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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14206 ***
+
+I SAW THREE SHIPS AND OTHER WINTER TALES.
+
+BY ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH ("Q").
+
+
+
+To T. Wemyss Reid.
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+
+I SAW THREE SHIPS.
+
+CHAPTER I.               The First Ship.
+
+CHAPTER II.              The Second Ship.
+
+CHAPTER III.             The Stranger.
+
+CHAPTER IV.              Young Zeb fetches a Chest of Drawers.
+
+CHAPTER V.               The Stranger Dances in Young Zeb's Shoes.
+
+CHAPTER VI.              Siege is Lad to Ruby.
+
+CHAPTER VII.             The "Jolly Pilchards"
+
+CHAPTER VIII.            Young Zeb Sells His Soul.
+
+CHAPTER IX.              Young Zeb Wins His Soul Back.
+
+CHAPTER X.               The Third Ship.
+
+
+THE HAUNTED DRAGOON.
+
+
+A BLUE PANTOMIME.
+
+I.                       How I Dined at the "Indian Queens".
+
+II.                      What I Saw in the Mirror.
+
+III.                     What I Saw in the Tarn.
+
+IV.                      What I have Since Learnt
+
+
+THE TWO HOUSEHOLDERS.
+
+
+THE DISENCHANTMENT OF ELIZABETH.
+
+
+
+
+I SAW THREE SHIPS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE FIRST SHIP.
+
+In those west-country parishes where but a few years back the feast of
+Christmas Eve was usually prolonged with cake and cider, "crowding," and
+"geese dancing," till the ancient carols ushered in the day, a certain
+languor not seldom pervaded the services of the Church a few hours
+later.  Red eyes and heavy, young limbs hardly rested from the _Dashing
+White Sergeant_ and _Sir Roger_, throats husky from a plurality of
+causes--all these were recognised as proper to the season, and, in fact,
+of a piece with the holly on the communion rails.
+
+On a dark and stormy Christmas morning as far back as the first decade
+of the century, this languor was neither more nor less apparent than
+usual inside the small parish church of Ruan Lanihale, although
+Christmas fell that year on a Sunday, and dancing should, by rights,
+have ceased at midnight.  The building stands high above a bleak
+peninsula on the South Coast, and the congregation had struggled up with
+heads slanted sou'-west against the weather that drove up the Channel in
+a black fog.  Now, having gained shelter, they quickly lost the glow of
+endeavour, and mixed in pleasing stupor the humming of the storm in the
+tower above, its intermittent onslaughts on the leadwork of the southern
+windows, and the voice of Parson Babbage lifted now and again from the
+chancel as if to correct the shambling pace of the choir in the west
+gallery.
+
+"Mark me," whispered Old Zeb Minards, crowder and leader of the
+musicians, sitting back at the end of the Psalms, and eyeing his fiddle
+dubiously; "If Sternhold be sober this morning, Hopkins be drunk as a
+fly, or 'tis t'other way round."
+
+"'Twas middlin' wambly," assented Calvin Oke, the second fiddle--a
+screw-faced man tightly wound about the throat with a yellow kerchief.
+
+"An' 'tis a delicate matter to cuss the singers when the musicianers be
+twice as bad."
+
+"I'd a very present sense of being a bar or more behind the fair--that I
+can honestly vow," put in Elias Sweetland, bending across from the left.
+Now Elias was a bachelor, and had blown the serpent from his youth up.
+He was a bald, thin man, with a high leathern stock, and shoulders that
+sloped remarkably.
+
+"Well, 'taint a suent engine at the best, Elias--that o' yourn," said
+his affable leader, "nor to be lightly trusted among the proper psa'ms,
+'specially since Chris'mas three year, when we sat in the forefront of
+the gallery, an' you dropped all but the mouthpiece overboard on to Aunt
+Belovely's bonnet at 'I was glad when they said unto me.'"
+
+"Aye, poor soul.  It shook her.  Never the same woman from that hour, I
+do b'lieve.  Though I'd as lief you didn't mention it, friends, if I may
+say so; for 'twas a bitter portion."
+
+Elias patted his instrument sadly, and the three men looked up for a
+moment, as a scud of rain splashed on the window, drowning a sentence of
+the First Lesson.
+
+"Well, well," resumed Old Zeb, "we all have our random intervals, and a
+drop o' cider in the mouthpieces is no less than Pa'son looks for,
+Chris'mas mornin's."
+
+"Trew, trew as proverbs."
+
+"Howsever, 'twas cruel bad, that last psa'm, I won't gainsay.  As for
+that long-legged boy o' mine, I keep silence, yea, even from hard words,
+considerin' what's to come.  But 'tis given to flutes to make a
+noticeable sound, whether tunable or false."
+
+"Terrible shy he looks, poor chap!"
+
+The three men turned and contemplated Young Zeb Minards, who sat on
+their left and fidgeted, crossing and uncrossing his legs.
+
+"How be feelin', my son?"
+
+"Very whitely, father; very whitely, an' yet very redly."
+
+Elias Sweetland, moved by sympathy, handed across a peppermint drop.
+
+"Hee-hee!" now broke in an octogenarian treble, that seemed to come from
+high up in the head of Uncle Issy, the bass-viol player; "But cast your
+eyes, good friends, 'pon a little slip o' heart's delight down in the
+nave, and mark the flowers 'pon the bonnet nid-nodding like bees in a
+bell, with unspeakable thoughts."
+
+"'Tis the world's way wi' females."
+
+"I'll wager, though, she wouldn't miss the importance of it--yea, not
+for much fine gold."
+
+"Well said, Uncle," commented the crowder, a trifle more loudly as the
+wind rose to a howl outside: "Lord, how this round world do spin!
+Simme 'twas last week I sat as may be in the corner yonder (I sang bass
+then), an' Pa'son Babbage by the desk statin' forth my own banns, an' me
+with my clean shirt collar limp as a flounder.  As for your mother, Zeb,
+nuthin 'ud do but she must dream o' runnin' water that Saturday night,
+an' want to cry off at the church porch because 'twas unlucky.
+'Nothin' shall injuce me, Zeb,' says she, and inside the half hour there
+she was glintin' fifty ways under her bonnet, to see how the rest o' the
+maidens was takin' it."
+
+"Hey," murmured Elias, the bachelor; "but it must daunt a man to hear
+his name loudly coupled wi' a woman's before a congregation o' folks."
+
+"'Tis very intimate," assented Old Zeb.  But here the First Lesson
+ended.  There was a scraping of feet, then a clearing of throats, and
+the musicians plunged into "_O, all ye works of the Lord_."
+
+Young Zeb, amid the moaning of the storm outside the building and the
+scraping and zooming of the instruments, string and reed, around him,
+felt his head spin; but whether from the lozenge (that had suffered from
+the companionship of a twist of tobacco in Elias Sweetland's pocket), or
+the dancing last night, or the turbulence of his present emotions, he
+could not determine.  Year in and year out, grey morning or white, a
+gloom rested always on the singers' gallery, cast by the tower upon the
+south side, that stood apart from the main building, connected only by
+the porch roof, as by an isthmus.  And upon eyes used to this
+comparative obscurity the nave produced the effect of a bright parterre
+of flowers, especially in those days when all the women wore scarlet
+cloaks, to scare the French if they should invade.  Zeb's gaze, amid the
+turmoil of sound, hovered around one such cloak, rested on a slim back
+resolutely turned to him, and a jealous bonnet, wandered to the bald
+scalp of Farmer Tresidder beside it, returned to Calvin Qke's sawing
+elbow and the long neck of Elias Sweetland bulging with the _fortissimo_
+of "O ye winds of God," then fluttered back to the red cloak.
+
+These vagaries were arrested by three words from the mouth of Old Zeb,
+screwed sideways over his fiddle.
+
+"Time--ye sawny!"
+
+Young Zeb started, puffed out his cheeks, and blew a shriller note.
+During the rest of the canticle his eyes were glued to the score, and
+seemed on the point of leaving their sockets with the vigour of the
+performance.
+
+"Sooner thee'st married the better for us, my son," commented his father
+at the close; "else farewell to psa'mody!"
+
+But Young Zeb did not reply.  In fact, what remained of the peppermint
+lozenge had somehow jolted into his windpipe, and kept him occupied with
+the earlier symptoms of strangulation.
+
+His facial contortions, though of the liveliest, were unaccompanied by
+sound, and, therefore, unheeded.  The crowder, with his eyes
+contemplatively fastened on the capital of a distant pillar, was
+pursuing a train of reflection upon Church music; and the others
+regarded the crowder.
+
+"Now supposin', friends, as I'd a-fashioned the wondrous words o' the
+ditty we've just polished off; an' supposin' a friend o' mine, same as
+Uncle Issy might he, had a-dropped in, in passin', an' heard me read the
+same.  'Hullo!' he'd 'a said, 'You've a-put the same words twice over.'
+'How's that?'  'How's that?  Why, here's _O ye Whales_ (pointin' wi' his
+finger), an' lo! again, _O ye Wells_.'  ''T'aint the same,' I'd ha'
+said.  'Well,' says Uncle Issy, ''tis _spoke_ so, anyways'--"
+
+"Crowder, you puff me up," murmured Uncle Issy, charmed with this
+imaginative and wholly flattering sketch.  "No--really now!  Though,
+indeed, strange words have gone abroad before now, touching my wisdom;
+but I blow no trumpet."
+
+"Such be your very words," the crowder insisted.  "Now mark my answer.
+'Uncle Issy,' says I, quick as thought, 'you dunderheaded old antic,--
+leave that to the musicianers.  At the word 'whales,' let the music go
+snorty; an' for wells, gliddery; an' likewise in a moving dulcet manner
+for the holy an' humble Men o' heart.'  Why, 'od rabbet us!--what's
+wrong wi' that boy?"
+
+All turned to Young Zeb, from whose throat uncomfortable sounds were
+issuing.  His eyes rolled piteously, and great tears ran down his
+cheeks.
+
+"Slap en 'pon the back, Calvin: he's chuckin'."
+
+"Ay--an' the pa'son at' here endeth!'"
+
+"Slap en, Calvin, quick!  For 'tis clunk or stuffle, an' no time to
+lose."
+
+Down in the nave a light rustle of expectancy was already running from
+pew to pew as Calvin Oke brought down his open palm with a _whack!_
+knocking the sufferer out of his seat, and driving his nose smartly
+against the back-rail in front.
+
+Then the voice of Parson Babbage was lifted: "I publish the Banns of
+marriage between Zebedee Minards, bachelor, and Ruby Tresidder,
+spinster, both of this parish.  If any of you know cause, or just
+impediment, why these two persons--"
+
+At this instant the church-door flew open, as if driven in by the wind
+that tore up the aisle in an icy current.  All heads were turned.
+Parson Babbage broke off his sentence and looked also, keeping his
+forefinger on the fluttering page.  On the threshold stood an excited,
+red-faced man, his long sandy beard blown straight out like a pennon,
+and his arms moving windmill fashion as he bawled--
+
+"A wreck! a wreck!"
+
+The men in the congregation leaped up.  The women uttered muffled cries,
+groped for their husbands' hats, and stood up also.  The choir in the
+gallery craned forward, for the church-door was right beneath them.
+Parson Babbage held up his hand, and screamed out over the hubbub--
+
+"Where's she _to?_"
+
+"Under Bradden Point, an' comin' full tilt for the Raney!"
+
+"Then God forgive all poor sinners aboard!" spoke up a woman's voice, in
+the moment's silence that followed.
+
+"Is that all you know, Gauger Hocken?"
+
+"Iss, iss: can't stop no longer--must be off to warn the Methodeys!
+'Stablished Church first, but fair play's a jewel, say I."
+
+He rushed off inland towards High Lanes, where the meeting-house stood.
+Parson Babbage closed the book without finishing his sentence, and his
+audience scrambled out over the graves and forth upon the headland.
+The wind here came howling across the short grass, blowing the women's
+skirts wide and straining their bonnet-strings, pressing the men's
+trousers tight against their shins as they bent against it in the
+attitude of butting rams and scanned the coast-line to the sou'-west.
+Ruby Tresidder, on gaining the porch, saw Young Zeb tumble out of the
+stairway leading from the gallery and run by, stowing the pieces of his
+flute in his pocket as he went, without a glance at her.  Like all the
+rest, he had clean forgotten the banns.
+
+Now, Ruby was but nineteen, and had seen plenty of wrecks, whereas these
+banns were to her an event of singular interest, for weeks anticipated
+with small thrills.  Therefore, as the people passed her by, she felt
+suddenly out of tune with them, especially with Zeb, who, at least,
+might have understood her better.  Some angry tears gathered in her eyes
+at the callous indifference of her father, who just now was revolving in
+the porch like a weathercock, and shouting orders east, west, north, and
+south for axes, hammers, ladders, cart-ropes, in case the vessel struck
+within reach.
+
+"You, Jim Lewarne, run to the mowhay, hot-foot, an' lend a hand wi' the
+datchin' ladder, an'--hi! stop!--fetch along my second-best glass, under
+the Dook o' Cumberland's picter i' the parlour, 'longside o' last year's
+neck; an'-hi! cuss the chap--he's gone like a Torpointer!  Ruby, my
+dear, step along an' show en--Why, hello!--"
+
+Ruby, with head down, and scarlet cloak blown out horizontally, was
+already fighting her way out along the headland to a point where Zeb
+stood, a little apart from the rest, with both palms shielding his eyes.
+
+"Zeb!"
+
+She had to stand on tip-toe and bawl this into his ear.  He faced round
+with a start, nodded as if pleased, and bent his gaze on the Channel
+again.
+
+Ruby looked too.  Just below, under veils of driving spray, the seas
+were thundering past the headland into Ruan Cove.  She could not see
+them break, only their backs swelling and sinking, and the puffs of foam
+that shot up like white smoke at her feet and drenched her gown.
+Beyond, the sea, the sky, and the irregular coast with its fringe of
+surf melted into one uniform grey, with just the summit of Bradden
+Point, two miles away, standing out above the wrack.  Of the vessel
+there was, as yet, no sign.
+
+In Ruby's present mood the bitter blast was chiefly blameworthy for
+gnawing at her face, and the spray for spoiling her bonnet and taking
+her hair out of curl.  She stamped her foot and screamed again--
+
+"Zeb!"
+
+"What is't, my dear?" he bawled back in her ear, kissing her wet cheek
+in a preoccupied manner.
+
+She was about to ask him what this wreck amounted to, that she should
+for the moment sink to nothing in comparison with it.  But, at this
+instant, a small group of men and women joined them, and, catching sight
+of the faces of Sarah Ann Nanjulian and Modesty Prowse, her friends, she
+tried another tack--
+
+"Well, Zeb, no doubt 'twas disappointing for you; but don't 'ee take on
+so.  Think how much harder 'tis for the poor souls i' that ship."
+
+This astute sentence, however, missed fire completely.  Zeb answered it
+with a point-blank stare of bewilderment.  The others took no notice of
+it whatever.
+
+"Hav'ee seen her, Zeb?" called out his father.
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor I nuther.  'Reckon 'tis all over a'ready.  I've a-heard afore
+now," he went on, turning his back to the wind the better to wink at the
+company, "that 'tis lucky for some folks Gauger Hocken hain't extra spry
+'pon his pins.  But 'tis a gift that cuts both ways.  Be any gone round
+by Cove Head to look out?"
+
+"Iss, a dozen or more.  I saw 'em 'pon the road, a minute back, like
+emmets runnin'."
+
+"'Twas very nice feelin', I must own--very nice indeed--of Gauger Hocken
+to warn the church-folk first; and him a man of no faith, as you may
+say.  Hey?  What's that?  Dost see her, Zeb?"
+
+For Zeb, with his right hand pressing down his cap, now suddenly flung
+his left out in the direction of Bradden Point.  Men and women craned
+forward.
+
+Below the distant promontory, a darker speck had started out of the
+medley of grey tones.  In a moment it had doubled its size--had become a
+blur--then a shape.  And at length, out of the leaden wrack, there
+emerged a small schooner, with tall, raking masts, flying straight
+towards them.
+
+"Dear God!" muttered some one, while Ruby dug her finger-tips into Zeb's
+arm.
+
+The schooner raced under bare poles, though a strip or two of canvas
+streamed out from her fore-yards.  Yet she came with a rush like a
+greyhound's, heeling over the whitened water, close under the cliffs,
+and closer with every instant.  A man, standing on any one of the points
+she cleared so narrowly, might have tossed a pebble on to her deck.
+
+"Hey, friends, but she'll not weather Gaffer's Rock.  By crum! if she
+does, they may drive her in 'pon the beach, yet!"
+
+"What's the use, i' this sea?  Besides, her steerin' gear's broke,"
+answered Zeb, without moving his eyes.
+
+This Gaffer's Rock was the extreme point of the opposite arm of the
+cove--a sharp tooth rising ten feet or more above high-water mark.
+As the little schooner came tearing abreast of it, a huge sea caught her
+broadside, and lifted as if to fling her high and dry.  The men and
+women on the headland held their breath while she hung on its apex.
+Then she toppled and plunged across the mouth of the cove, quivering.
+She must have shaved the point by a foot.
+
+"The Raney! the Raney!" shouted young Zeb, shaking off Ruby's clutch.
+"The Raney, or else--"
+
+He did not finish his sentence, for the stress of the flying seconds
+choked down his words.  Two possibilities they held, and each big with
+doom.  Either the schooner must dash upon the Raney--a reef, barely
+covered at high water, barring entrance to the cove--or avoiding this,
+must be shattered on the black wall of rock under their very feet.
+The end of the little vessel was written--all but one word: and that
+must be added within a short half-minute.
+
+Ruby saw this: it was plain for a child to read.  She saw the curded
+tide, now at half-flood, boiling around the Raney; she saw the little
+craft swoop down on it, half buried in the seas through which she was
+being impelled; she saw distinctly one form, and one only, on the deck
+beside the helm--a form that flung up its hands as it shot by the smooth
+edge of the reef, a hand's-breadth off destruction.  The hands were
+still lifted as it passed under the ledge where she stood.
+
+It seemed, as she stood there shivering, covering her eyes, an age
+before the crash came, and the cry of those human souls in their
+extremity.
+
+When at length she took her hands from her face the others were twenty
+yards away, and running fast.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+THE SECOND SHIP.
+
+Fate, which had freakishly hurled a ship's crew out of the void upon
+this particular bit of coast, as freakishly preserved them.
+
+The very excess of its fury worked this wonder.  For the craft came in
+on a tall billow that flung her, as a sling might, clean against the
+cliff's face, crumpling the bowsprit like paper, sending the foremast
+over with a crash, and driving a jagged tooth of rock five feet into her
+ribs beside the breastbone.  So, for a moment it left her, securely
+gripped and bumping her stern-post on the ledge beneath.  As the next
+sea deluged her, and the next, the folk above saw her crew fight their
+way forward up the slippery deck, under sheets of foam.  With the fifth
+or six wave her mizen-mast went; she split open amidships, pouring out
+her cargo.  The stern slipped off the ledge and plunged twenty fathoms
+down out of sight.  And now the fore-part alone remained--a piece of
+deck, the stump of the foremast, and five men clinging in a tangle of
+cordage, struggling up and toppling back as each successive sea soused
+over them.
+
+Three men had detached themselves from the group above the cliff, and
+were sidling down its face cautiously, for the hurricane now flattened
+them back against the rock, now tried to wrench them from it; and all
+the way it was a tough battle for breath.  The foremost was Jim Lewarne,
+Farmer Tresidder's hind, with a coil of the farmer's rope slung round
+him.  Young Zeb followed, and Elias Sweetland, both similarly laden.
+
+Less than half-way down the rock plunged abruptly, cutting off farther
+descent.
+
+Jim Lewarne, in a cloud of foam, stood up, slipped the coil over his
+head, and unwound it, glancing to right and left.  Now Jim amid ordinary
+events was an acknowledged fool, and had a wife to remind him of it; but
+perch him out of female criticism, on a dizzy foothold such as this, and
+set him a desperate job, and you clarified his wits at once.
+This eccentricity was so notorious that the two men above halted in
+silence, and waited.
+
+Jim glanced to right and left, spied a small pinnacle of rock about
+three yards away, fit for his purpose, sidled towards it, and, grasping,
+made sure that it was firm.  Next, reeving one end of the rope into a
+running noose, he flung it over the pinnacle, and with a tug had it
+taut.  This done, he tilted his body out, his toes on the ledge, his
+weight on the rope, and his body inclined forward over the sea at an
+angle of some twenty degrees from the cliff.
+
+Having by this device found the position of the wreck, and judging that
+his single rope would reach, he swung back, gained hold of the cliff
+with his left hand, and with his right caught and flung the leaded end
+far out.  It fell true as a bullet, across the wreck.  As it dropped, a
+sea almost swept it clear; but the lead hitched in a tangle of cordage
+by the port cathead; within twenty seconds the rope was caught and made
+fast below.
+
+All was now easy.  At a nod from Jim young Zeb passed down a second
+line, which was lowered along the first by a noose.  One by one the
+whole crew--four men and a cabin-boy--were hauled up out of death, borne
+off to the vicarage, and so pass out of our story.
+
+Their fate does not concern us, for this reason--men with a narrow
+horizon and no wings must accept all apparent disproportions between
+cause and effect.  A railway collision has other results besides
+wrecking an ant-hill, but the wise ants do not pursue these in the
+Insurance Reports.  So it only concerns us that the destruction of the
+schooner led in time to a lovers' difference between Ruby and young
+Zeb--two young people of no eminence outside of these pages.  And, as a
+matter of fact, her crew had less to do with this than her cargo.
+
+She had been expressly built by Messrs. Taggs & Co., a London firm, in
+reality as a privateer (which explains her raking masts), but ostensibly
+for the Portugal trade; and was homeward bound from Lisbon to the
+Thames, with a cargo of red wine and chestnuts.  At Falmouth, where she
+had run in for a couple of days, on account of a damaged rudder, the
+captain paid off his extra hands, foreseeing no difficulty in the voyage
+up Channel.  She had not, however, left Falmouth harbour three hours
+before she met with a gale that started her steering-gear afresh.
+To put back in the teeth of such weather was hopeless; and the attempt
+to run before it ended as we know.
+
+
+When Ruby looked up, after the crash, and saw her friends running along
+the headland to catch a glimpse of the wreck, her anger returned.
+She stood for twenty minutes at least, watching them; then, pulling her
+cloak closely round her, walked homewards at a snail's pace.  By the
+church gate she met the belated Methodists hurrying up, and passed a
+word or two of information that sent them panting on.  A little beyond,
+at the point where the peninsula joins the mainland, she faced round to
+the wind again for a last glance.  Three men were following her slowly
+down the ridge with a burden between them.  It was the first of the
+rescued crew--a lifeless figure wrapped in oil-skins, with one arm
+hanging limply down, as if broken.  Ruby halted, and gave time to come
+up.
+
+"Hey, lads," shouted Old Zeb, who walked first, with a hand round each
+of the figure's sea-boots; "now that's what I'd call a proper womanly
+masterpiece, to run home to Sheba an' change her stockings in time for
+the randivoose."
+
+"I don't understand," said his prospective daughter-in-law, haughtily.
+
+"O boundless depth!  Rest the poor mortal down, mates, while I take
+breath to humour her.  Why, my dear, you must know from my tellin' that
+there _hev_ a-been such a misfortunate goin's on as a wreck,
+hereabouts."
+
+He paused to shake the rain out of his hat and whiskers.  Ruby stole a
+look at the oil-skin.  The sailor's upturned face was of a sickly
+yellow, smeared with blood and crusted with salt.  The same white crust
+filled the hollows of his closed eyes, and streaked his beard and hair.
+It turned her faint for the moment.
+
+"An the wreck's scat abroad," continued Old Zeb; an' the interpretation
+thereof is barrels an' nuts.  What's more, tide'll be runnin' for two
+hour yet; an' it hasn' reached my ears that the fashion of thankin' the
+Lord for His bounty have a-perished out o' this old-fangled race of men
+an' women; though no doubt, my dear, you'd get first news o' the change,
+with a bed-room window facin' on Ruan Cove."
+
+"Thank you, Old Zeb; I'll be careful to draw my curtains," said she,
+answering sarcasm with scorn, and turning on her heel.
+
+The old man stooped to lift the sailor again.  "Better clog your pretty
+ears wi' wax," he called after her, "when the kiss-i'-the-ring begins!
+Well-a-fine!  What a teasin' armful is woman, afore the first-born
+comes!  Hey, Sim Udy?  Speak up, you that have fifteen to feed."
+
+"Ay, I was a low feller, first along," answered Sim Udy, grinning.
+"'Sich common notions, Sim, as you do entertain!' was my wife's word."
+
+"Well, souls, we was a bit tiddlywinky last Michaelmas, when the _Young
+Susannah_ came ashore, that I must own.  Folks blamed the Pa'son for
+preachin' agen it the Sunday after.  'A disreppitable scene,' says he,
+''specially seein' you had nowt to be thankful for but a cargo o' sugar
+that the sea melted afore you could get it.'  (Lift the pore chap aisy,
+Sim.)  By crum! Sim, I mind your huggin' a staved rum cask, and kissin'
+it, an' cryin', 'Aw, Ben--dear Ben!' an' 'After all these years!'
+fancyin' 'twas your twin brother come back, that was killed aboard the
+_Agamemny_--"
+
+"Well, well--prettily overtook I must ha' been.  (Stiddy, there,
+Crowder, wi' the legs of en.) But to-day I'll be mild, as 'tis
+Chris'mas."
+
+"Iss, iss; be very mild, my sons, as 'tis so holy a day."
+
+They tramped on, bending their heads at queer angles against the
+weather, that erased their outlines in a bluish mist, through which they
+loomed for a while at intervals, until they passed out of sight.
+
+Ruby, meanwhile, had hurried on, her cloak flapping loudly as it grew
+heavier with moisture, and the water in her shoes squishing at every
+step.  At first she took the road leading down-hill to Ruan Cove, but
+turned to the right after a few yards, and ran up the muddy lane that
+was the one approach to Sheba, her father's farm.
+
+The house, a square, two-storeyed building of greystone, roofed with
+heavy slates, was guarded in front by a small courtlage, the wall of
+which blocked all view from the lower rooms.  From the narrow mullioned
+windows on the upper floor, however, one could look over it upon the
+duck-pond across the road, and down across two grass meadows to the
+cove.  A white gate opened on the courtlage, and the path from this to
+the front door was marked out by slabs of blue slate, accurately laid in
+line.  Ruby, in her present bedraggled state, avoided the front
+entrance, and followed the wall round the house to the town-place,
+stopping on her way to look in at the kitchen window.
+
+"Mary Jane, if you call that a roast goose, I cull it a burning shame!"
+
+Mary Jane, peeling potatoes with her back to the window, and tossing
+them one by one into a bucket of water, gave a jump, and cut her finger,
+dropping forthwith a half-peeled magnum bonum, which struck the bucket's
+edge and slid away across the slate flooring under the table.
+
+"Awgh--awgh!" she burst out, catching up her apron and clutching it
+round the cut.  "Look what you've done, Miss Ruby! an' me miles away,
+thinkin' o' shipwrecks an' dead swollen men."
+
+"Look at the Chris'mas dinner, you mazed creature!"
+
+In truth, the goose was fast spoiling.  The roasting apparatus in this
+kitchen was a simple matter, consisting of a nail driven into the centre
+of the chimney-piece, a number of worsted threads depending therefrom,
+and a steel hook attached to these threads.  Fix the joint or fowl
+firmly on the hook, give it a spin with the hand, and the worsted
+threads wound, unwound, and wound again, turning it before the blaze--an
+admirable jack, if only looked after.  At present it hung motionless
+over the dripping-pan, and the goose wore a suit of motley, exhibiting a
+rich Vandyke brown to the fire, an unhealthy yellow to the window.
+
+"There now!" Mary Jane rushed to the jack and gave it a spin, while Ruby
+walked round by the back door, and appeared dripping on the threshold.
+"I declare 'tis like Troy Town this morning: wrecks and rumours o'
+wrecks.  Now 'tis 'Ropes! ropes!' an' nex' 'tis 'Where be the stable
+key, Mary Jane, my dear?' an' then agen, 'Will'ee be so good as to fetch
+master's second-best spy-glass, Mary Jane, an' look slippy?'--an' me wi'
+a goose to stuff, singe, an' roast, an' 'tatties to peel, an' greens to
+cleanse, an' apples to chop for sauce, an' the hoarders no nearer away
+than the granary loft, with a gatherin' 'pon your second toe an' the
+half o' 'em rotten when you get there.  The pore I be in!  Why, Miss
+Ruby, you'm streamin'-leakin'!"
+
+"I'm wet through, Mary Jane; an' I don't care if I die." Ruby sank on
+the settle, and fairly broke down.
+
+"Hush 'ee now, co!"
+
+"I don't, I don't, an' I don't! I'm tired o' the world, an' my heart's
+broke.  Mary Jane, you selfish thing, you've never asked about my banns,
+no more'n the rest; an' after that cast-off frock, too, that I gave you
+last week so good as new!"
+
+"Was it very grand, Miss Ruby?  Was it shuddery an' yet joyful--
+lily-white an' yet rosy-red--hot an' yet cold--'don't lift me so high,'
+an' yet 'praise God, I'm exalted above women'?"
+
+"'Twas all and yet none.  'Twas a voice speakin' my name, sweet an'
+terrible, an' I longed for it to go on an' on; and then came the Gauger
+stunnin' and shoutin' 'Wreck! wreck!' like a trumpet, an' the church was
+full o' wind, an' the folk ran this way an' that, like sheep, an' left
+me sittin' there.  I'll--I'll die an old maid, I will, if only to
+s--spite such ma--ma--manners!"
+
+"Aw, pore dear!  But there's better tricks than dyin' unwed.  Bind up my
+finger, Miss Ruby, an' listen.  You shall play Don't Care, an' change
+your frock, an' we'll step down to th' cove after dinner an' there be
+heartless and fancy-free.  Lord! when the dance strikes up, to see you
+carryin' off the other maids' danglers an' treating your own man like
+dirt!"
+
+Ruby stood up, the water still running off her frock upon the slates,
+her moist eyes resting beyond the window on the midden-heap across the
+yard, as if she saw there the picture Mary Jane conjured up.
+
+"No.  I won't join their low frolic; an' you ought to be above it.
+I'll pull my curtains an' sit up-stairs all day, an' you shall read to
+me."
+
+The other pulled a wry face.  This was not her idea of enjoyment.
+She went back to the goose sad at heart, for Miss Ruby had a knack of
+enforcing her wishes.
+
+Sure enough, soon after dinner was cleared away (a meal through which
+Ruby had sulked and Farmer Tresidder eaten heartily, talking with a full
+mouth about the rescue, and coarsely ignoring what he called his
+daughter's "faddles"), the two girls retired to the chamber up-stairs;
+where the mistress was as good as her word, and pulled the dimity
+curtains before settling herself down in an easy-chair to listen to
+extracts from a polite novel as rendered aloud, under dire compulsion,
+by Mary Jane.
+
+The rain had ceased by this, and the wind abated, though it still howled
+around the angle of the house and whipped a spray of the monthly-rose
+bush on the quarrels of the window, filling the pauses during which
+Mary Jane wrestled with a hard word. Ruby herself had taught the girl
+this accomplishment--rare enough at the time--and Mary Jane handled it
+gingerly, beginning each sentence in a whisper, as if awed by her own
+intrepidity, and ending each in a kind of gratulatory cheer. The work
+was of that class of epistolary fiction then in vogue, and the extract
+singularly well fitted to Ruby's mood.
+
+"My dearest Wil-hel-mina," began Mary Jane, "racked with a hun-dred
+conflicting em-otions, I resume the nar-rative of those fa-tal moments
+which rapt me from your affec-tion-ate em-brace. Suffer me to re--to
+re-cap--"
+
+"Better spell it, Mary Jane."
+
+"To r.e., re--c.a.p., cap, recap--i.t, it, re--capit--Lor'! what a
+twister!--u, recapitu--l.a.t.e, late, re-cap-it-u-late the events
+de-tailed in my last letter, full stop--there! if I han't read that full
+stop out loud!  Lord Bel-field, though an ad-ept in all the arts of
+dis-sim-u-la-tion (and how of-ten do we not see these arts al-lied with
+un-scru-pu-lous pas-sions?), was un-able to sus-tain the gaze of my
+in-fu-ri-a-ted pa-pa, though he com-port-ed himself with suf-fic-ient
+p.h.l.e.g.m--Lor'! what a funny word!"
+
+Ruby yawned.  It is true she had drawn the dimity curtains--all but a
+couple of inches.  Through this space she could see the folk busy on the
+beach below like a swarm of small black insects, and continually
+augmented by those who, having run off to snatch their Christmas dinner,
+were returning to the spoil.  Some lined the edge of the breakers,
+waiting the moment to rush in for a cask or spar that the tide brought
+within reach; others (among whom she seemed to descry Young Zeb) were
+clambering out with grapnels along the western rocks; a third large
+group was gathered in the very centre of the beach, and from the midst
+of these a blue wreath of smoke began to curl up.  At the same instant
+she heard the gate click outside, and pulling the curtain wider, saw her
+father trudging away down the lane.
+
+Mary Jane, glancing up, and seeing her mistress crane forward with
+curiosity, stole behind and peeped over her shoulder.
+
+"I declare they'm teening a fire!"
+
+"Who gave you leave to bawl in my ear so rudely?  Go back to your
+reading, this instant."  (A pause.)  "Mary Jane, I do believe they'm
+roastin' chestnuts."
+
+"What a clever game!"
+
+"Father said at dinner the tide was bringin' 'em in by bushels.
+Quick! put on your worst bonnet an' clogs, an' run down to look.
+I _must_ know.  No, I'm not goin'--the idea!  I wonder at your low
+notions.  You shall bring me word o' what's doin'--an' mind you're back
+before dark."
+
+Mary Jane fled precipitately, lest the order should be revoked.
+Five minutes later, Ruby heard the small gate click again, and with a
+sigh saw the girl's rotund figure waddling down the lane.  Then she
+picked up the book and strove to bury herself in the woes of Wilhelmina,
+but still with frequent glances out of window.  Twice the book dropped
+off her lap; twice she picked it up and laboriously found the page
+again.  Then she gave it up, and descended to the back door, to see if
+anyone were about who might give her news.  But the town-place was
+deserted by all save the ducks, the old white sow, and a melancholy crew
+of cocks and hens huddled under the dripping eaves of the cow-house.
+Returning to her room, she settled down on the window-seat, and watched
+the blaze of the bonfire increase as the short day faded.
+
+The grey became black.  It was six o'clock, and neither her father nor
+Mary Jane had returned.  Seven o'clock struck from the tall clock in the
+kitchen, and was echoed ten minutes after by the Dutch clock in the
+parlour below.  The sound whirred up through the planching twice as loud
+as usual.  It was shameful to be left alone like this, to be robbed,
+murdered, goodness knew what.  The bonfire began to die out, but every
+now and then a circle of small black figures would join hands and dance
+round it, scattering wildly after a moment or two.  In a lull of the
+wind she caught the faint sound of shouts and singing, and this
+determined her.
+
+She turned back from the window and groped for her tinder-box.
+The glow, as she blew the spark upon the dry rag, lit up a very pretty
+but tear-stained pair of cheeks; and when she touched off the brimstone
+match, and, looking up, saw her face confronting her, blue and tragical,
+from the dark-framed mirror, it reminded her of Lady Macbeth.
+Hastily lighting the candle, she caught up a shawl and crept
+down-stairs.  Her clogs were in the hall; and four horn lanterns dangled
+from a row of pegs above them.  She caught down one, lit it, and
+throwing the shawl over her head, stepped out into the night.
+
+The wind was dying down and seemed almost warm upon her face.  A young
+moon fought gallantly, giving the massed clouds just enough light to
+sail by; but in the lane it was dark as pitch.  This did not so much
+matter, as the rain had poured down it like a sluice, washing the flints
+clean.  Ruby's lantern swung to and fro, casting a yellow glare on the
+tall hedges, drawing queer gleams from the holly-bushes, and flinging an
+ugly, amorphous shadow behind, that dogged her like an enemy.
+
+At the foot of the lane she could clearly distinguish the songs, shouts,
+and shrill laughter, above the hollow roar of the breakers.
+
+"They're playin' kiss-i'-the-ring.  That's Modesty Prowse's laugh.
+I wonder how any man _can_ kiss a mouth like Modesty Prowse's!"
+
+She turned down the sands towards the bonfire, grasping as she went all
+the details of the scene.
+
+In the glow of the dying fire sat a semicircle of men--Jim Lewarne, sunk
+in a drunken slumber, Calvin Oke bawling in his ear, Old Zeb on hands
+and knees, scraping the embers together, Toby Lewarne (Jim's elder
+brother) thumping a pannikin on his knee and bellowing a carol, and a
+dozen others--in stages varying from qualified sobriety to stark and
+shameless intoxication--peering across the fire at the game in progress
+between them and the faint line that marked where sand ended and sea
+began.
+
+"Zeb's turn!" roared out Toby Lewarne, breaking off _The Third Good Joy_
+midway, in his excitement.
+
+"Have a care--have a care, my son!"  Old Zeb looked up to shout.
+"Thee'rt so good as wed already; so do thy wedded man's duty, an' kiss
+th' hugliest!"
+
+It was true.  Ruby, halting with her lantern a pace or two behind the
+dark semicircle of backs, saw her perfidious Zeb moving from right to
+left slowly round the circle of men and maids that, with joined hands
+and screams of laughter, danced as slowly in the other direction.
+She saw him pause once--twice, feign to throw the kerchief over one,
+then still pass on, calling out over the racket:--
+
+   "I sent a letter to my love,
+   I carried water in my glove,
+   An' on the way I dropped it--dropped it--dropped it--"
+
+He dropped the kerchief over Modesty Prowse.
+
+"Zeb!"
+
+Young Zeb whipped the kerchief off Modesty's neck, and spun round as it
+shot.
+
+The dancers looked; the few sober men by the fire turned and looked
+also.
+
+"'Tis Ruby Tresidder!" cried one of the girls; "'Wudn' be i' thy shoon,
+Young Zeb, for summatt."
+
+Zeb shook his wits together and dashed off towards the spot, twenty
+yards away, where Ruby stood holding the lantern high, its ray full on
+her face.  As she started she kicked off her clogs, turned, and ran for
+her life.
+
+Then, in an instant, a new game began upon the sands.  Young Zeb, waving
+his kerchief and pursuing the flying lantern, was turned, baffled,
+intercepted--here, there, and everywhere--by the dancers, who scattered
+over the beach with shouts and peals of laughter, slipping in between
+him and his quarry.  The elders by the fire held their sides and cheered
+the sport.  Twice Zeb was tripped up by a mischievous boot, floundered
+and went sprawling; and the roar was loud and long.  Twice he picked
+himself up and started again after the lantern, that zigzagged now along
+the fringe of the waves, now up towards the bonfire, now off along the
+dark shadow of the cliffs.
+
+Ruby could hardly sift her emotions when she found herself panting and
+doubling in flight.  The chase had started without her will or dissent;
+had suddenly sprung, as it were, out of the ground.  She only knew that
+she was very angry with Zeb; that she longed desperately to elude him;
+and that he must catch her soon, for her breath and strength were
+ebbing.
+
+What happened in the end she kept in her dreams till she died.
+Somehow she had dropped the lantern and was running up from the sea
+towards the fire, with Zeb's feet pounding behind her, and her soul
+possessed with the dread to feel his grasp upon her shoulders.
+As it fell, Old Zeb leapt up to his feet with excitement, and opened his
+mouth wide to cheer.
+
+But no voice came for three seconds: and when he spoke this was what he
+said--
+
+"Good Lord, deliver us!"
+
+She saw his gaze pass over her shoulder; and then heard these words come
+slowly, one by one, like dropping stones.  His face was like a ghost's
+in the bonfire's light, and he muttered again--"From battle and murder,
+and from sudden death--Good Lord, deliver us!"
+
+She could not understand at first; thought it must have something to do
+with Young Zeb, whose arms were binding hers, and whose breath was hot
+on her neck.  She felt his grasp relax, and faced about.
+
+Full in front, standing out as the faint moon showed them, motionless,
+as if suspended against the black sky, rose the masts, yards, and
+square-sails of a full-rigged ship.
+
+
+The men and women must have stood a whole minute--dumb as stones--before
+there came that long curdling shriek for which they waited.  The great
+masts quivered for a second against the darkness; then heaved, lurched,
+and reeled down, crashing on the Raney.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+THE STRANGER.
+
+As the ship struck, night closed down again, and her agony, sharp or
+lingering, was blotted out.  There was no help possible; no arm that
+could throw across the three hundred yards that separated her from the
+cliffs; no swimmer that could carry a rope across those breakers; nor
+any boat that could, with a chance of life, put out among them.  Now and
+then a dull crash divided the dark hours, but no human cry again reached
+the shore.
+
+Day broke on a grey sea still running angrily, a tired and shivering
+group upon the beach, and on the near side of the Raney a shapeless
+fragment, pounded and washed to and fro--a relic on which the watchers
+could in their minds re-build the tragedy.
+
+The Raney presents a sheer edge to seaward--an edge under which the
+first vessel, though almost grazing her side, had driven in plenty of
+water.  Shorewards, however, it descends by gradual ledges.
+Beguiled by the bonfire, or mistaking Ruby's lantern for the tossing
+stern-light of a comrade, the second ship had charged full-tilt on the
+reef and hung herself upon it, as a hunter across a fence.  Before she
+could swing round, her back was broken; her stern parted, slipped back
+and settled in many fathoms; while the fore-part heaved forwards,
+toppled down the reef till it stuck, and there was slowly brayed into
+pieces by the seas.  The tide had swept up and ebbed without dislodging
+it, and now was almost at low-water mark.
+
+"'May so well go home to breakfast," said Elias Sweetland, grimly, as he
+took in what the uncertain light could show.
+
+"Here, Young Zeb, look through my glass," sang out Farmer Tresidder,
+handing the telescope.  He had been up at the vicarage drinking hot grog
+with the parson and the rescued men, when Sim Udy ran up with news of
+the fresh disaster; and his first business on descending to the Cove had
+been to pack Ruby and Mary Jane off to bed with a sound rating.  Parson
+Babbage had descended also, carrying a heavy cane (the very same with
+which he broke the head of a Radical agitator in the bar of the "Jolly
+Pilchards," to the mild scandal of the diocese), and had routed the rest
+of the women and chastised the drunken.  The parson was a remarkable
+man, and looked it, just now, in spite of the red  handkerchief that
+bound his hat down over his ears.
+
+"Nothing alive there--eh?"
+
+Young Zeb, with a glass at his left eye, answered--
+
+"Nothin' left but a frame o' ribs, sir, an' the foremast hangin' over,
+so far as I can see; but 'tis all a raffle o' spars and riggin' close
+under her side.  I'll tell 'ee better when this wave goes by."
+
+But the next instant he took down the glass, with a whitened face, and
+handed it to the parson.
+
+The parson looked too.  "Terrible!--terrible!" he said, very slowly,
+and passed it on to Farmer Tresidder.
+
+"What is it?  Where be I to look?  Aw, pore chaps--pore chaps!
+Man alive--but there's one movin'!"
+
+Zeb snatched the glass.
+
+"'Pon the riggin', Zeb, just under her lee!  I saw en move--
+a black-headed chap, in a red shirt--"
+
+"Right, Farmer--he's clingin', too, not lashed." Zeb gave a long look.
+"Darned if I won't!" he said.  "Cast over them corks, Sim Udy!  How much
+rope have 'ee got, Jim?"  He began to strip as he spoke.
+
+"Lashins," answered Jim Lewarne.
+
+"Splice it up, then, an' hitch a dozen corks along it."
+
+"Zeb, Zeb!" cried his father, "What be 'bout?"
+
+"Swimmin'," answered Zeb, who by this time had unlaced his boots.
+
+"The notion!  Look here, friends--take a look at the bufflehead!
