like a map of the world."
+
+"With only our two shadows on it."
+
+"If it were all the world . . ." He peered around, searching the
+darkness.  "If there were nothing to concern us beyond, and we could
+stay always inside it . . ."
+
+"--With the light shining straight down on us, and our shadows close at
+our feet, and so small!  But directly we moved beyond they would
+lengthen, lengthen . . ."
+
+"'Forsaking all other'--that's what the Service says.  And what does
+that mean if we cannot stand apart from all and render account to each
+other only?  I tell you I've made allowances.  I didn't make any in the
+old days, being wrapped up in the shop and the chapel, and you not
+caring for either.  There was fault on my side: I've come to see that."
+
+"I'd liefer you struck me, Willy, instead of making allowances."
+
+"Oh, come, that's nonsense.  It seems to me, Annie, there's nothing we
+couldn't help to mend together.  It would never be the same, of course:
+but we can understand . . . or at least overlook."  In his magnanimity
+he caught at high thoughts.  "This light above us--what if it were the
+Truth?"
+
+"Truth doesn't overlook," she answered, with a hopeless scorn which
+puzzled him.  "No, no," she went on rapidly, yet more gently, "Truth
+knows of the world outside, and is wakeful.  If we move a step our
+shadows will lengthen.  They will touch all bright things--they will
+fall across the children.  Willy, we cannot move!"
+
+"I see . . ."
+
+"Ah?"  She craned forward and almost touched his arm again.
+
+"Annie, it comes to me now--I see for the first time how happy we might
+have been.  How came we two to kill love?"
+
+The woman gave a cry, almost of joy.  Her fingers touched his sleeve
+now.  "We have not killed love.  We--I--had stunned him: but (O, I see!)
+he has picked up his weapons again and is fighting.  He is bewildered
+here, in this great light, and he fights at random . . . fights to make
+you strong and me weak, you weak and me strong.  We can never be one
+again, never.  One of us must fall, must be beaten . . .he does not see
+this, but O, Willy, he fights . . . he  fights!"
+
+"He shall fight for you.  Annie, come home!"
+
+"No, no--for you--and the children!"
+
+"Come!"
+
+"Think of the people!"  She held him off, shaking her head, but her eyes
+were wistful, intent upon his.  "You have lived it down. . . . It would
+all begin again.  Look at me . . . think of the talk . . ."
+
+"Let them say what they choose. . . I wonder what they would say . . ."
+
+The Policeman stepped forward and across the road-way.  He had heard
+nothing, and completely misunderstood all he had seen.
+
+"Come, you must move on there, you two!" he commanded harshly.
+
+Suddenly, as he said it, the light above was extinguished.
+
+"Hullo!"  He paused, half-way across.  "Twelve o'clock already!
+Then what's taken my watch?"
+
+A pair of feet tip-toed away in the darkness for a few yards, then broke
+into a nervous run.
+
+As a matter of fact it still wanted five minutes of midnight.  And while
+the Policeman fumbled for his watch and slipped back the slide of his
+lantern, the white flame leaped back into the blind eye above and blazed
+down as fiercely as ever.
+
+"Something wrong with the connection, I suppose," said the Policeman,
+glancing up and then down at the solitary figure left standing under the
+lamp.
+
+"Why, hullo! . . ." said he again.
+
+But which was it?--the man or the woman?
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OLD FIRES AND PROFITABLE GHOSTS***
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