+Not three months back his mother's brother goes dead an' leaves en a
+legacy, 'pon which, he sets up as jowter--han'some painted cart, tidy
+little mare, an' all complete, besides a bravish sum laid by.  A man of
+substance, sirs--a life o' much price, as you may say.  Aw, Zeb, my son,
+'tis hard to lose 'ee, but 'tis harder still now you're in such a very
+fair way o' business!"
+
+"Hold thy clack, father, an' tie thicky knot, so's it won't slip."
+
+"Shan't.  I've a-took boundless pains wi' thee, my son, from thy birth
+up: hours I've a-spent curin' thy propensities wi' the strap--ay, hours.
+D'ee think I raised 'ee up so carefully to chuck thyself away 'pon a
+come-by-chance furriner?  No, I didn'; an' I'll see thee jiggered afore
+I ties 'ee up.  Pa'son Babbage--"
+
+"Ye dundering old shammick!" broke in the parson, driving the ferule of
+his cane deep in the sand, "be content to have begotten a fool, and
+thank heaven and his mother he's a gamey fool."
+
+"Thank'ee, Pa'son," said Young Zeb, turning his head as Jim Lewarne
+fastened the belt of corks under his armpits.  "Now the line--not too
+tight round the waist, an' pay out steady.  You, Jim, look to this.
+R-r-r--mortal cold water, friends!"  He stood for a moment, clenching
+his teeth--a fine figure of a youth for all to see.  Then, shouting for
+plenty of line, he ran twenty yards down the beach and leapt in on the
+top of a tumbling breaker.
+
+"When a man's old," muttered the parson, half to himself, "he may yet
+thank God for what he sees, sometimes.  Hey, Farmer!  I wish I was a
+married man and had a girl good enough for that naked young hero."
+
+"Ruby an' he'll make a han'some pair."
+
+"Ay, I dare say: only I wasn't thinking o' _her_.  How's the fellow out
+yonder?"
+
+The man on the wreck was still clinging, drenched twice or thrice in the
+half-minute and hidden from sight, but always emerging.  He sat astride
+of the dangling foremast, and had wound tightly round his wrist the end
+of a rope that hung over the bows.  If the rope gave, or the mast worked
+clear of the tangle that held it and floated off, he was a dead man.
+He hardly fought at all, and though they shouted at the top of their
+lungs, seemed to take no notice--only moved feebly, once or twice, to
+get a firmer seat.
+
+Zeb also could only be descried at intervals, his head appearing, now
+and again, like a cork on the top of a billow.  But the last of the ebb
+was helping him, and Jim Lewarne, himself at times neck-high in the
+surf, continued to pay out the line slowly.  In fact, the feat was less
+dangerous than it seemed to the spectators.  A few hours before, it was
+impossible; but by this there was little more than a heavy swell after
+the first twenty yards of surf.  Zeb's chief difficulty would be to
+catch a grip or footing on the reef where the sea again grew broken, and
+his foremost dread lest cramp should seize him in the bitterly cold
+water.  Rising on the swell, he could spy the seaman tossing and sinking
+on the mast just ahead.
+
+As it happened, he was spared the main peril of the reef, for in fifty
+more strokes he found himself plunging down into a smooth trough of
+water with the mast directly beneath.  As he shot down, the mast rose to
+him, he flung his arms out over it, and was swept up, clutching it, to
+the summit of the next swell.
+
+Oddly enough, his first thought, as he hung there, was not for the man
+he had come to save, but for that which had turned him pale when first
+he glanced through the telescope.  The foremast across which he lay was
+complete almost to the royal-mast, though the yards were gone; and to
+his left, just above the battered fore-top, five men were lashed, dead
+and drowned.  Most of them had their eyes wide open, and seemed to stare
+at Zeb and wriggle about in the stir of the sea as if they lived.
+Spent and wretched as he was, it lifted his hair.  He almost called out
+to them at first, and then he dragged his gaze off them, and turned it
+to the right.  The survivor still clung here, and Zeb--who had been
+vaguely wondering how on earth he contrived to keep his seat and yet
+hold on by the rope without being torn limb from limb--now discovered
+this end of the mast to be so tightly jammed and tangled against the
+wreck as practically to be immovable.  The man's face was about as
+scaring as the corpses'; for, catching sight of Zeb, he betrayed no
+surprise, but only looked back wistfully over his left shoulder, while
+his blue lips worked without sound.  At least, Zeb heard none.
+
+He waited while they plunged again and emerged, and then, drawing
+breath, began to pull himself along towards the stranger.  They had seen
+his success from the beach, and Jim Lewarne, with plenty of line yet to
+spare, waited for the next move.  Zeb worked along till he could touch
+the man's thigh.
+
+"Keep your knee stiddy," he called out; "I'm goin' to grip hold o't."
+
+For answer, the stranger only kicked out with his foot, as a pettish
+child might, and almost thrust him from his hold.
+
+"Look'ee here: no doubt you'm 'mazed, but that's a curst foolish trick,
+all the same.  Be that tangle fast, you'm holding by?"
+
+The man made no sign of comprehension.
+
+"Best not trust to't, I reckon," muttered Zeb: "must get past en an'
+make fast round a rib.  Ah! would 'ee, ye varment?"
+
+For, once more, the stranger had tried to thrust him off; and a struggle
+followed, which ended in Zeb's getting by and gripping the mast again
+between him and the wreck.
+
+"Now list to me," he shouted, pulling himself up and flinging a leg over
+the mast: "ingratitood's worse than witchcraft.  Sit ye there an'
+inwardly digest that sayin', while I saves your life."
+
+He untied the line about his waist, then, watching his chance, snatched
+the rope out of the other's hand, threw his weight upon it, and swung in
+towards the vessel's ribs till he touched one, caught, and passed the
+line around it, high up, with a quick double half-hitch.  Running a hand
+down the line, he dropped back upon the mast.  The stranger regarded him
+with a curious stare, and at last found his voice.
+
+"You seem powerfully set on saving me."
+
+His teeth chattered as he spoke, and his face was pinched and
+hollow-eyed from cold and exposure.  But he was handsome, for all that--
+a fellow not much older than Zeb, lean and strongly made.  His voice had
+a cultivated ring.
+
+"Yes," answered Zeb, as, with one hand on the line that now connected
+the wreck with the shore, he sat down astride the mast facing him; "I
+reckon I'll do't."
+
+"Unlucky, isn't it?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"To save a man from drowning."
+
+"Maybe.  Untie these corks from my chest, and let me slip 'em round
+yourn.  How your fingers do shake, to be sure!"
+
+"I call you to witness," said the other, with a shiver, "you are saving
+me on your own responsibility."
+
+"Can 'ee swim?"
+
+"I could yesterday."
+
+"Then you can now, wi' a belt o' corks an' me to help.  Keep a hand on
+the line an' pull yoursel' along.  Tide's runnin' again by now.
+When you'm tired, hold fast by the rope an' sing out to me.  Stop; let
+me chafe your legs a bit, for how you've lasted out as you have is more
+than I know."
+
+"I was on the foretop most of the night.  Those fools--" he broke off to
+nod at the corpses.
+
+"They'm dead," put in Zeb, curtly.
+
+"They lashed themselves, thinking the foremast would stand till
+daylight.  I climbed down half an hour before it went.  I tell you
+what, though; my legs are too cramped to move.  If you want to save me
+you must carry me."
+
+"I was thinkin' the same.  Well, come along; for tho' I don't like the
+cut o' your jib, you'm a terrible handsome chap, and as clean-built as
+ever I see.  Now then, one arm round my neck and t'other on the line,
+but don't bear too hard on it, for I doubt 'tis weakish.  Bless the
+Lord, the tide's running."
+
+So they began their journey.  Zeb had taken barely a dozen strokes when
+the other groaned and began to hang more heavily on his neck.  But he
+fought on, though very soon the struggle became a blind and horrible
+nightmare to him.  The arm seemed to creep round his throat and strangle
+him, and the blackness of a great night came down over his eyes.
+Still he struck out, and, oddly enough, found himself calling to his
+comrade to hold tight.
+
+When Sim Udy and Elias Sweetland dashed in from the shore and swam to
+the rescue, they found the pair clinging to the line, and at a
+standstill.  And when the four were helped through the breakers to firm
+earth, Zeb tottered two steps forward and dropped in a swoon, burying
+his face in the sand.
+
+"He's not as strong as I," muttered the stranger, staring at Parson
+Babbage in a dazed, uncertain fashion, and uttering the words as if they
+had no connection with his thoughts.  "I'm afraid--sir--I've broken--his
+heart."
+
+And with that he, too, fainted, into the Parson's arms.
+
+"Better carry the both up to Sheba," said Farmer Tresidder.
+
+
+Ruby lay still abed when Mary Jane, who had been moving about the
+kitchen, sleepy-eyed, getting ready the breakfast, dashed up-stairs with
+the news that two dead men had been taken off the wreck and were even
+now being brought into the yard.
+
+"You coarse girl," she exclaimed, "to frighten me with such horrors!"
+
+"Oh, very well," answered Mary Jane, who was in a rebellious mood,
+"then I'm goin' down to peep; for there's a kind o'
+what-I-can't-tell-'ee about dead men that's very enticin', tho' it do
+make you feel all-overish."
+
+By and by she came back panting, to find Ruby already dressed.
+
+"Aw, Miss Ruby, dreadful news I ha' to tell, tho' joyous in a way.
+Would 'ee mind catchin' hold o' the bed-post to give yoursel' fortitude?
+Now let me cast about how to break it softly.  First, then, you must
+know he's not dead at all--"
+
+"Who is not?"
+
+"Your allotted husband, miss--Mister Zeb."
+
+"Why, who in the world said he was?"
+
+"But they took en up for dead, miss--for he'd a-swum out to the wreck,
+an' then he'd a-swum back with a man 'pon his back--an' touchin' shore,
+he fell downward in a swound, marvellous like to death for all to
+behold.  So they brought en up here, 'long wi' the chap he'd a-saved,
+an' dressed en i' the spare room blankets, an' gave en clane sperrits to
+drink, an' lo! he came to; an' in a minnit, lo! agen he went off; an'--"
+
+Ruby, by this time, was half-way down the stairs.  Running to the
+kitchen door she flung it open, calling "Zeb! Zeb!"
+
+But Young Zeb had fainted for the third time, and while others of the
+group merely lifted their heads at her entrance, the old crowder strode
+towards her with some amount of sternness on his face.
+
+"Kape off my son!" he shouted.  "Kape off my son Zebedee, and go
+up-stairs agen to your prayers; for this be all your work, in a way--you
+gay good-for-nuthin'!"
+
+"Indeed, Mr. Minards," retorted Ruby, firing up under this extravagant
+charge and bridling, "pray remember whose roof you're under, with your
+low language."
+
+"Begad," interposed a strange voice, "but that's the spirit for me, and
+the mouth to utter it!"
+
+Ruby, turning, met a pair of luminous eyes gazing on her with bold
+admiration.  The eyes were set in a cadaverous, but handsome, face; and
+the face belonged to the stranger, who had recovered of his swoon, and
+was now stretched on the settle beside the fire.
+
+"I don't know who you may be, sir, but--"
+
+"You are kind enough to excuse my rising to introduce myself.
+My name is Zebedee Minards."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+YOUNG ZEB FETCHES A CHEST OF DRAWERS.
+
+The parish of Ruan Lanihale is bounded on the west by Porthlooe, a
+fishing town of fifteen hundred inhabitants or less, that blocks the
+seaward exit of a narrow coombe.  A little stream tumbles down this
+coombe towards the "Hauen," divides the folk into parishioners of
+Lanihale and Landaviddy, and receives impartially the fish offal of
+both.  There is a good deal of this offal, especially during pilchard
+time, and the towns-folk live on their first storeys, using the lower
+floors as fish cellars, or "pallaces."  But even while the nose most
+abhors, the eye is delighted by jumbled houses, crazy stairways leading
+to green doors, a group of children dabbling in the mud at low tide, a
+congregation of white gulls, a line of fishing boats below the quay
+where the men lounge and whistle and the barked nets hang to dry, and,
+beyond all, the shorn outline of two cliffs with a wedge of sea and sky
+between.
+
+Mr. Zebedee Minards the elder dwelt on the eastern or Lanihale side of
+the stream, and a good way back from the Hauen, beside the road that
+winds inland up the coombe.  Twenty yards of garden divided his cottage
+door from the road, and prevented the inmates from breaking their necks
+as they stepped over its threshold.  Even as it was, Old Zeb had
+acquired a habit of singing out "Ware heads!" to the wayfarers whenever
+he chanced to drop a rotund object on his estate; and if any small
+article were missing indoors, would descend at once to the highway with
+the cheerful assurance, based on repeated success, of finding it
+somewhere below.
+
+Over and above its recurrent crop of potatoes and flatpoll cabbages,
+this precipitous garden depended for permanent interest on a collection
+of marine curiosities, all eloquent of disaster to shipping.  To begin
+with, a colossal and highly varnished Cherokee, once the figure-head of
+a West Indiaman, stood sentry by the gate and hung forward over the
+road, to the discomfiture of unwarned and absent-minded bagmen.  The
+path to the door was guarded by a low fence of split-bamboo baskets that
+had once contained sugar from Batavia; a coffee bag from the wreck of a
+Dutch barque served for door-mat; a rum-cask with a history caught
+rain-water from the eaves; and a lapdog's pagoda--a dainty affair,
+striped in scarlet and yellow, the jetsom of some passenger ship--had
+been deftly adapted by Old Zeb, and stood in line with three straw
+bee-skips under the eastern wall.
+
+The next day but one after Christmas dawned deliciously in Porthlooe,
+bright with virginal sunshine, and made tender by the breath of the Gulf
+Stream.  Uncle Issy, passing up the road at nine o'clock, halted by the
+Cherokee to pass a word with its proprietor, who presented the very
+antipodes of a bird's-eye view, as he knocked about the crumbling clods
+with his visgy at the top of the slope.
+
+"Mornin', Old Zeb; how be 'ee, this dellicate day?"
+
+"Brave, thankee, Uncle."
+
+"An' how's Coden Rachel?"
+
+"She's charmin', thankee."
+
+"Comely weather, comely weather; the gulls be comin' back down the
+coombe, I see."
+
+"I be jealous about its lastin'; for 'tis over-rathe for the time o'
+year.  Terrible topsy-turvy the seasons begin to run, in my old age.
+Here's May in Janewarry; an' 'gainst May, comes th' east wind breakin'
+the ships o' Tarshish."
+
+"Now, what an instructive chap you be to convarse with, I do declare!
+Darned if I didn' stand here two minnits, gazin' up at the seat o' your
+small-clothes, tryin' to think 'pon what I wanted to say; for I'd a
+notion that I wanted to speak, cruel bad, but cudn' lay hand on't.
+So at last I takes heart an' says 'Mornin', I says, beginnin' i' that
+very common way an' hopin' 'twould come.  An' round you whips wi'
+'ships o' Tarshish' pon your tongue; an' henceforth 'tis all Q's an'
+A's, like a cattykism."
+
+"Well, now you say so, I _did_ notice, when I turned round, that you was
+lookin' no better than a fool, so to speak.  But what's the notion?"
+
+"'Tis a question I've a-been daggin' to ax'ee ever since it woke me up
+in the night to spekilate thereon.  For I felt it very curious there
+shud he three Zebedee Minardses i' this parish a-drawin' separate breath
+at the same time."
+
+"Iss, 'tis an out-o'-the-way fact."
+
+"A stirrin' age, when such things befall! If you'd a-told me, a week
+agone, that I should live to see the like, I'd ha' called 'ee a liar;
+an' yet here I be a-talkin' away, an' there you be a-listening an' here
+be the old world a-spinnin' us round as in bygone times--"
+
+"Iss, iss--but what's the question?"
+
+"--All the same when that furriner chap looks up in Tresidder's kitchen
+an' says 'My name is Zebedee Minards,' you might ha' blown me down wi' a
+puff; an' says I to mysel', wakin' up last night an' thinkin'--'I'll ax
+a question of Old Zeb when I sees en, blest if I don't.'"
+
+"Then why in thunder don't 'ee make haste an' do it?"
+
+Uncle Issy, after revolving the question for another fifteen seconds,
+produced it in this attractive form--
+
+"Old Zeb, bein' called Zeb, why did 'ee call Young Zeb, Zeb?"
+
+Old Zeb ceased to knock the clods about, descended the path, and leaning
+on his visgy began to contemplate the opposite slope of the coombe, as
+if the answer were written, in letters hard to decipher, along the
+hill-side.
+
+"Well, now," he began, after opening his mouth twice and shutting it
+without sound, "folks may say what they like o' your wits, Uncle, an'
+talk o' your looks bein' against 'ee, as they do; but you've a-put a
+twister, this time, an' no mistake."
+
+"I reckoned it a banger," said the old man, complacently.
+
+"Iss.  But I had my reasons all the same."
+
+"To be sure you had.  But rabbet me it I can guess what they were."
+
+"I'll tell 'ee.  You see when Zeb was born, an' the time runnin' on for
+his christ'nin', Rachel an' me puzzled for days what to call en.
+At last I said, 'Look 'ere, I tell 'ee what: you shut your eyes an' open
+the Bible, anyhow, an' I'll shut mine an' take a dive wi' my finger, an'
+we'll call en by the nearest name I hits on.'  So we did.  When we tuk
+en to church, tho', there was a pretty shape.  'Name this cheeld,' says
+Pa'son Babbage.  'Selah,' says I, that bein' the word we'd settled.
+'Selah?' says he: 'pack o' stuff! that ain't no manner o' name.  You
+might so well call en Amen.'  So bein' hurried in mind, what wi' the
+cheeld kickin', an' the water tricklin' off the pa'son's forefinger, an'
+the sacred natur' of the deed, I cudn' think 'pon no name but my own;
+an' Zeb he was christened."
+
+"Deary me," commented Uncle Issy, "that's a very life-like history.
+The wonder is, the self-same fix don't happen at more christ'nin's, 'tis
+so very life-like."
+
+A silence followed, full of thought.  It was cut short by the rattle of
+wheels coming down the road, and Young Zeb's grey mare hove in sight,
+with Young Zeb's green cart, and Young Zeb himself standing up in it,
+wide-legged.  He wore a colour as fresh as on Christmas morning, and
+seemed none the worse for his adventure.
+
+"Hello!" he called, pulling up the mare; "'mornin', Uncle Issy--
+'mornin', father."
+
+"Same to you, my son.  Whither away?--as the man said once."
+
+"Aye, whither away?" chimed Uncle Issy; "for the pilchards be all gone
+up Channel these two months."
+
+"To Liskeard, for a chest-o'-drawers."  Young Zeb, to be ready for
+married life, had taken a house for himself--a neat cottage with a yard
+and stable, farther up the coombe.  But stress of business had
+interfered with the furnishing until quite lately.
+
+"Rate meogginy, I suppose, as befits a proud tradesman."
+
+"No: painted, but wi' the twiddles put in so artfully you'd think 'twas
+rale.  So, as 'tis a fine day, I'm drivin' in to Mister Pennyway's shop
+o' purpose to fetch it afore it be snapped up, for 'tis a captivatin'
+article.  I'll be back by six, tho', i' time to get into my clothes an'
+grease my hair for the courant, up to Sheba."
+
+"Zeb," said his father, abruptly, "'tis a grand match you'm makin', an'
+you may call me a nincom, but I wish ye wasn'."
+
+"'Tis lookin' high," put in Uncle Issy.
+
+"A cat may look at a king, if he's got his eyes about en," Old Zeb went
+on, "let alone a legacy an' a green cart.  'Tain't that: 'tis the
+maid."
+
+"How's mother?" asked the young man, to shift the conversation.
+
+"Hugly, my son.  Hi! Rachel!" he shouted, turning his head towards the
+cottage; and then went on, dropping his voice, "As between naybours,
+I'm fain to say she don't shine this mornin'.  Hi, mother! here's
+Zebedee waitin' to pay his respects."
+
+Mrs. Minards appeared on the cottage threshold, with a blue check duster
+round her head--a tall, angular woman, of severe deportment.
+Her husband's bulletin, it is fair to say, had reference rather to her
+temper than to her personal attractions.
+
+"Be the Frenchmen landed?" she inquired, sharply.
+
+"Why, no; nor yet likely to."
+
+"Then why be I called out i' the midst o' my clanin'?  What came I out
+for to see?  Was it to pass the time o' day wi' an aged
+shaken-by-the-wind kind o' loiterer they name Uncle Issy?"
+
+Apparently it was not, for Uncle Issy by this time was twenty yards up
+the road, and still fleeing, with his head bent and shoulders
+extravagantly arched, as if under a smart shower.
+
+"I thought I'd like to see you, mother," said Young Zeb.
+
+"Well, now you've done it."
+
+"Best be goin', I reckon, my son," whispered Old Zeb.
+
+"I be much the same to look at," announced the voice above, "as afore
+your legacy came.  'Tis only up to Sheba that faces ha' grown kindlier."
+
+Young Zeb touched up his mare a trifle savagely.
+
+"Well, so long, my son!  See 'ee up to Sheba this evenin', if all's
+well."
+
+The old man turned back to his work, while Young Zeb rattled on in an
+ill humour.  He had the prettiest sweetheart and the richest in
+Lanihale parish, and nobody said a good word for her.  He tried to think
+of her as a wronged angel, and grew angry with himself on finding the
+effort hard to sustain.  Moreover, he felt uneasy about the stranger.
+Fate must be intending mischief, he fancied, when it led him to rescue a
+man who so strangely happened to bear his own name.  The fellow, too,
+was still at Sheba, being nursed back to strength; and Zeb didn't like
+it.  In spite of the day, and the merry breath of it that blew from the
+sea upon his right cheek, black care dogged him all the way up the long
+hill that led out of Porthlooe, and clung to the tail-board of his green
+cart as he jolted down again towards Ruan Cove.
+
+After passing the Cove-head, Young Zeb pulled up the mare, and was taken
+with a fit of thoughtfulness, glancing up towards Sheba farm, and then
+along the high-road, as if uncertain.  The mare settled the question
+after a minute, by turning into the lane, and Zeb let her have her way.
+
+"Where's Miss Ruby?" he asked, driving into the town-place, and coming
+on Mary Jane, who was filling a pig's-bucket by the back door.
+
+"Gone up to Pare Dew 'long wi' maister an' the very man I seed i' my
+tay-cup, a week come Friday."
+
+"H'm."
+
+"Iss, fay; an' a great long-legged stranger he was.  So I stuck en 'pon
+my fist an' gave en a scat.  'To-day,' says I, but he didn' budge.
+'To-morrow,' I says, an' gave en another; and then 'Nex' day;' and t'
+third time he flew.  'Shall have a sweet'eart, Sunday, praise the Lord,'
+thinks I; 'wonder who 'tis?  Anyway, 'tis a comfort he'll be high 'pon
+his pins, like Nanny Painter's hens, for mine be all the purgy-bustious
+shape just now.'  Well, Sunday night he came to Raney Rock, an' Monday
+mornin' to Sheba farm; and no thanks to you that brought en, for not a
+single dare-to-deny-me glance has he cast _this_ way."
+
+"Which way, then?"
+
+"'Can't stay to causey, Master Zeb, wi' all the best horn-handled knives
+to be took out o' blue-butter 'gainst this evenin's courant.  Besides,
+you called me a liar last week."
+
+"So you be.  But I'll believe 'ee this time."
+
+"Well, I'll tell 'ee this much--for you look a very handsome jowter i'
+that new cart.  If I were you, I'd be careful that gay furriner _didn
+steal more'n my name_"
+
+
+Meantime, a group of four was standing in the middle of Parc Dew, the
+twenty-acred field behind the farmstead.  The stranger, dressed in a
+blue jersey and outfit of Farmer Tresidder's, that made up in boots for
+its shortcomings elsewhere, was addressing the farmer, Ruby, and Jim
+Lewarne, who heard him with lively attention.  In his right hand he held
+a walking-stick armed with a spud, for uprooting thistles; and in his
+left a cake of dark soil, half stone, half mud.  His manner was earnest.
+
+". . . . I see," he was saying, "that I don't convince you; and it's
+only for your own sakes I insist on convincing you.  You'll grant me
+that, I suppose.  To-morrow, or the next day, I go; and the chances are
+that we never meet again in this world.  But 'twould be a pleasant
+thought to carry off to the ends of the earth that you, my benefactors,
+were living in wealth, enriched (if I may say it without presumption) by
+a chance word of mine.  I tell you I know something of these matters--"
+
+"I thought you'd passed your days privateerin'," put in Jim Lewarne, who
+was the only hostile listener, perhaps because he saw no chance of
+sharing in the promised wealth.
+
+"Jim, hold your tongue!" snapped Ruby.
+
+"I ask you," went on the stranger, without deigning to answer, "I ask
+you if it does not look like Providence?  Here have you been for years,
+dwelling amid wealth of which you never dreamed.  A ship is wrecked
+close to your doors, and of all her crew the one man saved is, perhaps,
+the one man who could enlighten you.  You feed him, clothe him, nurse
+him.  As soon as he can crawl about, he picks a walking-stick out of
+half-a-dozen or more in the hall, and goes out with you to take a look
+at the farm.  On his way he notes many things.  He sees (you'll excuse
+me, Farmer, but I can't help it) that you're all behind the world, and
+the land is yielding less than half of what it ought.  Have you ever
+seen a book by Lord Dundonald on the connection between Agriculture and
+Chemistry?  No?  I thought not.  Do you know of any manure better than
+the ore-weed you gather down at the Cove?  Or the plan of malting grain
+to feed your cattle on through the winter?  Or the respective merits of
+oxen and horses as beasts of draught?  But these matters, though the
+life and soul of modern husbandry, are as nothing to this lump in my
+hand.  What do you call the field we're now standing in?"
+
+"Parc Dew."
+
+"Exactly--the 'black field,' or the 'field of black soil': the very name
+should have told you.  But you lay it down in grass, and but for the
+chance of this spud and a lucky thistle, I might have walked over it a
+score of times without guessing its secret.  Man alive, it's red gold I
+have here--red, wicked, damnable, delicious gold--the root of all evil
+and of most joys."
+
+"If you lie, you lie enticingly, young man."
+
+"By gold, I mean stuff that shall make gold for you.  There is ore here,
+but what ore exactly I can't tell till I've streamed it: lead, I fancy,
+with a trace of silver--wealth for you, certainly; and in what quantity
+you shall find out--"
+
+At this juncture a voice was heard calling over the hedge, at the bottom
+of the field.  It came from Young Zeb, the upper part of whose person,
+as he stood up in his cart, was just visible between two tamarisk
+bushes.
+
+"Ru-b-y-y-y!"
+
+"Drat the chap!" exclaimed Ruby's father, wheeling round sharply.
+"What d'ye wa-a-a-nt?" he yelled back.
+
+"Come to know 'bout that chest o' dra-w-w-ers!"
+
+"Then come 'long round by th' ga-a-ate!"
+
+"Can't sta-a-ay!  Want to know, as I'm drivin' to Liskeard, if Ruby
+thinks nine-an'-six too mu-u-ch, as the twiddles be so very cle-v-ver!"
+
+"How ridiculous!" muttered the stranger, just loud enough for Ruby to
+hear.  "Who is this absurd person?"
+
+Jim Lewarne answered--"A low-lived chap, mister, as saved your skin
+awhile back."
+
+"Dear, dear--how unpardonable of me!  I hadn't, the least idea at this
+distance.  Excuse me, I must go and thank him at once."
+
+He moved towards the hedge with a brisk step that seemed to cost him
+some pain.  The others followed, a pace or two behind.
+
+"You'll not mind my interruptin', Farmer," continued Young Zeb,
+"but 'tis time Ruby made her mind up, for Mister Pennyway won't take a
+stiver less.  'Mornin', Ruby, my dear."
+
+"And you'll forgive me if I also interrupt," put in the stranger, with
+the pleasantest smile, "but it is time I thanked the friend who saved my
+life on Monday morning.  I would come round and shake hands if only I
+could see the gate."
+
+"Don't 'ee mention it," replied Zeb, blushing hotly.  "I'm glad to mark
+ye lookin' so brave a'ready.  Well, what d'ye say, Ruby?"
+
+"I say 'please yoursel'.'"
+
+For of the two men standing before Ruby (she did not count her father
+and Jim Lewarne), the stranger, with his bold features and easy
+conciliating carriage, had the advantage.  It is probable that he knew
+it, and threw a touch of acting into his silence as Zeb cut him short.
+
+"That's a fair speech," replied Zeb.  "Iss, turn it how you will, the
+words be winnin' enow.  But be danged, my dear, if I wudn' as lief you
+said, 'Go to blazes!'"
+
+"Fact is, my son," said Farmer Tresidder, candidly, "you'm good but
+untimely, like kissin' the wrong maid.  This here surpassin' young
+friend o' mine was speech-makin' after a pleasant fashion in our ears
+when you began to bawl--"
+
+"Then you don't want to hear about the chest o' drawers?" interrupted
+Zeb in dudgeon, with a glance at Ruby, who pretended not to see it.
+
+"Well, no.  To tell 'ee the slap-bang truth, I don't care if I see no
+trace of 'ee till the dancin' begins to commence to-night."
+
+"Then good-day t' ye, friends," answered Young Zeb, and turned the mare.
+"Cl'k, Jessamy!"  He rattled away down the lane.
+
+"What an admirable youth!" murmured the stranger, falling back a pace
+and gazing after the back of Zeb's head as it passed down the line of
+the hedge.  "What a messenger!  He seems eaten up with desire to get you
+a chest of drawers that shall be wholly satisfying.  But why do you
+allow him to call you 'my dear'?"
+
+"Because, I suppose, that's what I am," answered Ruby; "because I'm
+goin' to marry him within the month."
+
+"_Wh-e-e-w!_"
+
+But, as a matter of fact, the stranger had known before asking.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE STRANGER DANCES IN ZEB'S SHOES.
+
+It was close upon midnight, and in the big parlour at Sheba the courant,
+having run through its normal stages of high punctilio, artificial ease,
+zest, profuse perspiration, and supper, had reached the exact point when
+Modesty Prowse could be surprised under the kissing-bush, and Old Zeb
+wiped his spectacles, thrust his chair back, and pushed out his elbows
+to make sure of room for the rendering of "Scarlet's my Colour."
+These were tokens to be trusted by an observer who might go astray in
+taking any chance guest as a standard of the average conviviality.
+Mr. and Mrs. Jim Lewarne, for example, were accustomed on such occasions
+to represent the van and rear-guard respectively in the march of gaiety;
+and in this instance Jim had already imbibed too much hot "shenachrum,"
+while his wife, still in the stage of artificial ease, and wearing a
+lace cap, which was none the less dignified for having been smuggled,
+was perpending what to say when she should get him home.  The dancers,
+pale and dusty, leant back in rows against the wall, and with their
+handkerchiefs went through the motions of fanning or polishing,
+according to sex.  In their midst circulated Farmer Tresidder, with a
+three-handled mug of shenachrum, hot from the embers, and furred with
+wood-ash.
+
+"Take an' drink, thirsty souls.  Niver do I mind the Letterpooch so
+footed i' my born days."
+
+"'Twas conspirator--very conspirator," assented Old Zeb, screwing up his
+A string a trifle, and turning _con spirito_ into a dark saying.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Greek for elbow-grease.  Phew!"  He rubbed his fore-finger round
+between neck and shirt-collar.  "I be vady as the inside of a winder."
+
+"Such a man as you be to sweat, crowder!" exclaimed Calvin Oke.
+"Set you to play six-eight time an' 'tis beads right away."
+
+"A slice o' saffern-cake, crowder, to stay ye.  Don't say no.  Hi, Mary
+Jane!"
+
+"Thank 'ee, Farmer.  A man might say you was in sperrits to-night,
+makin' so bold."
+
+"I be; I be."
+
+"Might a man ax wherefore, beyond the nat'ral hail-fellow-well-met of
+the season?"
+
+"You may, an' yet you mayn't," answered the host, passing on with the
+mug.
+
+"Uncle Issy," asked Jim Lewarne, lurching up, "I durstn' g-glint over my
+shoulder--but wud 'ee mind tellin' me if th' old woman's lookin' this
+way--afore I squench my thirst?"
+
+"Iss, she be."
+
+Jim groaned.  "Then wud 'ee mind a-hofferin' me a taste out o' your
+pannikin? an' I'll make b'lieve to say 'Norronany' count.'  Amazin' 'ot
+t' night," he added, tilting back on his heels, and then dipping forward
+with a vague smile.
+
+Uncle Issy did as he was required, and the henpecked one played his part
+of the comedy with elaborate slyness.  "I don't like that strange
+chap," he announced, irrelevantly.
+
+"Nor I nuther," agreed Elias Sweetland, "tho' to be sure, I've a-kept my
+eye 'pon en, an' the wonders he accomplishes in an old pair o'
+Tresidder's high-lows must be seen to be believed.  But that's no call
+for Ruby's dancin' wi' he a'most so much as wi' her proper man."
+
+"The gel's takin' her fling afore wedlock.  I heard Sarah Ann Nanjulian,
+just now, sayin' she ought to be clawed."
+
+"A jealous woman is a scourge shaken to an' fro," said Old Zeb;
+"but I've a mind, friends, to strike up 'Randy my dandy,' for that son
+o' mine is lookin' blacker than the horned man, an' may be 'twill
+comfort 'en to dance afore the public eye; for there's none can take his
+wind in a hornpipe."
+
+In fact, it was high time that somebody comforted Young Zeb, for his
+heart was hot.  He had brought home the chest of drawers in his cart,
+and spent an hour fixing on the best position for it in the bedroom,
+before dressing for the dance.  Also he had purchased, in Mr. Pennyway's
+shop, an armchair, in the worst taste, to be a pleasant surprise for
+Ruby when the happy day came for installing her.  Finding he had still
+twenty minutes to spare after giving the last twitch to his neckerchief,
+and the last brush to his anointed locks, he had sat down facing this
+chair, and had striven to imagine her in it, darning his stockings.
+Zeb was not, as a rule, imaginative, but love drew this delicious
+picture for him.  He picked up his hat, and set out for Sheba in the
+best of tempers.
+
+But at Sheba all had gone badly.  Ruby's frock of white muslin and
+Ruby's small sandal shoes were bewitching, but Ruby's mood passed his
+intelligence.  It was true she gave him half the dances, but then she
+gave the other half to that accursed stranger, and the stranger had all
+her smiles, which was carrying hospitality too far.  Not a word had she
+uttered to Zeb beyond the merest commonplaces; on the purchase of the
+chest of drawers she had breathed no question; she hung listlessly on
+his arm, and spoke only of the music, the other girls' frocks, the
+arrangement of the supper-table.  And at supper the stranger had not
+only sat on the other side of her, but had talked all the time, and on
+books, a subject entirely uninteresting to Zeb.  Worst of all, Ruby had
+listened.  No; the worst of all was a remark of Modesty Prowse's that he
+chanced to overhear afterwards.
+
+So when the fiddles struck up the air of "Randy my dandy," Zeb, knowing
+that the company would call upon him, at first felt his heart turn sick
+with loathing.  He glanced across the room at Ruby, who, with heightened
+colour, was listening to the stranger, and looking up at his handsome
+face.  Already one or two voices were calling "Zeb!"  "Young Zeb for a
+hornpipe!"  "Now then, Young Zeb!"
+
+He had a mind to refuse.  For years after he remembered every small
+detail of the room as he looked down it and then across to Ruby again:
+the motion of the fiddle-bows; the variegated dresses of the women; the
+kissing-bush that some tall dancer's head had set swaying from the low
+rafter; the light of a sconce gleaming on Tresidder's bald scalp.
+Years after, he could recall the exact poise of Ruby's head as she
+answered some question of her companion.  The stranger left her, and
+strolled slowly down the room to the fireplace, when he faced round,
+throwing an arm negligently along the mantel-shelf, and leant with legs
+crossed, waiting.
+
+Then Young Zeb made up his mind, and stepped out into the middle of the
+floor.  The musicians were sawing with might and main at high speed.
+He crossed his arms, and, fixing his eyes on the stranger's, began the
+hornpipe.
+
+When it ceased, he had danced his best.  It was only when the applause
+broke out that he knew he had fastened, from start to finish, on the man
+by the fireplace a pair of eyes blazing with hate.  The other had stared
+back quietly, as if he noted only the performance.  As the music ended
+sharply with the click of Young Zeb's two heels, the stranger bent, took
+up a pair of tongs, and rearranged the fire before lifting his head.
+
+"Yes," he said, slowly, but in tones that were extremely distinct as the
+clapping died away, "that was wonderfully danced.  In some ways I should
+almost say you were inspired.  A slight want of airiness in the
+double-shuffle, perhaps--"
+
+"Could you do't better?" asked Zeb, sulkily.
+
+"That isn't the fair way to treat criticism, my friend; but yes--oh,
+yes, certainly I could do it better--in your shoes."
+
+"Then try, i' my shoes."  And Zeb kicked them off.
+
+"I've a notion they'll fit me," was all the stranger answered, dropping
+on one knee and beginning to unfasten the cumbrous boots he had borrowed
+of Farmer Tresidder.
+
+Indeed, the curious likeness in build of these two men--a likeness
+accentuated, rather than slurred, by their contrast in colour and face,
+was now seen to extend even to their feet.  When the stranger stood up
+at length in Zeb's shoes, they fitted him to a nicety, the broad steel
+buckles lying comfortably over the instep, the back of the uppers
+closing round the hollow of his ankle like a skin.
+
+Young Zeb, by this, had crossed shoeless to the fireplace, and now stood
+in the position lately occupied by his rival: only, whereas the stranger
+had lolled easily, Zeb stood squarely, with his legs wide apart and his
+hands deep in his pockets.  He had no eyes for the intent faces around,
+no ears for their whispering, nor for the preliminary scrape of the
+instruments; but stood like an image, with the firelight flickering out
+between his calves, and watched the other man grimly.
+
+"Ready?" asked his father's voice.  "Then one--two--three, an' let fly!"
+
+The fiddle-bows hung for an instant on the first note, and in a
+twinkling scampered along into "Randy my dandy."  As the quick air
+caught at the listeners' pulses, the stranger crossed his arms, drew his
+right heel up along the inner side of his left ankle, and with a light
+nod towards the chimney-place began.
+
+To the casual eye there was for awhile little to choose between the two
+dancers, the stranger's style being accurate, restrained, even a trifle
+dull.  But of all the onlookers, Zeb knew best what hornpipe-dancing
+really was; and knew surely, after the first dozen steps, that he was
+going to be mastered.  So far, the performance was academic only.  Zeb,
+unacquainted with the word, recognised the fact, and was quite aware of
+the inspiration--the personal gift--held in reserve to transfigure this
+precise art in a minute or so, and give it life.  He saw the force
+gathering in the steady rhythmical twinkle of the steel buckles, and
+heard it speak in the light recurrent tap with which the stranger's
+heels kissed the floor.  It was doubly bitter that he and his enemy
+alone should know what was coming; trebly bitter that his enemy should
+be aware that he knew.
+
+The crowder slackened speed for a second, to give warning, and dashed
+into the heel-and-toe.  Zeb caught the light in the dancer's eyes, and
+still frowning, drew a long breath.
+
+"Faster," nodded the stranger to the musicians' corner.
+
+Then came the moment for which, by this time, Zeb was longing.
+The stranger rested with heels together while a man might count eight
+rapidly, and suddenly began a step the like of which none present had
+ever witnessed, Above the hips his body swayed steadily, softly, to the
+measure; his eyes never took their pleasant smile off Zeb's face, but
+his feet--
+
+The steel buckles had become two sparkling moths, spinning, poising,
+darting.  They no longer belonged to the man, but had taken separate
+life: and merely the absolute symmetry of their loops and circles, and
+the _click-click-click_ on boards, regular as ever, told of the art that
+informed them.
+
+"Faster!"
+
+They crossed and re-crossed now like small flashes of lightning, or as
+if the boards were flints giving out a score of sparks at every touch of
+the man's heel.
+
+"Faster!"
+
+They seemed suddenly to catch the light out of every sconce, and knead
+it into a ball of fire, that spun and yet was motionless, in the very
+middle of the floor, while all the rest of the room grew suddenly
+dimmed.
+
+Zeb with a gasp drew his eyes away for a second and glanced around.
+Fiddlers and guests seemed ghostly after the fierce light he had been
+gazing on.  He looked along the pale faces to the place where Ruby
+stood.  She, too, glanced up, and their eyes met.
+
+What he saw fetched a sob from his throat.  Then something on the floor
+caught his attention: something bright, close by his feet.
+
+Between his out-spread legs, as it seemed, a thin streak of silver was
+creeping along the flooring.  He rubbed his eyes, and looked again.
+
+He was straddling across a stream of molten metal.
+
+As Zeb caught sight of this, the stranger twirled, leapt a foot in the
+air, and came down smartly on the final note, with a click of his heels.
+The music ceased abruptly.
+
+A storm of clapping broke out, but stopped almost on the instant: for
+the stranger had flung an arm out towards the hearth-stone.
+
+"A mine--a mine!"
+
+The white streak ran hissing from the heart of the fire, where a clod of
+earth rested among the ashen sticks.
+
+"Witchcraft!" muttered one or two of the guests, peering forward with
+round eyes.
+
+"Fiddlestick-end!  I put the clod there myself.  'Tis _lead!_"
+
+"Lead?"
+
+"Ay, naybours all," broke in Farmer Tresidder, his bald head bedewed
+with sweat, "I don't want to abash 'ee, Lord knows; but 'tis trew as
+doom that I be a passing well-to-do chap.  I shudn' wonder now"--and
+here he embraced the company with a smile, half pompous and half timid--
+"I shudn' wonder if ye was to see me trottin' to Parlyment House in a
+gilded coach afore Michaelmas--I be so tremenjous rich, by all
+accounts."
+
+"You'll excoose my sayin' it, Farmer," spoke up Old Zeb out of the awed
+silence that followed, "for doubtless I may be thick o' hearin', but did
+I, or did I not, catch 'ee alludin' to a windfall o' wealth?"
+
+"You did."
+
+"You'll excoose me sayin' it, Farmer; but was it soberly or pleasantly,
+honest creed or light lips, down-right or random, 'out o' the heart the
+mouth speaketh' or wantonly and in round figgers, as it might happen to
+a man filled with meat and wine?"
+
+"'Twas the cold trewth."
+
+"By what slice o' fortune?"
+
+"By a mine, as you might put it: or, as between man an' man, by a mine
+o' lead."
+
+"Farmer, you're either a born liar or the darlin' o' luck."
+
+"Aye: I feel it.  I feel that overpowerin'ly."
+
+"For my part," put in Mrs. Jim Lewarne, "I've given over follerin' the
+freaks o' Fortune.  They be so very undiscernin'."
+
+And this sentence probably summed up the opinion of the majority.
+
+In the midst of the excitement Young Zeb strode up to the stranger, who
+stood a little behind the throng.
+
+"Give me back my shoes," he said.
+
+The other kicked them off and looked at him oddly.
+
+"With pleasure.  You'll find them a bit worn, I'm afraid."
+
+"I'll chance that.  Man, I'm not all sorry, either."
+
+"Hey, why?"
+
+"'Cause they'll not be worn agen, arter this night.  Gentleman or devil,
+whichever you may be, I bain't fit to dance i' the same parish with
+'ee--no, nor to tread the shoeleather you've worn."
+
+"By the powers!" cried the stranger suddenly, "two minutes ago I'd have
+agreed with you.  But, looking in your eyes, I'm not so sure of it."
+
+"Of what?"
+
+"That you won't wear the shoes again."
+
+
+Then Zeb went after Ruby.
+
+"I want to speak a word with 'ee," he said quietly, stepping up to her.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"I' the hall."
+
+"But I can't come, just now."
+
+"But you must."
+
+She followed him out.
+
+"Zeb, what's the matter with you?"
+
+"Look here"--and he faced round sharply--"I loved you passing well."
+
+"Well?" she asked, like a faint echo.
+
+"I saw your eyes, just now.  Don't lie."
+
+"I won't."
+
+"That's right.  And now listen: if you marry me, I'll treat 'ee like a
+span'el dog.  Fetch you shall, an' carry, for my pleasure.  You shall be
+slave, an' I your taskmaster; an' the sweetness o' your love shall come
+by crushin', like trodden thyme.  Shall I suit you?"
+
+"I don't think you will."
+
+"Then good-night to you."
+
+"Good-night, Zeb.  I don't fancy you'll suit me; but I'm not so sure as
+before you began to speak.".
+
+There was no answer to this but the slamming of the front door.
+
+
+At half-past seven that morning, Parson Babbage, who had risen early,
+after his wont, was standing on the Vicarage doorstep to respire the
+first breath of the pale day, when he heard the garden gate unlatched
+and saw Young Zeb coming up the path.
+
+The young man still wore his festival dress; but his best stockings and
+buckled shoes were stained and splashed, as from much walking in miry
+ways.  Also he came unsteadily, and his face was white as ashes.
+The parson stared and asked--
+
+"Young Zeb, have you been drinking?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then 'tis trouble, my son, an' I ask your pardon."
+
+"A man might call it so.  I'm come to forbid my banns."
+
+The elder man cocked his head on one side, much as a thrush contemplates
+a worm.
+
+"I smell a wise wit, somewhere.  Young man, who taught you so capital a
+notion?"
+
+"Ruby did."
+
+"Pack o' stuff!  Ruby hadn't the--stop a minute! 'twas that clever
+fellow you fetched ashore, on Monday.  Of course--of course!  How came
+it to slip my mind?"
+
+Young Zeb turned away; but the old man was after him, quick as thought,
+and had laid a hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Is it bitter, my son?"
+
+"It is bitter as death, Pa'son."
+
+"My poor lad.  Step in an' break your fast with me--poor lad, poor lad!
+Nay, but you shall.  There's a bitch pup i' the stables that I want your
+judgment on.  Bitter, eh?  I dessay.  I dessay.  I'm thinking of walking
+her--lemon spot on the left ear--Rattler strain, of course.  Dear me,
+this makes six generations I can count back that spot--an' game every
+one.  Step in, poor lad, step in: she's a picture."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+SIEGE IS LAID TO RUBY.
+
+The sun was higher by some hours--high enough to be streaming brightly
+over the wall into the courtlage at Sheba--when Ruby awoke from a
+dreamless sleep.  As she lifted her head from the pillow and felt the
+fatigue of last night yet in her limbs, she was aware also of a rich
+tenor voice uplifted beneath her window.  Air and words were strange to
+her, and the voice had little in common with the world as she knew it.
+Its exile on that coast was almost pathetic, and it dwelt on the notes
+with a feeling of a warmer land.
+
+   "O south be north--
+    O sun be shady--
+    Until my lady
+    Shall issue forth:
+    Till her own mouth
+    Bid sun uncertain
+    To draw his curtain,
+    Bid south be south."
+
+She stole out of bed and went on tiptoe to the window, where she drew
+the blind an inch aside.  The stranger's footstep had ceased to crunch
+the gravel, and he stood now just beneath her, before the monthly-rose
+bush.  Throughout the winter a blossom or two lingered in that sheltered
+corner; and he had drawn the nearest down to smell at it.
+
+   "O heart, her rose,
+    I cannot ease thee
+    Till she release thee
+    And bid unclose.
+    So, till day come
+    And she be risen,
+    Rest, rose, in prison
+    And heart be dumb!"
+
+He snapped the stem and passed on, whistling the air of his ditty, and
+twirling the rose between finger and thumb.
+
+"Men are all ninnies," Ruby decided as she dropped the blind; "and I
+thank the fates that framed me female and priced me high.  Heigho! but
+it's a difficult world for women.  Either a man thinks you an angel, and
+then you know him for a fool, or he sees through you and won't marry you
+for worlds.  If _we_ behaved like that, men would fare badly, I reckon.
+Zeb loved me till the very moment I began to respect him: then he left
+off.  If this one . . . I like his cool way of plucking my roses,
+though.  Zeb would have waited and wanted, till the flower dropped."
+
+She spent longer than usual over her dressing: so that when she appeared
+in the parlour the two men were already seated at breakfast.  The room
+still bore traces of last night's frolic.  The uncarpeted boards gleamed
+as the guests' feet had polished them; and upon the very spot where the
+stranger had danced now stood the breakfast-table, piled with broken
+meats.  This alone of all the heavier pieces of furniture had been
+restored to its place.  As Ruby entered, the stranger broke off an
+earnest conversation he was holding with the farmer, and stood up to
+greet her.  The rose lay on her plate.
+
+"Who has robbed my rose-bush?" she asked.
+
+"I am guilty," he answered: "I stole it to give it back; and, not being
+mine, 'twas the harder to part with."
+
+"To my mind," broke in Farmer Tresidder, with his mouth full of ham,
+"the best part o' the feast be the over-plush.  Squab pie, muggetty pie,
+conger pie, sweet giblet pie--such a whack of pies do try a man, to be
+sure.  Likewise junkets an' heavy cake be a responsibility, for if not
+eaten quick, they perish.  But let it be mine to pass my days with a
+cheek o' pork like the present instance.  Ruby, my dear, the young man
+here wants to lave us."
+
+"Leave us?" echoed Ruby, pricking her finger deep in the act of pinning
+the stranger's rose in her bosom.
+
+"You hear, young man.  That's the tone o' speech signifyin' 'damn it
+all!' among women.  And so say I, wi' all these vittles cryin' out to be
+ate."
+
+"These brisk days," began the stranger quietly, "are not to be let slip.
+I have no wife, no kin, no friends, no fortune--or only the pound or two
+sewn in my belt.  The rest has been lost to me these three days and lies
+with the _Sentinel_, five fathoms deep in your cove below.  It is time
+for me to begin the world anew."
+
+"But how about that notion o' mine?"
+
+"We beat about the bush, I think," answered the other, pushing back his
+chair a bit and turning towards Ruby.  "My dear young lady, your father
+has been begging me to stay--chiefly, no doubt, out of goodwill, but
+partly also that I may set him in the way to work this newly found
+wealth of his.  I am sorry, but I must refuse."
+
+"Why?" murmured the girl, taking courage to look at him.
+
+"You oblige me to be brutal."  His look was bent on her.  He sat facing
+the window, and the light, as he leant sidewise, struck into the iris of
+his eyes and turned them blood-red in their depths.  She had seen the
+same in dogs' eyes, but never before in a man's: and it sent a small
+shiver through her.
+
+"Briefly," he went on, "I can stay on one condition only--that I marry
+you."
+
+She rose from her seat and stood, grasping the back rail of the chair.
+
+"Don't be alarmed.  I merely state the condition, but of course it's
+awkward: you're already bound.  Your father (who, I must say, honours me
+with considerable trust, seeing that he knows nothing about me) was good
+enough to suggest that your affection for this young fish-jowter was a
+transient fancy--"
+
+"Father--" began the girl, rather for the sake of hearing her own voice
+than because she knew what to say.
+
+Farmer Tresidder groaned.  "Young man, where's your gumption?  You'm
+makin' a mess o't--an' I thought 'ee so very clever."
+
+"Really," pursued the stranger imperturbably, without lifting his eyes
+from Ruby, "I don't know which to admire most, your father's head or his
+heart; his head, I think, on the whole.  So much hospitality, paternal
+solicitude, and commercial prudence was surely never packed into one
+scheme."
+
+He broke off for a minute and, still looking at her, began to drum with
+his finger-tips on the cloth.  His mouth was pursed up as if silently
+whistling an air.  Ruby could neither move nor speak.  The spell upon
+her was much like that which had lain on Young Zeb, the night before,
+during the hornpipe.  She felt weak as a child in the presence of this
+man, or rather as one recovering from a long illness.  He seemed to fill
+the room, speaking words as if they were living things, as if he were
+taking the world to bits and re-arranging it before her eyes.
+She divined the passion behind these words, and she longed to get a
+sight of it, to catch an echo of the voice that had sung beneath her
+window, an hour before.  But when he resumed, it was in the same
+bloodless and contemptuous tone.
+
+"Your father was very anxious that I should supplant this young
+jowter--"
+
+"O Lord! I never said it."
+
+"Allow me," said the stranger, without deigning to look round,
+"to carry on this courtship in my own way.  Your father, young woman,
+desired--it was none of my suggestion--that I should insinuate myself
+into your good graces.  I will not conceal from you my plain opinion of
+your father's judgment in these matters.  I think him a fool."
+
+"Name o' thunder!"
+
+"Farmer, if you interrupt again I must ask you to get out.  Young woman,
+kindly listen while I make you a formal proposition of marriage.
+My name, I have told you, is Zebedee Minards.  I was born by London
+Docks, but have neither home nor people.  I have travelled by land and
+sea; slept on silk and straw; drunk wine and the salt water; fought,
+gambled, made love, begged my bread; in all, lost much and found much,
+in many countries.  I am tossed on this coast, where I find you, and
+find also a man in my name having hold over you.  I think I want to
+marry you.  Will you give up this other man?"
+
+He pursed up his lips again.  With that sense of trifles which is
+sharpest when the world suddenly becomes too big for a human being, Ruby
+had a curiosity to know what he was whistling.  And this worried her
+even while, after a minute's silence, she stammered out--
+
+"I--I gave him up--last night."
+
+"Very good.  Now listen again.  In an hour's time I walk to Porthlooe.
+There I shall take the van to catch the Plymouth coach.  In any case, I
+must spend till Saturday in Plymouth.  It depends on you whether I come
+back at the end of that time.  You are going to cry: keep the tears back
+till you have answered me.  Will you marry me?"
+
+She put out a hand to steady herself, and opened her lips.  She felt the
+room spinning, and wanted to cry out for mercy.  But her mouth made no
+sound.
+
+"Will you marry me?"
+
+"Ye--e--yes!"
+
+As the word came, she sank down in a chair, bent her head on the table,
+and burst into a storm of tears.
+
+"The devil's in it!" shouted her father, and bounced out of the room.
+
+No sooner had the door slammed behind him than the stranger's face
+became transfigured.
+
+He stood up and laid a hand softly on the girl's head.
+
+"Ruby!"
+
+She did not look up.  Her shoulders were shaken by one great sob after
+another.
+
+"Ruby!"
+
+He took the two hands gently from her face, and forced her to look at
+him.  His eyes were alight with the most beautiful smile.
+
+"For pity's sake," she cried out, "don't look at me like that.
+You've looked me through and through--you understand me.  Don't lie with
+your eyes, as you're lying now."
+
+"My dear girl, yes--I understand you.  But you're wrong.  I lied to get
+you: I'm not lying now."
+
+"I think you must be Satan himself."
+
+The stranger laughed.  "Surely _he_ needn't to have taken so much
+trouble.  Smile back at me, Ruby, for I played a risky stroke to get
+you, and shall play a risky game for many days yet."
+
+He balanced himself on the arm of her chair and drew her head towards
+him.
+
+"Tell me," he said, speaking low in her ear, "if you doubt I love you.
+Do you know of any other man who, knowing you exactly as you are, would
+wish to marry you?"
+
+She shook her head.  It was impossible to lie to this man.
+
+"Or of another who would put himself completely into your power, as I am
+about to do?  Listen; there is no lead mine at all on Sheba farm."
+
+Ruby drew back her face and stared at him.  "I assure you it's a fact."
+
+"But the ore you uncovered--"
+
+"--Was a hoax.  I lied about it."
+
+"The stuff you melted in this very fire, last night--wasn't that lead?"
+
+"Of course it was.  I stole it myself from the top of the church tower."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"To gain a footing here."
+
+"Again, why?"
+
+"For love of you."
+
+During the silence that followed, the pair looked at each other.
+
+"I am waiting for you to go and tell your father," said the stranger at
+length.
+
+Ruby shivered.
+
+"I seem to have grown very old and wise," she murmured.
+
+He kissed her lightly.
+
+"That's the natural result of being found out.  I've felt it myself.
+Are you going?"
+
+"You know that I cannot."
+
+"You shall have twenty minutes to choose.  At the end of that time I
+shall pass out at the gate and look up at your window.  If the blind
+remain up, I go to the vicarage to put up our banns before I set off for
+Plymouth.  If it be drawn down, I leave this house for ever, taking
+nothing from it but a suit of old clothes, a few worthless specimens
+(that I shall turn out of my pockets by the first hedge), and the memory
+of your face."
+
+
+It happened, as he unlatched the gate, twenty minutes later, that the
+blind remained up.  Ruby's face was not at the window, but he kissed his
+hand for all that, and smiled, and went his way singing.  The air was
+the very same he had whistled dumbly that morning, the air that Ruby had
+speculated upon.  And the words were--
+
+   "'Soldier, soldier, will you marry me,
+    With the bagginet, fife and drum?'
+    'Oh, no, pretty miss, I cannot marry you,
+    For I've got no coat to put on.'
+
+   "So away she ran to the tailor's shop,
+    As fast as she could run,
+    And she bought him a coat of the very very best,
+    And the soldier clapped it on.
+
+   "'Soldier, soldier, will you marry me--'"
+
+His voice died away down the lane.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+THE "JOLLY PILCHARDS."
+
+On the following Saturday night (New Year's Eve) an incident worth
+record occurred in the bar-parlour of the "Jolly Pilchards" at
+Porthlooe.
+
+You may find the inn to this day on the western side of the Hauen as you
+go to the Old Quay.  A pair of fish-scales faces the entrance, and the
+jolly pilchards themselves hang over your head, on a signboard that
+creaks mightily when the wind blows from the south.
+
+The signboard was creaking that night, and a thick drizzle drove in
+gusts past the door.  Behind the red blinds within, the landlady, Prudy
+Polwarne, stood with her back to the open hearth.  Her hands rested on
+her hips, and the firelight, that covered all the opposite wall and most
+of the ceiling with her shadow, beat out between her thick ankles in the
+shape of a fan.  She was a widow, with a huge, pale face and a figure
+nearly as broad as it was long; and no man thwarted her.  Weaknesses she
+had none, except an inability to darn her stockings.  That the holes at
+her heels might not be seen, she had a trick of pulling her stockings
+down under her feet, an inch or two at a time, as they wore out; and
+when the tops no longer reached to her knee, she gartered--so gossip
+said--half-way down the leg.
+
+Around her, in as much of the warmth as she spared, sat Old Zeb, Uncle
+Issy, Jim Lewarne, his brother, and six or seven other notables of the
+two parishes.  They were listening just now, and though the mug of
+eggy-hot passed from hand to hand as steadily as usual, a certain
+restrained excitement might have been guessed from the volumes of smoke
+ascending from their clay pipes.
+
+"A man must feel it, boys," the hostess said, "wi' a rale four-poster
+hung wi' yaller on purpose to suit his wife's complexion, an' then to
+have no wife arter all."
+
+"Ay," assented Old Zeb, who puffed in the corner of a settle on her
+left, with one side of his face illuminated and the other in deep
+shadow, "he feels it, I b'lieve.  Such a whack o' dome as he'd a-bought,
+and a weather-glass wherein the man comes forth as the woman goes
+innards, an' a dresser, painted a bright liver colour, engaging to the
+eye."
+
+"I niver seed a more matterimonial outfit, as you might say," put in
+Uncle Issy.
+
+"An' a warmin'-pan, an' likewise a lookin'-glass of a high pattern."
+
+"An' what do he say?" inquired Calvin Oke, drawing a short pipe from his
+lips.
+
+"In round numbers, he says nothing, but takes on."
+
+"A wisht state!"
+
+"Ay, 'tis wisht.  Will 'ee be so good as to frisk up the beverage,
+Prudy, my dear?"
+
+Prudy took up a second large mug that stood warming on the hearthstone,
+and began to pour the eggy-hot from one vessel to the other until a
+creamy froth covered the top.
+
+"'T'other chap's a handsome chap," she said, with her eyes on her work.
+
+"Handsome is as handsome does," squeaked Uncle Issy.
+
+"If you wasn' such an aged man, Uncle, I' call 'ee a very tame talker."
+
+Uncle Issy collapsed.
+
+"I reckon you'm all afeard o' this man," continued Prudy, looking round
+on the company, "else I'd have heard some mention of a shal-lal
+afore this."
+
+The men with one accord drew their pipes out and looked at her.
+
+"I mean it.  If Porthlooe was the place it used to be, there'd be tin
+kettles in plenty to drum en out o' this naybourhood to the Rogue's
+March next time he showed his face here.  When's he comin' back?"
+
+No one knew.
+
+"The girl's as bad; but 'twould be punishment enough for her to know her
+lover was hooted out o' the parish.  Mind you, _I_'ve no grudge agen the
+man.  I liked his dare-devil look, the only time I saw en.  I'm only
+sayin' what I think--that you'm all afeard."
+
+"I don't b'long to the parish," remarked a Landaviddy man, in the pause
+that followed, "but 'tis incumbent on Lanihale, I'm fain to admit."
+
+The Lanihale men fired up at this.
+
+"I've a tin-kettle," said Calvin Oke, "an' I'm ready."
+
+"An' I for another," said Elias Sweetland.  "An' I, An' I," echoed
+several voices.
+
+"Stiddy there, stiddy, my hearts of oak," began Old Zeb, reflectively.
+"A still tongue makes a wise head, and 'twill be time enough to talk o'
+shal-lals when the weddin'-day's fixed.  Now I've a better notion.
+It will not be gain-said by any of 'ee that I've the power of logic in a
+high degree--hey?"
+
+"Trew, O king!"
+
+"Surely, surely."
+
+"The rarity that you be, crowder!  Sorely we shall miss 'ee when you'm
+gone."
+
+"Very well, then," Old Zeb announced.  "I'm goin' to be logical wi' that
+chap.  The very next time I see en, I'm goin' to step up to en an' say,
+as betwixt man an' man, 'Look 'ee here,' I'll say, 'I've a lawful son.
+You've a-took his name, an' you've a-stepped into his shoes, an'
+therefore I've a right to spake'" (he pulled at his churchwarden),
+"'to spake to 'ee'" (another pull) "'like a father.'" Here followed
+several pulls in quick succession.
+
+The pipe had gone out.  So, still holding the attention of the room, he
+reached out a hand towards the tongs.  Prudy, anticipating his
+necessity, caught them up, dived them into the blaze, and drawing out a
+blazing end of stick, held it over the pipe while he sucked away.
+
+During this pause a heavy step was heard in the passage.  The door was
+pushed open, and a tall man, in dripping cloak and muddy boots, stalked
+into the room.
+
+It was the man they had been discussing.
+
+"A dirty night, friends, and a cold ride from Plymouth."  He shook the
+water out of his hat over the sanded floor.  "I'll take a pull at
+something hot, if you please."
+
+Every one looked at him.  Prudy, forgetting what she was about, waved
+the hot brand to and fro under Old Zeb's nose, stinging his eyes with
+smoke.  Between confusion and suffocation, his face was a study.
+
+"You seem astonished, all of you.  May I ask why?"
+
+"To tell 'ee the truth, young man," said Prudy, "'twas a case of 'talk
+of the devil an' you'll see his horns.'"
+
+"Indeed.  You were speaking good of me, I hope."
+
+"Which o' your ears is burning?"
+
+"Both."
+
+"Then it shu'd be the left ear only.  Old Zeb, here--"
+
+"Hush 'ee now, Prudy!" implored the crowder.
+
+"--Old Zeb here," continued Prudy, relentlessly, "was only a-sayin', as
+you walked in, that he'd read you the Riot Act afore you was many days
+older.  He's mighty fierce wi' your goin's on, I 'sure 'ee."
+
+"Is that so, Mr. Minards?"
+
+Mr. Minards had, it is probable, never felt so uncomfortable in all his
+born days, and the experience of standing between two fires was new to
+him.  He looked from the stranger around upon the company, and was met
+on all hands by the same expectant stare.
+
+"Well, you see--" he began, and looked around again.  The faces were
+inexorable.  "I declare, friends, the pore chap is drippin' wet.  Sich a
+tiresome v'yage, too, as it must ha' been from Plymouth, i' this
+weather!  I dunno how we came to forget to invite en nigher the hearth.
+Well, as I was a-sayin'--"
+
+He stopped to search for his hat beneath the settle.  Producing a large
+crimson handkerchief from the crown, he mopped his brow slowly.
+
+"The cur'ous part o't, naybours, is the sweatiness that comes over a
+man, this close weather."
+
+"I'm waiting for your answer," put in the stranger, knitting his brows.
+
+"Surely, surely, that's the very thing I was comin' to.  The answer, as
+you may say, is this--but step a bit nigher, for there's lashins o'
+room--the answer, as far as that goes, is what I make to you, sayin'--
+that if you wasn' so passin' wet, may be I'd blurt out what I had i' my
+mind.  But, as things go, 'twould seem like takin' an advantage."
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"'Tis very kind o' you to say so, to be sure."  Old Zeb picked up his
+pipe again.  "An' now, friends, that this little bit of onpleasantness
+have a-blown over, doin' ekal credit to both parties this
+New Year's-eve, after the native British fashion o' fair-play (as why
+shu'd it not?), I agree we be conformable to the pleasant season an' let
+harmony prevail--"
+
+"Why, man," interrupted Prudy, "you niver gave no answer at all.  'Far
+as I could see you've done naught but fidget like an angletwitch and
+look fifty ways for Sunday."
+
+"'Twas the roundaboutest, dodge-my-eyedest, hole-an'-cornerdest bit of a
+chap's mind as iver I heard given," pronounced the traitorous Oke.
+
+"Oke--Oke," Old Zeb exclaimed, "all you know 'pon the fiddle I taught
+'ee!"
+
+Said Prudy--"That's like what the chap said when the donkey kicked en.
+''Taint the stummick that I do vally,' he said, ''tis the cussed
+ongratefulness o' the jackass.'"
+
+"I'm still waiting," repeated the stranger.
+
+"Well, then"--Old Zeb cast a rancorous look around--"I'll tell 'ee,
+since you'm so set 'pon hearin'.  Afore you came in, the good folks here
+present was for drummin' you out o' the country.  'Shockin' behayviour!'
+'Aw, very shockin' indeed!' was the words I heerd flyin' about, an'
+'Who'll make en sensible o't?' an' 'We'll give en what-for.'  'A silent
+tongue makes a wise head,' said I, an' o' this I call Uncle Issy here to
+witness."
+
+Uncle Issy corroborated.  "You was proverbial, crowder, I can duly vow,
+an' to that effect, unless my mem'ry misgives me."
+
+"So, in a mollifyin' manner, I says, 'What hev the pore chap done, to
+be treated so bad?' I says.  Says I, 'better lave me use logic wi' en'--
+eh, Uncle Issy?"
+
+"Logic was the word."
+
+The stranger turned round upon the company, who with one accord began to
+look extremely foolish as Old Zeb so adroitly turned the tables.
+
+"Is this true?" he asked.
+
+"'Tis the truth, I must admit," volunteered Uncle Issy, who had not been
+asked, but was fluttered with delight at having stuck to the right side
+against appearances.
+
+"I think," said the stranger, deliberately, "it is as well that you and
+I, my friends, should understand each other.  The turn of events has
+made it likely that I shall pass my days in this neighbourhood, and I
+wish to clear up all possible misconceptions at the start.  In the first
+place, I am going to marry Miss Ruby Tresidder.  Our banns will be asked
+in church to-morrow; but let us have a rehearsal.  Can any man here show
+cause or just impediment why this marriage should not take place?"
+
+"You'd better ask that o' Young Zeb, mister," said Prudy.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You owe your life to'n, I hear."
+
+"When next you see him you can put two questions.  Ask him in the first
+place if he saved it at my request."
+
+"Tut-tut.  A man likes to live, whether he axes for it or no," grunted
+Elias Sweetland.  "And what the devil do you know about it?" demanded
+the stranger.
+
+"I reckon I know what a man's like."
+
+"Oh, you do, do you?  Wait a while, my friend.  In the second place," he
+went on, returning to Prudy, "ask young Zebedee Minards, if he wants my
+life back, to come and fetch it.  And now attend all.  Do you see
+these?"
+
+He threw back his cloak, and, diving a hand into his coat-pocket,
+produced a couple of pistols.  The butts were rich with brass-work, and
+the barrels shone as he held them out in the firelight.
+
+"You needn't dodge your heads about so gingerly.  I'm only about to give
+you an exhibition.  How many tall candlesticks have you in the house
+besides the pair here?" he inquired of Prudy.
+
+"Dree pair."
+
+"Put candles in the other two pairs and set them on the chimney-shelf."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Do as I tell you."
+
+"Now here's summat _like_ a man!" said Prudy, and went out obediently to
+fetch them.
+
+Until she returned there was dead silence in the bar-parlour.  The men
+puffed uneasily at their pipes, not one of which was alight, and avoided
+the stranger's eye, which rested on each in turn with a sardonic humour.
+
+Prudy lit the candles, one from the other, and after snuffing them with
+her fingers that they might burn steadily, arranged them in a row on the
+mantelshelf.  Now above this shelf the chimney-piece was panelled to the
+height of some two and a half feet, and along the panel certain ballads
+that Prudy had purchased of the Sherborne messenger were stuck in a row
+with pins.
+
+"Better take those ballads down, if you value them," the stranger
+remarked.
+
+She turned round inquiringly.
+
+"I'm going to shoot."
+
+"Sakes alive--an' my panel, an' my best brass candlesticks!"
+
+"Take them down."
+
+She gave in, and unpinned the ballads.
+
+"Now stand aside."
+
+He stepped back to the other side of the room, and set his back to the
+door.
+
+"Don't move," he said to Calvin Oke, whose chair stood immediately under
+the line of fire, "your head is not the least in the way.  And don't
+turn it either, but keep your eye on the candle to the right."
+
+This was spoken in the friendliest manner, but it hardly reassured Oke,
+who would have preferred to keep his eye on the deadly weapon now being
+lifted behind his back.  Nevertheless he did not disobey, but sat still,
+with his eyes fixed on the mantelshelf, and only his shoulders twitching
+to betray his discomposure.
+
+_Bang!_
+
+The room was suddenly full of sound, then of smoke and the reek of
+gunpowder.  As the noise broke on their ears one of the candles went out
+quietly.  The candlestick did not stir, but a bullet was embedded in the
+panel behind.  Calvin Oke felt his scalp nervously.
+
+"One," counted the stranger.  He walked quietly to the table, set down
+his smoking pistol, and took up the other, looking round at the same
+time on the white faces that stared on him behind the thick curls of
+smoke.  Stepping back to his former position, he waited while they could
+count twenty, lifted the second pistol high, brought it smartly down to
+the aim and fired again.
+
+The second candle went out, and a second bullet buried itself in Prudy's
+panel.
+
+So he served the six, one after another, without a miss.  Twice he
+reloaded both pistols slowly, and while he did so not a word was spoken.
+Indeed, the only sound to be heard came from Uncle Issy, who, being a
+trifle asthmatical with age, felt some inconvenience from the smoke in
+his throat.  By the time the last shot was fired the company could
+hardly see one another.  Prudy, two of whose dishes had been shaken off
+the dresser, had tumbled upon a settle, and sat there, rocking herself
+to and fro, with her apron over her head.
+
+The sound of firing had reached the neighbouring houses, and by this
+time the passage was full of men and women, agog for a tragedy.
+The door burst open.  Through the dense atmosphere the stranger descried
+a crowd of faces in the passage.  He was the first to speak.
+
+"Good folk, you alarm yourselves without cause.  I have merely been
+pointing an argument that I and my friends happen to be holding here."
+
+Then he turned to Calvin Oke, who lay in his chair like a limp sack,
+slowly recovering from his emotions at hearing the bullets whiz over his
+head.
+
+"When I assure you that I carry these weapons always about me, you will
+hardly need to be warned against interfering with me again.  The first
+man that meddles, I'll shoot like a rabbit--by the Lord Harry, I will!
+You hear?"
+
+He slipped the pistols into his pocket, pulled out two crown pieces, and
+tossed them to Prudy.
+
+"That'll pay for the damage, I daresay." So, turning on his heel, he
+marched out, leaving them in the firelight.  The crowd in the passage
+fell back to right and left, and in a moment more he had disappeared
+into the black drizzle outside.
+
+But the tradition of his feat survives, and the six holes in Prudy's
+panel still bear witness to its truth.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+YOUNG ZEB SELLS HIS SOUL.
+
+These things were reported to Young Zeb as he sat in his cottage, up the
+coombe, and nursed his pain.  He was a simple youth, and took life in
+earnest, being very slow to catch fire, but burning consumedly when once
+ignited.  Also he was sincere as the day, and had been treacherously
+used.  So he raged at heart, and (for pride made him shun the public
+eye) he sat at home and raged--the worst possible cure for love, which
+goes out only by open-air treatment.  From time to time his father,
+Uncle Issy, and Elias Sweetland sat around him and administered comfort
+after the manner of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.
+
+"Your cheeks be pale, my son--lily-white, upon my soul.  Rise, my son,
+an' eat, as the wise king recommended, sayin', 'Stay me wi' flagons,
+comfort me wi' yapples, for I be sick o' love.' A wise word that."
+
+"Shall a man be poured out like water," inquired Uncle Issy, "an' turn
+from his vittles, an' pass his prime i' blowin' his nose, an' all for a
+woman?"
+
+"I wasn' blowin' my nose," objected Zeb, shortly.
+
+"Well, in black an' white you wasn', but ye gave me that idee."
+
+Young Zeb stared out of the window.  Far down the coombe a slice of blue
+sea closed the prospect, and the tan sails of a small lugger were
+visible there, rounding the point to the westward.  He watched her
+moodily until she passed out of sight, and turned to his father.
+
+"To-morrow, did 'ee say?"
+
+"Iss, to-morrow, at eleven i' the forenoon.  Jim Lewarne brought me
+word."
+
+"Terrible times they be for Jim, I reckon," said Elias Sweetland.
+"All yestiddy he was goin' back'ards an' forrards like a lost dog in a
+fair, movin' his chattels.  There's a hole in the roof of that new
+cottage of his that a man may put his Sunday hat dro'; and as for his
+old Woman, she'll do nought but sit 'pon the lime-ash floor wi' her
+tout-serve over her head, an' call en ivery name but what he was
+chris'ened."
+
+"Nothin' but neck-an'-crop would do for Tresidder, I'm told," said Old
+Zeb.  "'I've a-sarved 'ee faithful,' said Jim, 'an' now you turns me out
+wi' a week's warnin'.'  'You've a-crossed my will,' says Tresidder, 'an'
+I've engaged a more pushin' hind in your place.'  'Tis a new fashion o'
+speech wi' Tresidder nowadays."
+
+"Ay, modern words be drivin' out the old forms.  But 'twas only to get
+Jim's cottage for that strong-will'd supplantin' furriner because Ruby
+said 'twas low manners for bride an' groom to go to church from the same
+house.  So no sooner was the Lewarnes out than he was in, like shufflin'
+cards, wi' his marriage garment an' his brush an' comb in a hand-bag.
+Tresidder sent down a mattress for en, an' he slept there last night."
+
+"Eh, but that's a trifle for a campaigner."
+
+"Let this be a warnin' to 'ee, my son niver to save no more lives from
+drownin'."
+
+"I won't," promised Young Zeb.
+
+"We've found 'ee a great missment," Elias observed to him, after a
+pause.  "The Psa'ms, these three Sundays, bain't what they was for lack
+o' your enlivenin' flute--I can't say they be.  An' to hear your very
+own name called forth in the banns wi' Ruby's, an' you wi'out part nor
+lot therein--"
+
+"Elias, you mean it well, no doubt; but I'd take it kindly if you
+sheered off."
+
+"'Twas a wisht Psa'm, too," went on Elias, "las' Sunday mornin'; an' I
+cudn' help my thoughts dwellin' 'pon the dismals as I blowed, nor
+countin' how that by this time to-morrow--"
+
+But Young Zeb had caught up his cap and rushed from the cottage.
+
+He took, not the highway to Porthlooe, but a footpath that slanted up
+the western slope of the coombe, over the brow of the hill, and led in
+time to the coast and a broader path above the cliffs.  The air was
+warm, and he climbed in such hurry that the sweat soon began to drop
+from his forehead.  By the time he reached the cliffs he was forced to
+pull a handkerchief out and mop himself; but without a pause, he took
+the turning westward towards Troy harbour, and tramped along sturdily.
+For his mind was made up.
+
+Ship's-chandler Webber, of Troy, was fitting out a brand-new privateer,
+he had heard, and she was to sail that very week.  He would go and offer
+himself as a seaman, and if Webber made any bones about it, he would
+engage to put a part of his legacy into the adventure.  In fact, he was
+ready for anything that would take him out of Porthlooe.  To live there
+and run the risk of meeting Ruby on the other man's arm was more than
+flesh and blood could stand.  So he went along with his hands deep in
+his pockets, his eyes fastened straight ahead, his heart smoking, and
+the sweat stinging his eyelids.  And as he went he cursed the day of his
+birth.
+
+From Porthlooe to Troy Ferry is a good six miles by the cliffs, and when
+he had accomplished about half the distance, he was hailed by name.
+
+Between the path at this point and the cliff's edge lay a small patch
+cleared for potatoes, and here an oldish man was leaning on his shovel
+and looking up at Zeb.
+
+"Good-mornin', my son!"
+
+"Mornin', hollibubber!"
+
+The old man had once worked inland at St. Teath slate-quarries, and made
+his living as a "hollibubber," or one who carts away the refuse slates.
+On returning to his native parish he had brought back and retained the
+name of his profession, the parish register alone preserving his true
+name of Matthew Spry.  He was a fervent Methodist--a local preacher, in
+fact--and was held in some admiration by "the people" for his lustiness
+in prayer-meeting.  A certain intensity in his large grey eyes gave
+character to a face that was otherwise quite insignificant.  You could
+see he was a good man.
+
+"Did 'ee see that dainty frigate go cruisin' by, two hour agone?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then ye missed a sweet pretty sight.  Thirty guns, I do b'lieve, an'
+all sail set.  I cou'd a'most count her guns, she stood so close."
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"She tacked just here an' went round close under Bradden Point; so she's
+for Troy, that's certain.  Be you bound that way, too?"
+
+"Iss, I'll see her, if she's there."
+
+"Best not go too close, my son; for I know the looks o' those customers.
+By all accounts you'm a man of too much substance to risk yourself near
+a press-gang."
+
+Young Zeb gazed over the old man's head at the horizon line, and
+answered, as if reading the sentence there, "I might fare worse,
+hollibubber."
+
+The hollibubber seemed, for a second, about to speak; for, of course, he
+knew Zeb's trouble.  But after a while he took his shovel out of the
+ground slowly.
+
+"Ay, ye might," he said; "pray the Lord ye don't."
+
+Zeb went on, faster than ever.  He passed Bradden Point and Widdy Cove
+at the rate of five miles an hour, or thereabouts, then he turned aside
+over a stile and crossed a couple of meadows; and after these he was on
+the high-road, on the very top of the hill overlooking Troy Harbour.
+
+He gazed down.  The frigate was there, as the hollibubber had guessed,
+anchored at the harbour's mouth.  Two men in a small boat were pulling
+from her to the farther shore.  A thin haze of blue smoke lay over the
+town at his feet, and the noise of mallets in the ship-building yards
+came across to him through the clear afternoon.  Zeb hardly noticed all
+this, for his mind was busy with a problem.  He halted by a milestone on
+the brow of the hill, to consider.
+
+And then suddenly he sat down on the stone and shivered.  The sweat was
+still trickling down his face and down his back; but it had turned cold
+as ice.  A new idea had taken him, an idea of which at first he felt
+fairly afraid.  He passed a hand over his eyes and looked down again at
+the frigate.  But he stared at her stupidly, and his mind was busy with
+another picture.
+
+It occurred to him that he must go on if he meant to arrange with
+Webber, that afternoon.  So he got up from the stone and went down the
+steep hill towards the ferry, stumbling over the rough stones in the
+road and hardly looking at his steps, but moving now rapidly, now
+slowly, like a drunken man.
+
+The street that led down to the ferry dated back to an age before carts
+had superseded pack-horses, and the makers had cut it in stairs and
+paved it with cobbles.  It plunged so steeply, and the houses on either
+side wedged it in so tightly, that to look down from the top was like
+peering into a well.  A patch of blue water shone at the foot, framing a
+small dark square--the signboard of the "Four Lords" Inn.  Just now
+there were two or three men gathered under the signboard.
+
+As Young Zeb drew near he saw that they wore pig-tails and round shiny
+hats: and, as he noticed this, his face, which had been pale for the
+last five minutes, grew ashen-white.  He halted for a moment, and then
+went on again, meaning to pass the signboard and wait on the quay for
+the ferry.
+
+There were half a dozen sailors in front of the "Four Lords."  Three sat
+on a bench beside the door, and three more, with mugs of beer in their
+hands, were skylarking in the middle of the roadway.
+
+"Hi!" called out one of those on the bench, as Zeb passed.  And Zeb
+turned round and came to a halt again.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Where 're ye bound, mate?"
+
+"For the ferry."
+
+"Then stop an' drink, for the boat left two minutes since an' won't be
+back for another twenty."
+
+Zeb hung on his heel for a couple of seconds.  The sailor held out his
+mug with the friendliest air, his head thrown back and the left corner
+of his mouth screwed up into a smile.
+
+"Thank 'ee," said Zeb, "I will; an' may the Lord judge 'atween us."
+
+"There's many a way o' takin' a drink," the sailor said, staring at him;
+"but split me if yours ain't the rummiest _I_'ve run across."
+
+"Oh, man, man," Zeb answered, "I wasn' thinkin' o' _you!_"
+
+Back by the cliff's edge the hollibubber had finished his day's work and
+was shouldering his shovel to start for home, when he spied a dark
+figure coming eastwards along the track; and, putting up a hand to ward
+off the level rays of the sun, saw that it was the young man who had
+passed him at noonday.  So he set down the shovel again, and waited.
+
+Young Zeb came along with his head down.  When he noticed the
+hollibubber standing in the path he started like a man caught in a
+theft.
+
+"My son, ye 've come to lift a weight off my heart.  God forgi'e me
+that, i' my shyness, I let 'ee go by wi'out a word for your trouble."
+
+"All the country seems to know my affairs," Zeb answered with a scowl.
+
+The hollibubber's grey eyes rested on him tenderly.  He was desperately
+shy, as he had confessed: but compassion overcame his shyness.
+
+"Surely," said he, "all we be children o' one Father: an' surely we may
+know each other's burdens; else, not knowin', how shall we bear 'em?"
+
+"You'm too late, hollibubber."
+
+Zeb stood still, looking out over the purple sea.  The old man touched
+his arm gently.
+
+"How so?"
+
+"I've a-sold my soul to hell."
+
+"I don't care.  You'm alive an' standin' here, an' I can save 'ee."
+
+"Can 'ee so?" Zeb asked ironically.
+
+"Man, I feel sure o't."  His ugly earnest face became almost grand in
+the flame of the sunset.  "Turn aside, here, an' kneel down; I will
+wrestle wi' the Lord for thee till comfort comes, if it take the long
+night."
+
+"You'm a strange chap.  Can such things happen i' these days?"
+
+"Kneel and try."
+
+"No, no, no," Zeb flung out his hands.  "It's too late, I tell 'ee.
+No man's words will I hear but the words of Lamech--'I ha' slain a man
+to my wounding, an' a young man to my hurt.'  Let me go--'tis too late.
+Let me go, I say--"
+
+As the hollibubber still clung to his arm, he gave a push and broke
+loose.  The old man tumbled beside the path with his head against the
+potato fence.  Zeb with a curse took to his heels and ran; nor for a
+hundred yards did he glance behind.
+
+When at last he flung a look over his shoulder, the hollibubber had
+picked himself up and was kneeling in the pathway.  His hands were
+clasped and lifted.
+
+"Too late!" shouted Zeb again, and dashed on without a second look.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+YOUNG ZEB WINS HIS SOUL BACK.
+
+At half-past nine, next morning, the stranger sat in the front room of
+the cottage vacated by the Lewarnes.  On a rough table, pushed into a
+corner, lay the remains of his breakfast.  A plum-coloured coat with
+silver buttons hung over the back of a chair by his side, and a
+waist-coat and silver-laced hat to match rested on the seat.
+For the wedding was to take place in an hour and a half.
+
+He sat in frilled shirt, knee-breeches and stockings, and the sunlight
+streamed in upon his dark head as he stooped to pull on a shoe.
+The sound of his whistling filled the room, and the tune was, "Soldier,
+soldier, will you marry me?"
+
+His foot was thrust into the first shoe, and his forefinger inserted at
+the heel, shoe-horn fashion, to slip it on, when the noise of light
+wheels sounded on the road outside, and stopped beside the gate.
+Looking up, he saw through the window the head and shoulders of Young
+Zeb's grey mare, and broke off his whistling sharply.
+
+_Rat-a-tat!_
+
+"Come in!" he called, and smiled softly to himself.
+
+The door was pushed open, and Young Zeb stood on the threshold, looking
+down on the stranger, who wheeled round quietly on his chair to face
+him.  Zeb's clothes were disordered, and looked as if he had spent the
+night in them; his face was yellow and drawn, with dark semicircles
+underneath the eyes; and he put a hand up against the door-post for
+support.
+
+"To what do I owe this honour?" asked the stranger, gazing back at him.
+
+Zeb pulled out a great turnip-watch from his fob, and said--
+
+"You'm dressin?"
+
+"Ay, for the wedding."
+
+"Then look sharp.  You've got a bare five-an'-twenty minnits."
+
+"Excuse me, I'm not to be married till eleven."
+
+"Iss, iss, but _they_'re comin' at ten, sharp."
+
+"And who in the world may 'they' be?"
+
+"The press-gang."
+
+The stranger sprang up to his feet, and seemed for a moment about to fly
+at Zeb's throat.
+
+"You treacherous hound!"
+
+"Stand off," said Zeb wearily, without taking his hand from the
+door-post.  "I reckon it don't matter what I may be, or may not be, so
+long as you'm dressed i' ten minnits."
+
+The other dropped his hands, with a short laugh.
+
+"I beg your pardon.  For aught I know you may have nothing to do with
+this infernal plot except to warn me against it."
+
+"Don't make any mistake.  'Twas I that set the press-gang upon 'ee,"
+answered Zeb, in the same dull tones.
+
+There was silence between them for half a minute, and then the stranger
+spoke, as if to himself--
+
+"My God!  Love has made this oaf a man!"  He stood for a while, sucking
+at his under-lip, and regarding Zeb gloomily.  "May I ask why you have
+deliberately blown up this pretty mine at the eleventh hour?"
+
+"I couldn't do it," Zeb groaned; "Lord knows 'twas not for love of you,
+but I couldn't."
+
+"Upon my word, you fascinate me.  People say that evil is more easily
+learnt than goodness; but that's great nonsense.  The footsteps of the
+average beginner are equally weak in both pursuits.  Would you mind
+telling me why you chose this particular form of treachery, in
+preference (let us say) to poison or shooting from behind a hedge?
+Was it simply because you risked less?  Pardon the question, but I have
+a particular reason for knowing."
+
+"We're wastin' time," said Zeb, pulling out his watch again.
+
+"It's extraordinary how a fool will stumble on good luck.  Why, sir, but
+for one little accident, the existence of which you could not possibly
+have known, I might easily have waited for the press-gang, stated the
+case to them, and had you lugged off to sea in my place.  Has it
+occurred to you, in the course of your negotiations, that the wicked
+occasionally stumble into pits of their own digging?  You, who take part
+in the psalm-singing every Sunday, might surely have remembered this.
+As it is, I suppose I must hurry on my clothes, and get to church by
+some roundabout way."
+
+"I'm afeard you can't, without my help."
+
+"Indeed?  Why?"
+
+"'Cause the gang is posted all round 'ee.  I met the lot half an hour
+back, an' promised to call 'pon you and bring word you was here."
+
+"Come, come; I retract my sneers.  You begin to excite my admiration.
+I shall undoubtedly shoot you before I'm taken, but it shall be your
+comfort to die amid expressions of esteem."
+
+"You'm mistaken.  I came to save 'ee, if you'll be quick."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I've a load of ore-weed outside, in the cart.  By the lie o' the
+cottage none can spy ye while you slip underneath it; but I'll fetch a
+glance round, to make sure.  Underneath it you'll be safe, and I'll
+drive 'ee past the sailors, and send 'em on here to search."
+
+"You develop apace.  But perhaps you'll admit a flaw in your scheme.
+What on earth induced you to imagine I should trust you?"
+
+"Man, I reckoned all that.  My word's naught.  But 'tis your one
+chance--and I would kneel to 'ee, if by kneelin' I could persuade 'ee.
+We'll fight it out after; bring your pistols.  Only come!"
+
+The stranger slipped on his other shoe, then his waistcoat and jacket,
+whistling softly.  Then he stepped to the chimney-piece, took down his
+pistols, and stowed them in his coat-pockets.
+
+"I'm quite ready."
+
+Zeb heaved a great sigh like a sob; but only said:--
+
+"Wait a second while I see that the coast's clear."
+
+In less than three minutes the stranger was packed under the
+evil-smelling weed, drawing breath with difficulty, and listening, when
+the jolting allowed, to Zeb's voice as he encouraged the mare.
+Jowters' carts travel fast as a rule, for their load perishes soon, and
+the distance from the coast to the market is often considerable.
+In this case Jessamy went at a round gallop, the loose stones flying
+from under her hoofs.  Now and then one struck up against the bottom of
+the cart.  It was hardly pleasant to be rattled at this rate, Heaven
+knew whither.  But the stranger had chosen his course, and was not the
+man to change his mind.
+
+After about five minutes of this the cart was pulled up with a scramble,
+and he heard a voice call out, as it seemed, from the hedge--
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Right you are," answered Young Zeb;
+
+"He's in the front room, pullin' on his boots.  You'd best look slippy."
+
+"Where's the coin?"
+
+"There!"  The stranger heard the click of money, as of a purse being
+caught.  "You'll find it all right."
+
+"H'm; best let me count it, though.  One--two--three--four.  I feels it
+my dooty to tell ye, young man, that it be a dirty trick.  If this
+didn't chime in wi' my goodwill towards his Majesty's service, be danged
+if I'd touch the job with a pair o' tongs!"
+
+"Ay--but I reckon you'll do't, all the same, for t'other half that's to
+come when you've got en safe an' sound.  Dirty hands make clean money."
+
+"Well, well; ye've been dirtily sarved.  I'll see 'ee this arternoon at
+the 'Four Lords.'  We've orders to sail at five, sharp; so there's no
+time to waste."
+
+"Then I won't detain 'ee.  Clk, Jessamy!"
+
+The jolting began again, more furiously than ever, as the stranger drew
+a long breath.  He waited till he judged they must be out of sight, and
+then began to stir beneath his load of weed.
+
+"Keep quiet," said Zeb; "you shall get out as soon as we're up the
+hill."
+
+The cart began to move more slowly, and tilted back with a slant that
+sent the stranger's heels against the tail-board.  Zeb jumped down and
+trudged at the side. The hill was long, and steep from foot to brow; and
+when at length the slope lessened, the wheels turned off at a sharp
+angle and began to roll softly over turf.
+
+The weight and smell of the weed were beginning to suffocate the man
+beneath it, when Zeb called out "Woa-a!" and the mare stopped.
+
+"Now you can come out."
+
+The other rose on his knees, shook some of his burden off, and blinked
+in the strong sunlight.
+
+The cart stood on the fringe of a desolate tract of downs, high above
+the coast. Over the hedge to the right appeared a long narrow strip of
+sea. On the three remaining sides nothing was visible but undulating
+stretches of brown turf, except where, to northward, the summits of two
+hills in the heart of the county just topped the rising ground that hid
+twenty intervening miles of broken plain.
+
+"We can leave the mare to crop.  There's a hollow, not thirty yards off,
+that'll do for us."
+
+Zeb led the way to the spot.  It was indeed the fosse of a
+half-obliterated Roman camp, and ran at varying depth around a cluster
+of grassy mounds, the most salient of which--the praetorian--still
+served as a landmark for the Porthlooe fishing boats.  But down in the
+fosse the pair were secure from all eyes.  Not a word was spoken until
+they stood together at the bottom.
+
+Here Zeb pulled out his watch once more.  "We'd best be sharp," he said;
+"you must start in twenty minnits to get to the church in time."
+
+"It would be interesting to know what you propose doing."  The stranger
+sat down on the slope, picked a strip of sea-weed off his breeches, and
+looked up with a smile.
+
+"I reckon you'll think it odd."
+
+"Of that I haven't a doubt."
+
+"Well, you've a pair o' pistols i' your pockets, an' they're loaded, I
+expect."
+
+"They are."
+
+"I'd a notion of askin' 'ee, as a favour, to give and take a shot with
+me."
+
+The stranger paused a minute before giving his answer.
+
+"Can you fire a pistol?"
+
+"I've let off a blunderbust, afore now, an' I suppose 'tis the same
+trick."
+
+"And has it struck you that your body may be hard to dispose of?
+Or that, if found, it may cause me some inconvenience?"
+
+"There's a quag on t'other side o' the Castle[1] here.  I han't time to
+go round an' point it out; but 'tis to be known by bein' greener than
+the rest o' the turf.  What's thrown in there niver comes up, an' no man
+can dig for it.  The folks'll give the press-gang the credit when I'm
+missin'--"
+
+"You forget the mare and cart."
+
+"Lead her back to the road, turn her face to home, an' fetch her a cut
+across th' ears.  She always bolts if you touch her ears."
+
+"And you really wish to die?"
+
+"Oh, my God!" Zeb broke out; "would I be standin' here if I didn'?"
+
+The stranger rose to his feet, and drew out his pistols slowly.
+
+"It's a thousand pities," he said; "for I never saw a man develop
+character so fast."
+
+He cocked the triggers, and handed the pistols to Zeb, to take his
+choice.
+
+"Stand where you are, while I step out fifteen paces."  He walked slowly
+along the fosse, and, at the end of that distance, faced about.
+"Shall I give the word?"
+
+Zeb nodded, watching him sullenly.
+
+"Very well.  I shall count three slowly, and after that we can fire as
+we please.  Are you ready?--stand a bit sideways.  Your chest is a
+pretty broad target--that's right; I'm going to count.
+_One--two--three--_"
+
+The word was hardly spoken before one of the pistols rang out.  It was
+Zeb's; and Heaven knows whither his bullet flew.  The smoke cleared away
+in a blue, filmy streak, and revealed his enemy standing where he stood
+before, with his pistol up, and a quiet smile on his face.
+
+Still holding the pistol up, the stranger now advanced deliberately
+until he came to a halt about two paces from Zeb, who, with white face
+and set jaw, waited for the end.  The eyes of the two men met, and
+neither flinched.
+
+"Strip," commanded the stranger.  "Strip--take off that jersey."
+
+"Why not kill me without ado?  Man, isn't this cruel?"
+
+"Strip, I say."
+
+Zeb stared at him for half a minute, like a man in a trance; and began
+to pull the jersey off.
+
+"Now your shirt.  Strip--till you are naked as a babe."
+
+Zeb obeyed.  The other laid his pistol down on the turf, and also
+proceeded to undress, until the two men stood face to face, stark naked.
+
+"We were thus, or nearly thus, a month ago, when you gave me my life.
+Does it strike you that, barring our faces, we might be twin brothers?
+Now, get into my clothes, and toss me over your own!"
+
+"What's the meanin' o't?" stammered Zeb, hoarsely.
+
+"I am about to cry quits with you.  Hurry; for the bride must be at the
+church by this."
+
+"What's the meanin' o't?" Zeb repeated.
+
+"Why, that you shall marry the girl.  Steady--don't tremble.  The banns
+are up in your name, and you shall walk into church, and the woman shall
+be married to Zebedee Minards.  Stop, don't say a word, or I'll repent
+and blow your brains out.  You want to know who I am, and what's to
+become of me.  Suppose I'm the Devil; suppose I'm your twin soul, and in
+exchange for my life have given you the half of manhood that you lacked
+and I possessed; suppose I'm just a deserter from his Majesty's fleet, a
+poor devil of a marine, with gifts above his station, who ran away and
+took to privateering, and was wrecked at your doors.  Suppose that I am
+really Zebedee Minards; or suppose that I heard your name spoken in
+Sheba kitchen, and took a fancy to wear it myself.  Suppose that I shall
+vanish to-day in a smell of brimstone; or that I shall leave in irons in
+the hold of the frigate now in Troy harbour.  What's her name?"
+
+He was dressed by this time in Zeb's old clothes.
+
+"The _Recruit_."
+
+"Whither bound?"
+
+"Back to Plymouth to-night, an' then to the West Indies wi' a convoy."
+
+"Hurry, then; don't fumble, or Ruby'll be tired of waiting.  You'll find
+a pencil and scrap of paper in my breast pocket.  Hand them over."
+
+Zeb did so, and the stranger, seating himself again on the slope, tore
+the paper in half, and began to scribble a few lines on each piece.
+By the time he had finished and folded them up, Zeb stood before him
+dressed in the plum-coloured suit.
+
+"Ay," said the stranger, looking him up and down, and sucking the pencil
+contemplatively; "she'll marry you out of hand."
+
+"I doubt it."
+
+"These notes will make sure.  Give one to the farmer, and one to Ruby,
+as they stand by the chancel rails.  But mainly it rests with you.
+Take no denial.  Say you've come to make her your wife, and won't leave
+the church till you've done it.  She's still the same woman as when she
+threw you over.  Ah, sir, we men change our natures; but woman is always
+Eve.  I suppose you know a short cut to the church?  Very well.
+I shall take your cart and mare, and drive to meet the press-gang, who
+won't be in the sweetest of tempers just now.  Come, what are you
+waiting for?  You're ten minutes late as it is, and you can't be married
+after noon."
+
+"Sir," said Zeb, with a white face; "it's a liberty, but will 'ee let me
+shake your hand?"
+
+"I'll be cursed if I do.  But I'll wish you good luck and a hard heart,
+and maybe ye'll thank me some day."
+
+So Zeb, with a sob, turned and ran from him out of the fosse and towards
+a gap in the hedge, where lay a short cut through the fields.  In the
+gap he turned and looked back.  The stranger stood on the lip of the
+fosse, and waved a hand to him to hurry.
+
+[1] Camp.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+THE THIRD SHIP.
+
+We return to Ruan church, whence this history started.  The parson was
+there in his surplice, by the altar; the bride was there in her white
+frock, by the chancel rails; her father, by her side, was looking at his
+watch; and the parishioners thronged the nave, shuffling their feet and
+loudly speculating.  For the bridegroom had not appeared.
+
+Ruby's face was white as her frock.  Parson Babbage kept picking up the
+heavy Prayer-book, opening it, and laying it down impatiently.
+Occasionally, as one of the congregation scraped an impatient foot, a
+metallic sound made itself heard, and the buzz of conversation would
+sink for a moment, as if by magic.
+
+For beneath the seats, and behind the women's gowns, the whole pavement
+of the church was covered with a fairly representative collection of
+cast-off kitchen utensils--old kettles, broken cake-tins, frying-pans,
+saucepans--all calculated to emit dismal sounds under percussion.
+Scattered among these were ox-bells, rook-rattles, a fog-horn or two,
+and a tin trumpet from Liskeard fair.  Explanation is simple: the
+outraged feelings of the parish were to be avenged by a shal-lal as
+bride and bridegroom left the church.  Ruby knew nothing of the storm
+brewing for her, but Mary Jane, whose ears had been twice boxed that
+morning, had heard a whisper of it on her way down to the church, and
+was confirmed in her fears by observing the few members of the
+congregation who entered after her.  Men and women alike suffered from
+an unwonted corpulence and tightness of raiment that morning, and each
+and all seemed to have cast the affliction off as they arose from their
+knees.  It was too late to interfere, so she sat still and trembled.
+
+Still the bridegroom did not come.
+
+"A more onpresidented feat I don't recall," remarked Uncle Issy to a
+group that stood at the west end under the gallery, "not since 'Melia
+Spry's buryin', when the devil, i' the shape of a black pig, followed us
+all the way to the porch."
+
+"That was a brave while ago, Uncle."
+
+"Iss, iss; but I mind to this hour how we bearers perspired--an' she
+such a light-weight corpse.  But plague seize my old emotions!--we'm
+come to marry, not to bury."
+
+"By the look o't 'tis' neither marry nor bury, Nim nor Doll," observed
+Old Zeb, who had sacrificed his paternal feelings and come to church in
+order to keep abreast with the age; "'tis more like Boscastle Fair,
+begin at twelve o'clock an' end at noon.  Why tarry the wheels of his
+chariot?"
+
+"'Tis possible Young Zeb an' he have a-met 'pon the road hither,"
+hazarded Calvin Oke by a wonderful imaginative effort; "an' 'tis
+possible that feelings have broke loose an' one o' the twain be
+swelterin' in his own bloodshed, or vicey-versey."
+
+"I heard tell of a man once," said Uncle Issy, "that committed murder
+upon another for love; but, save my life, I can't think 'pon his name,
+nor where 't befell."
+
+"What an old store-house 'tis!" ejaculated Elias Sweetland, bending a
+contemplative gaze on Uncle Issy.
+
+"Mark her pale face, naybours," put in a woman; "an' Tresidder, he looks
+like a man that's neither got nor lost."
+
+"Trew, trew."
+
+"Quarter past the hour, I make it," said Old Zeb, pulling out his
+timepiece.
+
+Still the bridegroom tarried.
+
+Higher up the church, in the front pew but one, Modesty Prowse said
+aloud to Sarah Ann Nan Julian--
+
+"If he doesn' look sharp, we'll be married before she after all."
+
+Ruby heard the sneer, and answered it with a look of concentrated spite.
+Probably she would have risked her dignity to retort, had not Parson
+Babbage advanced down the chancel at this juncture.
+
+"Has anyone seen the bridegroom to-day?" he inquired of Tresidder.
+"Or will you send some one to hurry him?"
+
+"Be danged if I know," the farmer began testily, mopping his bald head,
+and then he broke off, catching sound of a stir among the folk behind.
+
+"Here he be--here he be at last!" cried somebody.  And with that a hush
+of bewilderment fell on the congregation.
+
+In the doorway, flushed with running and glorious in bridal attire,
+stood Young Zeb.
+
+It took everybody's breath away, and he walked up the nave between
+silent men and women.  His eyes were fastened on Ruby, and she in turn
+stared at him as a rabbit at a snake, shrinking slightly on her father's
+arm.  Tresidder's jaw dropped, and his eyes began to protrude.
+
+"What's the meanin' o' this?" he stammered.
+
+"I've come to marry your daughter," answered Zeb, very slow and
+distinct.  "She was to wed Zebedee Minards to-day, an' I'm Zebedee
+Minards."
+
+"But--"
+
+"I've a note to hand to each of 'ee.  Better save your breath till
+you've read 'em."
+
+He delivered the two notes, and stood, tapping a toe on the tiles, in
+the bridegroom's place on the right of the chancel-rails.
+
+"Damnation!"
+
+"Mr. Tresidder," interrupted the parson, "I like a man to swear off his
+rage if he's upset, but I can't allow it in the church."
+
+"I don't care if you do or you don't."
+
+"Then do it, and I'll kick you out with this very boot."
+
+The farmer's face was purple, and big veins stood out by his temples.
+
+"I've been cheated," he growled.  Zeb, who had kept his eyes on Ruby,
+stepped quickly towards her.  First picking up the paper that had
+drifted to the pavement, he crushed it into his pocket.  He then took
+her hand.  It was cold and damp.
+
+"Parson, will 'ee marry us up, please?"
+
+"You haven't asked if she'll have you."
+
+"No, an' I don't mean to.  I didn't come to ax questions--that's your
+business--but to answer."
+
+"Will you marry this man?" demanded the parson, turning to Ruby.
+
+Zeb's hand still enclosed hers, and she felt she was caught and held for
+life.  Her eyes fluttered up to her lover's face, and found it
+inexorable.
+
+"Yes," she gasped out, as if the word had been suffocating her.
+And with the word came a rush of tears--helpless, but not altogether
+unhappy.
+
+"Dry your eyes," said Parson Babbage, after waiting a minute; "we must
+be quick about it."
+
+
+So it happened that the threatened shal-lal came to nothing.
+Susan Jago, the old woman who swept the church, discovered its forgotten
+apparatus scattered beneath the pews on the following Saturday, and
+cleared it out, to the amount (she averred) of two cart-loads.
+She tossed it, bit by bit, over the west wall of the churchyard, where
+in time it became a mound, covered high with sting-nettles.  If you poke
+among these nettles with your walking-stick, the odds are that you turn
+up a scrap of rusty iron.  But there exists more explicit testimony to
+Zeb's wedding within the church--and within the churchyard, too, where
+he and Ruby have rested this many a year.
+
+Though the bubble of Farmer Tresidder's dreams was pricked that day,
+there was feasting at Sheba until late in the evening.  Nor until eleven
+did the bride and bridegroom start off, arm in arm, to walk to their new
+home.  Before them, at a considerable distance, went the players and
+singers--a black blur on the moonlit road; and very crisply their music
+rang out beneath a sky scattered with cloud and stars.  All their songs
+were simple carols of the country, and the burden of them was but the
+joy of man at Christ's nativity; but the young man and maid who walked
+behind were well pleased.
+
+"Now then," cried the voice of Old Zeb, "lads an' lasses all together
+an' wi' a will--"
+
+     All under the leaves, an the leaves o' life,
+      I met wi' virgins seven,
+     An' one o' them was Mary mild,
+      Our Lord's mother of Heaven.
+
+    'O what are 'ee seekin', you seven fair maids,
+      All under the leaves o life;
+    Come tell, come tell, what seek ye
+      All under the leaves o' life?'
+
+    'We're seekin' for no leaves, Thomas,
+      But for a friend o' thine,
+     We're seekin' for sweet Jesus Christ
+      To be our guide an' thine.'
+
+    'Go down, go down, to yonder town
+      An' sit in the gallery,
+     An there you'll see sweet Jesus Christ
+      Nailed to a big yew-tree.'
+
+     So down they went to yonder town
+      As fast as foot could fall,
+     An' many a grievous bitter tear
+      From the Virgin's eye did fall.
+
+    'O peace, Mother--O peace, Mother,
+      Your weepin' doth me grieve;
+     I must suffer this,' he said,
+     'For Adam an' for Eve.
+
+    'O Mother, take John Evangelist
+      All for to be your son,
+     An' he will comfort you sometimes
+      Mother, as I've a-done.'
+
+    'O come, thou John Evangelist,
+      Thou'rt welcome unto me,
+     But more welcome my own dear Son
+      Whom I nursed on my knee.'
+
+     Then he laid his head 'pon his right shoulder
+      Seein death it struck him nigh;
+    'The holy Mother be with your soul--
+      I die, Mother, I die.'
+
+     O the rose, the gentle rose,
+      An the fennel that grows so green!
+     God gi'e us grace in every place
+      To pray for our king an' queen.
+
+     Furthermore, for our enemies all
+      Our prayers they should be strong;
+     Amen, good Lord; your charity
+      Is the endin' of my song!
+
+In the midst of this carol Ruby, with a light pull on Zeb's arm, brought
+him to a halt.
+
+"How lovely it all is, Zeb!"  She looked upwards at the flying moon,
+then dropped her gaze over the frosty sea, and sighed gently.
+"Just now I feel as if I'd been tossin' out yonder through many fierce
+days an' nights an' were bein' taken at last to a safe haven.
+You'll have to make a good wife of me, Zeb.  I wonder if you'll do 't."
+
+Zeb followed the direction of her eyes, and seemed to discern off
+Bradden Point a dot of white, as of a ship in sail.  He pressed her arm
+to his side, but said nothing.
+
+"Clear your throats, friends," shouted his father, up the road,
+"an' let fly--"
+
+     As I sat on a sunny bank,
+      --A sunny bank, a sunny bank,
+     As I sat on a sunny bank
+      On Chris'mas day i' the mornin,
+
+     I saw dree ships come sailin' by,
+      --A-sailin' by, a-sailin' by,
+     I saw dree ships come sailin' by
+      On Chris'mas day i' the mornin'.
+
+     Now who shud be i' these dree ships--
+
+
+And to this measure Zeb and Ruby stepped home.
+
+At the cottage door Zeb thanked the singers, who went their way and
+flung back shouts and joyful wishes as they went.  Before making all
+fast for the night, he stood a minute or so, listening to their voices
+as they died away down the road.  As he barred the door, he turned and
+saw that Ruby had lit the lamp, and was already engaged in setting the
+kitchen to rights; for, of course, no such home-coming had been dreamt
+of in the morning, and all was in disorder.  He stood and watched her
+for a while, then turned to the window.
+
+After a minute or two, finding that he did not speak, she too came to
+the window.  He bent and kissed her.
+
+For he had seen, on the patch of sea beyond the haven, a white frigate
+steal up Channel like a ghost.  She had passed out of his sight by this
+time, but he was still thinking of one man that she bore.
+
+
+
+THE HAUNTED DRAGOON.
+
+
+Beside the Plymouth road, as it plunges down-hill past Ruan Lanihale
+church towards Ruan Cove, and ten paces beyond the lych-gate--where the
+graves lie level with the coping, and the horseman can decipher their
+inscriptions in passing, at the risk of a twisted neck--the base of the
+churchyard wall is pierced with a low archway, festooned with toad-flax
+and fringed with the hart's-tongue fern.  Within the archway bubbles a
+well, the water of which was once used for all baptisms in the parish,
+for no child sprinkled with it could ever be hanged with hemp.  But this
+belief is discredited now, and the well neglected: and the events which
+led to this are still a winter's tale in the neighbourhood.  I set them
+down as they were told me, across the blue glow of a wreck-wood fire, by
+Sam Tregear, the parish bedman.  Sam himself had borne an inconspicuous
+share in them; and because of them Sam's father had carried a white face
+to his grave.
+
+
+My father and mother (said Sam) married late in life, for his trade was
+what mine is, and 'twasn't till her fortieth year that my mother could
+bring herself to kiss a gravedigger.  That accounts, maybe, for my being
+born rickety and with other drawbacks that only made father the fonder.
+Weather permitting, he'd carry me off to churchyard, set me upon a flat
+stone, with his coat folded under, and talk to me while he delved.
+I can mind, now, the way he'd settle lower and lower, till his head
+played hidey-peep with me over the grave's edge, and at last he'd be
+clean swallowed up, but still discoursing or calling up how he'd come
+upon wonderful towns and kingdoms down underground, and how all the
+kings and queens there, in dyed garments, was offering him meat for his
+dinner every day of the week if he'd only stop and hobbynob with them--
+and all such gammut.  He prettily doted on me--the poor old ancient!
+
+But there came a day--a dry afternoon in the late wheat harvest--when we
+were up in the churchyard together, and though father had his tools
+beside him, not a tint did he work, but kept travishing back and forth,
+one time shading his eyes and gazing out to sea, and then looking far
+along the Plymouth road for minutes at a time.  Out by Bradden Point
+there stood a little dandy-rigged craft, tacking lazily to and fro, with
+her mains'le all shiny-yellow in the sunset.  Though I didn't know it
+then, she was the Preventive boat, and her business was to watch the
+Hauen: for there had been a brush between her and the _Unity_ lugger, a
+fortnight back, and a Preventive man shot through the breast-bone, and
+my mother's brother Philip was hiding down in the town.  I minded,
+later, how that the men across the vale, in Farmer Tresidder's
+wheat-field, paused every now and then, as they pitched the sheaves, to
+give a look up towards the churchyard, and the gleaners moved about in
+small knots, causeying and glancing over their shoulders at the cutter
+out in the bay; and how, when all the field was carried, they waited
+round the last load, no man offering to cry the _Neck_, as the fashion
+was, but lingering till sun was near down behind the slope and the long
+shadows stretching across the stubble.
+
+"Sha'n't thee go underground to-day, father?" says I, at last.
+
+He turned slowly round, and says he, "No, sonny.  'Reckon us'll climb
+skywards for a change."
+
+And with that, he took my hand, and pushing abroad the belfry door began
+to climb the stairway.  Up and up, round and round we went, in a sort of
+blind-man's-holiday full of little glints of light and whiff's of wind
+where the open windows came; and at last stepped out upon the leads of
+the tower and drew breath.
+
+"There's two-an'-twenty parishes to be witnessed from where we're
+standin', sonny--if ye've got eyes," says my father.
+
+Well, first I looked down towards the harvesters and laughed to see them
+so small: and then I fell to counting the church-towers dotted across
+the high-lands, and seeing if I could make out two-and-twenty.
+'Twas the prettiest sight--all the country round looking as if 'twas
+dusted with gold, and the Plymouth road winding away over the hills like
+a long white tape.  I had counted thirteen churches, when my father
+pointed his hand out along this road and called to me--
+
+"Look'ee out yonder, honey, an' say what ye see!"
+
+"I see dust," says I.
+
+"Nothin' else?  Sonny boy, use your eyes, for mine be dim."
+
+"I see dust," says I again, "an' suthin' twinklin' in it, like a tin
+can--"
+
+"Dragooners!" shouts my father; and then, running to the side of the
+tower facing the harvest-field, he put both hands to his mouth and
+called:
+
+"_What have 'ee?  What have 'ee?_"--very loud and long.
+
+"_A neck--a neck!_" came back from the field, like as if all shouted at
+once--dear, the sweet sound!  And then a gun was fired, and craning
+forward over the coping I saw a dozen men running across the stubble and
+out into the road towards the Hauen; and they called as they ran, "_A
+neck--a neck!_"
+
+"Iss," says my father, "'tis a neck, sure 'nuff.  Pray God they save en!
+Come, sonny--"
+
+But we dallied up there till the horsemen were plain to see, and their
+scarlet coats and armour blazing in the dust as they came.  And when
+they drew near within a mile, and our limbs ached with crouching--for
+fear they should spy us against the sky--father took me by the hand and
+pulled hot foot down the stairs.  Before they rode by he had picked up
+his shovel and was shovelling out a grave for his life.
+
+Forty valiant horsemen they were, riding two-and-two (by reason of the
+narrowness of the road) and a captain beside them--men broad and long,
+with hairy top-lips, and all clad in scarlet jackets and white breeches
+that showed bravely against their black war-horses and jet-black
+holsters, thick as they were wi' dust.  Each man had a golden helmet,
+and a scabbard flapping by his side, and a piece of metal like a
+half-moon jingling from his horse's cheek-strap.  12 D was the numbering
+on every saddle, meaning the Twelfth Dragoons.
+
+Tramp, tramp! they rode by, talking and joking, and taking no more heed
+of me--that sat upon the wall with my heels dangling above them--than if
+I'd been a sprig of stonecrop.  But the captain, who carried a drawn
+sword and mopped his face with a handkerchief so that the dust ran
+across it in streaks, drew rein, and looked over my shoulder to where
+father was digging.
+
+"Sergeant!" he calls back, turning with a hand upon his crupper;
+"didn't we see a figger like this a-top o' the tower, some way back?"
+
+The sergeant pricked his horse forward and saluted.  He was the tallest,
+straightest man in the troop, and the muscles on his arm filled out his
+sleeve with the three stripes upon it--a handsome red-faced fellow, with
+curly black hair.
+
+Says he, "That we did, sir--a man with sloping shoulders and a boy with
+a goose neck."  Saying this, he looked up at me with a grin.
+
+"I'll bear it in mind," answered the officer, and the troop rode on in a
+cloud of dust, the sergeant looking back and smiling, as if 'twas a joke
+that he shared with us.  Well, to be short, they rode down into the town
+as night fell.  But 'twas too late, Uncle Philip having had fair warning
+and plenty of time to flee up towards the little secret hold under Mabel
+Down, where none but two families knew how to find him.  All the town,
+though, knew he was safe, and lashins of women and children turned out
+to see the comely soldiers hunt in vain till ten o'clock at night.
+
+The next thing was to billet the warriors.  The captain of the troop, by
+this, was pesky cross-tempered, and flounced off to the "Jolly
+Pilchards" in a huff.  "Sergeant," says he, "here's an inn, though a
+damned bad 'un, an' here I means to stop.  Somewheres about there's a
+farm called Constantine, where I'm told the men can be accommodated.
+Find out the place, if you can, an' do your best: an' don't let me see
+yer face till to-morra," says he.
+
+So Sergeant Basket--that was his name--gave the salute, and rode his
+troop up the street, where--for his manners were mighty winning,
+notwithstanding the dirty nature of his errand--he soon found plenty to
+direct him to Farmer Noy's, of Constantine; and up the coombe they rode
+into the darkness, a dozen or more going along with them to show the
+way, being won by their martial bearing as well as the sergeant's very
+friendly way of speech.
+
+Farmer Noy was in bed--a pock-marked, lantern-jawed old gaffer of
+sixty-five; and the most remarkable point about him was the wife he had
+married two years before--a young slip of a girl but just husband-high.
+Money did it, I reckon; but if so, 'twas a bad bargain for her.
+He was noted for stinginess to such a degree that they said his wife
+wore a brass wedding-ring, weekdays, to save the genuine article from
+wearing out.  She was a Ruan woman, too, and therefore ought to have
+known all about him.  But woman's ways be past finding out.
+
+Hearing the hoofs in his yard and the sergeant's _stram-a-ram_ upon the
+door, down comes the old curmudgeon with a candle held high above his
+head.
+
+"What the devil's here?" he calls out.  Sergeant Basket looks over the
+old man's shoulder; and there, halfway up the stairs, stood Madam Noy in
+her night rail--a high-coloured ripe girl, languishing for love, her red
+lips parted and neck all lily-white against a loosened pile of
+dark-brown hair.
+
+"Be cussed if I turn back!" said the sergeant to himself; and added out
+loud--
+
+"Forty souldjers, in the King's name!"
+
+"Forty devils!" says old Noy.
+
+"They're devils to eat," answered the sergeant, in the most friendly
+manner; "an', begad, ye must feed an' bed 'em this night--or else I'll
+search your cellars.  Ye are a loyal man--eh, farmer?  An' your cellars
+are big, I'm told."
+
+"Sarah," calls out the old man, following the sergeant's bold glance,
+"go back an' dress yersel' dacently this instant!  These here honest
+souldjers--forty damned honest gormandisin' souldjers--be come in his
+Majesty's name, forty strong, to protect honest folks' rights in the
+intervals of eatin' 'em out o' house an' home.  Sergeant, ye be very
+welcome i' the King's name.  Cheese an' cider ye shall have, an' I pray
+the mixture may turn your forty stomachs."
+
+In a dozen minutes he had fetched out his stable-boys and farm-hands,
+and, lantern in hand, was helping the sergeant to picket the horses and
+stow the men about on clean straw in the outhouses.  They were turning
+back to the house, and the old man was turning over in his mind that the
+sergeant hadn't yet said a word about where he was to sleep, when by the
+door they found Madam Noy waiting, in her wedding gown, and with her
+hair freshly braided.
+
+Now, the farmer was mortally afraid of the sergeant, knowing he had
+thirty ankers and more of contraband liquor in his cellars, and minding
+the sergeant's threat.  None the less his jealousy got the upper hand.
+
+"Woman," he cries out, "to thy bed!"
+
+"I was waiting," said she, "to say the Cap'n's bed--"
+
+"Sergeant's," says the dragoon, correcting her.
+
+"--Was laid i' the spare room."
+
+"Madam," replies Sergeant Basket, looking into her eyes and bowing,
+"a soldier with my responsibility sleeps but little.  In the first
+place, I must see that my men sup."
+
+"The maids be now cuttin' the bread an' cheese and drawin' the cider."
+
+"Then, Madam, leave me but possession of the parlour, and let me have a
+chair to sleep in."
+
+By this they were in the passage together, and her gaze devouring his
+regimentals.  The old man stood a pace off, looking sourly.
+The sergeant fed his eyes upon her, and Satan got hold of him.
+
+"Now if only," said he, "one of you could play cards!"
+
+"But I must go to bed," she answered; "though I can play cribbage, if
+only you stay another night."
+
+For she saw the glint in the farmer's eye; and so Sergeant Basket slept
+bolt upright that night in an arm-chair by the parlour fender.  Next day
+the dragooners searched the town again, and were billeted all about
+among the cottages.  But the sergeant returned to Constantine, and
+before going to bed--this time in the spare room--played a game of
+cribbage with Madam Noy, the farmer smoking sulkily in his arm-chair.
+
+"Two for his heels!" said the rosy woman suddenly, halfway through the
+game.  "Sergeant, you're cheatin' yoursel' an' forgettin' to mark.
+Gi'e me the board; I'll mark for both."
+
+She put out her hand upon the board, and Sergeant Basket's closed upon
+it.  'Tis true he had forgot to mark; and feeling the hot pulse in her
+wrist, and beholding the hunger in her eyes, 'tis to be supposed he'd
+have forgot his own soul.
+
+He rode away next day with his troop: but my uncle Philip not being
+caught yet, and the Government set on making an example of him, we
+hadn't seen the last of these dragoons.  'Twas a time of fear down in
+the town.  At dead of night or at noonday they came on us--six times in
+all: and for two months the crew of the _Unity_ couldn't call their
+souls their own, but lived from day to day in secret closets and
+wandered the country by night, hiding in hedges and straw-houses.
+All that time the revenue men watched the Hauen, night and day, like
+dogs before a rat-hole.
+
+But one November morning 'twas whispered abroad that Uncle Philip had
+made his way to Falmouth, and slipped across to Guernsey.  Time passed
+on, and the dragooners were seen no more, nor the handsome
+devil-may-care face of Sergeant Basket.  Up at Constantine, where he had
+always contrived to billet himself, 'tis to be thought pretty Madam Noy
+pined to see him again, kicking his spurs in the porch and smiling out
+of his gay brown eyes; for her face fell away from its plump condition,
+and the hunger in her eyes grew and grew.  But a more remarkable fact
+was that her old husband--who wouldn't have yearned after the dragoon,
+ye'd have thought--began to dwindle and fall away too.  By the New Year
+he was a dying man, and carried his doom on his face.  And on New Year's
+Day he straddled his mare for the last time, and rode over to Looe, to
+Doctor Gale's.
+
+"Goody-losh!" cried the doctor, taken aback by his appearance--
+"What's come to ye, Noy?"
+
+"Death!" says Noy.  "Doctor, I hain't come for advice, for before this
+day week I'll be a clay-cold corpse.  I come to ax a favour.  When they
+summon ye, before lookin' at my body--that'll be past help--go you to
+the little left-top corner drawer o' my wife's bureau, an' there ye'll
+find a packet.  You're my executor," says he, "and I leaves ye to deal
+wi' that packet as ye thinks fit."
+
+With that, the farmer rode away home-along, and the very day week he
+went dead.
+
+The doctor, when called over, minded what the old chap had said, and
+sending Madam Noy on some pretence to the kitchen, went over and
+unlocked the little drawer with a duplicate key, that the farmer had
+unhitched from his watch-chain and given him.  There was no parcel of
+letters, as he looked to find, but only a small packet crumpled away in
+the corner.  He pulled it out and gave a look, and a sniff, and another
+look: then shut the drawer, locked it, strode straight down-stairs to
+his horse and galloped away.
+
+In three hours' time, pretty Madam Noy was in the constables' hands upon
+the charge of murdering her husband by poison.
+
+They tried her, next Spring Assize, at Bodmin, before the Lord Chief
+Justice.  There wasn't evidence enough to put Sergeant Basket in the
+dock alongside of her--though 'twas freely guessed he knew more than
+anyone (saving the prisoner herself) about the arsenic that was found in
+the little drawer and inside the old man's body.  He was subpoena'd from
+Plymouth, and cross-examined by a great hulking King's Counsel for
+three-quarters of an hour.  But they got nothing out of him.
+All through the examination the prisoner looked at him and nodded her
+white face, every now and then, at his answers, as much as to say,
+"That's right--that's right: they shan't harm thee, my dear."  And the
+love-light shone in her eyes for all the court to see.  But the sergeant
+never let his look meet it.  When he stepped down at last she gave a sob
+of joy, and fainted bang-off.
+
+They roused her up, after this, to hear the verdict of _Guilty_ and her
+doom spoken by the judge.  "Pris'ner at the bar," said the Clerk of
+Arraigns, "have ye anything to say why this court should not pass
+sentence o' death?"
+
+She held tight of the rail before her, and spoke out loud and clear--
+
+"My Lord and gentlemen all, I be a guilty woman; an' I be ready to die
+at once for my sin.  But if ye kill me now, ye kill the child in my
+body--an' he is innocent."
+
+Well, 'twas found she spoke truth; and the hanging was put off till
+after the time of her delivery.  She was led back to prison, and there,
+about the end of June, her child was born, and died before he was six
+hours old.  But the mother recovered, and quietly abode the time of her
+hanging.
+
+
+I can mind her execution very well; for father and mother had determined
+it would be an excellent thing for my rickets to take me into Bodmin
+that day, and get a touch of the dead woman's hand, which in those times
+was considered an unfailing remedy.  So we borrowed the parson's
+manure-cart, and cleaned it thoroughly, and drove in together.
+
+The place of the hangings, then, was a little door in the prison-wall,
+looking over the bank where the railway now goes, and a dismal piece of
+water called Jail-pool, where the townsfolk drowned most of the dogs and
+cats they'd no further use for.  All the bank under the gallows was that
+thick with people you could almost walk upon their heads; and my ribs
+were squeezed by the crowd so that I couldn't breathe freely for a month
+after.  Back across the pool, the fields along the side of the valley
+were lined with booths and sweet-stalls and standings--a perfect
+Whitsun-fair; and a din going up that cracked your ears.
+
+But there was the stillness of death when the woman came forth, with the
+sheriff and the chaplain reading in his book, and the unnamed man
+behind--all from the little door.  She wore a strait black gown, and a
+white kerchief about her neck--a lovely woman, young and white and
+tearless.
+
+She ran her eye over the crowd and stepped forward a pace, as if to
+speak; but lifted a finger and beckoned instead: and out of the people a
+man fought his way to the foot of the scaffold.  'Twas the dashing
+sergeant, that was here upon sick-leave.  Sick he was, I believe.
+His face above his shining regimentals was grey as a slate; for he had
+committed perjury to save his skin, and on the face of the perjured no
+sun will ever shine.
+
+"Have you got it?" the doomed woman said, many hearing the words.
+
+He tried to reach, but the scaffold was too high, so he tossed up what
+was in his hand, and the woman caught it--a little screw of
+tissue-paper.
+
+"I must see that, please!" said the sheriff, laying a hand upon her arm.
+
+"'Tis but a weddin'-ring, sir"--and she slipped it over her finger.
+Then she kissed it once, under the beam, and, lookin' into the dragoon's
+eyes, spoke very slow--
+
+"_Husband, our child shall go wi' you; an' when I want you he shall
+fetch you._"
+
+--and with that turned to the sheriff, saying:
+
+"I be ready, sir."
+
+
+The sheriff wouldn't give father and mother leave for me to touch the
+dead woman's hand; so they drove back that evening grumbling a good bit.
+'Tis a sixteen-mile drive, and the ostler in at Bodmin had swindled the
+poor old horse out of his feed, I believe; for he crawled like a slug.
+But they were so taken up with discussing the day's doings, and what a
+mort of people had been present, and how the sheriff might have used
+milder language in refusing my father, that they forgot to use the whip.
+The moon was up before we got halfway home, and a star to be seen here
+and there; and still we never mended our pace.
+
+'Twas in the middle of the lane leading down to Hendra Bottom, where for
+more than a mile two carts can't pass each other, that my father pricks
+up his ears and looks back.
+
+"Hullo!" says he; "there's somebody gallopin' behind us."
+
+Far back in the night we heard the noise of a horse's hoofs, pounding
+furiously on the road and drawing nearer and nearer.
+
+"Save us!" cries father; "whoever 'tis, he's comin' down th' lane!"
+And in a minute's time the clatter was close on us and someone shouting
+behind.
+
+"Hurry that crawlin' worm o' yourn--or draw aside in God's name, an' let
+me by!" the rider yelled.
+
+"What's up?" asked my father, quartering as well as he could.
+"Why!  Hullo!  Farmer Hugo, be that you?"
+
+"There's a mad devil o' a man behind, ridin' down all he comes across.
+A's blazin' drunk, I reckon--but 'tisn' _that_--'tis the horrible voice
+that goes wi' en--Hark!  Lord protect us, he's turn'd into the lane!"
+
+Sure enough, the clatter of a second horse was coming down upon us, out
+of the night--and with it the most ghastly sounds that ever creamed a
+man's flesh.  Farmer Hugo pushed past us and sent a shower of mud in our
+faces as his horse leapt off again, and 'way-to-go down the hill.  My
+father stood up and lashed our old grey with the reins, and down we went
+too, bumpity-bump for our lives, the poor beast being taken suddenly
+like one possessed.  For the screaming behind was like nothing on earth
+but the wailing and sobbing of a little child--only tenfold louder.
+'Twas just as you'd fancy a baby might wail if his little limbs was
+being twisted to death.
+
+At the hill's foot, as you know, a stream crosses the lane--that widens
+out there a bit, and narrows again as it goes up t'other side of the
+valley.  Knowing we must be overtaken further on--for the screams and
+clatter seemed at our very backs by this--father jumped out here into
+the stream and backed the cart well to one side; and not a second too
+soon.
+
+The next moment, like a wind, this thing went by us in the moonlight--
+a man upon a black horse that splashed the stream all over us as he
+dashed through it and up the hill.  'Twas the scarlet dragoon with his
+ashen face; and behind him, holding to his cross-belt, rode a little
+shape that tugged and wailed and raved.  As I stand here, sir, 'twas the
+shape of a naked babe!
+
+
+Well, I won't go on to tell how my father dropped upon his knees in the
+water, or how my mother fainted off.  The thing was gone, and from that
+moment for eight years nothing was seen or heard of Sergeant Basket.
+The fright killed my mother.  Before next spring she fell into a
+decline, and early next fall the old man--for he was an old man now--had
+to delve her grave.  After this he went feebly about his work, but held
+on, being wishful for me to step into his shoon, which I began to do as
+soon as I was fourteen, having outgrown the rickets by that time.
+
+
+But one cool evening in September month, father was up digging in the
+yard alone: for 'twas a small child's grave, and in the loosest soil,
+and I was off on a day's work, thatching Farmer Tresidder's stacks.
+He was digging away slowly when he heard a rattle at the lych-gate, and
+looking over the edge of the grave, saw in the dusk a man hitching his
+horse there by the bridle.
+
+'Twas a coal-black horse, and the man wore a scarlet coat all powdered
+with pilm; and as he opened the gate and came over the graves, father
+saw that 'twas the dashing dragoon.  His face was still a slaty-grey,
+and clammy with sweat; and when he spoke, his voice was all of a
+whisper, with a shiver therein.
+
+"Bedman," says he, "go to the hedge and look down the road, and tell me
+what you see."
+
+My father went, with his knees shaking, and came back again.
+
+"I see a woman," says he, "not fifty yards down the road.  She is
+dressed in black, an' has a veil over her face; an' she's comin' this
+way."
+
+"Bedman," answers the dragoon, "go to the gate an' look back along the
+Plymouth road, an' tell me what you see."
+
+"I see," says my father, coming back with his teeth chattering, "I see,
+twenty yards back, a naked child comin'.  He looks to be callin', but he
+makes no sound."
+
+"Because his voice is wearied out," says the dragoon.  And with that he
+faced about, and walked to the gate slowly.
+
+"Bedman, come wi' me an' see the rest," he says, over his shoulder.
+
+He opened the gate, unhitched the bridle and swung himself heavily up in
+the saddle.
+
+Now from the gate the bank goes down pretty steep into the road, and at
+the foot of the bank my father saw two figures waiting.  'Twas the woman
+and the child, hand in hand; and their eyes burned up like coals: and
+the woman's veil was lifted, and her throat bare.
+
+As the horse went down the bank towards these two, they reached out and
+took each a stirrup and climbed upon his back, the child before the
+dragoon and the woman behind.  The man's face was set like a stone.
+Not a word did either speak, and in this fashion they rode down the hill
+towards Ruan sands.  All that my father could mind, beyond, was that the
+woman's hands were passed round the man's neck, where the rope had
+passed round her own.
+
+No more could he tell, being a stricken man from that hour.  But Aunt
+Polgrain, the house-keeper up to Constantine, saw them, an hour later,
+go along the road below the town-place; and Jacobs, the smith, saw them
+pass his forge towards Bodmin about midnight.  So the tale's true
+enough.  But since that night no man has set eyes on horse or riders.
+
+
+
+A BLUE PANTOMIME.
+
+
+I.
+
+
+HOW I DINED AT THE "INDIAN QUEENS."
+
+The sensation was odd; for I could have made affidavit I had never
+visited the place in my life, nor come within fifty miles of it.
+Yet every furlong of the drive was earmarked for me, as it were, by some
+detail perfectly familiar.  The high-road ran straight ahead to a notch
+in the long chine of Huel Tor; and this notch was filled with the yellow
+ball of the westering sun.  Whenever I turned my head and blinked, red
+simulacra of this ball hopped up and down over the brown moors.  Miles
+of wasteland, dotted with peat-ricks and cropping ponies, stretched to
+the northern horizon: on our left three long coombes radiated seaward,
+and in the gorge of the midmost was a building stuck like a fish-bone,
+its twisted Jacobean chimneys overtopping a plantation of ash-trees that
+now, in November, allowed a glimpse, and no more, of the grey facade.  I
+had looked down that coombe as we drove by; and catching sight of these
+chimneys felt something like reassurance, as if I had been counting, all
+the way, to find them there.
+
+But here let me explain who I am and what brought me to these parts.
+My name is Samuel Wraxall--the Reverend Samuel Wraxall, to be precise:
+I was born a Cockney and educated at Rugby and Oxford.  On leaving the
+University I had taken orders; but, for reasons impertinent to this
+narrative, was led, after five years of parochial work in Surrey, to
+accept an Inspectorship of Schools.  Just now I was bound for Pitt's
+Scawens, a desolate village among the Cornish clay-moors, there to
+examine and report upon the Board School.  Pitt's Scawens lies some nine
+miles off the railway, and six from the nearest market-town;
+consequently, on hearing there was a comfortable inn near the village, I
+had determined to make that my resting-place for the night and do my
+business early on the morrow.
+
+"Who lives down yonder?" I asked my driver.
+
+"Squire Parkyn," he answered, not troubling to follow my gaze.
+
+"Old family?"
+
+"May be: Belonged to these parts before I can mind."
+
+"What's the place called?"
+
+"Tremenhuel."
+
+I had certainly never heard the name before, nevertheless my lips were
+forming the syllables almost before he spoke.  As he flicked up his grey
+horse and the gig began to oscillate in more business-like fashion, I
+put him a fourth question--a question at once involuntary and absurd.
+
+"Are you sure the people who live there are called Parkyn?"
+
+He turned his head at this, and treated me quite excusably to a stare of
+amazement.
+
+"Well--considerin' I've lived in these parts five-an'-forty year, man
+and boy, I reckon I _ought_ to be sure."
+
+The reproof was just, and I apologised.  Nevertheless Parkyn was not the
+name I wanted.  What was the name?  And why did I want it?  I had not
+the least idea.  For the next mile I continued to hunt my brain for the
+right combination of syllables.  I only knew that somewhere, now at the
+back of my head, now on my tongue-tip, there hung a word I desired to
+utter, but could not.  I was still searching for it when the gig climbed
+over the summit of a gentle rise, and the "Indian Queens" hove in sight.
+
+It is not usual for a village to lie a full mile beyond its inn: yet I
+never doubted this must be the case with Pitt's Scawens.  Nor was I in
+the least surprised by the appearance of this lonely tavern, with the
+black peat-pool behind it and the high-road in front, along which its
+end windows stare for miles, as if on the look-out for the ghosts of
+departed coaches full of disembodied travellers for the Land's End.
+I knew the sign-board over the porch: I knew--though now in the twilight
+it was impossible to distinguish colours--that upon either side of it
+was painted an Indian Queen in a scarlet turban and blue robe, taking
+two black children with scarlet parasols to see a blue palm-tree.
+I recognised the hepping-stock and granite drinking-trough beside the
+porch; as well as the eight front windows, four on either side of the
+door, and the dummy window immediately over it.  Only the landlord was
+unfamiliar.  He appeared as the gig drew up--a loose-fleshed, heavy man,
+something over six feet in height--and welcomed me with an air of
+anxious hospitality, as if I were the first guest he had entertained for
+many years.
+
+"You received my letter, then?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, surely.  The Rev. S. Wraxall, I suppose.  Your bed's aired, sir,
+and a fire in the Blue Room, and the cloth laid.  My wife didn't like to
+risk cooking the fowl till you were really come.  'Railways be that
+uncertain,' she said.  'Something may happen to the train and he'll be
+done to death and all in pieces.'"
+
+It took me a couple of seconds to discover that these gloomy
+anticipations referred not to me but to the fowl.
+
+"But if you can wait half an hour--" he went on.
+
+"Certainly," said I.  "In the meanwhile, if you'll show me up to my
+bedroom, I'll have a wash and change my clothes, for I've been
+travelling since ten this morning."
+
+I was standing in the passage by this time, and examined it in the dusk
+while the landlord was fetching a candle.  Yes, again: I had felt sure
+the staircase lay to the right.  I knew by heart the Ionic pattern of
+its broad balusters; the tick of the tall clock, standing at the first
+turn of the stairs; the vista down the glazed door opening on the
+stable-yard.  When the landlord returned with my portmanteau and a
+candle and I followed him up-stairs, I was asking myself for the
+twentieth time--'When--in what stage of my soul's history--had I been
+doing all this before?  And what on earth was that tune that kept
+humming in my head?'
+
+I dismissed these speculations as I entered the bedroom and began to
+fling off my dusty clothes.  I had almost forgotten about them by the
+time I began to wash away my travel-stains, and rinse the coal-dust out
+of my hair.  My spirits revived, and I began mentally to arrange my
+plans for the next day.  The prospect of dinner, too, after my cold
+drive was wonderfully comforting.  Perhaps (thought I), there is good
+wine in this inn; it is just the house wherein travellers find, or boast
+that they find, forgotten bins of Burgundy or Teneriffe.  When my
+landlord returned to conduct me to the Blue Room, I followed him down to
+the first landing in the lightest of spirits.
+
+Therefore, I was startled when, as the landlord threw open the door and
+stood aside to let me pass, _it_ came upon me again--and this time not
+as a merely vague sensation, but as a sharp and sudden fear taking me
+like a cold hand by the throat.  I shivered as I crossed the threshold
+and began to look about me.  The landlord observed it, and said--
+
+"It's chilly weather for travelling, to be sure.  Maybe you'd be better
+down-stairs in the coffee-room, after all."
+
+I felt that this was probable enough.  But it seemed a pity to have put
+him to the pains of lighting this fire for nothing.  So I promised him I
+should be comfortable enough.
+
+He appeared to be relieved, and asked me what I would drink with my
+dinner.  "There's beer--I brew it myself; and sherry--"
+
+I said I would try his beer.
+
+"And a bottle of sound port to follow?"
+
+Port upon home-brewed beer!  But I had dared it often enough in my
+Oxford days, and a long evening lay before me, with a snug armchair, and
+a fire fit to roast a sheep.  I assented.
+
+He withdrew to fetch up the meal, and I looked about me with curiosity.
+The room was a long one--perhaps fifty feet from end to end, and not
+less than ten paces broad.  It was wainscotted to the height of four
+feet from the ground, probably with oak, but the wood had been so larded
+with dark blue paint that its texture could not be discovered.
+Above this wainscot the walls were covered with a fascinating paper.
+The background of this was a greenish-blue, and upon it a party of
+red-coated riders in three-cornered hats blew large horns while they
+hunted a stag.  This pattern, striking enough in itself, became
+immeasurably more so when repeated a dozen times; for the stag of one
+hunt chased the riders of the next, and the riders chased the hounds,
+and so on in an unbroken procession right round the room.  The window at
+the bottom of the room stood high in the wall, with short blue curtains
+and a blue-cushioned seat beneath.  In the corner to the right of it
+stood a tall clock, and by the clock an old spinet, decorated with two
+plated cruets, a toy cottage constructed of shells and gum, and an
+ormolu clock under glass--the sort of ornament that an Agricultural
+Society presents to the tenant of the best-cultivated farm within thirty
+miles of somewhere or other.  The floor was un-carpeted save for one
+small oasis opposite the fire.  Here stood my table, cleanly spread,
+with two plated candlesticks, each holding three candles.  Along the
+wainscot extended a regiment of dark, leather-cushioned chairs, so
+straight in the back that they seemed to be standing at attention.
+There was but one easy-chair in the room, and this was drawn close to
+the fire.  I turned towards it.
+
+As I sat down I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror above the
+fireplace.  It was an unflattering glass, with a wave across the surface
+that divided my face into two ill-fitting halves, and a film upon it,
+due, I suppose, to the smoke of the wood-fire below.  But the setting of
+this mirror and the fireplace itself were by far the most noteworthy
+objects in the whole room.  I set myself idly to examine them.
+
+It was an open hearth, and the blazing faggot lay on the stone itself.
+The andirons were of indifferently polished steel, and on either side of
+the fireplace two Ionic pilasters of dark oak supported a narrow
+mantel-ledge.  Above this rested the mirror, flanked by a couple of
+naked, flat-cheeked boys, who appeared to be lowering it over the fire
+by a complicated system of pulleys, festoons, and flowers.
+These flowers and festoons, as well as the frame of the mirror, were of
+some light wood--lime, I fancy--and reminded me of Grinling Gibbons'
+work; and the glass tilted forward at a surprising angle, as if about to
+tumble on the hearth-rug.  The carving was exceedingly delicate.
+I rose to examine it more narrowly.  As I did so, my eyes fell on three
+letters, cut in flowing italic capitals upon a plain boss of wood
+immediately over the frame, and I spelt out the word _FVI_.
+
+_Fui_--the word was simple enough; but what of its associations?
+Why should it begin to stir up again those memories which were memories
+of nothing?  _Fui_--"I have been"; but what the dickens have I been?
+
+The landlord came in with my dinner.
+
+"Ah!" said he, "you're looking at our masterpiece, I see."
+
+"Tell me," I asked; "do you know why this word is written here, over the
+mirror?"
+
+"I've heard my wife say, sir, it was the motto of the Cardinnocks that
+used to own this house.  Ralph Cardinnock, father to the last squire,
+built it.  You'll see his initials up there, in the top corners of the
+frame--R. C.--one letter in each corner."
+
+As he spoke it, I knew this name--Cardinnock--for that which had been
+haunting me.  I seated myself at table, saying--
+
+"They lived at Tremenhuel, I suppose.  Is the family gone?--died out?"
+
+"Why yes; and the way of it was a bit curious, too."
+
+"You might sit down and tell me about it," I said, "while I begin my
+dinner."
+
+"There's not much to tell," he answered, taking a chair; "and I'm not
+the man to tell it properly.  My wife is a better hand at it, but"--
+here he looked at me doubtfully--"it always makes her cry."
+
+"Then I'd rather hear it from you.  How did Tremenhuel come into the
+hands of the Parkyns?--that's the present owner's name, is it not?"
+
+The landlord nodded.  "The answer to that is part of the story.
+Old Parkyn, great-great-grandfather to the one that lives there now,
+took Tremenhuel on lease from the last Cardinnock--Squire Philip
+Cardinnock, as he was called.  Squire Philip came into the property when
+he was twenty-three: and before he reached twenty-seven, he was forced
+to let the old place.  He was wild, they say--thundering wild; a
+drinking, dicing, cock-fighting, horse-racing young man; poured out his
+money like water through a sieve.  That was bad enough: but when it came
+to carrying off a young lady and putting a sword through her father and
+running the country, I put it to you it's worse."
+
+"Did he disappear?"
+
+"That's part of the story, too.  When matters got desperate and he was
+forced to let Tremenhuel, he took what money he could raise and cleared
+out of the neighbourhood for a time; went off to Tregarrick when the
+militia was embodied, he being an officer; and there he cast his
+affections upon old Sir Felix Williams's daughter.  Miss Cicely--"
+
+I was expecting it: nevertheless I dropped my fork clumsily as I heard
+the name, and for a few seconds the landlord's voice sounded like that
+of a distant river as it ran on--
+
+"And as Sir Felix wouldn't consent--for which nobody blamed him--
+Squire Philip and Miss Cicely agreed to go off together one dark night.
+But the old man found them out and stopped them in the nick of time and
+got six inches of cold steel for his pains.  However, he kept his girl,
+and Squire Philip had to fly the country.  He went off that same night,
+they say: and wherever he went, he never came back."
+
+"What became of him?"
+
+"Ne'er a soul knows; for ne'er a soul saw his face again.  Year after
+year, old Parkyn, his tenant, took the rent of Tremenhuel out of his
+right pocket and paid it into his left: and in time, there being no
+heir, he just took over the property and stepped into Cardinnock's shoes
+with a 'by your leave' to nobody, and there his grandson is to this
+day."
+
+"What became of the young lady--of Miss Cicely Williams?" I asked.
+
+"Died an old maid.  There was something curious between her and her only
+brother who had helped to stop the runaway match.  Nobody knows what it
+was: but when Sir Felix died--as he did about ten years after--
+she packed up and went somewhere to the North of England and settled.
+They say she and her brother never spoke: which was carrying her anger
+at his interference rather far, 'specially as she remained good friends
+with her father."
+
+He broke off here to fetch up the second course.  We talked no more, for
+I was pondering his tale and disinclined to be diverted to other topics.
+Nor can I tell whether the rest of the meal was good or ill.  I suppose
+I ate: but it was only when the landlord swept the cloth, and produced a
+bottle of port, with a plate of biscuits and another of dried raisins,
+that I woke out of my musing.  While I drew the arm-chair nearer the
+fire, he pushed forward the table with the wine to my elbow.
+After this, he poured me out a glass and fell to dusting a high-backed
+chair with vigour, as though he had caught it standing at ease and were
+giving it a round dozen for insubordination in the ranks.  "Was there
+anything more?"  "Nothing, thank you."  He withdrew.
+
+I drank a couple of glasses and began meditatively to light my pipe.
+I was trying to piece together these words  "Philip Cardinnock--
+Cicely Williams--_fui_," and to fit them into the tune that kept running
+in my head.
+
+My pipe went out.  I pulled out my pouch and was filling it afresh when
+a puff of wind came down the chimney and blew a cloud of blue smoke out
+into the room.
+
+The smoke curled up and spread itself over the face of the mirror
+confronting me.  I followed it lazily with my eyes.  Then suddenly I
+bent forward, staring up.  Something very curious was happening to the
+glass.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+WHAT I SAW IN THE MIRROR.
+
+The smoke that had dimmed the mirror's face for a moment was rolling off
+its surface and upwards to the ceiling.  But some of it still lingered
+in filmy, slowly revolving eddies.  The glass itself, too, was stirring
+beneath this film and running across its breadth in horizontal waves
+which broke themselves silently, one after another, against the dark
+frame, while the circles of smoke kept widening, as the ripples widen
+when a stone is tossed into still water.
+
+I rubbed my eyes.  The motion on the mirror's surface was quickening
+perceptibly, while the glass itself was steadily becoming more opaque,
+the film deepening to a milky colour and lying over the surface in heavy
+folds.  I was about to start up and touch the glass with my hand, when
+beneath this milky colour and from the heart of the whirling film, there
+began to gleam an underlying brilliance after the fashion of the light
+in an opal, but with this difference, that the light here was blue--
+a steel blue so vivid that the pain of it forced me to shut my eyes.
+When I opened them again, this light had increased in intensity.
+The disturbance in the glass began to abate; the eddies revolved more
+slowly; the smoke-wreaths faded: and as they died wholly out, the blue
+light went out on a sudden and the mirror looked down upon me as before.
+
+That is to say, I thought so for a moment.  But the next, I found that
+though its face reflected the room in which I sat, there was one
+omission.
+
+_I_ was that omission.  My arm-chair was there, but no one sat in it.
+
+I was surprised; but, as well as I can recollect, not in the least
+frightened.  I continued, at any rate, to gaze steadily into the glass,
+and now took note of two particulars that had escaped me.  The table I
+saw was laid for two.  Forks, knives and glasses gleamed at either end,
+and a couple of decanters caught the sparkle of the candles in the
+centre.  This was my first observation.  The second was that the colours
+of the hearth-rug had gained in freshness, and that a dark spot just
+beyond it--a spot which in my first exploration I had half-amusedly
+taken for a blood-stain--was not reflected in the glass.
+
+As I leant back and gazed, with my hands in my lap, I remember there was
+some difficulty in determining whether the tune by which I was still
+haunted ran in my head or was tinkling from within the old spinet by the
+window.  But after a while the music, whencesoever it came, faded away
+and ceased.  A dead silence held everything for about thirty seconds.
+
+And then, still looking in the mirror, I saw the door behind me open
+slowly.
+
+The next moment, two persons noiselessly entered the room--a young man
+and a girl.  They wore the dress of the early Georgian days, as well as
+I could see; for the girl was wrapped in a cloak with a hood that almost
+concealed her face, while the man wore a heavy riding-coat.  He was
+booted and spurred, and the backs of his top-boots were splashed with
+mud.  I say the backs of his boots, for he stood with his back to me
+while he held open the door for the girl to pass, and at first I could
+not see his face.
+
+The lady advanced into the light of the candles and threw back her hood.
+Her eyes were dark and frightened: her cheeks damp with rain and
+slightly reddened by the wind.  A curl of brown hair had broken loose
+from its knot and hung, heavy with wet, across her brow.  It was a
+beautiful face; and I recognised its owner.  She was Cicely Williams.
+
+With that, I knew well enough what I was to see next.  I knew it even
+while the man at the door was turning, and I dug the nails of my right
+hand into the palm of my left, to repress the fear that swelled up as a
+wave as I looked straight into his face and saw--_my own self_.
+
+But I had expected it, as I say: and when the wave of fear had passed
+over me and gone, I could observe these two figures steadfastly enough.
+The girl dropped into a chair beside the table, and stretching her arms
+along the white cloth, bowed her head over them and wept.  I saw her
+shoulders heave and her twined fingers work as she struggled with her
+grief.  The young Squire advanced and, with a hand on her shoulder,
+endeavoured by many endearments to comfort her.  His lips moved
+vehemently, and gradually her shoulders ceased to rise and fall.
+By-and-by she raised her head and looked up into his face with wet,
+gleaming eyes.  It was very pitiful to see.  The young man took her face
+between his hands, kissed it, and pouring out a glass of wine, held it
+to her lips.  She put it aside with her hand and glanced up towards the
+tall clock in the corner.  My eyes, following hers, saw that the hands
+pointed to a quarter to twelve.
+
+The young Squire set down the glass hastily, stepped to the window and,
+drawing aside the blue curtain, gazed out upon the night.  Twice he
+looked back at Cicely, over his shoulder, and after a minute returned to
+the table.  He drained the glass which the girl had declined, poured out
+another, still keeping his eyes on her, and began to walk impatiently up
+and down the room.  And all the time Cicely's soft eyes never ceased to
+follow him.  Clearly there was need for hurry, for they had not laid
+aside their travelling-cloaks, and once or twice the young man paused in
+his walk to listen.  At length he pulled out his watch, glanced from it
+to the clock in the corner, put it away with a frown and, striding up to
+the hearth, flung himself down in the arm-chair--the very arm-chair in
+which I was seated.
+
+As he sat there, tapping the hearth-rug with the toe of his thick
+riding-boot and moving his lips now and then in answer to some
+question from the young girl, I had time to examine his every feature.
+Line by line they reproduced my own--nay, looking straight into his eyes
+I could see through them into the soul of him and recognised that soul
+for my own.  Of all the passions there I knew that myself contained the
+germs.  Vices repressed in youth, tendencies to sin starved in my own
+nature by lack of opportunity--these flourished in a rank growth.
+I saw virtues, too, that I had once possessed but had lost by degrees in
+my respectable journey through life--courage, generosity, tenderness of
+heart.  I was discovering these with envy, one by one, when he raised
+his head higher and listened for a moment, with a hand on either arm of
+the chair.
+
+The next instant he sprang up and faced the door.  Glancing at Cicely, I
+saw her cowering down in her chair.
+
+The young Squire had hardly gained his feet when the door flew open and
+the figures of two men appeared on the threshold--Sir Felix Williams and
+his only son, the father and brother of Cicely.
+
+There, in the doorway, the intruders halted; but for an instant only.
+Almost before the Squire could draw, his sweetheart's brother had sprung
+forward.  Like two serpents their rapiers engaged in the candle-light.
+The soundless blades crossed and glittered.  Then one of them flickered
+in a narrow circle, and the brother's rapier went spinning from his hand
+across the room.
+
+Young Cardinnock lowered his point at once, and his adversary stepped
+back a couple of paces.  While a man might count twenty the pair looked
+each other in the face, and then the old man, Sir Felix, stepped slowly
+forward.
+
+But before he could thrust--for the young Squire still kept his point
+lowered--Cicely sprang forward and threw herself across her lover's
+breast.  There, for all the gentle efforts his left hand made to
+disengage her, she clung.  She had made her choice.  There was no sign
+of faltering in her soft eyes, and her father had perforce to hold his
+hand.
+
+The old man began to speak.  I saw his face distorted with passion and
+his lips working.  I saw the deep red gather on Cicely's cheeks and the
+anger in her lover's eyes.  There was a pause as Sir Felix ceased to
+speak, and then the young Squire replied.  But his sentence stopped
+midway: for once more the old man rushed upon him.
+
+This time young Cardinnock's rapier was raised.  Girdling Cicely with
+his left arm he parried her father's lunge and smote his blade aside.
+But such was the old man's passion that he followed the lunge with all
+his body, and before his opponent could prevent it, was wounded high in
+the chest, beneath the collar-bone.
+
+He reeled back and fell against the table.  Cicely ran forward and
+caught his hand; but he pushed her away savagely and, with another
+clutch at the table's edge, dropped upon the hearth-rug.  The young man,
+meanwhile, white and aghast, rushed to the table, filled a glass with
+wine, and held it to the lips of the wounded man.  So the two lovers
+knelt.
+
+It was at this point that I who sat and witnessed the tragedy was
+assailed by a horror entirely new.  Hitherto I had, indeed, seen myself
+in Squire Philip Cardinnock; but now I began also to possess his soul
+and feel with his feelings, while at the same time I continued to sit
+before the glass, a helpless onlooker.  I was two men at once; the man
+who knelt all unaware of what was coming and the man who waited in the
+arm-chair, incapable of word or movement, yet gifted with a torturing
+prescience.  And as I sat this was what I saw:--
+
+The brother, as I knelt there oblivious of all but the wounded man,
+stepped across the room to the corner where his rapier lay, picked it up
+softly and as softly stole up behind me.  I tried to shout, to warn
+myself; but my tongue was tied.  The brother's arm was lifted.  The
+candlelight ran along the blade.  Still the kneeling figure never
+turned.
+
+And as my heart stiffened and awaited it, there came a flash of pain--
+one red-hot stroke of anguish.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+WHAT I SAW IN THE TARN.
+
+As the steel entered my back, cutting all the cords that bound me to
+life, I suffered anguish too exquisite for words to reach, too deep for
+memory to dive after.  My eyes closed and teeth shut on the taste of
+death; and as they shut a merciful oblivion wrapped me round.
+
+When I awoke, the room was dark, and I was standing on my feet.  A cold
+wind was blowing on my face, as from an open door.  I staggered to meet
+this wind and found myself groping along a passage and down a staircase
+filled with Egyptian darkness.  Then the wind increased suddenly and
+shook the black curtain around my senses.  A murky light broke in on me.
+I had a body.  That I felt; but where it was I knew not.  And so I felt
+my way forward in the direction where the twilight showed least dimly.
+
+Slowly the curtain shook and its folds dissolved as I moved against the
+wind.  The clouds lifted; and by degrees I grew aware that I was
+standing on the barren moor.  Night was stretched around to the horizon,
+where straight ahead a grey bar shone across the gloom.  I pressed on
+towards it.  The heath was uneven under my feet, and now and then I
+stumbled heavily; but still I held on.  For it seemed that I must get to
+this grey bar or die a second time.  All my muscles, all my will, were
+strained upon this purpose.
+
+Drawing nearer, I observed that a wave-like motion kept passing over
+this brighter space, as it had passed over the mirror.  The glimmer
+would be obscured for a moment, and then re-appear.  At length a gentle
+acclivity of the moor hid it for a while.  My legs positively raced up
+this slope, and upon the summit I hardly dared to look for a moment,
+knowing that if the light were an illusion all my hope must die with it.
+
+But it was no illusion.  There was the light, and there, before my feet,
+lay a sable sheet of water, over the surface of which the light was
+playing.  There was no moon, no star in heaven; yet over this desolate
+tarn hovered a pale radiance that ceased again where the edge of its
+waves lapped the further bank of peat.  Their monotonous wash hardly
+broke the stillness of the place.
+
+The formless longing was now pulling at me with an attraction I could
+not deny, though within me there rose and fought against it a horror
+only less strong.  Here, as in the Blue Room, two souls were struggling
+for me.  It was the soul of Philip Cardinnock that drew me towards the
+tarn and the soul of Samuel Wraxall that resisted.  Only, what was the
+thing towards which I was being pulled?
+
+I must have stood at least a minute on the brink before I descried a
+black object floating at the far end of the tarn.  What this object was
+I could not make out; but I knew it on the instant to be that for which
+I longed, and all my will grew suddenly intent on drawing it nearer.
+Even as my volition centred upon it, the black spot began to move slowly
+out into the pale radiance towards me.  Silently, surely, as though my
+wish drew it by a rope, it floated nearer and nearer over the bosom of
+the tarn; and while it was still some twenty yards from me I saw it to
+be a long black box, shaped somewhat like a coffin.
+
+There was no doubt about it.  I could hear the water now sucking at its
+dark sides.  I stepped down the bank, and waded up to my knees in the
+icy water to meet it.  It was a plain box, with no writing upon the lid,
+nor any speck of metal to relieve the dead black: and it moved with the
+same even speed straight up to where I stood.
+
+As it came, I laid my hand upon it and touched wood.  But with the touch
+came a further sensation that made me fling both arms around the box and
+begin frantically to haul it towards the shore.
+
+It was a feeling of suffocation; of a weight that pressed in upon my
+ribs and choked the lungs' action.  I felt that I must open that box or
+die horribly; that until I had it upon the bank and had forced the lid
+up I should know no pause from the labour and torture of dying.
+
+This put a wild strength into me.  As the box grated upon the few
+pebbles by the shore, I bent over it, caught it once more by the sides,
+and with infinite effort dragged it up out of the water.  It was heavy,
+and the weight upon my chest was heavier yet: but straining, panting,
+gasping, I hauled it up the bank, dropped it on the turf, and knelt over
+it, tugging furiously at the lid.
+
+I was frenzied--no less.  My nails were torn until the blood gushed.
+Lights danced before me; bells rang in my ears; the pressure on my lungs
+grew more intolerable with each moment; but still I fought with that
+lid.  Seven devils were within me and helped me; and all the while I
+knew that I was dying, that unless the box were opened in a moment or
+two it would be too late.
+
+The sweat ran off my eyebrows and dripped on the box.  My breath came
+and went in sobs.  I could not die.  I could not, must not die.  And so
+I tugged and strained and tugged again.
+
+Then, as I felt the black anguish of the Blue Room descending a second
+time upon me, I seemed to put all my strength into my hands.  From the
+lid or from my own throat--I could not distinguish--there came a creak
+and a long groan.  I tore back the board and fell on the heath with one
+shuddering breath of relief.
+
+And drawing it, I raised my head and looked over the coffin's edge.
+Still drawing it, I tumbled back.
+
+White, cold, with the last struggle fixed on its features and open eyes,
+it was my own dead face that stared up at me!
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+WHAT I HAVE SINCE LEARNT.
+
+They found me, next morning, lying on the brink of the tarn, and carried
+me back to the inn.  There I lay for weeks in a brain fever and talked--
+as they assure me--the wildest nonsense.  The landlord had first guessed
+that something was amiss on finding the front door open when he came
+down at five o'clock.  I must have turned to the left on leaving the
+house, travelled up the road for a hundred yards, and then struck almost
+at right angles across the moor.  One of my shoes was found a furlong
+from the highway, and this had guided them.  Of course they found no
+coffin beside me, and I was prudent enough to hold my tongue when I
+became convalescent.  But the effect of that night was to shatter my
+health for a year and more, and force me to throw up my post of School
+Inspector.  To this day I have never examined the school at Pitt's
+Scawens.  But somebody else has; and last winter I received a letter,
+which I will give in full:--
+
+                        21, Chesterham Road, KENSINGTON, W.
+                              December 3rd, 1891.
+
+    Dear Wraxall,--
+
+    It is a long time since we have corresponded, but I have just
+    returned from Cornwall, and while visiting Pitt's Scawens
+    professionally, was reminded of you.  I put up at the inn where
+    you had your long illness.  The people there were delighted to
+    find that I knew you, and desired me to send "their duty" when
+    next I wrote.  By the way, I suppose you were introduced to their
+    state apartment--the Blue Room--and its wonderful chimney carving.
+    I made a bid to the landlord for it, panels, mirror, and all, but
+    he referred me to Squire Parkyn, the landlord.  I think I may get
+    it, as the Squire loves hard coin.  When I have it up over my
+    mantel-piece here you must run over and give me your opinion on it.
+    By the way, clay has been discovered on the Tremenhuel Estate, just
+    at the back of the "Indian Queens": at least, I hear that Squire
+    Parkyn is running a Company, and is sanguine.  You remember the
+    tarn behind the inn?  They made an odd discovery there when
+    draining it for the new works.  In the mud at the bottom was
+    imbedded the perfect skeleton of a man.  The bones were quite clean
+    and white.  Close beside the body they afterwards turned up a
+    silver snuff-box, with the word "Fui" on the lid.  "Fui" was the
+    motto of the Cardinnocks, who held Tremenhuel before it passed to
+    the Parkyns.  There seems to be no doubt that these are the bones
+    of the last Squire, who disappeared mysteriously more than a
+    hundred years ago, in consequence of a love affair, I'm told.
+    It looks like foul play; but, if so, the account has long since
+    passed out of the hands of man.
+
+    Yours ever,   David E. Mainwaring.
+
+    P.S.--I reopen this to say that Squire Parkyn has accepted my offer
+    for the chimney-piece.  Let me hear soon that you'll come and look
+    at it and give me your opinion.
+
+
+
+THE TWO HOUSEHOLDERS.
+
+
+_Extract from the Memoirs of Gabriel Foot, Highwayman._
+
+I will say this--speaking as accurately as a man may, so long
+afterwards--that when first I spied the house it put no desire in me but
+just to give thanks.
+
+For conceive my case.  It was near mid-night, and ever since dusk I had
+been tramping the naked moors, in the teeth of as vicious a nor'-wester
+as ever drenched a man to the skin, and then blew the cold home to his
+marrow.  My clothes were sodden; my coat-tails flapped with a noise like
+pistol-shots; my boots squeaked as I went.  Overhead, the October moon
+was in her last quarter, and might have been a slice of finger-nail for
+all the light she afforded.  Two-thirds of the time the wrack blotted
+her out altogether; and I, with my stick clipped tight under my armpit,
+eyes puckered up, and head bent aslant, had to keep my wits alive to
+distinguish the road from the black heath to right and left.  For three
+hours I had met neither man nor man's dwelling, and (for all I knew) was
+desperately lost.  Indeed, at the cross-roads, two miles back, there had
+been nothing for me but to choose the way that kept the wind on my face,
+and it gnawed me like a dog.
+
+Mainly to allay the stinging of my eyes, I pulled up at last, turned
+right-about-face, leant back against the blast with a hand on my hat,
+and surveyed the blackness behind.  It was at this instant that, far
+away to the left, a point of light caught my notice, faint but steady;
+and at once I felt sure it burnt in the window of a house.  "The house,"
+thought I, "is a good mile off, beside the other road, and the light
+must have been an inch over my hat-brim for the last half-hour."
+This reflection--that on so wide a moor I had come near missing the
+information I wanted (and perhaps a supper) by one inch--sent a strong
+thrill down my back.
+
+I cut straight across the heather towards the light, risking quags and
+pitfalls.  Nay, so heartening was the chance to hear a fellow creature's
+voice, that I broke into a run, skipping over the stunted gorse that
+cropped up here and there, and dreading every moment to see the light
+quenched.  "Suppose it burns in an upper window, and the family is going
+to bed, as would be likely at this hour--"  The apprehension kept my
+eyes fixed on the bright spot, to the frequent scandal of my legs, that
+within five minutes were stuck full of gorse prickles.
+
+But the light did not go out, and soon a flicker of moonlight gave me a
+glimpse of the house's outline.  It proved to be a deal more imposing
+than I looked for--the outline, in fact, of a tall, square barrack, with
+a cluster of chimneys at either end, like ears, and a high wall, topped
+by the roofs of some outbuildings, concealing the lower windows.  There
+was no gate in this wall, and presently I guessed the reason.  I was
+approaching the place from behind, and the light came from a back window
+on the first floor.
+
+The faintness of the light also was explained by this time.  It shone
+behind a drab-coloured blind, and in shape resembled the stem of a
+wine-glass, broadening out at the foot; an effect produced by the
+half-drawn curtains within.  I came to a halt, waiting for the next ray
+of moonlight.  At the same moment a rush of wind swept over the
+chimney-stacks, and on the wind there seemed to ride a human sigh.
+
+On this last point I may err.  The gust had passed some seconds before I
+caught myself detecting this peculiar note, and trying to disengage it
+from the natural chords of the storm.  From the next gust it was absent;
+and then, to my dismay, the light faded from the window.
+
+I was half-minded to call out when it appeared again, this time in two
+windows--those next on the right to that where it had shone before.
+Almost at once it increased in brilliance, as if the person who carried
+it from the smaller room to the larger were lighting more candles; and
+now the illumination was strong enough to make fine gold threads of the
+rain that fell within its radiance, and fling two shafts of warm yellow
+over the coping of the back wall.  During the minute or more that I
+stood watching, no shadow fell on either blind.
+
+Between me and the wall ran a ditch, into which the ground at my feet
+broke sharply away.  Setting my back to the storm again, I followed the
+lip of this ditch around the wall's angle.  Here it shallowed, and here,
+too, was shelter; but not wishing to mistake a bed of nettles or any
+such pitfall for solid earth, I kept pretty wide as I went on.
+The house was dark on this side, and the wall, as before, had no
+opening.  Close beside the next angle there grew a mass of thick gorse
+bushes, and pushing through these I found myself suddenly on a sound
+high-road, with the wind tearing at me as furiously as ever.
+
+But here was the front; and I now perceived that the surrounding wall
+advanced some way before the house, so as to form a narrow courtlage.
+So much of it, too, as faced the road had been whitewashed, which made
+it an easy matter to find the gate.  But as I laid hand on its latch I
+had a surprise.
+
+A line of paving-stones led from the gate to a heavy porch; and along
+the wet surface of these there fell a streak of light from the front
+door, which stood ajar.
+
+That a door should remain six inches open on such a night was
+astonishing enough, until I entered the court and found it as still as a
+room, owing to the high wall.  But looking up and assuring myself that
+all the rest of the facade was black as ink, I wondered at the
+carelessness of the inmates.
+
+It was here that my professional instinct received the first jog.
+Abating the sound of my feet on the paving-stones, I went up to the door
+and pushed it softly.  It opened without noise.
+
+I stepped into a fair-sized hall of modern build, paved with red tiles
+and lit with a small hanging-lamp.  To right and left were doors leading
+to the ground-floor rooms.  Along the wall by my shoulder ran a line of
+pegs, on which hung half-a-dozen hats and great-coats, every one of
+clerical shape; and full in front of me a broad staircase ran up, with a
+staring Brussels carpet, the colours and pattern of which I can recall
+as well as I can to-day's breakfast.  Under this staircase was set a
+stand full of walking-sticks, and a table littered with gloves, brushes,
+a hand-bell, a riding-crop, one or two dog-whistles, and a bedroom
+candle, with tinder-box beside it.  This, with one notable exception,
+was all the furniture.
+
+The exception--which turned me cold--was the form of a yellow mastiff
+dog, curled on a mat beneath the table.  The arch of his back was
+towards me, and one forepaw lay over his nose in a natural posture of
+sleep.  I leant back on the wainscotting with my eyes tightly fixed on
+him, and my thoughts sneaking back, with something of regret, to the
+storm I had come through.
+
+But a man's habits are not easily denied.  At the end of three minutes
+the dog had not moved, and I was down on the door-mat unlacing my soaked
+boots.  Slipping them off, and taking them in my left hand, I stood up,
+and tried a step towards the stairs, with eyes alert for any movement of
+the mastiff; but he never stirred.  I was glad enough, however, on
+reaching the stairs, to find them newly built, and the carpet thick.  Up
+I went, with a glance at every step for the table which now hid the
+brute's form from me, and never a creak did I wake out of that staircase
+till I was almost at the first landing, when my toe caught a loose
+stair-rod, and rattled it in a way that stopped my heart for a moment,
+and then set it going in double-quick time.
+
+I stood still with a hand on the rail.  My eyes were now on a level with
+the floor of the landing, out of which branched two passages--one
+turning sharply to my right, the other straight in front, so that I was
+gazing down the length of it.  Almost at the end, a parallelogram of
+light fell across it from an open door.
+
+A man who has once felt it knows there is only one kind of silence that
+can fitly be called "dead."  This is only to be found in a great house
+at midnight.  I declare that for a few seconds after I rattled the
+stair-rod you might have cut the silence with a knife.  If the house
+held a clock, it ticked inaudibly.
+
+Upon this silence, at the end of a minute, broke a light sound--the
+_tink-tink_ of a decanter on the rim of a wine-glass.  It came from the
+room where the light was.
+
+Now perhaps it was that the very thought of liquor put warmth into my
+cold bones.  It is certain that all of a sudden I straightened my back,
+took the remaining stairs at two strides, and walked down the passage as
+bold as brass, without caring a jot for the noise I made.
+
+In the doorway I halted.  The room was long, lined for the most part
+with books bound in what they call "divinity calf," and littered with
+papers like a barrister's table on assize day.  A leathern elbow-chair
+faced the fireplace, where a few coals burned sulkily, and beside it, on
+the corner of a writing table, were set an unlit candle and a pile of
+manuscripts.  At the opposite end of the room a curtained door led (as I
+guessed) to the chamber that I had first seen illuminated.  All this I
+took in with the tail of my eye, while staring straight in front, where,
+in the middle of a great square of carpet, between me and the windows,
+stood a table with a red cloth upon it.  On this cloth were a couple of
+wax candles lit, in silver stands, a tray, and a decanter three-parts
+full of brandy.  And between me and the table stood a man.
+
+He stood sideways, leaning a little back, as if to keep his shadow off
+the threshold, and looked at me over his left shoulder--a bald, grave
+man, slightly under the common height, with a long clerical coat of
+preposterous fit hanging loosely from his shoulders, a white cravat,
+black breeches, and black stockings.  His feet were loosely thrust into
+carpet slippers.  I judged his age at fifty, or thereabouts; but his
+face rested in the shadow, and I could only note a pair of eyes, very
+small and alert, twinkling above a large expanse of cheek.
+
+He was lifting a wine-glass from the table at the moment when I
+appeared, and it trembled now in his right hand.  I heard a spilt drop
+or two fall on the carpet.  This was all the evidence he showed of
+discomposure.
+
+Setting the glass back, he felt in his breast-pocket for a handkerchief,
+failed to find one, and rubbed his hands together to get the liquor off
+his fingers.
+
+"You startled me," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone, turning his eyes
+upon me, as he lifted his glass again, and emptied it.  "How did you
+find your way in?"
+
+"By the front door," said I, wondering at his unconcern.
+
+He nodded his head slowly.
+
+"Ah! yes; I forgot to lock it.  You came to steal, I suppose?"
+
+"I came because I'd lost my way.  I've been travelling this
+God-forsaken moor since dusk--"
+
+"With your boots in your hand," he put in quietly.
+
+"I took them off out of respect to the yellow dog you keep."
+
+"He lies in a very natural attitude--eh?"
+
+"You don't tell me he was _stuffed?_"
+
+The old man's eyes beamed a contemptuous pity.
+
+"You are indifferent sharp, my dear sir, for a housebreaker. Come in.
+Set down those convicting boots, and don't drip pools of water in the
+doorway.  If I must entertain a burglar, I prefer him tidy."
+
+He walked to the fire, picked up a poker, and knocked the coals into a
+blaze.  This done, he turned round on me with the poker still in his
+hand.  The serenest gravity sat on his large, pale features.
+
+"Why have I done this?" he asked.
+
+"I suppose to get possession of the poker."
+
+"Quite right.  May I inquire your next move?"
+
+"Why?" said I, feeling in my tail-pocket, "I carry a pistol."
+
+"Which I suppose to be damp?"
+
+"By no means.  I carry it, as you see, in an oil-cloth case."
+
+He stooped, and laid the poker carefully in the fender.
+
+"That is a stronger card than I possess.  I might urge that by pulling
+the trigger you would certainly alarm the house and the neighbourhood,
+and put a halter round your neck.  But it strikes me as safer to assume
+you capable of using a pistol with effect at three paces.  With what
+might happen subsequently I will not pretend to be concerned.  The fate
+of your neck"--he waved a hand,--"well, I have known you for just five
+minutes, and feel but a moderate interest in your neck.  As for the
+inmates of this house, it will refresh you to hear that there are none.
+I have lived here two years with a butler and female cook, both of whom
+I dismissed yesterday at a minute's notice, for conduct which I will not
+shock your ears by explicitly naming.  Suffice it to say, I carried them
+off yesterday to my parish church, two miles away, married them and
+dismissed them in the vestry without characters.  I wish you had known
+that butler--but excuse me; with the information I have supplied, you
+ought to find no difficulty in fixing the price you will take to clear
+out of my house instanter."
+
+"Sir," I answered, "I have held a pistol at one or two heads in my time,
+but never at one stuffed with nobler indiscretion.  Your chivalry does
+not, indeed, disarm me, but prompts me to desire more of your
+acquaintance.  I have found a gentleman, and must sup with him before I
+make terms."
+
+This address seemed to please him.  He shuffled across the room to a
+sideboard, and produced a plate of biscuits, another of dried figs, a
+glass, and two decanters.
+
+"Sherry and Madeira," he said.  "There is also a cold pie in the larder,
+if you care for it."
+
+"A biscuit will serve," I replied.  "To tell the truth, I'm more for the
+bucket than the manger, as the grooms say: and the brandy you were
+tasting just now is more to my mind than wine."
+
+"There is no water handy."
+
+"I have soaked in enough to-night to last me with this bottle."
+
+I pulled over a chair, laid my pistol on the table, and held out the
+glass for him to fill.  Having done so, he helped himself to a glass and
+a chair, and sat down facing me.
+
+"I was speaking, just now, of my late butler," he began, with a sip at
+his brandy.  "Does it strike you that, when confronted with moral
+delinquency, I am apt to let my indignation get the better of me?"
+
+"Not at all," I answered heartily, refilling my glass.
+
+It appeared that another reply would have pleased him better.
+
+"H'm.  I was hoping that, perhaps, I had visited his offence too
+strongly.  As a clergyman, you see, I was bound to be severe; but upon
+my word, sir, since Parkinson left I have felt like a man who has lost a
+limb."
+
+He drummed with his fingers on the cloth for a few moments, and went
+on--
+
+"One has a natural disposition to forgive butlers--Pharaoh, for
+instance, felt it.  There hovers around butlers an atmosphere in which
+common ethics lose their pertinence.  But mine was a rare bird--a black
+swan among butlers!  He was more than a butler: he was a quick and
+brightly gifted man.  Of the accuracy of his taste, and the unusual
+scope of his endeavour, you will be able to form some opinion when I
+assure you he modelled himself upon _me_."
+
+I bowed, over my brandy.
+
+"I am a scholar: yet I employed him to read aloud to me, and derived
+pleasure from his intonation.  I talk with refinement: yet he learned to
+answer me in language as precise as my own.  My cast-off garments fitted
+him not more irreproachably than did my amenities of manner.  Divest him
+of his tray, and you would find his mode of entering a room hardly
+distinguishable from my own--the same urbanity, the same alertness of
+carriage, the same superfine deference towards the weaker sex.  All--all
+my idiosyncrasies I saw reflected in him; and can you doubt that I was
+gratified?  He was my _alter ego_--which, by the way, makes it harder
+for me to pardon his behaviour with the cook."
+
+"Look here," I broke in; "you want a new butler?"
+
+"Oh, you really grasp that fact, do you?" he retorted.
+
+"Why, then," said I, "let me cease to be your burglar and let me
+continue here as your butler."
+
+He leant back, spreading out the fingers of each hand on the table's
+edge.
+
+"Believe me," I went on, "you might do worse.  I have been in my time a
+demy of Magdalen College, Oxford, and retain some Greek and Latin.
+I'll undertake to read the Fathers with an accent that shall not offend
+you.  My taste in wine is none the worse for having been formed in other
+men's cellars.  Moreover, you shall engage the ugliest cook in
+Christendom, so long as I'm your butler.  I've taken a liking to you--
+that's flat--and I apply for the post."
+
+"I give forty pounds a year," said he.
+
+"And I'm cheap at that price."
+
+He filled up his glass, looking up at me while he did so with the air of
+one digesting a problem.  From first to last his face was grave as a
+judge's.
+
+"We are too impulsive, I think," was his answer, after a minute's
+silence; "and your speech smacks of the amateur.  You say, 'Let me cease
+to be your burglar and let me be your butler.'  The aspiration is
+respectable; but a man might as well say, 'Let me cease to write
+sermons, let me paint pictures.'  And truly, sir, you impress me as no
+expert even in your present trade."
+
+"On the other hand," I argued, "consider the moderation of my demands;
+that alone should convince you of my desire to turn over a new leaf.
+I ask for a month's trial; if at the end of that time I don't suit, you
+shall say so, and I'll march from your door with nothing in my pocket
+but my month's wages.  Be hanged, sir! but when I reflect on the amount
+you'll have to pay to get me to face to-night's storm again, you seem to
+be getting off dirt cheap!" cried I, slapping my palm on the table.
+
+"Ah, if you had only known Parkinson!" he exclaimed.
+
+Now the third glass of clean spirit has always a deplorable effect on
+me.  It turns me from bright to black, from levity to extreme sulkiness.
+I have done more wickedness over this third tumbler than in all the
+other states of comparative inebriety within my experience.  So now I
+glowered at my companion and cursed.
+
+"Look here, I don't want to hear any more of Parkinson, and I've a
+pretty clear notion of the game you're playing.  You want to make me
+drink, and you're ready to sit prattling there plying me till I drop
+under the table."
+
+"Do me the favour to remember that you came, and are staying, on your
+own motion.  As for the brandy, I would remind you that I suggested a
+milder drink.  Try some Madeira."
+
+He handed me the decanter, as he spoke, and I poured out a glass.
+
+"Madeira!" said I, taking a gulp, "Ugh! it's the commonest Marsala!"
+
+I had no sooner said the words than he rose up, and stretched a hand
+gravely across to me.
+
+"I hope you will shake it," he said; "though, as a man who after three
+glasses of neat spirit can distinguish between Madeira and Marsala, you
+have every right to refuse me.  Two minutes ago you offered to become my
+butler, and I demurred.  I now beg you to repeat that offer.  Say the
+word, and I employ you gladly; you shall even have the second decanter
+(which contains genuine Madeira) to take to bed with you."
+
+We shook hands on our bargain, and catching up a candlestick, he led the
+way from the room.
+
+Picking up my boots, I followed him along the passage and down the
+silent staircase.  In the hall he paused to stand on tip-toe, and turn
+up the lamp, which was burning low.  As he did so, I found time to fling
+a glance at my old enemy, the mastiff.  He lay as I had first seen him--
+a stuffed dog, if ever there was one.  "Decidedly," thought I, "my wits
+are to seek to-night;" and with the same, a sudden suspicion made me
+turn to my conductor, who had advanced to the left-hand door, and was
+waiting for me, with a hand on the knob.
+
+"One moment!" I said: "This is all very pretty, but how am I to know
+you're not sending me to bed while you fetch in all the countryside to
+lay me by the heels?"
+
+"I'm afraid," was his answer, "you must be content with my word, as a
+gentleman, that never, to-night or hereafter, will I breathe a syllable
+about the circumstances of your visit.  However, if you choose, we will
+return up-stairs."
+
+"No; I'll trust you," said I; and he opened the door.
+
+It led into a broad passage paved with slate, upon which three or four
+rooms opened.  He paused by the second and ushered me into a
+sleeping-chamber, which, though narrow, was comfortable enough--a vast
+improvement, at any rate, on the mumpers' lodgings I had been used to
+for many months past.
+
+"You can undress here," he said.  "The sheets are aired, and if you'll
+wait a moment, I'll fetch a nightshirt--one of my own."
+
+"Sir, you heap coals of fire on me."
+
+"Believe me that for ninety-nine of your qualities I do not care a
+tinker's curse; but for your palate you are to be taken care of."
+
+He shuffled away, but came back in a couple of minutes with the
+nightshirt.
+
+"Good-night," he called to me, flinging it in at the door; and without
+giving me time to return the wish, went his way up-stairs.
+
+Now it might be supposed I was only too glad to toss off my clothes and
+climb into the bed I had so unexpectedly acquired a right to.  But, as a
+matter of fact, I did nothing of the kind.  Instead, I drew on my boots
+and sat on the bed's edge, blinking at my candle till it died down in
+its socket, and afterwards at the purple square of window as it slowly
+changed to grey with the coming of dawn.  I was cold to the heart, and
+my teeth chattered with an ague.  Certainly I never suspected my host's
+word; but was even occupied in framing good resolutions and shaping out
+a reputable future, when I heard the front door gently pulled to, and a
+man's footsteps moving quietly to the gate.
+
+The treachery knocked me in a heap for the moment.  Then, leaping up and
+flinging my door wide, I stumbled through the uncertain light of the
+passage into the front hall.  There was a fan-shaped light over the
+door, and the place was very still and grey.  A quick thought, or,
+rather, a sudden, prophetic guess at the truth, made me turn to the
+figure of the mastiff curled under the hall table.
+
+I laid my hand on the scruff of his neck.  He was quite limp, and my
+fingers sank into the flesh on either side of the vertebrae.
+Digging them deeper, I dragged him out into the middle of the hall and
+pulled the front door open to see the better.
+
+His throat was gashed from ear to ear.
+
+How many seconds passed after I dropped the senseless lump on the floor,
+and before I made another movement, it would puzzle me to say.  Twice I
+stirred a foot as if to run out at the door.  Then, changing my mind, I
+stepped over the mastiff, and ran up the staircase.
+
+The passage at the top was now dark; but groping down it, I found the
+study door open, as before, and passed in.  A sick light stole through
+the blinds--enough for me to distinguish the glasses and decanters on
+the table, and find my way to the curtain that hung before the inner
+room.
+
+I pushed the curtain aside, paused for a moment, and listened to the
+violent beat of my heart; then felt for the door-handle and turned
+it.
+
+All I could see at first was that the chamber was small; next, that the
+light patch in a line with the window was the white coverlet of a bed;
+and next that somebody, or something, lay on the bed.
+
+I listened again.  There was no sound in the room; no heart beating but
+my own.  I reached out a hand to pull up the blind, and drew it back
+again.  I dared not.
+
+The daylight grew minute by minute on the dull oblong of the blind, and
+minute by minute that horrible thing on the bed took something of
+distinctness.
+
+The strain beat me at last.  I fetched a loud yell to give myself
+courage, and, reaching for the cord, pulled up the blind as fast as it
+would go.
+
+The face on the pillow was that of an old man--a face waxen and
+peaceful, with quiet lines about the mouth and eyes, and long lines of
+grey hair falling back from the temples.  The body was turned a little
+on one side, and one hand lay outside the bedclothes in a very natural
+manner.  But there were two big dark stains on the pillow and coverlet.
+
+Then I knew I was face to face with the real householder, and it flashed
+on me that I had been indiscreet in taking service as his butler, and
+that I knew the face his ex-butler wore.
+
+And, being by this time awake to the responsibilities of the post, I
+quitted it three steps at a time, not once looking behind me.
+Outside the house the storm had died down, and white daylight was
+gleaming over the sodden moors.  But my bones were cold, and I ran
+faster and faster.
+
+
+
+THE DISENCHANTMENT OF 'LIZABETH.
+
+
+"So you reckon I've got to die?"
+
+The room was mean, but not without distinction. The meanness lay in
+lime-washed walls, scant fittings, and uncovered boards; the distinction
+came of ample proportions and something of durability in the furniture.
+Rooms, like human faces, reflect their histories; and that generation
+after generation of the same family had here struggled to birth or death
+was written in this chamber unmistakably.  The candle-light, twinkling
+on the face of a dark wardrobe near the door, lit up its rough
+inscription, "S.T. and M.T., MDCLXVII"; the straight-backed oaken chairs
+might well claim an equal age; and the bed in the corner was a spacious
+four-poster, pillared in smooth mahogany and curtained in faded green
+damask.
+
+In the shadow of this bed lay the man who had spoken.  A single candle
+stood on a tall chest at his left hand, and its ray, filtering through
+the thin green curtain, emphasised the hue of death on his face.
+The features were pinched, and very old.  His tone held neither
+complaint nor passion: it was matter-of-fact even, as of one whose talk
+is merely a concession to good manners.  There was the faintest
+interrogation in it; no more.
+
+After a minute or so, getting no reply, he added more querulously--
+
+"I reckon you might answer, 'Lizabeth.  Do 'ee think I've got to die?"
+
+'Lizabeth, who stood by the uncurtained window, staring into the
+blackness without, barely turned her head to answer--
+
+"Certain."
+
+"Doctor said so, did he?"
+
+'Lizabeth, still with her back towards him, nodded.  For a minute or two
+there was silence.
+
+"I don't feel like dyin'; but doctor ought to know.  Seemed to me 'twas
+harder, an'--an' more important.  This sort o' dyin' don't seem o' much
+account."
+
+"No?"
+
+"That's it.  I reckon, though, 'twould be other if I had a family round
+the bed.  But there ain't none o' the boys left to stand by me now.
+It's hard."
+
+"What's hard?"
+
+"Why, that two out o' the three should be called afore me.  And hard is
+the manner of it.  It's hard that, after Samuel died o' fever, Jim shud
+be blown up at Herodsfoot powder-mill.  He made a lovely corpse, did
+Samuel; but Jim, you see, he hadn't a chance.  An' as for William, he's
+never come home nor wrote a line since he joined the Thirty-Second; an'
+it's little he cares for his home or his father.  I reckoned, back
+along, 'Lizabeth, as you an' he might come to an understandin'."
+
+"William's naught to me."
+
+"Look here!" cried the old man sharply; "he treated you bad, did
+William."
+
+"Who says so?"
+
+"Why, all the folks.  Lord bless the girl! do 'ee think folks use their
+eyes without usin' their tongues?  An' I wish it had come about, for
+you'd ha' kept en straight.  But he treated you bad, and he treated me
+bad, tho' he won't find no profit o' that.  You'm my sister's child,
+'Lizabeth," he rambled on; "an' what house-room you've had you've fairly
+earned--not but what you was welcome: an' if I thought as there was harm
+done, I'd curse him 'pon my deathbed, I would."
+
+"You be quiet!"
+
+She turned from the window and cowed him with angry grey eyes.
+Her figure was tall and meagre; her face that of a woman well over
+thirty--once comely, but worn over-much, and prematurely hardened.
+The voice had hardened with it, perhaps.  The old man, who had risen on
+his elbow in an access of passion, was taken with a fit of coughing, and
+sank back upon the pillows.
+
+"There's no call to be niffy," he apologised at last.  "I was on'y
+thinkin' of how you'd manage when I'm dead an' gone."
+
+"I reckon I'll shift."
+
+She drew a chair towards the bed and sat beside him.  He seemed drowsy,
+and after a while stretched out an arm over the coverlet and fell
+asleep.  'Lizabeth took his hand, and sat there listlessly regarding the
+still shadows on the wall.  The sick man never moved; only muttered
+once--some words that 'Lizabeth did not catch.  At the end of an hour,
+alarmed perhaps by some sound within the bed's shadow, or the feel of
+the hand in hers, she suddenly pushed the curtain back, and, catching up
+the candle, stooped over the sick man.
+
+His lids were closed, as if he slept still; but he was quite dead.
+
+'Lizabeth stood for a while bending over him, smoothed the bedclothes
+straight, and quietly left the room.  It was a law of the house to doff
+boots and shoes at the foot of the stairs, and her stocking'd feet
+scarcely raised a creak from the solid timbers.  The staircase led
+straight down into the kitchen.  Here a fire was blazing cheerfully, and
+as she descended she felt its comfort after the dismal room above.
+
+Nevertheless, the sense of being alone in the house with a dead man, and
+more than a mile from any living soul, was disquieting.  In truth, there
+was room for uneasiness.  'Lizabeth knew that some part of the old man's
+hoard lay up-stairs in the room with him.  Of late she had, under his
+eye, taken from a silver tankard in the tall chest by the bed such
+moneys as from week to week were wanted to pay the farm hands; and she
+had seen papers there, too--title-deeds, maybe.  The house itself lay in
+a cup of the hill-side, backed with steep woods--so steep that, in
+places, anyone who had reasons (good or bad) for doing so, might well
+see in at any window he chose.  And to Hooper's Farm, down the valley,
+was a far cry for help.  Meditating on this, 'Lizabeth stepped to the
+kitchen window and closed the shutter; then, reaching down an old
+horse-pistol from the rack above the mantelshelf, she fetched out powder
+and bullet and fell to loading quietly, as one who knew the trick of it.
+
+And yet the sense of danger was not so near as that of loneliness--of a
+pervading silence without precedent in her experience, as if its
+master's soul in flitting had, whatever Scripture may say, taken
+something out of the house with it.  'Lizabeth had known this kitchen
+for a score of years now; nevertheless, to-night it was unfamiliar, with
+emptier corners and wider intervals of bare floor.  She laid down the
+loaded pistol, raked the logs together, and set the kettle on the flame.
+She would take comfort in a dish of tea.
+
+There was company in the singing of the kettle, the hiss of its overflow
+on the embers, and the rattle with which she set out cup, saucer, and
+teapot.  She was bending over the hearth to lift the kettle, when a
+sound at the door caused her to start up and listen.
+
+The latch had been rattled: not by the wind, for the December night
+without was misty and still.  There was somebody on the other side of
+the door; and, as she turned, she saw the latch lowered back into its
+place.
+
+With her eyes fastened on this latch, she set down the kettle softly and
+reached out for her pistol.  For a moment or two there was silence.
+Then someone tapped gently.
+
+The tapping went on for half a minute; then followed silence again.
+'Lizabeth stole across the kitchen, pistol in hand, laid her ear
+against the board, and listened.
+
+Yes, assuredly there was someone outside.  She could catch the sound of
+breathing, and the shuffling of a heavy boot on the door-slate.  And now
+a pair of knuckles repeated the tapping, more imperiously.
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+A man's voice, thick and husky, made some indistinct reply.
+
+'Lizabeth fixed the cap more securely on her pistol, and called again--
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+"What the devil--" began the voice.
+
+'Lizabeth shot back the bolt and lifted the latch.
+
+"If you'd said at once 'twas William come back, you'd ha' been let in
+sooner," she said quietly.
+
+A thin puff of rain floated against her face as the door opened, and a
+tall soldier stepped out of the darkness into the glow of the warm
+kitchen.
+
+"Well, this here's a queer home-coming.  Why, hullo, 'Lizabeth--with a
+pistol in your hand, too!  Do you shoot the fatted calf in these parts
+now?  What's the meaning of it?"
+
+The overcoat of cinder grey that covered his scarlet tunic was powdered
+with beads of moisture; his black moustaches were beaded also; his face
+was damp, and smeared with the dye that trickled from his sodden cap.
+As he stood there and shook himself, the rain ran down and formed small
+pools upon the slates around his muddy boots.
+
+He was a handsome fellow, in a florid, animal fashion; well-set, with
+black curls, dark eyes that yet contrived to be exceedingly shallow, and
+as sanguine a pair of cheeks as one could wish to see.  It seemed to
+'Lizabeth that the red of his complexion had deepened since she saw him
+last, while the white had taken a tinge of yellow, reminding her of the
+prize beef at the Christmas market last week.  Somehow she could find
+nothing to say.
+
+"The old man's in bed, I reckon.  I saw the light in his window."
+
+"You've had a wet tramp of it," was all she found to reply, though aware
+that the speech was inconsequent and trivial.
+
+"Damnably.  Left the coach at Fiddler's Cross, and trudged down across
+the fields.  We were soaked enough on the coach, though, and couldn't
+get much worse."
+
+"We?"
+
+"Why, you don't suppose I was the only passenger by the coach, eh?" he
+put in quickly.
+
+"No, I forgot."
+
+There was an awkward silence, and William's eyes travelled round the
+kitchen till they lit on the kettle standing by the hearthstone.
+"Got any rum in the cupboard?"  While she was getting it out, he took
+off his cap and great-coat, hung them up behind the door, and, pulling
+the small table close to the fire, sat beside it, toasting his knees.
+'Lizabeth set bottle and glass before him, and stood watching as he
+mixed the stuff.
+
+"So you're only a private."
+
+William set down the kettle with some violence.
+
+"You still keep a cursedly rough tongue, I notice."
+
+"An' you've been a soldier five year.  I reckoned you'd be a sergeant at
+least," she pursued simply, with her eyes on his undecorated sleeve.
+
+William took a gulp.
+
+"How do you know I've not been a sergeant?"
+
+"Then you've been degraded.  I'm main sorry for that."
+
+"Look here, you hush up!  Damn it! there's girls enough have fancied
+this coat, though it ain't but a private's; and that's enough for you, I
+take it."
+
+"It's handsome."
+
+"There, that'll do.  I do believe you're spiteful because I didn't offer
+to kiss you when I came in.  Here, Cousin 'Lizabeth," he exclaimed,
+starting up, "I'll be sworn for all your tongue you're the prettiest
+maid I've seen this five year.  Give me a kiss."
+
+"Don't, William!"
+
+Such passionate entreaty vibrated in her voice that William, who was
+advancing, stopped for a second to stare.  Then, with a laugh, he had
+caught and kissed her loudly.
+
+Her cheeks were flaming when she broke free.
+
+William turned, emptied his glass at a gulp, and began to mix a second.
+
+"There, there; you never look so well as when you're angered,
+'Lizabeth."
+
+"'Twas a coward's trick," she panted.
+
+"Christmas-time, you spitfire.  So you ain't married yet?  Lord!
+I don't wonder they fight shy of you; you'd be a handful, my vixen, for
+any man to tame.  How's the old man?"
+
+"He'll never be better."
+
+"Like enough at his age.  Is he hard set against me?"
+
+"We've never spoke of you for years now, till to-night."
+
+"To-night?  That's queer.  I've a mind to tip up a stave to let him know
+I'm about.  I will, too.  Let me see--"
+
+    "When Johnny comes marching home again,
+                Hooray! Hoo--"
+
+"Don't, don't!  Oh, why did you come back to-night, of all nights?"
+
+"And why the devil not to-night so well as any other?  You're a
+comfortable lot, I must say!  Maybe you'd like common metre better:--
+
+    "Within my fathers house
+      The blessed sit at meat.
+    Whilst I my belly stay
+      With husks the swine did eat."
+
+--"Why shouldn't I wake the old man?  I've done naught that I'm ashamed
+of."
+
+"It don't seem you're improved by soldiering."
+
+"Improved?  I've seen life."  William drained his glass.
+
+"An' got degraded."
+
+"Burn your tongue!  I'm going to see him."  He rose and made towards the
+door. 'Lizabeth stepped before him.
+
+"Hush! You mustn't."
+
+"'Mustn't?'  That's a bold word."
+
+"Well, then--'can't.'  Sit down, I tell you."
+
+"Hullo!  Ain't you coming the mistress pretty free in this house?
+Stand aside.  I've got something to tell him--something that won't wait.
+Stand aside, you she-cat!"
+
+He pushed by her roughly, but she held on to his sleeve.
+
+"It _must_ wait.  Listen to me."
+
+"I won't."
+
+"You shall.  He's dead."
+
+"_Dead!_"  He reeled back to the table and poured out another glassful
+with a shaking hand.  'Lizabeth noticed that this time he added no
+water.
+
+"He died to-night," she explained; "but he's been ailin' for a year
+past, an' took to his bed back in October."
+
+William's face was still pallid; but he merely stammered--
+
+"Things happen queerly.  I'll go up and see him; I'm master here now.
+You can't say aught to that.  By the Lord! but I can buy myself out--I'm
+sick of soldiering--and we'll settle down here and be comfortable."
+
+"We?"
+
+His foot was on the stair by this time.  He turned and nodded.
+
+"Yes, _we_.  It ain't a bad game being mistress o' this house.
+Eh, Cousin 'Lizabeth?"
+
+She turned her hot face to the flame, without reply; and he went on his
+way up the stairs.
+
+
+'Lizabeth sat for a while staring into the wood embers with shaded eyes.
+Whatever the path by which her reflections travelled, it led in the end
+to the kettle.  She remembered that the tea was still to make, and, on
+stooping to set the kettle back upon the logs, found it emptied by
+William's potations.  Donning her stout shoes and pattens, and slipping
+a shawl over her head, she reached down the lantern from its peg, lit
+it, and went out to fill the kettle at the spring.
+
+It was pitch-dark; the rain was still falling, and as she crossed the
+yard the sodden straw squeaked beneath her tread.  The yard had been
+fashioned generations since, by levelling back from the house to the
+natural rock of the hill-side, and connecting the two on the right by
+cow-house and stable, with an upper storey for barn and granary, on the
+left by a low wall, where, through a rough gate, the cart-track from the
+valley found its entrance.  Against the further end of this wall leant
+an open cart-shed; and within three paces of it a perpetual spring of
+water gushing down the rock was caught and arrested for a while in a
+stone trough before it hurried out by a side gutter, and so down to join
+the trout-stream in the valley below.  The spring first came to light
+half-way down the rock's face.  Overhead its point of emergence was
+curtained by a network of roots pushed out by the trees above and
+sprawling over the lip in helpless search for soil.
+
+'Lizabeth's lantern threw a flare of yellow on these and on the bubbling
+water as she filled her kettle.  She was turning to go when a sound
+arrested her.
+
+It was the sound of a suppressed sob, and seemed to issue from the
+cart-shed.  'Lizabeth turned quickly and held up her lantern.  Under the
+shed, and barely four paces from her, sat a woman.
+
+The woman was perched against the shaft of a hay-waggon, with her feet
+resting on a mud-soiled carpet-bag.  She made but a poor appealing
+figure, tricked out in odds and ends of incongruous finery, with a
+bonnet, once smart, hanging limply forward over a pair of
+light-coloured eyes and a very lachrymose face.  The ambition of the
+stranger's toilet, which ran riot in cheap jewellery, formed so odd a
+contrast with her sorry posture that 'Lizabeth, for all her wonder, felt
+inclined to smile.
+
+"What's your business here?"
+
+"Oh, tell me," whimpered the woman, "what's he doing all this time?
+Won't his father see me?  He don't intend to leave me here all night,
+surely, in this bitter cold, with nothing to eat, and my gown ruined!"
+
+"He?"  'Lizabeth's attitude stiffened with suspicion of the truth.
+
+"William, I mean; an' a sorry day it was I agreed to come."
+
+"William?"
+
+"My husband.  I'm Mrs. William Transom."
+
+"Come along to the house."  'Lizabeth turned abruptly and led the way.
+
+Mrs. William Transom gathered up her carpet-bag and bedraggled skirts
+and followed, sobbing still, but in _diminuendo_.  Inside the kitchen
+'Lizabeth faced round on her again.
+
+"So you'm William's wife."
+
+"I am; an' small comfort to say so, seein' this is how I'm served.
+Reely, now, I'm not fit to be seen."
+
+"Bless the woman, who cares here what you look like?  Take off those
+fal-lals, an' sit in your petticoat by the fire, here; you ain't wet
+through--on'y your feet; and here's a dry pair o' stockings, if you've
+none i' the bag.  You must be possessed, to come trampin' over High
+Compton in them gingerbread things."  She pointed scornfully at the
+stranger's boots.
+
+Mrs. William Transom, finding her notions of gentility thus ridiculed,
+acquiesced.
+
+"An' now," resumed 'Lizabeth, when her visitor was seated by the fire
+pulling off her damp stockings, "there's rum an' there's tea.
+Which will you take to warm yoursel'?"
+
+Mrs. William elected to take rum; and 'Lizabeth noted that she helped
+herself with freedom.  She made no comment, however, but set about
+making tea for herself; and, then, drawing up her chair to the table,
+leant her chin on her hand and intently regarded her visitor.
+
+"Where's William?" inquired Mrs. Transom.
+
+"Up-stairs."
+
+"Askin' his father's pardon?"
+
+"Well," 'Lizabeth grimly admitted, "that's like enough; but you needn't
+fret about them."
+
+Mrs. William showed no disposition to fret.  On the contrary, under the
+influence of the rum she became weakly jovial and a trifle garrulous--
+confiding to 'Lizabeth that, though married to William for four years,
+she had hitherto been blessed with no children; that they lived in
+barracks, which she disliked, but put up with because she doted on a red
+coat; that William had always been meaning to tell his father, but
+feared to anger him, "because, my dear," she frankly explained,
+"I was once connected with the stage"--a form of speech behind which
+'Lizabeth did not pry; that, a fortnight before Christmas, William had
+made up his mind at last, "'for,' as he said to me, 'the old man must be
+nearin' his end, and then the farm'll be mine by rights;'" that he had
+obtained his furlough two days back, and come by coach all the way to
+this doleful spot--for doleful she must call it, though she _would_ have
+to live there some day--with no shops nor theayters, of which last it
+appeared Mrs.  Transom was inordinately fond.  Her chatter was
+interrupted at length with some abruptness.
+
+"I suppose," said 'Lizabeth meditatively, "you was pretty, once."
+
+Mrs. Transom, with her hand on the bottle, stared, and then tittered.
+
+"Lud! my dear, you ain't over-complimentary.  Yes, pretty I was, though
+I say it."
+
+"We ain't neither of us pretty now--you especially."
+
+"I'd a knack o' dressin'," pursued the egregious Mrs. Transom, "an' nice
+eyes an' hair.  'Why, Maria, darlin',' said William one day, when him
+an' me was keepin' company, 'I believe you could sit on that hair o'
+yours, I do reely.'  'Go along, you silly!' I said, 'to be sure I can.'"
+
+"He called you darling?"
+
+"Why, in course.  H'ain't you never had a young man?"
+
+'Lizabeth brushed aside the question by another.
+
+"Do you love him?  I mean so that--that you could lie down and let him
+tramp the life out o' you?"
+
+"Good Lord, girl, what questions you do ask!  Why, so-so, o' course,
+like other married women.  He's wild at times, but I shut my eyes; an'
+he hav'n struck me this year past.  I wonder what he can be doin' all
+this time."
+
+"Come and see."
+
+'Lizabeth rose.  Her contempt of this foolish, faded creature recoiled
+upon herself, until she could bear to sit still no longer.
+With William's wife at her heels, she mounted the stair, their shoeless
+feet making no sound.  The door of the old man's bed-room stood ajar,
+and a faint ray of light stole out upon the landing.  'Lizabeth looked
+into the room, and then, with a quick impulse, darted in front of her
+companion.
+
+It was too late.  Mrs. Transom was already at her shoulder, and the eyes
+of the two women rested on the sorry spectacle before them.
+
+Candle in hand, the prodigal was kneeling by the dead man's bed.  He was
+not praying, however; but had his head well buried in the oaken chest,
+among the papers of which he was cautiously prying.
+
+The faint squeal that broke from his wife's lips sufficed to startle
+him.  He dropped the lid with a crash, turned sharply round, and
+scrambled to his feet.  His look embraced the two women in one brief
+flicker, and then rested on the blazing eyes of 'Lizabeth.
+
+"You mean hound!" said she, very slowly.
+
+He winced uneasily, and began to bluster:
+
+"Curse you!  What do you mean by sneaking upon a man like this?"
+
+"A man!" echoed 'Lizabeth.  "Man, then, if you will--couldn't you wait
+till your father was cold, but must needs be groping under his pillow
+for the key of that chest?  You woman, there--you wife of this man--I'm
+main grieved you should ha' seen this.  Lord knows I had the will to
+hide it!"
+
+The wife, who had sunk into the nearest chair, and lay there huddled
+like a half-empty bag, answered with a whimper.
+
+"Stop that whining!" roared William, turning upon her, "or I'll break
+every bone in your skin."
+
+"Fie on you, man!  Why, she tells me you haven't struck her for a whole
+year," put in 'Lizabeth, immeasurably scornful.
+
+"So, cousin, you've found out what I meant by 'we.'  Lord! you fancied
+_you_ was the one as was goin' to settle down wi' me an' be comfortable,
+eh?  You're jilted, my girl, an' this is how you vent your jealousy.
+You played your hand well; you've turned us out.  It's a pity--eh?--you
+didn't score this last trick."
+
+"What do you mean?"  The innuendo at the end diverted her wrath at the
+man's hateful coarseness.
+
+"Mean?  Oh, o' course, you're innocent as a lamb!  Mean?  Why, look
+here."
+
+He opened the chest again, and, drawing out a scrap of folded foolscap,
+began to read :--
+
+    "_I, Ebenezer Transom, of Compton Burrows, in the parish of
+    Compton, yeoman, being of sound wit and health, and willing, though
+    a sinner, to give my account to God, do hereby make my last will and
+    testament_."
+
+    "_My house, lands, and farm of Compton Burrows, together with every
+    stick that I own, I hereby (for her good care of me) give and
+    bequeath to Elizabeth Rundle, my dead sister's child_"
+
+--"Let be, I tell you!"
+
+But 'Lizabeth had snatched the paper from him. For a moment the devil in
+his eye seemed to meditate violence.  But he thought better of it; and
+when she asked for the candle held it beside her as she read on slowly.
+
+     "_ . . . to Elizabeth Rundle, my dead sister's child, desiring
+     that she may marry and bequeath the same to the heirs of her body;
+     less the sum of one shilling sterling, which I command to be sent
+     to my only surviving son William--_"
+
+"You needn't go on," growled William.
+
+     "_ . . . because he's a bad lot, and he may so well know I think
+     so.  And to this I set my hand, this 17th day of September, 1856._"
+                        "_Signed_"
+                            "_Ebenezer Transom._"
+
+                        "_Witnessed by_"
+                             "_John Hooper._"
+                             "_Peter Tregaskis._"
+
+The document was in the old man's handwriting, and clearly of his
+composition. But it was plain enough, and the signatures genuine.
+'Lizabeth's hand dropped.
+
+"I never knew a word o' this, William," she said humbly.
+
+Mrs. Transom broke into an incredulous titter.
+
+"Ugh! get along, you designer!"
+
+"William," appealed 'Lizabeth, "I've never had no thought o' robbin'
+you."
+
+'Lizabeth had definite notions of right and wrong, and this
+disinheritance of William struck her conservative mind as a violation of
+Nature's laws.
+
+William's silence was his wife's opportunity.
+
+"Robbery's the word, you baggage!  You thought to buy him wi' your
+ill-got gains.  Ugh! go along wi' you!"
+
+'Lizabeth threw a desperate look towards the cause of this trouble--the
+pale mask lying on the pillows.  Finding no help, she turned to William
+again--
+
+"You believe I meant to rob you?"
+
+Meeting her eyes, William bent his own on the floor, and lied.
+
+"I reckon you meant to buy me, Cousin 'Lizabeth."
+
+His wife tittered spitefully.
+
+"Woman!" cried the girl, lapping up her timid merriment in a flame of
+wrath.  "Woman, listen to me.  Time was I loved that man o' your'n; time
+was he swore I was all to him.  He was a liar from his birth.  It's your
+natur' to think I'm jealous; a better woman would know I'm _sick_--sick
+wi' shame an' scorn o' mysel'.  That man, there, has kissed me, oft'n
+an' oft'n--kissed me 'pon the mouth.  Bein' what you are, you can't
+understand how those kisses taste now, when I look at _you_."
+
+"Well, I'm sure!"
+
+"Hold your blasted tongue!" roared William.  Mrs. Transom collapsed.
+
+"Give me the candle," 'Lizabeth commanded.  "Look here--"
+
+She held the corner of the will to the flame, and watched it run up at
+the edge and wrap the whole in fire.  The paper dropped from her hand to
+the bare boards, and with a dying flicker was consumed.  The charred
+flakes drifted idly across the floor, stopped, and drifted again.
+In dead silence she looked up.
+
+Mrs. Transom's watery eyes were open to their fullest.  'Lizabeth turned
+to William and found him regarding her with a curious frown.
+
+"Do you know what you've done?" he asked hoarsely.
+
+'Lizabeth laughed a trifle wildly.
+
+"I reckon I've made reparation."
+
+"There was no call--" began William.
+
+"You fool--'twas to _myself!_  An' now," she added quietly, "I'll pick
+up my things and tramp down to Hooper's Farm; they'll give me a place, I
+know, an' be glad o' the chance.  They'll be sittin' up to-night, bein'
+Christmas time.  Good-night, William!"
+
+She moved to go; but, recollecting herself, turned at the door, and,
+stepping up to the bed, bent and kissed the dead man's forehead.
+Then she was gone.
+
+It was the woman who broke the silence that followed with a base speech.
+
+"Well!  To think she'd lose her head like that when she found you wasn't
+to be had!"
+
+"Shut up!" said William savagely; "an' listen to this:  If you was to
+die to-night I'd marry 'Lizabeth next week."
+
+
+Time passed.  The old man was buried, and Mr. and Mrs. Transom took
+possession at Compton Burrows and reigned in his stead.  'Lizabeth dwelt
+a mile or so down the valley with the Hoopers, who, as she had said,
+were thankful enough to get her services, for Mrs. Hooper was well up in
+years, and gladly resigned the dairy work to a girl who, as she told her
+husband, was of good haveage, and worth her keep a dozen times over.
+So 'Lizabeth had settled down in her new home, and closed her heart and
+shut its clasps tight.
+
+She never met William to speak to.  Now and then she caught sight of him
+as he rode past on horseback, on his way to market or to the "Compton
+Arms," where he spent more time and money than was good for him.  He had
+bought himself out of the army, of course; but he retained his barrack
+tales and his air of having seen life.  These, backed up with a baritone
+voice and a largehandedness in standing treat, made him popular in the
+bar parlour.  Meanwhile, Mrs. Transom, up at Compton Burrows--perhaps
+because she missed her "theayters"--sickened and began to pine; and one
+January afternoon, little more than a year after the home-coming,
+'Lizabeth, standing in the dairy by her cream-pans, heard that she was
+dead.
+
+"Poor soul," she said; "but she looked a sickly one."  That was all.
+She herself wondered that the news should affect her so little.
+
+"I reckon," said Mrs. Hooper with meaning, "William will soon be lookin'
+round for another wife."
+
+'Lizabeth went quietly on with her skimming.
+
+It was just five months after this, on a warm June morning, that William
+rode down the valley, and, dismounting by Farmer Hooper's, hitched his
+bridle over the garden gate, and entered.  'Lizabeth was in the garden;
+he could see her print sun-bonnet moving between the rows of peas.
+She turned as he approached, dropped a pod into her basket, and held out
+her hand.
+
+"Good day, William."  Her voice was quite friendly.
+
+William had something to say, and 'Lizabeth quickly guessed what it was.
+
+"I thought I'd drop in an' see how you was gettin' on; for it's main
+lonely up at Compton Burrows since the missus was took."
+
+"I daresay."
+
+"An' I'd a matter on my mind to tell you," he pursued, encouraged to
+find she harboured no malice.  "It's troubled me, since, that way you
+burnt the will, an' us turnin' you out; for in a way the place belonged
+to you.  The old man meant it, anyhow."
+
+"Well," said 'Lizabeth, setting down her basket, and looking him full in
+the eyes.
+
+"Well, I reckon we might set matters square, you an' me, 'Lizabeth, by
+marryin' an' settlin' down comfortable.  I've no children to pester you,
+an' you're young yet to be givin' up thoughts o' marriage.  What do 'ee
+say, cousin?"
+
+'Lizabeth picked a full pod from the bush beside her, and began shelling
+the peas, one by one, into her hand.  Her face was cool and
+contemplative.
+
+"'Tis eight years ago, William, since last you asked me.  Ain't that
+so?" she asked absently.
+
+"Come, Cousin, let bygones be, and tell me; shall it be, my dear?"
+
+"No, William," she answered; "'tis too late an hour to ask me now.  I
+thank you, but it can't be."  She passed the peas slowly to and fro in
+her fingers.
+
+"But why, 'Lizabeth?" he urged; "you was fond o' me once.  Come, girl,
+don't stand in your own light through a hit o' pique."
+
+"It's not that," she explained; "it's that I've found myself out--an'
+you.  You've humbled my pride too sorely."
+
+"You're thinking o' Maria."
+
+"Partly, maybe; but it don't become us to talk o' one that's dead.
+You've got my answer, William, and don't ask me again.  I loved you
+once, but now I'm only weary when I think o't.  You wouldn't understand
+me if I tried to tell you."
+
+She held out her hand.  William took it.
+
+"You're a great fool, 'Lizabeth."
+
+"Good-bye, William."
+
+She took up her basket and walked slowly back to the house; William
+watched her for a moment or two, swore, and returned to his horse.
+He did not ride home wards, but down the valley, where he spent the day
+at the "Compton Arms."  When he returned home, which was not before
+midnight, he was boisterously drunk.
+
+Now it so happened that when William dismounted at the gate Mrs. Hooper
+had spied him from her bedroom window, and, guessing his errand, had
+stolen down on the other side of the garden wall parallel with which the
+peas were planted.  Thus sheltered, she contrived to hear every word of
+the foregoing conversation, and repeated it to her good man that very
+night.
+
+"An' I reckon William said true," she wound up.  "If 'Lizabeth don't
+know which side her bread's buttered she's no better nor a fool--an'
+William's another."
+
+"I dunno," said the farmer; "it's a queer business, an' I don't fairly
+see my way about in it.  I'm main puzzled what can ha' become o' that
+will I witnessed for th' old man."
+
+"She's a fool, I say."
+
+"Well, well; if she didn't want the man I reckon she knows best.  He put
+it fairly to her."
+
+"That's just it, you ninny!" interrupted his wiser wife; "I gave William
+credit for more sense.  Put it fairly, indeed!  If he'd said nothin',
+but just caught her in his arms, an' clipped an' kissed her, she
+couldn't ha' stood out.  But he's lost his chance, an' now she'll never
+marry."
+
+And it was as she said.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter
+Tales, by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14206 ***
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+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #14206 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14206)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales
+by Arthur Thomas 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: I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter Tales
+
+Author: Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
+
+Release Date: November 29, 2004 [EBook #14206]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK I SAW THREE SHIPS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Lionel Sear
+
+
+
+
+I SAW THREE SHIPS AND OTHER WINTER TALES.
+
+BY ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH ("Q").
+
+
+
+To T. Wemyss Reid.
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+
+I SAW THREE SHIPS.
+
+CHAPTER I.               The First Ship.
+
+CHAPTER II.              The Second Ship.
+
+CHAPTER III.             The Stranger.
+
+CHAPTER IV.              Young Zeb fetches a Chest of Drawers.
+
+CHAPTER V.               The Stranger Dances in Young Zeb's Shoes.
+
+CHAPTER VI.              Siege is Lad to Ruby.
+
+CHAPTER VII.             The "Jolly Pilchards"
+
+CHAPTER VIII.            Young Zeb Sells His Soul.
+
+CHAPTER IX.              Young Zeb Wins His Soul Back.
+
+CHAPTER X.               The Third Ship.
+
+
+THE HAUNTED DRAGOON.
+
+
+A BLUE PANTOMIME.
+
+I.                       How I Dined at the "Indian Queens".
+
+II.                      What I Saw in the Mirror.
+
+III.                     What I Saw in the Tarn.
+
+IV.                      What I have Since Learnt
+
+
+THE TWO HOUSEHOLDERS.
+
+
+THE DISENCHANTMENT OF ELIZABETH.
+
+
+
+
+I SAW THREE SHIPS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE FIRST SHIP.
+
+In those west-country parishes where but a few years back the feast of
+Christmas Eve was usually prolonged with cake and cider, "crowding," and
+"geese dancing," till the ancient carols ushered in the day, a certain
+languor not seldom pervaded the services of the Church a few hours
+later.  Red eyes and heavy, young limbs hardly rested from the _Dashing
+White Sergeant_ and _Sir Roger_, throats husky from a plurality of
+causes--all these were recognised as proper to the season, and, in fact,
+of a piece with the holly on the communion rails.
+
+On a dark and stormy Christmas morning as far back as the first decade
+of the century, this languor was neither more nor less apparent than
+usual inside the small parish church of Ruan Lanihale, although
+Christmas fell that year on a Sunday, and dancing should, by rights,
+have ceased at midnight.  The building stands high above a bleak
+peninsula on the South Coast, and the congregation had struggled up with
+heads slanted sou'-west against the weather that drove up the Channel in
+a black fog.  Now, having gained shelter, they quickly lost the glow of
+endeavour, and mixed in pleasing stupor the humming of the storm in the
+tower above, its intermittent onslaughts on the leadwork of the southern
+windows, and the voice of Parson Babbage lifted now and again from the
+chancel as if to correct the shambling pace of the choir in the west
+gallery.
+
+"Mark me," whispered Old Zeb Minards, crowder and leader of the
+musicians, sitting back at the end of the Psalms, and eyeing his fiddle
+dubiously; "If Sternhold be sober this morning, Hopkins be drunk as a
+fly, or 'tis t'other way round."
+
+"'Twas middlin' wambly," assented Calvin Oke, the second fiddle--a
+screw-faced man tightly wound about the throat with a yellow kerchief.
+
+"An' 'tis a delicate matter to cuss the singers when the musicianers be
+twice as bad."
+
+"I'd a very present sense of being a bar or more behind the fair--that I
+can honestly vow," put in Elias Sweetland, bending across from the left.
+Now Elias was a bachelor, and had blown the serpent from his youth up.
+He was a bald, thin man, with a high leathern stock, and shoulders that
+sloped remarkably.
+
+"Well, 'taint a suent engine at the best, Elias--that o' yourn," said
+his affable leader, "nor to be lightly trusted among the proper psa'ms,
+'specially since Chris'mas three year, when we sat in the forefront of
+the gallery, an' you dropped all but the mouthpiece overboard on to Aunt
+Belovely's bonnet at 'I was glad when they said unto me.'"
+
+"Aye, poor soul.  It shook her.  Never the same woman from that hour, I
+do b'lieve.  Though I'd as lief you didn't mention it, friends, if I may
+say so; for 'twas a bitter portion."
+
+Elias patted his instrument sadly, and the three men looked up for a
+moment, as a scud of rain splashed on the window, drowning a sentence of
+the First Lesson.
+
+"Well, well," resumed Old Zeb, "we all have our random intervals, and a
+drop o' cider in the mouthpieces is no less than Pa'son looks for,
+Chris'mas mornin's."
+
+"Trew, trew as proverbs."
+
+"Howsever, 'twas cruel bad, that last psa'm, I won't gainsay.  As for
+that long-legged boy o' mine, I keep silence, yea, even from hard words,
+considerin' what's to come.  But 'tis given to flutes to make a
+noticeable sound, whether tunable or false."
+
+"Terrible shy he looks, poor chap!"
+
+The three men turned and contemplated Young Zeb Minards, who sat on
+their left and fidgeted, crossing and uncrossing his legs.
+
+"How be feelin', my son?"
+
+"Very whitely, father; very whitely, an' yet very redly."
+
+Elias Sweetland, moved by sympathy, handed across a peppermint drop.
+
+"Hee-hee!" now broke in an octogenarian treble, that seemed to come from
+high up in the head of Uncle Issy, the bass-viol player; "But cast your
+eyes, good friends, 'pon a little slip o' heart's delight down in the
+nave, and mark the flowers 'pon the bonnet nid-nodding like bees in a
+bell, with unspeakable thoughts."
+
+"'Tis the world's way wi' females."
+
+"I'll wager, though, she wouldn't miss the importance of it--yea, not
+for much fine gold."
+
+"Well said, Uncle," commented the crowder, a trifle more loudly as the
+wind rose to a howl outside: "Lord, how this round world do spin!
+Simme 'twas last week I sat as may be in the corner yonder (I sang bass
+then), an' Pa'son Babbage by the desk statin' forth my own banns, an' me
+with my clean shirt collar limp as a flounder.  As for your mother, Zeb,
+nuthin 'ud do but she must dream o' runnin' water that Saturday night,
+an' want to cry off at the church porch because 'twas unlucky.
+'Nothin' shall injuce me, Zeb,' says she, and inside the half hour there
+she was glintin' fifty ways under her bonnet, to see how the rest o' the
+maidens was takin' it."
+
+"Hey," murmured Elias, the bachelor; "but it must daunt a man to hear
+his name loudly coupled wi' a woman's before a congregation o' folks."
+
+"'Tis very intimate," assented Old Zeb.  But here the First Lesson
+ended.  There was a scraping of feet, then a clearing of throats, and
+the musicians plunged into "_O, all ye works of the Lord_."
+
+Young Zeb, amid the moaning of the storm outside the building and the
+scraping and zooming of the instruments, string and reed, around him,
+felt his head spin; but whether from the lozenge (that had suffered from
+the companionship of a twist of tobacco in Elias Sweetland's pocket), or
+the dancing last night, or the turbulence of his present emotions, he
+could not determine.  Year in and year out, grey morning or white, a
+gloom rested always on the singers' gallery, cast by the tower upon the
+south side, that stood apart from the main building, connected only by
+the porch roof, as by an isthmus.  And upon eyes used to this
+comparative obscurity the nave produced the effect of a bright parterre
+of flowers, especially in those days when all the women wore scarlet
+cloaks, to scare the French if they should invade.  Zeb's gaze, amid the
+turmoil of sound, hovered around one such cloak, rested on a slim back
+resolutely turned to him, and a jealous bonnet, wandered to the bald
+scalp of Farmer Tresidder beside it, returned to Calvin Qke's sawing
+elbow and the long neck of Elias Sweetland bulging with the _fortissimo_
+of "O ye winds of God," then fluttered back to the red cloak.
+
+These vagaries were arrested by three words from the mouth of Old Zeb,
+screwed sideways over his fiddle.
+
+"Time--ye sawny!"
+
+Young Zeb started, puffed out his cheeks, and blew a shriller note.
+During the rest of the canticle his eyes were glued to the score, and
+seemed on the point of leaving their sockets with the vigour of the
+performance.
+
+"Sooner thee'st married the better for us, my son," commented his father
+at the close; "else farewell to psa'mody!"
+
+But Young Zeb did not reply.  In fact, what remained of the peppermint
+lozenge had somehow jolted into his windpipe, and kept him occupied with
+the earlier symptoms of strangulation.
+
+His facial contortions, though of the liveliest, were unaccompanied by
+sound, and, therefore, unheeded.  The crowder, with his eyes
+contemplatively fastened on the capital of a distant pillar, was
+pursuing a train of reflection upon Church music; and the others
+regarded the crowder.
+
+"Now supposin', friends, as I'd a-fashioned the wondrous words o' the
+ditty we've just polished off; an' supposin' a friend o' mine, same as
+Uncle Issy might he, had a-dropped in, in passin', an' heard me read the
+same.  'Hullo!' he'd 'a said, 'You've a-put the same words twice over.'
+'How's that?'  'How's that?  Why, here's _O ye Whales_ (pointin' wi' his
+finger), an' lo! again, _O ye Wells_.'  ''T'aint the same,' I'd ha'
+said.  'Well,' says Uncle Issy, ''tis _spoke_ so, anyways'--"
+
+"Crowder, you puff me up," murmured Uncle Issy, charmed with this
+imaginative and wholly flattering sketch.  "No--really now!  Though,
+indeed, strange words have gone abroad before now, touching my wisdom;
+but I blow no trumpet."
+
+"Such be your very words," the crowder insisted.  "Now mark my answer.
+'Uncle Issy,' says I, quick as thought, 'you dunderheaded old antic,--
+leave that to the musicianers.  At the word 'whales,' let the music go
+snorty; an' for wells, gliddery; an' likewise in a moving dulcet manner
+for the holy an' humble Men o' heart.'  Why, 'od rabbet us!--what's
+wrong wi' that boy?"
+
+All turned to Young Zeb, from whose throat uncomfortable sounds were
+issuing.  His eyes rolled piteously, and great tears ran down his
+cheeks.
+
+"Slap en 'pon the back, Calvin: he's chuckin'."
+
+"Ay--an' the pa'son at' here endeth!'"
+
+"Slap en, Calvin, quick!  For 'tis clunk or stuffle, an' no time to
+lose."
+
+Down in the nave a light rustle of expectancy was already running from
+pew to pew as Calvin Oke brought down his open palm with a _whack!_
+knocking the sufferer out of his seat, and driving his nose smartly
+against the back-rail in front.
+
+Then the voice of Parson Babbage was lifted: "I publish the Banns of
+marriage between Zebedee Minards, bachelor, and Ruby Tresidder,
+spinster, both of this parish.  If any of you know cause, or just
+impediment, why these two persons--"
+
+At this instant the church-door flew open, as if driven in by the wind
+that tore up the aisle in an icy current.  All heads were turned.
+Parson Babbage broke off his sentence and looked also, keeping his
+forefinger on the fluttering page.  On the threshold stood an excited,
+red-faced man, his long sandy beard blown straight out like a pennon,
+and his arms moving windmill fashion as he bawled--
+
+"A wreck! a wreck!"
+
+The men in the congregation leaped up.  The women uttered muffled cries,
+groped for their husbands' hats, and stood up also.  The choir in the
+gallery craned forward, for the church-door was right beneath them.
+Parson Babbage held up his hand, and screamed out over the hubbub--
+
+"Where's she _to?_"
+
+"Under Bradden Point, an' comin' full tilt for the Raney!"
+
+"Then God forgive all poor sinners aboard!" spoke up a woman's voice, in
+the moment's silence that followed.
+
+"Is that all you know, Gauger Hocken?"
+
+"Iss, iss: can't stop no longer--must be off to warn the Methodeys!
+'Stablished Church first, but fair play's a jewel, say I."
+
+He rushed off inland towards High Lanes, where the meeting-house stood.
+Parson Babbage closed the book without finishing his sentence, and his
+audience scrambled out over the graves and forth upon the headland.
+The wind here came howling across the short grass, blowing the women's
+skirts wide and straining their bonnet-strings, pressing the men's
+trousers tight against their shins as they bent against it in the
+attitude of butting rams and scanned the coast-line to the sou'-west.
+Ruby Tresidder, on gaining the porch, saw Young Zeb tumble out of the
+stairway leading from the gallery and run by, stowing the pieces of his
+flute in his pocket as he went, without a glance at her.  Like all the
+rest, he had clean forgotten the banns.
+
+Now, Ruby was but nineteen, and had seen plenty of wrecks, whereas these
+banns were to her an event of singular interest, for weeks anticipated
+with small thrills.  Therefore, as the people passed her by, she felt
+suddenly out of tune with them, especially with Zeb, who, at least,
+might have understood her better.  Some angry tears gathered in her eyes
+at the callous indifference of her father, who just now was revolving in
+the porch like a weathercock, and shouting orders east, west, north, and
+south for axes, hammers, ladders, cart-ropes, in case the vessel struck
+within reach.
+
+"You, Jim Lewarne, run to the mowhay, hot-foot, an' lend a hand wi' the
+datchin' ladder, an'--hi! stop!--fetch along my second-best glass, under
+the Dook o' Cumberland's picter i' the parlour, 'longside o' last year's
+neck; an'-hi! cuss the chap--he's gone like a Torpointer!  Ruby, my
+dear, step along an' show en--Why, hello!--"
+
+Ruby, with head down, and scarlet cloak blown out horizontally, was
+already fighting her way out along the headland to a point where Zeb
+stood, a little apart from the rest, with both palms shielding his eyes.
+
+"Zeb!"
+
+She had to stand on tip-toe and bawl this into his ear.  He faced round
+with a start, nodded as if pleased, and bent his gaze on the Channel
+again.
+
+Ruby looked too.  Just below, under veils of driving spray, the seas
+were thundering past the headland into Ruan Cove.  She could not see
+them break, only their backs swelling and sinking, and the puffs of foam
+that shot up like white smoke at her feet and drenched her gown.
+Beyond, the sea, the sky, and the irregular coast with its fringe of
+surf melted into one uniform grey, with just the summit of Bradden
+Point, two miles away, standing out above the wrack.  Of the vessel
+there was, as yet, no sign.
+
+In Ruby's present mood the bitter blast was chiefly blameworthy for
+gnawing at her face, and the spray for spoiling her bonnet and taking
+her hair out of curl.  She stamped her foot and screamed again--
+
+"Zeb!"
+
+"What is't, my dear?" he bawled back in her ear, kissing her wet cheek
+in a preoccupied manner.
+
+She was about to ask him what this wreck amounted to, that she should
+for the moment sink to nothing in comparison with it.  But, at this
+instant, a small group of men and women joined them, and, catching sight
+of the faces of Sarah Ann Nanjulian and Modesty Prowse, her friends, she
+tried another tack--
+
+"Well, Zeb, no doubt 'twas disappointing for you; but don't 'ee take on
+so.  Think how much harder 'tis for the poor souls i' that ship."
+
+This astute sentence, however, missed fire completely.  Zeb answered it
+with a point-blank stare of bewilderment.  The others took no notice of
+it whatever.
+
+"Hav'ee seen her, Zeb?" called out his father.
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor I nuther.  'Reckon 'tis all over a'ready.  I've a-heard afore
+now," he went on, turning his back to the wind the better to wink at the
+company, "that 'tis lucky for some folks Gauger Hocken hain't extra spry
+'pon his pins.  But 'tis a gift that cuts both ways.  Be any gone round
+by Cove Head to look out?"
+
+"Iss, a dozen or more.  I saw 'em 'pon the road, a minute back, like
+emmets runnin'."
+
+"'Twas very nice feelin', I must own--very nice indeed--of Gauger Hocken
+to warn the church-folk first; and him a man of no faith, as you may
+say.  Hey?  What's that?  Dost see her, Zeb?"
+
+For Zeb, with his right hand pressing down his cap, now suddenly flung
+his left out in the direction of Bradden Point.  Men and women craned
+forward.
+
+Below the distant promontory, a darker speck had started out of the
+medley of grey tones.  In a moment it had doubled its size--had become a
+blur--then a shape.  And at length, out of the leaden wrack, there
+emerged a small schooner, with tall, raking masts, flying straight
+towards them.
+
+"Dear God!" muttered some one, while Ruby dug her finger-tips into Zeb's
+arm.
+
+The schooner raced under bare poles, though a strip or two of canvas
+streamed out from her fore-yards.  Yet she came with a rush like a
+greyhound's, heeling over the whitened water, close under the cliffs,
+and closer with every instant.  A man, standing on any one of the points
+she cleared so narrowly, might have tossed a pebble on to her deck.
+
+"Hey, friends, but she'll not weather Gaffer's Rock.  By crum! if she
+does, they may drive her in 'pon the beach, yet!"
+
+"What's the use, i' this sea?  Besides, her steerin' gear's broke,"
+answered Zeb, without moving his eyes.
+
+This Gaffer's Rock was the extreme point of the opposite arm of the
+cove--a sharp tooth rising ten feet or more above high-water mark.
+As the little schooner came tearing abreast of it, a huge sea caught her
+broadside, and lifted as if to fling her high and dry.  The men and
+women on the headland held their breath while she hung on its apex.
+Then she toppled and plunged across the mouth of the cove, quivering.
+She must have shaved the point by a foot.
+
+"The Raney! the Raney!" shouted young Zeb, shaking off Ruby's clutch.
+"The Raney, or else--"
+
+He did not finish his sentence, for the stress of the flying seconds
+choked down his words.  Two possibilities they held, and each big with
+doom.  Either the schooner must dash upon the Raney--a reef, barely
+covered at high water, barring entrance to the cove--or avoiding this,
+must be shattered on the black wall of rock under their very feet.
+The end of the little vessel was written--all but one word: and that
+must be added within a short half-minute.
+
+Ruby saw this: it was plain for a child to read.  She saw the curded
+tide, now at half-flood, boiling around the Raney; she saw the little
+craft swoop down on it, half buried in the seas through which she was
+being impelled; she saw distinctly one form, and one only, on the deck
+beside the helm--a form that flung up its hands as it shot by the smooth
+edge of the reef, a hand's-breadth off destruction.  The hands were
+still lifted as it passed under the ledge where she stood.
+
+It seemed, as she stood there shivering, covering her eyes, an age
+before the crash came, and the cry of those human souls in their
+extremity.
+
+When at length she took her hands from her face the others were twenty
+yards away, and running fast.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+THE SECOND SHIP.
+
+Fate, which had freakishly hurled a ship's crew out of the void upon
+this particular bit of coast, as freakishly preserved them.
+
+The very excess of its fury worked this wonder.  For the craft came in
+on a tall billow that flung her, as a sling might, clean against the
+cliff's face, crumpling the bowsprit like paper, sending the foremast
+over with a crash, and driving a jagged tooth of rock five feet into her
+ribs beside the breastbone.  So, for a moment it left her, securely
+gripped and bumping her stern-post on the ledge beneath.  As the next
+sea deluged her, and the next, the folk above saw her crew fight their
+way forward up the slippery deck, under sheets of foam.  With the fifth
+or six wave her mizen-mast went; she split open amidships, pouring out
+her cargo.  The stern slipped off the ledge and plunged twenty fathoms
+down out of sight.  And now the fore-part alone remained--a piece of
+deck, the stump of the foremast, and five men clinging in a tangle of
+cordage, struggling up and toppling back as each successive sea soused
+over them.
+
+Three men had detached themselves from the group above the cliff, and
+were sidling down its face cautiously, for the hurricane now flattened
+them back against the rock, now tried to wrench them from it; and all
+the way it was a tough battle for breath.  The foremost was Jim Lewarne,
+Farmer Tresidder's hind, with a coil of the farmer's rope slung round
+him.  Young Zeb followed, and Elias Sweetland, both similarly laden.
+
+Less than half-way down the rock plunged abruptly, cutting off farther
+descent.
+
+Jim Lewarne, in a cloud of foam, stood up, slipped the coil over his
+head, and unwound it, glancing to right and left.  Now Jim amid ordinary
+events was an acknowledged fool, and had a wife to remind him of it; but
+perch him out of female criticism, on a dizzy foothold such as this, and
+set him a desperate job, and you clarified his wits at once.
+This eccentricity was so notorious that the two men above halted in
+silence, and waited.
+
+Jim glanced to right and left, spied a small pinnacle of rock about
+three yards away, fit for his purpose, sidled towards it, and, grasping,
+made sure that it was firm.  Next, reeving one end of the rope into a
+running noose, he flung it over the pinnacle, and with a tug had it
+taut.  This done, he tilted his body out, his toes on the ledge, his
+weight on the rope, and his body inclined forward over the sea at an
+angle of some twenty degrees from the cliff.
+
+Having by this device found the position of the wreck, and judging that
+his single rope would reach, he swung back, gained hold of the cliff
+with his left hand, and with his right caught and flung the leaded end
+far out.  It fell true as a bullet, across the wreck.  As it dropped, a
+sea almost swept it clear; but the lead hitched in a tangle of cordage
+by the port cathead; within twenty seconds the rope was caught and made
+fast below.
+
+All was now easy.  At a nod from Jim young Zeb passed down a second
+line, which was lowered along the first by a noose.  One by one the
+whole crew--four men and a cabin-boy--were hauled up out of death, borne
+off to the vicarage, and so pass out of our story.
+
+Their fate does not concern us, for this reason--men with a narrow
+horizon and no wings must accept all apparent disproportions between
+cause and effect.  A railway collision has other results besides
+wrecking an ant-hill, but the wise ants do not pursue these in the
+Insurance Reports.  So it only concerns us that the destruction of the
+schooner led in time to a lovers' difference between Ruby and young
+Zeb--two young people of no eminence outside of these pages.  And, as a
+matter of fact, her crew had less to do with this than her cargo.
+
+She had been expressly built by Messrs. Taggs & Co., a London firm, in
+reality as a privateer (which explains her raking masts), but ostensibly
+for the Portugal trade; and was homeward bound from Lisbon to the
+Thames, with a cargo of red wine and chestnuts.  At Falmouth, where she
+had run in for a couple of days, on account of a damaged rudder, the
+captain paid off his extra hands, foreseeing no difficulty in the voyage
+up Channel.  She had not, however, left Falmouth harbour three hours
+before she met with a gale that started her steering-gear afresh.
+To put back in the teeth of such weather was hopeless; and the attempt
+to run before it ended as we know.
+
+
+When Ruby looked up, after the crash, and saw her friends running along
+the headland to catch a glimpse of the wreck, her anger returned.
+She stood for twenty minutes at least, watching them; then, pulling her
+cloak closely round her, walked homewards at a snail's pace.  By the
+church gate she met the belated Methodists hurrying up, and passed a
+word or two of information that sent them panting on.  A little beyond,
+at the point where the peninsula joins the mainland, she faced round to
+the wind again for a last glance.  Three men were following her slowly
+down the ridge with a burden between them.  It was the first of the
+rescued crew--a lifeless figure wrapped in oil-skins, with one arm
+hanging limply down, as if broken.  Ruby halted, and gave time to come
+up.
+
+"Hey, lads," shouted Old Zeb, who walked first, with a hand round each
+of the figure's sea-boots; "now that's what I'd call a proper womanly
+masterpiece, to run home to Sheba an' change her stockings in time for
+the randivoose."
+
+"I don't understand," said his prospective daughter-in-law, haughtily.
+
+"O boundless depth!  Rest the poor mortal down, mates, while I take
+breath to humour her.  Why, my dear, you must know from my tellin' that
+there _hev_ a-been such a misfortunate goin's on as a wreck,
+hereabouts."
+
+He paused to shake the rain out of his hat and whiskers.  Ruby stole a
+look at the oil-skin.  The sailor's upturned face was of a sickly
+yellow, smeared with blood and crusted with salt.  The same white crust
+filled the hollows of his closed eyes, and streaked his beard and hair.
+It turned her faint for the moment.
+
+"An the wreck's scat abroad," continued Old Zeb; an' the interpretation
+thereof is barrels an' nuts.  What's more, tide'll be runnin' for two
+hour yet; an' it hasn' reached my ears that the fashion of thankin' the
+Lord for His bounty have a-perished out o' this old-fangled race of men
+an' women; though no doubt, my dear, you'd get first news o' the change,
+with a bed-room window facin' on Ruan Cove."
+
+"Thank you, Old Zeb; I'll be careful to draw my curtains," said she,
+answering sarcasm with scorn, and turning on her heel.
+
+The old man stooped to lift the sailor again.  "Better clog your pretty
+ears wi' wax," he called after her, "when the kiss-i'-the-ring begins!
+Well-a-fine!  What a teasin' armful is woman, afore the first-born
+comes!  Hey, Sim Udy?  Speak up, you that have fifteen to feed."
+
+"Ay, I was a low feller, first along," answered Sim Udy, grinning.
+"'Sich common notions, Sim, as you do entertain!' was my wife's word."
+
+"Well, souls, we was a bit tiddlywinky last Michaelmas, when the _Young
+Susannah_ came ashore, that I must own.  Folks blamed the Pa'son for
+preachin' agen it the Sunday after.  'A disreppitable scene,' says he,
+''specially seein' you had nowt to be thankful for but a cargo o' sugar
+that the sea melted afore you could get it.'  (Lift the pore chap aisy,
+Sim.)  By crum! Sim, I mind your huggin' a staved rum cask, and kissin'
+it, an' cryin', 'Aw, Ben--dear Ben!' an' 'After all these years!'
+fancyin' 'twas your twin brother come back, that was killed aboard the
+_Agamemny_--"
+
+"Well, well--prettily overtook I must ha' been.  (Stiddy, there,
+Crowder, wi' the legs of en.) But to-day I'll be mild, as 'tis
+Chris'mas."
+
+"Iss, iss; be very mild, my sons, as 'tis so holy a day."
+
+They tramped on, bending their heads at queer angles against the
+weather, that erased their outlines in a bluish mist, through which they
+loomed for a while at intervals, until they passed out of sight.
+
+Ruby, meanwhile, had hurried on, her cloak flapping loudly as it grew
+heavier with moisture, and the water in her shoes squishing at every
+step.  At first she took the road leading down-hill to Ruan Cove, but
+turned to the right after a few yards, and ran up the muddy lane that
+was the one approach to Sheba, her father's farm.
+
+The house, a square, two-storeyed building of greystone, roofed with
+heavy slates, was guarded in front by a small courtlage, the wall of
+which blocked all view from the lower rooms.  From the narrow mullioned
+windows on the upper floor, however, one could look over it upon the
+duck-pond across the road, and down across two grass meadows to the
+cove.  A white gate opened on the courtlage, and the path from this to
+the front door was marked out by slabs of blue slate, accurately laid in
+line.  Ruby, in her present bedraggled state, avoided the front
+entrance, and followed the wall round the house to the town-place,
+stopping on her way to look in at the kitchen window.
+
+"Mary Jane, if you call that a roast goose, I cull it a burning shame!"
+
+Mary Jane, peeling potatoes with her back to the window, and tossing
+them one by one into a bucket of water, gave a jump, and cut her finger,
+dropping forthwith a half-peeled magnum bonum, which struck the bucket's
+edge and slid away across the slate flooring under the table.
+
+"Awgh--awgh!" she burst out, catching up her apron and clutching it
+round the cut.  "Look what you've done, Miss Ruby! an' me miles away,
+thinkin' o' shipwrecks an' dead swollen men."
+
+"Look at the Chris'mas dinner, you mazed creature!"
+
+In truth, the goose was fast spoiling.  The roasting apparatus in this
+kitchen was a simple matter, consisting of a nail driven into the centre
+of the chimney-piece, a number of worsted threads depending therefrom,
+and a steel hook attached to these threads.  Fix the joint or fowl
+firmly on the hook, give it a spin with the hand, and the worsted
+threads wound, unwound, and wound again, turning it before the blaze--an
+admirable jack, if only looked after.  At present it hung motionless
+over the dripping-pan, and the goose wore a suit of motley, exhibiting a
+rich Vandyke brown to the fire, an unhealthy yellow to the window.
+
+"There now!" Mary Jane rushed to the jack and gave it a spin, while Ruby
+walked round by the back door, and appeared dripping on the threshold.
+"I declare 'tis like Troy Town this morning: wrecks and rumours o'
+wrecks.  Now 'tis 'Ropes! ropes!' an' nex' 'tis 'Where be the stable
+key, Mary Jane, my dear?' an' then agen, 'Will'ee be so good as to fetch
+master's second-best spy-glass, Mary Jane, an' look slippy?'--an' me wi'
+a goose to stuff, singe, an' roast, an' 'tatties to peel, an' greens to
+cleanse, an' apples to chop for sauce, an' the hoarders no nearer away
+than the granary loft, with a gatherin' 'pon your second toe an' the
+half o' 'em rotten when you get there.  The pore I be in!  Why, Miss
+Ruby, you'm streamin'-leakin'!"
+
+"I'm wet through, Mary Jane; an' I don't care if I die." Ruby sank on
+the settle, and fairly broke down.
+
+"Hush 'ee now, co!"
+
+"I don't, I don't, an' I don't! I'm tired o' the world, an' my heart's
+broke.  Mary Jane, you selfish thing, you've never asked about my banns,
+no more'n the rest; an' after that cast-off frock, too, that I gave you
+last week so good as new!"
+
+"Was it very grand, Miss Ruby?  Was it shuddery an' yet joyful--
+lily-white an' yet rosy-red--hot an' yet cold--'don't lift me so high,'
+an' yet 'praise God, I'm exalted above women'?"
+
+"'Twas all and yet none.  'Twas a voice speakin' my name, sweet an'
+terrible, an' I longed for it to go on an' on; and then came the Gauger
+stunnin' and shoutin' 'Wreck! wreck!' like a trumpet, an' the church was
+full o' wind, an' the folk ran this way an' that, like sheep, an' left
+me sittin' there.  I'll--I'll die an old maid, I will, if only to
+s--spite such ma--ma--manners!"
+
+"Aw, pore dear!  But there's better tricks than dyin' unwed.  Bind up my
+finger, Miss Ruby, an' listen.  You shall play Don't Care, an' change
+your frock, an' we'll step down to th' cove after dinner an' there be
+heartless and fancy-free.  Lord! when the dance strikes up, to see you
+carryin' off the other maids' danglers an' treating your own man like
+dirt!"
+
+Ruby stood up, the water still running off her frock upon the slates,
+her moist eyes resting beyond the window on the midden-heap across the
+yard, as if she saw there the picture Mary Jane conjured up.
+
+"No.  I won't join their low frolic; an' you ought to be above it.
+I'll pull my curtains an' sit up-stairs all day, an' you shall read to
+me."
+
+The other pulled a wry face.  This was not her idea of enjoyment.
+She went back to the goose sad at heart, for Miss Ruby had a knack of
+enforcing her wishes.
+
+Sure enough, soon after dinner was cleared away (a meal through which
+Ruby had sulked and Farmer Tresidder eaten heartily, talking with a full
+mouth about the rescue, and coarsely ignoring what he called his
+daughter's "faddles"), the two girls retired to the chamber up-stairs;
+where the mistress was as good as her word, and pulled the dimity
+curtains before settling herself down in an easy-chair to listen to
+extracts from a polite novel as rendered aloud, under dire compulsion,
+by Mary Jane.
+
+The rain had ceased by this, and the wind abated, though it still howled
+around the angle of the house and whipped a spray of the monthly-rose
+bush on the quarrels of the window, filling the pauses during which
+Mary Jane wrestled with a hard word. Ruby herself had taught the girl
+this accomplishment--rare enough at the time--and Mary Jane handled it
+gingerly, beginning each sentence in a whisper, as if awed by her own
+intrepidity, and ending each in a kind of gratulatory cheer. The work
+was of that class of epistolary fiction then in vogue, and the extract
+singularly well fitted to Ruby's mood.
+
+"My dearest Wil-hel-mina," began Mary Jane, "racked with a hun-dred
+conflicting em-otions, I resume the nar-rative of those fa-tal moments
+which rapt me from your affec-tion-ate em-brace. Suffer me to re--to
+re-cap--"
+
+"Better spell it, Mary Jane."
+
+"To r.e., re--c.a.p., cap, recap--i.t, it, re--capit--Lor'! what a
+twister!--u, recapitu--l.a.t.e, late, re-cap-it-u-late the events
+de-tailed in my last letter, full stop--there! if I han't read that full
+stop out loud!  Lord Bel-field, though an ad-ept in all the arts of
+dis-sim-u-la-tion (and how of-ten do we not see these arts al-lied with
+un-scru-pu-lous pas-sions?), was un-able to sus-tain the gaze of my
+in-fu-ri-a-ted pa-pa, though he com-port-ed himself with suf-fic-ient
+p.h.l.e.g.m--Lor'! what a funny word!"
+
+Ruby yawned.  It is true she had drawn the dimity curtains--all but a
+couple of inches.  Through this space she could see the folk busy on the
+beach below like a swarm of small black insects, and continually
+augmented by those who, having run off to snatch their Christmas dinner,
+were returning to the spoil.  Some lined the edge of the breakers,
+waiting the moment to rush in for a cask or spar that the tide brought
+within reach; others (among whom she seemed to descry Young Zeb) were
+clambering out with grapnels along the western rocks; a third large
+group was gathered in the very centre of the beach, and from the midst
+of these a blue wreath of smoke began to curl up.  At the same instant
+she heard the gate click outside, and pulling the curtain wider, saw her
+father trudging away down the lane.
+
+Mary Jane, glancing up, and seeing her mistress crane forward with
+curiosity, stole behind and peeped over her shoulder.
+
+"I declare they'm teening a fire!"
+
+"Who gave you leave to bawl in my ear so rudely?  Go back to your
+reading, this instant."  (A pause.)  "Mary Jane, I do believe they'm
+roastin' chestnuts."
+
+"What a clever game!"
+
+"Father said at dinner the tide was bringin' 'em in by bushels.
+Quick! put on your worst bonnet an' clogs, an' run down to look.
+I _must_ know.  No, I'm not goin'--the idea!  I wonder at your low
+notions.  You shall bring me word o' what's doin'--an' mind you're back
+before dark."
+
+Mary Jane fled precipitately, lest the order should be revoked.
+Five minutes later, Ruby heard the small gate click again, and with a
+sigh saw the girl's rotund figure waddling down the lane.  Then she
+picked up the book and strove to bury herself in the woes of Wilhelmina,
+but still with frequent glances out of window.  Twice the book dropped
+off her lap; twice she picked it up and laboriously found the page
+again.  Then she gave it up, and descended to the back door, to see if
+anyone were about who might give her news.  But the town-place was
+deserted by all save the ducks, the old white sow, and a melancholy crew
+of cocks and hens huddled under the dripping eaves of the cow-house.
+Returning to her room, she settled down on the window-seat, and watched
+the blaze of the bonfire increase as the short day faded.
+
+The grey became black.  It was six o'clock, and neither her father nor
+Mary Jane had returned.  Seven o'clock struck from the tall clock in the
+kitchen, and was echoed ten minutes after by the Dutch clock in the
+parlour below.  The sound whirred up through the planching twice as loud
+as usual.  It was shameful to be left alone like this, to be robbed,
+murdered, goodness knew what.  The bonfire began to die out, but every
+now and then a circle of small black figures would join hands and dance
+round it, scattering wildly after a moment or two.  In a lull of the
+wind she caught the faint sound of shouts and singing, and this
+determined her.
+
+She turned back from the window and groped for her tinder-box.
+The glow, as she blew the spark upon the dry rag, lit up a very pretty
+but tear-stained pair of cheeks; and when she touched off the brimstone
+match, and, looking up, saw her face confronting her, blue and tragical,
+from the dark-framed mirror, it reminded her of Lady Macbeth.
+Hastily lighting the candle, she caught up a shawl and crept
+down-stairs.  Her clogs were in the hall; and four horn lanterns dangled
+from a row of pegs above them.  She caught down one, lit it, and
+throwing the shawl over her head, stepped out into the night.
+
+The wind was dying down and seemed almost warm upon her face.  A young
+moon fought gallantly, giving the massed clouds just enough light to
+sail by; but in the lane it was dark as pitch.  This did not so much
+matter, as the rain had poured down it like a sluice, washing the flints
+clean.  Ruby's lantern swung to and fro, casting a yellow glare on the
+tall hedges, drawing queer gleams from the holly-bushes, and flinging an
+ugly, amorphous shadow behind, that dogged her like an enemy.
+
+At the foot of the lane she could clearly distinguish the songs, shouts,
+and shrill laughter, above the hollow roar of the breakers.
+
+"They're playin' kiss-i'-the-ring.  That's Modesty Prowse's laugh.
+I wonder how any man _can_ kiss a mouth like Modesty Prowse's!"
+
+She turned down the sands towards the bonfire, grasping as she went all
+the details of the scene.
+
+In the glow of the dying fire sat a semicircle of men--Jim Lewarne, sunk
+in a drunken slumber, Calvin Oke bawling in his ear, Old Zeb on hands
+and knees, scraping the embers together, Toby Lewarne (Jim's elder
+brother) thumping a pannikin on his knee and bellowing a carol, and a
+dozen others--in stages varying from qualified sobriety to stark and
+shameless intoxication--peering across the fire at the game in progress
+between them and the faint line that marked where sand ended and sea
+began.
+
+"Zeb's turn!" roared out Toby Lewarne, breaking off _The Third Good Joy_
+midway, in his excitement.
+
+"Have a care--have a care, my son!"  Old Zeb looked up to shout.
+"Thee'rt so good as wed already; so do thy wedded man's duty, an' kiss
+th' hugliest!"
+
+It was true.  Ruby, halting with her lantern a pace or two behind the
+dark semicircle of backs, saw her perfidious Zeb moving from right to
+left slowly round the circle of men and maids that, with joined hands
+and screams of laughter, danced as slowly in the other direction.
+She saw him pause once--twice, feign to throw the kerchief over one,
+then still pass on, calling out over the racket:--
+
+   "I sent a letter to my love,
+   I carried water in my glove,
+   An' on the way I dropped it--dropped it--dropped it--"
+
+He dropped the kerchief over Modesty Prowse.
+
+"Zeb!"
+
+Young Zeb whipped the kerchief off Modesty's neck, and spun round as it
+shot.
+
+The dancers looked; the few sober men by the fire turned and looked
+also.
+
+"'Tis Ruby Tresidder!" cried one of the girls; "'Wudn' be i' thy shoon,
+Young Zeb, for summatt."
+
+Zeb shook his wits together and dashed off towards the spot, twenty
+yards away, where Ruby stood holding the lantern high, its ray full on
+her face.  As she started she kicked off her clogs, turned, and ran for
+her life.
+
+Then, in an instant, a new game began upon the sands.  Young Zeb, waving
+his kerchief and pursuing the flying lantern, was turned, baffled,
+intercepted--here, there, and everywhere--by the dancers, who scattered
+over the beach with shouts and peals of laughter, slipping in between
+him and his quarry.  The elders by the fire held their sides and cheered
+the sport.  Twice Zeb was tripped up by a mischievous boot, floundered
+and went sprawling; and the roar was loud and long.  Twice he picked
+himself up and started again after the lantern, that zigzagged now along
+the fringe of the waves, now up towards the bonfire, now off along the
+dark shadow of the cliffs.
+
+Ruby could hardly sift her emotions when she found herself panting and
+doubling in flight.  The chase had started without her will or dissent;
+had suddenly sprung, as it were, out of the ground.  She only knew that
+she was very angry with Zeb; that she longed desperately to elude him;
+and that he must catch her soon, for her breath and strength were
+ebbing.
+
+What happened in the end she kept in her dreams till she died.
+Somehow she had dropped the lantern and was running up from the sea
+towards the fire, with Zeb's feet pounding behind her, and her soul
+possessed with the dread to feel his grasp upon her shoulders.
+As it fell, Old Zeb leapt up to his feet with excitement, and opened his
+mouth wide to cheer.
+
+But no voice came for three seconds: and when he spoke this was what he
+said--
+
+"Good Lord, deliver us!"
+
+She saw his gaze pass over her shoulder; and then heard these words come
+slowly, one by one, like dropping stones.  His face was like a ghost's
+in the bonfire's light, and he muttered again--"From battle and murder,
+and from sudden death--Good Lord, deliver us!"
+
+She could not understand at first; thought it must have something to do
+with Young Zeb, whose arms were binding hers, and whose breath was hot
+on her neck.  She felt his grasp relax, and faced about.
+
+Full in front, standing out as the faint moon showed them, motionless,
+as if suspended against the black sky, rose the masts, yards, and
+square-sails of a full-rigged ship.
+
+
+The men and women must have stood a whole minute--dumb as stones--before
+there came that long curdling shriek for which they waited.  The great
+masts quivered for a second against the darkness; then heaved, lurched,
+and reeled down, crashing on the Raney.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+THE STRANGER.
+
+As the ship struck, night closed down again, and her agony, sharp or
+lingering, was blotted out.  There was no help possible; no arm that
+could throw across the three hundred yards that separated her from the
+cliffs; no swimmer that could carry a rope across those breakers; nor
+any boat that could, with a chance of life, put out among them.  Now and
+then a dull crash divided the dark hours, but no human cry again reached
+the shore.
+
+Day broke on a grey sea still running angrily, a tired and shivering
+group upon the beach, and on the near side of the Raney a shapeless
+fragment, pounded and washed to and fro--a relic on which the watchers
+could in their minds re-build the tragedy.
+
+The Raney presents a sheer edge to seaward--an edge under which the
+first vessel, though almost grazing her side, had driven in plenty of
+water.  Shorewards, however, it descends by gradual ledges.
+Beguiled by the bonfire, or mistaking Ruby's lantern for the tossing
+stern-light of a comrade, the second ship had charged full-tilt on the
+reef and hung herself upon it, as a hunter across a fence.  Before she
+could swing round, her back was broken; her stern parted, slipped back
+and settled in many fathoms; while the fore-part heaved forwards,
+toppled down the reef till it stuck, and there was slowly brayed into
+pieces by the seas.  The tide had swept up and ebbed without dislodging
+it, and now was almost at low-water mark.
+
+"'May so well go home to breakfast," said Elias Sweetland, grimly, as he
+took in what the uncertain light could show.
+
+"Here, Young Zeb, look through my glass," sang out Farmer Tresidder,
+handing the telescope.  He had been up at the vicarage drinking hot grog
+with the parson and the rescued men, when Sim Udy ran up with news of
+the fresh disaster; and his first business on descending to the Cove had
+been to pack Ruby and Mary Jane off to bed with a sound rating.  Parson
+Babbage had descended also, carrying a heavy cane (the very same with
+which he broke the head of a Radical agitator in the bar of the "Jolly
+Pilchards," to the mild scandal of the diocese), and had routed the rest
+of the women and chastised the drunken.  The parson was a remarkable
+man, and looked it, just now, in spite of the red  handkerchief that
+bound his hat down over his ears.
+
+"Nothing alive there--eh?"
+
+Young Zeb, with a glass at his left eye, answered--
+
+"Nothin' left but a frame o' ribs, sir, an' the foremast hangin' over,
+so far as I can see; but 'tis all a raffle o' spars and riggin' close
+under her side.  I'll tell 'ee better when this wave goes by."
+
+But the next instant he took down the glass, with a whitened face, and
+handed it to the parson.
+
+The parson looked too.  "Terrible!--terrible!" he said, very slowly,
+and passed it on to Farmer Tresidder.
+
+"What is it?  Where be I to look?  Aw, pore chaps--pore chaps!
+Man alive--but there's one movin'!"
+
+Zeb snatched the glass.
+
+"'Pon the riggin', Zeb, just under her lee!  I saw en move--
+a black-headed chap, in a red shirt--"
+
+"Right, Farmer--he's clingin', too, not lashed." Zeb gave a long look.
+"Darned if I won't!" he said.  "Cast over them corks, Sim Udy!  How much
+rope have 'ee got, Jim?"  He began to strip as he spoke.
+
+"Lashins," answered Jim Lewarne.
+
+"Splice it up, then, an' hitch a dozen corks along it."
+
+"Zeb, Zeb!" cried his father, "What be 'bout?"
+
+"Swimmin'," answered Zeb, who by this time had unlaced his boots.
+
+"The notion!  Look here, friends--take a look at the bufflehead!
+Not three months back his mother's brother goes dead an' leaves en a
+legacy, 'pon which, he sets up as jowter--han'some painted cart, tidy
+little mare, an' all complete, besides a bravish sum laid by.  A man of
+substance, sirs--a life o' much price, as you may say.  Aw, Zeb, my son,
+'tis hard to lose 'ee, but 'tis harder still now you're in such a very
+fair way o' business!"
+
+"Hold thy clack, father, an' tie thicky knot, so's it won't slip."
+
+"Shan't.  I've a-took boundless pains wi' thee, my son, from thy birth
+up: hours I've a-spent curin' thy propensities wi' the strap--ay, hours.
+D'ee think I raised 'ee up so carefully to chuck thyself away 'pon a
+come-by-chance furriner?  No, I didn'; an' I'll see thee jiggered afore
+I ties 'ee up.  Pa'son Babbage--"
+
+"Ye dundering old shammick!" broke in the parson, driving the ferule of
+his cane deep in the sand, "be content to have begotten a fool, and
+thank heaven and his mother he's a gamey fool."
+
+"Thank'ee, Pa'son," said Young Zeb, turning his head as Jim Lewarne
+fastened the belt of corks under his armpits.  "Now the line--not too
+tight round the waist, an' pay out steady.  You, Jim, look to this.
+R-r-r--mortal cold water, friends!"  He stood for a moment, clenching
+his teeth--a fine figure of a youth for all to see.  Then, shouting for
+plenty of line, he ran twenty yards down the beach and leapt in on the
+top of a tumbling breaker.
+
+"When a man's old," muttered the parson, half to himself, "he may yet
+thank God for what he sees, sometimes.  Hey, Farmer!  I wish I was a
+married man and had a girl good enough for that naked young hero."
+
+"Ruby an' he'll make a han'some pair."
+
+"Ay, I dare say: only I wasn't thinking o' _her_.  How's the fellow out
+yonder?"
+
+The man on the wreck was still clinging, drenched twice or thrice in the
+half-minute and hidden from sight, but always emerging.  He sat astride
+of the dangling foremast, and had wound tightly round his wrist the end
+of a rope that hung over the bows.  If the rope gave, or the mast worked
+clear of the tangle that held it and floated off, he was a dead man.
+He hardly fought at all, and though they shouted at the top of their
+lungs, seemed to take no notice--only moved feebly, once or twice, to
+get a firmer seat.
+
+Zeb also could only be descried at intervals, his head appearing, now
+and again, like a cork on the top of a billow.  But the last of the ebb
+was helping him, and Jim Lewarne, himself at times neck-high in the
+surf, continued to pay out the line slowly.  In fact, the feat was less
+dangerous than it seemed to the spectators.  A few hours before, it was
+impossible; but by this there was little more than a heavy swell after
+the first twenty yards of surf.  Zeb's chief difficulty would be to
+catch a grip or footing on the reef where the sea again grew broken, and
+his foremost dread lest cramp should seize him in the bitterly cold
+water.  Rising on the swell, he could spy the seaman tossing and sinking
+on the mast just ahead.
+
+As it happened, he was spared the main peril of the reef, for in fifty
+more strokes he found himself plunging down into a smooth trough of
+water with the mast directly beneath.  As he shot down, the mast rose to
+him, he flung his arms out over it, and was swept up, clutching it, to
+the summit of the next swell.
+
+Oddly enough, his first thought, as he hung there, was not for the man
+he had come to save, but for that which had turned him pale when first
+he glanced through the telescope.  The foremast across which he lay was
+complete almost to the royal-mast, though the yards were gone; and to
+his left, just above the battered fore-top, five men were lashed, dead
+and drowned.  Most of them had their eyes wide open, and seemed to stare
+at Zeb and wriggle about in the stir of the sea as if they lived.
+Spent and wretched as he was, it lifted his hair.  He almost called out
+to them at first, and then he dragged his gaze off them, and turned it
+to the right.  The survivor still clung here, and Zeb--who had been
+vaguely wondering how on earth he contrived to keep his seat and yet
+hold on by the rope without being torn limb from limb--now discovered
+this end of the mast to be so tightly jammed and tangled against the
+wreck as practically to be immovable.  The man's face was about as
+scaring as the corpses'; for, catching sight of Zeb, he betrayed no
+surprise, but only looked back wistfully over his left shoulder, while
+his blue lips worked without sound.  At least, Zeb heard none.
+
+He waited while they plunged again and emerged, and then, drawing
+breath, began to pull himself along towards the stranger.  They had seen
+his success from the beach, and Jim Lewarne, with plenty of line yet to
+spare, waited for the next move.  Zeb worked along till he could touch
+the man's thigh.
+
+"Keep your knee stiddy," he called out; "I'm goin' to grip hold o't."
+
+For answer, the stranger only kicked out with his foot, as a pettish
+child might, and almost thrust him from his hold.
+
+"Look'ee here: no doubt you'm 'mazed, but that's a curst foolish trick,
+all the same.  Be that tangle fast, you'm holding by?"
+
+The man made no sign of comprehension.
+
+"Best not trust to't, I reckon," muttered Zeb: "must get past en an'
+make fast round a rib.  Ah! would 'ee, ye varment?"
+
+For, once more, the stranger had tried to thrust him off; and a struggle
+followed, which ended in Zeb's getting by and gripping the mast again
+between him and the wreck.
+
+"Now list to me," he shouted, pulling himself up and flinging a leg over
+the mast: "ingratitood's worse than witchcraft.  Sit ye there an'
+inwardly digest that sayin', while I saves your life."
+
+He untied the line about his waist, then, watching his chance, snatched
+the rope out of the other's hand, threw his weight upon it, and swung in
+towards the vessel's ribs till he touched one, caught, and passed the
+line around it, high up, with a quick double half-hitch.  Running a hand
+down the line, he dropped back upon the mast.  The stranger regarded him
+with a curious stare, and at last found his voice.
+
+"You seem powerfully set on saving me."
+
+His teeth chattered as he spoke, and his face was pinched and
+hollow-eyed from cold and exposure.  But he was handsome, for all that--
+a fellow not much older than Zeb, lean and strongly made.  His voice had
+a cultivated ring.
+
+"Yes," answered Zeb, as, with one hand on the line that now connected
+the wreck with the shore, he sat down astride the mast facing him; "I
+reckon I'll do't."
+
+"Unlucky, isn't it?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"To save a man from drowning."
+
+"Maybe.  Untie these corks from my chest, and let me slip 'em round
+yourn.  How your fingers do shake, to be sure!"
+
+"I call you to witness," said the other, with a shiver, "you are saving
+me on your own responsibility."
+
+"Can 'ee swim?"
+
+"I could yesterday."
+
+"Then you can now, wi' a belt o' corks an' me to help.  Keep a hand on
+the line an' pull yoursel' along.  Tide's runnin' again by now.
+When you'm tired, hold fast by the rope an' sing out to me.  Stop; let
+me chafe your legs a bit, for how you've lasted out as you have is more
+than I know."
+
+"I was on the foretop most of the night.  Those fools--" he broke off to
+nod at the corpses.
+
+"They'm dead," put in Zeb, curtly.
+
+"They lashed themselves, thinking the foremast would stand till
+daylight.  I climbed down half an hour before it went.  I tell you
+what, though; my legs are too cramped to move.  If you want to save me
+you must carry me."
+
+"I was thinkin' the same.  Well, come along; for tho' I don't like the
+cut o' your jib, you'm a terrible handsome chap, and as clean-built as
+ever I see.  Now then, one arm round my neck and t'other on the line,
+but don't bear too hard on it, for I doubt 'tis weakish.  Bless the
+Lord, the tide's running."
+
+So they began their journey.  Zeb had taken barely a dozen strokes when
+the other groaned and began to hang more heavily on his neck.  But he
+fought on, though very soon the struggle became a blind and horrible
+nightmare to him.  The arm seemed to creep round his throat and strangle
+him, and the blackness of a great night came down over his eyes.
+Still he struck out, and, oddly enough, found himself calling to his
+comrade to hold tight.
+
+When Sim Udy and Elias Sweetland dashed in from the shore and swam to
+the rescue, they found the pair clinging to the line, and at a
+standstill.  And when the four were helped through the breakers to firm
+earth, Zeb tottered two steps forward and dropped in a swoon, burying
+his face in the sand.
+
+"He's not as strong as I," muttered the stranger, staring at Parson
+Babbage in a dazed, uncertain fashion, and uttering the words as if they
+had no connection with his thoughts.  "I'm afraid--sir--I've broken--his
+heart."
+
+And with that he, too, fainted, into the Parson's arms.
+
+"Better carry the both up to Sheba," said Farmer Tresidder.
+
+
+Ruby lay still abed when Mary Jane, who had been moving about the
+kitchen, sleepy-eyed, getting ready the breakfast, dashed up-stairs with
+the news that two dead men had been taken off the wreck and were even
+now being brought into the yard.
+
+"You coarse girl," she exclaimed, "to frighten me with such horrors!"
+
+"Oh, very well," answered Mary Jane, who was in a rebellious mood,
+"then I'm goin' down to peep; for there's a kind o'
+what-I-can't-tell-'ee about dead men that's very enticin', tho' it do
+make you feel all-overish."
+
+By and by she came back panting, to find Ruby already dressed.
+
+"Aw, Miss Ruby, dreadful news I ha' to tell, tho' joyous in a way.
+Would 'ee mind catchin' hold o' the bed-post to give yoursel' fortitude?
+Now let me cast about how to break it softly.  First, then, you must
+know he's not dead at all--"
+
+"Who is not?"
+
+"Your allotted husband, miss--Mister Zeb."
+
+"Why, who in the world said he was?"
+
+"But they took en up for dead, miss--for he'd a-swum out to the wreck,
+an' then he'd a-swum back with a man 'pon his back--an' touchin' shore,
+he fell downward in a swound, marvellous like to death for all to
+behold.  So they brought en up here, 'long wi' the chap he'd a-saved,
+an' dressed en i' the spare room blankets, an' gave en clane sperrits to
+drink, an' lo! he came to; an' in a minnit, lo! agen he went off; an'--"
+
+Ruby, by this time, was half-way down the stairs.  Running to the
+kitchen door she flung it open, calling "Zeb! Zeb!"
+
+But Young Zeb had fainted for the third time, and while others of the
+group merely lifted their heads at her entrance, the old crowder strode
+towards her with some amount of sternness on his face.
+
+"Kape off my son!" he shouted.  "Kape off my son Zebedee, and go
+up-stairs agen to your prayers; for this be all your work, in a way--you
+gay good-for-nuthin'!"
+
+"Indeed, Mr. Minards," retorted Ruby, firing up under this extravagant
+charge and bridling, "pray remember whose roof you're under, with your
+low language."
+
+"Begad," interposed a strange voice, "but that's the spirit for me, and
+the mouth to utter it!"
+
+Ruby, turning, met a pair of luminous eyes gazing on her with bold
+admiration.  The eyes were set in a cadaverous, but handsome, face; and
+the face belonged to the stranger, who had recovered of his swoon, and
+was now stretched on the settle beside the fire.
+
+"I don't know who you may be, sir, but--"
+
+"You are kind enough to excuse my rising to introduce myself.
+My name is Zebedee Minards."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+YOUNG ZEB FETCHES A CHEST OF DRAWERS.
+
+The parish of Ruan Lanihale is bounded on the west by Porthlooe, a
+fishing town of fifteen hundred inhabitants or less, that blocks the
+seaward exit of a narrow coombe.  A little stream tumbles down this
+coombe towards the "Hauen," divides the folk into parishioners of
+Lanihale and Landaviddy, and receives impartially the fish offal of
+both.  There is a good deal of this offal, especially during pilchard
+time, and the towns-folk live on their first storeys, using the lower
+floors as fish cellars, or "pallaces."  But even while the nose most
+abhors, the eye is delighted by jumbled houses, crazy stairways leading
+to green doors, a group of children dabbling in the mud at low tide, a
+congregation of white gulls, a line of fishing boats below the quay
+where the men lounge and whistle and the barked nets hang to dry, and,
+beyond all, the shorn outline of two cliffs with a wedge of sea and sky
+between.
+
+Mr. Zebedee Minards the elder dwelt on the eastern or Lanihale side of
+the stream, and a good way back from the Hauen, beside the road that
+winds inland up the coombe.  Twenty yards of garden divided his cottage
+door from the road, and prevented the inmates from breaking their necks
+as they stepped over its threshold.  Even as it was, Old Zeb had
+acquired a habit of singing out "Ware heads!" to the wayfarers whenever
+he chanced to drop a rotund object on his estate; and if any small
+article were missing indoors, would descend at once to the highway with
+the cheerful assurance, based on repeated success, of finding it
+somewhere below.
+
+Over and above its recurrent crop of potatoes and flatpoll cabbages,
+this precipitous garden depended for permanent interest on a collection
+of marine curiosities, all eloquent of disaster to shipping.  To begin
+with, a colossal and highly varnished Cherokee, once the figure-head of
+a West Indiaman, stood sentry by the gate and hung forward over the
+road, to the discomfiture of unwarned and absent-minded bagmen.  The
+path to the door was guarded by a low fence of split-bamboo baskets that
+had once contained sugar from Batavia; a coffee bag from the wreck of a
+Dutch barque served for door-mat; a rum-cask with a history caught
+rain-water from the eaves; and a lapdog's pagoda--a dainty affair,
+striped in scarlet and yellow, the jetsom of some passenger ship--had
+been deftly adapted by Old Zeb, and stood in line with three straw
+bee-skips under the eastern wall.
+
+The next day but one after Christmas dawned deliciously in Porthlooe,
+bright with virginal sunshine, and made tender by the breath of the Gulf
+Stream.  Uncle Issy, passing up the road at nine o'clock, halted by the
+Cherokee to pass a word with its proprietor, who presented the very
+antipodes of a bird's-eye view, as he knocked about the crumbling clods
+with his visgy at the top of the slope.
+
+"Mornin', Old Zeb; how be 'ee, this dellicate day?"
+
+"Brave, thankee, Uncle."
+
+"An' how's Coden Rachel?"
+
+"She's charmin', thankee."
+
+"Comely weather, comely weather; the gulls be comin' back down the
+coombe, I see."
+
+"I be jealous about its lastin'; for 'tis over-rathe for the time o'
+year.  Terrible topsy-turvy the seasons begin to run, in my old age.
+Here's May in Janewarry; an' 'gainst May, comes th' east wind breakin'
+the ships o' Tarshish."
+
+"Now, what an instructive chap you be to convarse with, I do declare!
+Darned if I didn' stand here two minnits, gazin' up at the seat o' your
+small-clothes, tryin' to think 'pon what I wanted to say; for I'd a
+notion that I wanted to speak, cruel bad, but cudn' lay hand on't.
+So at last I takes heart an' says 'Mornin', I says, beginnin' i' that
+very common way an' hopin' 'twould come.  An' round you whips wi'
+'ships o' Tarshish' pon your tongue; an' henceforth 'tis all Q's an'
+A's, like a cattykism."
+
+"Well, now you say so, I _did_ notice, when I turned round, that you was
+lookin' no better than a fool, so to speak.  But what's the notion?"
+
+"'Tis a question I've a-been daggin' to ax'ee ever since it woke me up
+in the night to spekilate thereon.  For I felt it very curious there
+shud he three Zebedee Minardses i' this parish a-drawin' separate breath
+at the same time."
+
+"Iss, 'tis an out-o'-the-way fact."
+
+"A stirrin' age, when such things befall! If you'd a-told me, a week
+agone, that I should live to see the like, I'd ha' called 'ee a liar;
+an' yet here I be a-talkin' away, an' there you be a-listening an' here
+be the old world a-spinnin' us round as in bygone times--"
+
+"Iss, iss--but what's the question?"
+
+"--All the same when that furriner chap looks up in Tresidder's kitchen
+an' says 'My name is Zebedee Minards,' you might ha' blown me down wi' a
+puff; an' says I to mysel', wakin' up last night an' thinkin'--'I'll ax
+a question of Old Zeb when I sees en, blest if I don't.'"
+
+"Then why in thunder don't 'ee make haste an' do it?"
+
+Uncle Issy, after revolving the question for another fifteen seconds,
+produced it in this attractive form--
+
+"Old Zeb, bein' called Zeb, why did 'ee call Young Zeb, Zeb?"
+
+Old Zeb ceased to knock the clods about, descended the path, and leaning
+on his visgy began to contemplate the opposite slope of the coombe, as
+if the answer were written, in letters hard to decipher, along the
+hill-side.
+
+"Well, now," he began, after opening his mouth twice and shutting it
+without sound, "folks may say what they like o' your wits, Uncle, an'
+talk o' your looks bein' against 'ee, as they do; but you've a-put a
+twister, this time, an' no mistake."
+
+"I reckoned it a banger," said the old man, complacently.
+
+"Iss.  But I had my reasons all the same."
+
+"To be sure you had.  But rabbet me it I can guess what they were."
+
+"I'll tell 'ee.  You see when Zeb was born, an' the time runnin' on for
+his christ'nin', Rachel an' me puzzled for days what to call en.
+At last I said, 'Look 'ere, I tell 'ee what: you shut your eyes an' open
+the Bible, anyhow, an' I'll shut mine an' take a dive wi' my finger, an'
+we'll call en by the nearest name I hits on.'  So we did.  When we tuk
+en to church, tho', there was a pretty shape.  'Name this cheeld,' says
+Pa'son Babbage.  'Selah,' says I, that bein' the word we'd settled.
+'Selah?' says he: 'pack o' stuff! that ain't no manner o' name.  You
+might so well call en Amen.'  So bein' hurried in mind, what wi' the
+cheeld kickin', an' the water tricklin' off the pa'son's forefinger, an'
+the sacred natur' of the deed, I cudn' think 'pon no name but my own;
+an' Zeb he was christened."
+
+"Deary me," commented Uncle Issy, "that's a very life-like history.
+The wonder is, the self-same fix don't happen at more christ'nin's, 'tis
+so very life-like."
+
+A silence followed, full of thought.  It was cut short by the rattle of
+wheels coming down the road, and Young Zeb's grey mare hove in sight,
+with Young Zeb's green cart, and Young Zeb himself standing up in it,
+wide-legged.  He wore a colour as fresh as on Christmas morning, and
+seemed none the worse for his adventure.
+
+"Hello!" he called, pulling up the mare; "'mornin', Uncle Issy--
+'mornin', father."
+
+"Same to you, my son.  Whither away?--as the man said once."
+
+"Aye, whither away?" chimed Uncle Issy; "for the pilchards be all gone
+up Channel these two months."
+
+"To Liskeard, for a chest-o'-drawers."  Young Zeb, to be ready for
+married life, had taken a house for himself--a neat cottage with a yard
+and stable, farther up the coombe.  But stress of business had
+interfered with the furnishing until quite lately.
+
+"Rate meogginy, I suppose, as befits a proud tradesman."
+
+"No: painted, but wi' the twiddles put in so artfully you'd think 'twas
+rale.  So, as 'tis a fine day, I'm drivin' in to Mister Pennyway's shop
+o' purpose to fetch it afore it be snapped up, for 'tis a captivatin'
+article.  I'll be back by six, tho', i' time to get into my clothes an'
+grease my hair for the courant, up to Sheba."
+
+"Zeb," said his father, abruptly, "'tis a grand match you'm makin', an'
+you may call me a nincom, but I wish ye wasn'."
+
+"'Tis lookin' high," put in Uncle Issy.
+
+"A cat may look at a king, if he's got his eyes about en," Old Zeb went
+on, "let alone a legacy an' a green cart.  'Tain't that: 'tis the
+maid."
+
+"How's mother?" asked the young man, to shift the conversation.
+
+"Hugly, my son.  Hi! Rachel!" he shouted, turning his head towards the
+cottage; and then went on, dropping his voice, "As between naybours,
+I'm fain to say she don't shine this mornin'.  Hi, mother! here's
+Zebedee waitin' to pay his respects."
+
+Mrs. Minards appeared on the cottage threshold, with a blue check duster
+round her head--a tall, angular woman, of severe deportment.
+Her husband's bulletin, it is fair to say, had reference rather to her
+temper than to her personal attractions.
+
+"Be the Frenchmen landed?" she inquired, sharply.
+
+"Why, no; nor yet likely to."
+
+"Then why be I called out i' the midst o' my clanin'?  What came I out
+for to see?  Was it to pass the time o' day wi' an aged
+shaken-by-the-wind kind o' loiterer they name Uncle Issy?"
+
+Apparently it was not, for Uncle Issy by this time was twenty yards up
+the road, and still fleeing, with his head bent and shoulders
+extravagantly arched, as if under a smart shower.
+
+"I thought I'd like to see you, mother," said Young Zeb.
+
+"Well, now you've done it."
+
+"Best be goin', I reckon, my son," whispered Old Zeb.
+
+"I be much the same to look at," announced the voice above, "as afore
+your legacy came.  'Tis only up to Sheba that faces ha' grown kindlier."
+
+Young Zeb touched up his mare a trifle savagely.
+
+"Well, so long, my son!  See 'ee up to Sheba this evenin', if all's
+well."
+
+The old man turned back to his work, while Young Zeb rattled on in an
+ill humour.  He had the prettiest sweetheart and the richest in
+Lanihale parish, and nobody said a good word for her.  He tried to think
+of her as a wronged angel, and grew angry with himself on finding the
+effort hard to sustain.  Moreover, he felt uneasy about the stranger.
+Fate must be intending mischief, he fancied, when it led him to rescue a
+man who so strangely happened to bear his own name.  The fellow, too,
+was still at Sheba, being nursed back to strength; and Zeb didn't like
+it.  In spite of the day, and the merry breath of it that blew from the
+sea upon his right cheek, black care dogged him all the way up the long
+hill that led out of Porthlooe, and clung to the tail-board of his green
+cart as he jolted down again towards Ruan Cove.
+
+After passing the Cove-head, Young Zeb pulled up the mare, and was taken
+with a fit of thoughtfulness, glancing up towards Sheba farm, and then
+along the high-road, as if uncertain.  The mare settled the question
+after a minute, by turning into the lane, and Zeb let her have her way.
+
+"Where's Miss Ruby?" he asked, driving into the town-place, and coming
+on Mary Jane, who was filling a pig's-bucket by the back door.
+
+"Gone up to Pare Dew 'long wi' maister an' the very man I seed i' my
+tay-cup, a week come Friday."
+
+"H'm."
+
+"Iss, fay; an' a great long-legged stranger he was.  So I stuck en 'pon
+my fist an' gave en a scat.  'To-day,' says I, but he didn' budge.
+'To-morrow,' I says, an' gave en another; and then 'Nex' day;' and t'
+third time he flew.  'Shall have a sweet'eart, Sunday, praise the Lord,'
+thinks I; 'wonder who 'tis?  Anyway, 'tis a comfort he'll be high 'pon
+his pins, like Nanny Painter's hens, for mine be all the purgy-bustious
+shape just now.'  Well, Sunday night he came to Raney Rock, an' Monday
+mornin' to Sheba farm; and no thanks to you that brought en, for not a
+single dare-to-deny-me glance has he cast _this_ way."
+
+"Which way, then?"
+
+"'Can't stay to causey, Master Zeb, wi' all the best horn-handled knives
+to be took out o' blue-butter 'gainst this evenin's courant.  Besides,
+you called me a liar last week."
+
+"So you be.  But I'll believe 'ee this time."
+
+"Well, I'll tell 'ee this much--for you look a very handsome jowter i'
+that new cart.  If I were you, I'd be careful that gay furriner _didn
+steal more'n my name_"
+
+
+Meantime, a group of four was standing in the middle of Parc Dew, the
+twenty-acred field behind the farmstead.  The stranger, dressed in a
+blue jersey and outfit of Farmer Tresidder's, that made up in boots for
+its shortcomings elsewhere, was addressing the farmer, Ruby, and Jim
+Lewarne, who heard him with lively attention.  In his right hand he held
+a walking-stick armed with a spud, for uprooting thistles; and in his
+left a cake of dark soil, half stone, half mud.  His manner was earnest.
+
+". . . . I see," he was saying, "that I don't convince you; and it's
+only for your own sakes I insist on convincing you.  You'll grant me
+that, I suppose.  To-morrow, or the next day, I go; and the chances are
+that we never meet again in this world.  But 'twould be a pleasant
+thought to carry off to the ends of the earth that you, my benefactors,
+were living in wealth, enriched (if I may say it without presumption) by
+a chance word of mine.  I tell you I know something of these matters--"
+
+"I thought you'd passed your days privateerin'," put in Jim Lewarne, who
+was the only hostile listener, perhaps because he saw no chance of
+sharing in the promised wealth.
+
+"Jim, hold your tongue!" snapped Ruby.
+
+"I ask you," went on the stranger, without deigning to answer, "I ask
+you if it does not look like Providence?  Here have you been for years,
+dwelling amid wealth of which you never dreamed.  A ship is wrecked
+close to your doors, and of all her crew the one man saved is, perhaps,
+the one man who could enlighten you.  You feed him, clothe him, nurse
+him.  As soon as he can crawl about, he picks a walking-stick out of
+half-a-dozen or more in the hall, and goes out with you to take a look
+at the farm.  On his way he notes many things.  He sees (you'll excuse
+me, Farmer, but I can't help it) that you're all behind the world, and
+the land is yielding less than half of what it ought.  Have you ever
+seen a book by Lord Dundonald on the connection between Agriculture and
+Chemistry?  No?  I thought not.  Do you know of any manure better than
+the ore-weed you gather down at the Cove?  Or the plan of malting grain
+to feed your cattle on through the winter?  Or the respective merits of
+oxen and horses as beasts of draught?  But these matters, though the
+life and soul of modern husbandry, are as nothing to this lump in my
+hand.  What do you call the field we're now standing in?"
+
+"Parc Dew."
+
+"Exactly--the 'black field,' or the 'field of black soil': the very name
+should have told you.  But you lay it down in grass, and but for the
+chance of this spud and a lucky thistle, I might have walked over it a
+score of times without guessing its secret.  Man alive, it's red gold I
+have here--red, wicked, damnable, delicious gold--the root of all evil
+and of most joys."
+
+"If you lie, you lie enticingly, young man."
+
+"By gold, I mean stuff that shall make gold for you.  There is ore here,
+but what ore exactly I can't tell till I've streamed it: lead, I fancy,
+with a trace of silver--wealth for you, certainly; and in what quantity
+you shall find out--"
+
+At this juncture a voice was heard calling over the hedge, at the bottom
+of the field.  It came from Young Zeb, the upper part of whose person,
+as he stood up in his cart, was just visible between two tamarisk
+bushes.
+
+"Ru-b-y-y-y!"
+
+"Drat the chap!" exclaimed Ruby's father, wheeling round sharply.
+"What d'ye wa-a-a-nt?" he yelled back.
+
+"Come to know 'bout that chest o' dra-w-w-ers!"
+
+"Then come 'long round by th' ga-a-ate!"
+
+"Can't sta-a-ay!  Want to know, as I'm drivin' to Liskeard, if Ruby
+thinks nine-an'-six too mu-u-ch, as the twiddles be so very cle-v-ver!"
+
+"How ridiculous!" muttered the stranger, just loud enough for Ruby to
+hear.  "Who is this absurd person?"
+
+Jim Lewarne answered--"A low-lived chap, mister, as saved your skin
+awhile back."
+
+"Dear, dear--how unpardonable of me!  I hadn't, the least idea at this
+distance.  Excuse me, I must go and thank him at once."
+
+He moved towards the hedge with a brisk step that seemed to cost him
+some pain.  The others followed, a pace or two behind.
+
+"You'll not mind my interruptin', Farmer," continued Young Zeb,
+"but 'tis time Ruby made her mind up, for Mister Pennyway won't take a
+stiver less.  'Mornin', Ruby, my dear."
+
+"And you'll forgive me if I also interrupt," put in the stranger, with
+the pleasantest smile, "but it is time I thanked the friend who saved my
+life on Monday morning.  I would come round and shake hands if only I
+could see the gate."
+
+"Don't 'ee mention it," replied Zeb, blushing hotly.  "I'm glad to mark
+ye lookin' so brave a'ready.  Well, what d'ye say, Ruby?"
+
+"I say 'please yoursel'.'"
+
+For of the two men standing before Ruby (she did not count her father
+and Jim Lewarne), the stranger, with his bold features and easy
+conciliating carriage, had the advantage.  It is probable that he knew
+it, and threw a touch of acting into his silence as Zeb cut him short.
+
+"That's a fair speech," replied Zeb.  "Iss, turn it how you will, the
+words be winnin' enow.  But be danged, my dear, if I wudn' as lief you
+said, 'Go to blazes!'"
+
+"Fact is, my son," said Farmer Tresidder, candidly, "you'm good but
+untimely, like kissin' the wrong maid.  This here surpassin' young
+friend o' mine was speech-makin' after a pleasant fashion in our ears
+when you began to bawl--"
+
+"Then you don't want to hear about the chest o' drawers?" interrupted
+Zeb in dudgeon, with a glance at Ruby, who pretended not to see it.
+
+"Well, no.  To tell 'ee the slap-bang truth, I don't care if I see no
+trace of 'ee till the dancin' begins to commence to-night."
+
+"Then good-day t' ye, friends," answered Young Zeb, and turned the mare.
+"Cl'k, Jessamy!"  He rattled away down the lane.
+
+"What an admirable youth!" murmured the stranger, falling back a pace
+and gazing after the back of Zeb's head as it passed down the line of
+the hedge.  "What a messenger!  He seems eaten up with desire to get you
+a chest of drawers that shall be wholly satisfying.  But why do you
+allow him to call you 'my dear'?"
+
+"Because, I suppose, that's what I am," answered Ruby; "because I'm
+goin' to marry him within the month."
+
+"_Wh-e-e-w!_"
+
+But, as a matter of fact, the stranger had known before asking.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE STRANGER DANCES IN ZEB'S SHOES.
+
+It was close upon midnight, and in the big parlour at Sheba the courant,
+having run through its normal stages of high punctilio, artificial ease,
+zest, profuse perspiration, and supper, had reached the exact point when
+Modesty Prowse could be surprised under the kissing-bush, and Old Zeb
+wiped his spectacles, thrust his chair back, and pushed out his elbows
+to make sure of room for the rendering of "Scarlet's my Colour."
+These were tokens to be trusted by an observer who might go astray in
+taking any chance guest as a standard of the average conviviality.
+Mr. and Mrs. Jim Lewarne, for example, were accustomed on such occasions
+to represent the van and rear-guard respectively in the march of gaiety;
+and in this instance Jim had already imbibed too much hot "shenachrum,"
+while his wife, still in the stage of artificial ease, and wearing a
+lace cap, which was none the less dignified for having been smuggled,
+was perpending what to say when she should get him home.  The dancers,
+pale and dusty, leant back in rows against the wall, and with their
+handkerchiefs went through the motions of fanning or polishing,
+according to sex.  In their midst circulated Farmer Tresidder, with a
+three-handled mug of shenachrum, hot from the embers, and furred with
+wood-ash.
+
+"Take an' drink, thirsty souls.  Niver do I mind the Letterpooch so
+footed i' my born days."
+
+"'Twas conspirator--very conspirator," assented Old Zeb, screwing up his
+A string a trifle, and turning _con spirito_ into a dark saying.
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"Greek for elbow-grease.  Phew!"  He rubbed his fore-finger round
+between neck and shirt-collar.  "I be vady as the inside of a winder."
+
+"Such a man as you be to sweat, crowder!" exclaimed Calvin Oke.
+"Set you to play six-eight time an' 'tis beads right away."
+
+"A slice o' saffern-cake, crowder, to stay ye.  Don't say no.  Hi, Mary
+Jane!"
+
+"Thank 'ee, Farmer.  A man might say you was in sperrits to-night,
+makin' so bold."
+
+"I be; I be."
+
+"Might a man ax wherefore, beyond the nat'ral hail-fellow-well-met of
+the season?"
+
+"You may, an' yet you mayn't," answered the host, passing on with the
+mug.
+
+"Uncle Issy," asked Jim Lewarne, lurching up, "I durstn' g-glint over my
+shoulder--but wud 'ee mind tellin' me if th' old woman's lookin' this
+way--afore I squench my thirst?"
+
+"Iss, she be."
+
+Jim groaned.  "Then wud 'ee mind a-hofferin' me a taste out o' your
+pannikin? an' I'll make b'lieve to say 'Norronany' count.'  Amazin' 'ot
+t' night," he added, tilting back on his heels, and then dipping forward
+with a vague smile.
+
+Uncle Issy did as he was required, and the henpecked one played his part
+of the comedy with elaborate slyness.  "I don't like that strange
+chap," he announced, irrelevantly.
+
+"Nor I nuther," agreed Elias Sweetland, "tho' to be sure, I've a-kept my
+eye 'pon en, an' the wonders he accomplishes in an old pair o'
+Tresidder's high-lows must be seen to be believed.  But that's no call
+for Ruby's dancin' wi' he a'most so much as wi' her proper man."
+
+"The gel's takin' her fling afore wedlock.  I heard Sarah Ann Nanjulian,
+just now, sayin' she ought to be clawed."
+
+"A jealous woman is a scourge shaken to an' fro," said Old Zeb;
+"but I've a mind, friends, to strike up 'Randy my dandy,' for that son
+o' mine is lookin' blacker than the horned man, an' may be 'twill
+comfort 'en to dance afore the public eye; for there's none can take his
+wind in a hornpipe."
+
+In fact, it was high time that somebody comforted Young Zeb, for his
+heart was hot.  He had brought home the chest of drawers in his cart,
+and spent an hour fixing on the best position for it in the bedroom,
+before dressing for the dance.  Also he had purchased, in Mr. Pennyway's
+shop, an armchair, in the worst taste, to be a pleasant surprise for
+Ruby when the happy day came for installing her.  Finding he had still
+twenty minutes to spare after giving the last twitch to his neckerchief,
+and the last brush to his anointed locks, he had sat down facing this
+chair, and had striven to imagine her in it, darning his stockings.
+Zeb was not, as a rule, imaginative, but love drew this delicious
+picture for him.  He picked up his hat, and set out for Sheba in the
+best of tempers.
+
+But at Sheba all had gone badly.  Ruby's frock of white muslin and
+Ruby's small sandal shoes were bewitching, but Ruby's mood passed his
+intelligence.  It was true she gave him half the dances, but then she
+gave the other half to that accursed stranger, and the stranger had all
+her smiles, which was carrying hospitality too far.  Not a word had she
+uttered to Zeb beyond the merest commonplaces; on the purchase of the
+chest of drawers she had breathed no question; she hung listlessly on
+his arm, and spoke only of the music, the other girls' frocks, the
+arrangement of the supper-table.  And at supper the stranger had not
+only sat on the other side of her, but had talked all the time, and on
+books, a subject entirely uninteresting to Zeb.  Worst of all, Ruby had
+listened.  No; the worst of all was a remark of Modesty Prowse's that he
+chanced to overhear afterwards.
+
+So when the fiddles struck up the air of "Randy my dandy," Zeb, knowing
+that the company would call upon him, at first felt his heart turn sick
+with loathing.  He glanced across the room at Ruby, who, with heightened
+colour, was listening to the stranger, and looking up at his handsome
+face.  Already one or two voices were calling "Zeb!"  "Young Zeb for a
+hornpipe!"  "Now then, Young Zeb!"
+
+He had a mind to refuse.  For years after he remembered every small
+detail of the room as he looked down it and then across to Ruby again:
+the motion of the fiddle-bows; the variegated dresses of the women; the
+kissing-bush that some tall dancer's head had set swaying from the low
+rafter; the light of a sconce gleaming on Tresidder's bald scalp.
+Years after, he could recall the exact poise of Ruby's head as she
+answered some question of her companion.  The stranger left her, and
+strolled slowly down the room to the fireplace, when he faced round,
+throwing an arm negligently along the mantel-shelf, and leant with legs
+crossed, waiting.
+
+Then Young Zeb made up his mind, and stepped out into the middle of the
+floor.  The musicians were sawing with might and main at high speed.
+He crossed his arms, and, fixing his eyes on the stranger's, began the
+hornpipe.
+
+When it ceased, he had danced his best.  It was only when the applause
+broke out that he knew he had fastened, from start to finish, on the man
+by the fireplace a pair of eyes blazing with hate.  The other had stared
+back quietly, as if he noted only the performance.  As the music ended
+sharply with the click of Young Zeb's two heels, the stranger bent, took
+up a pair of tongs, and rearranged the fire before lifting his head.
+
+"Yes," he said, slowly, but in tones that were extremely distinct as the
+clapping died away, "that was wonderfully danced.  In some ways I should
+almost say you were inspired.  A slight want of airiness in the
+double-shuffle, perhaps--"
+
+"Could you do't better?" asked Zeb, sulkily.
+
+"That isn't the fair way to treat criticism, my friend; but yes--oh,
+yes, certainly I could do it better--in your shoes."
+
+"Then try, i' my shoes."  And Zeb kicked them off.
+
+"I've a notion they'll fit me," was all the stranger answered, dropping
+on one knee and beginning to unfasten the cumbrous boots he had borrowed
+of Farmer Tresidder.
+
+Indeed, the curious likeness in build of these two men--a likeness
+accentuated, rather than slurred, by their contrast in colour and face,
+was now seen to extend even to their feet.  When the stranger stood up
+at length in Zeb's shoes, they fitted him to a nicety, the broad steel
+buckles lying comfortably over the instep, the back of the uppers
+closing round the hollow of his ankle like a skin.
+
+Young Zeb, by this, had crossed shoeless to the fireplace, and now stood
+in the position lately occupied by his rival: only, whereas the stranger
+had lolled easily, Zeb stood squarely, with his legs wide apart and his
+hands deep in his pockets.  He had no eyes for the intent faces around,
+no ears for their whispering, nor for the preliminary scrape of the
+instruments; but stood like an image, with the firelight flickering out
+between his calves, and watched the other man grimly.
+
+"Ready?" asked his father's voice.  "Then one--two--three, an' let fly!"
+
+The fiddle-bows hung for an instant on the first note, and in a
+twinkling scampered along into "Randy my dandy."  As the quick air
+caught at the listeners' pulses, the stranger crossed his arms, drew his
+right heel up along the inner side of his left ankle, and with a light
+nod towards the chimney-place began.
+
+To the casual eye there was for awhile little to choose between the two
+dancers, the stranger's style being accurate, restrained, even a trifle
+dull.  But of all the onlookers, Zeb knew best what hornpipe-dancing
+really was; and knew surely, after the first dozen steps, that he was
+going to be mastered.  So far, the performance was academic only.  Zeb,
+unacquainted with the word, recognised the fact, and was quite aware of
+the inspiration--the personal gift--held in reserve to transfigure this
+precise art in a minute or so, and give it life.  He saw the force
+gathering in the steady rhythmical twinkle of the steel buckles, and
+heard it speak in the light recurrent tap with which the stranger's
+heels kissed the floor.  It was doubly bitter that he and his enemy
+alone should know what was coming; trebly bitter that his enemy should
+be aware that he knew.
+
+The crowder slackened speed for a second, to give warning, and dashed
+into the heel-and-toe.  Zeb caught the light in the dancer's eyes, and
+still frowning, drew a long breath.
+
+"Faster," nodded the stranger to the musicians' corner.
+
+Then came the moment for which, by this time, Zeb was longing.
+The stranger rested with heels together while a man might count eight
+rapidly, and suddenly began a step the like of which none present had
+ever witnessed, Above the hips his body swayed steadily, softly, to the
+measure; his eyes never took their pleasant smile off Zeb's face, but
+his feet--
+
+The steel buckles had become two sparkling moths, spinning, poising,
+darting.  They no longer belonged to the man, but had taken separate
+life: and merely the absolute symmetry of their loops and circles, and
+the _click-click-click_ on boards, regular as ever, told of the art that
+informed them.
+
+"Faster!"
+
+They crossed and re-crossed now like small flashes of lightning, or as
+if the boards were flints giving out a score of sparks at every touch of
+the man's heel.
+
+"Faster!"
+
+They seemed suddenly to catch the light out of every sconce, and knead
+it into a ball of fire, that spun and yet was motionless, in the very
+middle of the floor, while all the rest of the room grew suddenly
+dimmed.
+
+Zeb with a gasp drew his eyes away for a second and glanced around.
+Fiddlers and guests seemed ghostly after the fierce light he had been
+gazing on.  He looked along the pale faces to the place where Ruby
+stood.  She, too, glanced up, and their eyes met.
+
+What he saw fetched a sob from his throat.  Then something on the floor
+caught his attention: something bright, close by his feet.
+
+Between his out-spread legs, as it seemed, a thin streak of silver was
+creeping along the flooring.  He rubbed his eyes, and looked again.
+
+He was straddling across a stream of molten metal.
+
+As Zeb caught sight of this, the stranger twirled, leapt a foot in the
+air, and came down smartly on the final note, with a click of his heels.
+The music ceased abruptly.
+
+A storm of clapping broke out, but stopped almost on the instant: for
+the stranger had flung an arm out towards the hearth-stone.
+
+"A mine--a mine!"
+
+The white streak ran hissing from the heart of the fire, where a clod of
+earth rested among the ashen sticks.
+
+"Witchcraft!" muttered one or two of the guests, peering forward with
+round eyes.
+
+"Fiddlestick-end!  I put the clod there myself.  'Tis _lead!_"
+
+"Lead?"
+
+"Ay, naybours all," broke in Farmer Tresidder, his bald head bedewed
+with sweat, "I don't want to abash 'ee, Lord knows; but 'tis trew as
+doom that I be a passing well-to-do chap.  I shudn' wonder now"--and
+here he embraced the company with a smile, half pompous and half timid--
+"I shudn' wonder if ye was to see me trottin' to Parlyment House in a
+gilded coach afore Michaelmas--I be so tremenjous rich, by all
+accounts."
+
+"You'll excoose my sayin' it, Farmer," spoke up Old Zeb out of the awed
+silence that followed, "for doubtless I may be thick o' hearin', but did
+I, or did I not, catch 'ee alludin' to a windfall o' wealth?"
+
+"You did."
+
+"You'll excoose me sayin' it, Farmer; but was it soberly or pleasantly,
+honest creed or light lips, down-right or random, 'out o' the heart the
+mouth speaketh' or wantonly and in round figgers, as it might happen to
+a man filled with meat and wine?"
+
+"'Twas the cold trewth."
+
+"By what slice o' fortune?"
+
+"By a mine, as you might put it: or, as between man an' man, by a mine
+o' lead."
+
+"Farmer, you're either a born liar or the darlin' o' luck."
+
+"Aye: I feel it.  I feel that overpowerin'ly."
+
+"For my part," put in Mrs. Jim Lewarne, "I've given over follerin' the
+freaks o' Fortune.  They be so very undiscernin'."
+
+And this sentence probably summed up the opinion of the majority.
+
+In the midst of the excitement Young Zeb strode up to the stranger, who
+stood a little behind the throng.
+
+"Give me back my shoes," he said.
+
+The other kicked them off and looked at him oddly.
+
+"With pleasure.  You'll find them a bit worn, I'm afraid."
+
+"I'll chance that.  Man, I'm not all sorry, either."
+
+"Hey, why?"
+
+"'Cause they'll not be worn agen, arter this night.  Gentleman or devil,
+whichever you may be, I bain't fit to dance i' the same parish with
+'ee--no, nor to tread the shoeleather you've worn."
+
+"By the powers!" cried the stranger suddenly, "two minutes ago I'd have
+agreed with you.  But, looking in your eyes, I'm not so sure of it."
+
+"Of what?"
+
+"That you won't wear the shoes again."
+
+
+Then Zeb went after Ruby.
+
+"I want to speak a word with 'ee," he said quietly, stepping up to her.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"I' the hall."
+
+"But I can't come, just now."
+
+"But you must."
+
+She followed him out.
+
+"Zeb, what's the matter with you?"
+
+"Look here"--and he faced round sharply--"I loved you passing well."
+
+"Well?" she asked, like a faint echo.
+
+"I saw your eyes, just now.  Don't lie."
+
+"I won't."
+
+"That's right.  And now listen: if you marry me, I'll treat 'ee like a
+span'el dog.  Fetch you shall, an' carry, for my pleasure.  You shall be
+slave, an' I your taskmaster; an' the sweetness o' your love shall come
+by crushin', like trodden thyme.  Shall I suit you?"
+
+"I don't think you will."
+
+"Then good-night to you."
+
+"Good-night, Zeb.  I don't fancy you'll suit me; but I'm not so sure as
+before you began to speak.".
+
+There was no answer to this but the slamming of the front door.
+
+
+At half-past seven that morning, Parson Babbage, who had risen early,
+after his wont, was standing on the Vicarage doorstep to respire the
+first breath of the pale day, when he heard the garden gate unlatched
+and saw Young Zeb coming up the path.
+
+The young man still wore his festival dress; but his best stockings and
+buckled shoes were stained and splashed, as from much walking in miry
+ways.  Also he came unsteadily, and his face was white as ashes.
+The parson stared and asked--
+
+"Young Zeb, have you been drinking?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then 'tis trouble, my son, an' I ask your pardon."
+
+"A man might call it so.  I'm come to forbid my banns."
+
+The elder man cocked his head on one side, much as a thrush contemplates
+a worm.
+
+"I smell a wise wit, somewhere.  Young man, who taught you so capital a
+notion?"
+
+"Ruby did."
+
+"Pack o' stuff!  Ruby hadn't the--stop a minute! 'twas that clever
+fellow you fetched ashore, on Monday.  Of course--of course!  How came
+it to slip my mind?"
+
+Young Zeb turned away; but the old man was after him, quick as thought,
+and had laid a hand on his shoulder.
+
+"Is it bitter, my son?"
+
+"It is bitter as death, Pa'son."
+
+"My poor lad.  Step in an' break your fast with me--poor lad, poor lad!
+Nay, but you shall.  There's a bitch pup i' the stables that I want your
+judgment on.  Bitter, eh?  I dessay.  I dessay.  I'm thinking of walking
+her--lemon spot on the left ear--Rattler strain, of course.  Dear me,
+this makes six generations I can count back that spot--an' game every
+one.  Step in, poor lad, step in: she's a picture."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+SIEGE IS LAID TO RUBY.
+
+The sun was higher by some hours--high enough to be streaming brightly
+over the wall into the courtlage at Sheba--when Ruby awoke from a
+dreamless sleep.  As she lifted her head from the pillow and felt the
+fatigue of last night yet in her limbs, she was aware also of a rich
+tenor voice uplifted beneath her window.  Air and words were strange to
+her, and the voice had little in common with the world as she knew it.
+Its exile on that coast was almost pathetic, and it dwelt on the notes
+with a feeling of a warmer land.
+
+   "O south be north--
+    O sun be shady--
+    Until my lady
+    Shall issue forth:
+    Till her own mouth
+    Bid sun uncertain
+    To draw his curtain,
+    Bid south be south."
+
+She stole out of bed and went on tiptoe to the window, where she drew
+the blind an inch aside.  The stranger's footstep had ceased to crunch
+the gravel, and he stood now just beneath her, before the monthly-rose
+bush.  Throughout the winter a blossom or two lingered in that sheltered
+corner; and he had drawn the nearest down to smell at it.
+
+   "O heart, her rose,
+    I cannot ease thee
+    Till she release thee
+    And bid unclose.
+    So, till day come
+    And she be risen,
+    Rest, rose, in prison
+    And heart be dumb!"
+
+He snapped the stem and passed on, whistling the air of his ditty, and
+twirling the rose between finger and thumb.
+
+"Men are all ninnies," Ruby decided as she dropped the blind; "and I
+thank the fates that framed me female and priced me high.  Heigho! but
+it's a difficult world for women.  Either a man thinks you an angel, and
+then you know him for a fool, or he sees through you and won't marry you
+for worlds.  If _we_ behaved like that, men would fare badly, I reckon.
+Zeb loved me till the very moment I began to respect him: then he left
+off.  If this one . . . I like his cool way of plucking my roses,
+though.  Zeb would have waited and wanted, till the flower dropped."
+
+She spent longer than usual over her dressing: so that when she appeared
+in the parlour the two men were already seated at breakfast.  The room
+still bore traces of last night's frolic.  The uncarpeted boards gleamed
+as the guests' feet had polished them; and upon the very spot where the
+stranger had danced now stood the breakfast-table, piled with broken
+meats.  This alone of all the heavier pieces of furniture had been
+restored to its place.  As Ruby entered, the stranger broke off an
+earnest conversation he was holding with the farmer, and stood up to
+greet her.  The rose lay on her plate.
+
+"Who has robbed my rose-bush?" she asked.
+
+"I am guilty," he answered: "I stole it to give it back; and, not being
+mine, 'twas the harder to part with."
+
+"To my mind," broke in Farmer Tresidder, with his mouth full of ham,
+"the best part o' the feast be the over-plush.  Squab pie, muggetty pie,
+conger pie, sweet giblet pie--such a whack of pies do try a man, to be
+sure.  Likewise junkets an' heavy cake be a responsibility, for if not
+eaten quick, they perish.  But let it be mine to pass my days with a
+cheek o' pork like the present instance.  Ruby, my dear, the young man
+here wants to lave us."
+
+"Leave us?" echoed Ruby, pricking her finger deep in the act of pinning
+the stranger's rose in her bosom.
+
+"You hear, young man.  That's the tone o' speech signifyin' 'damn it
+all!' among women.  And so say I, wi' all these vittles cryin' out to be
+ate."
+
+"These brisk days," began the stranger quietly, "are not to be let slip.
+I have no wife, no kin, no friends, no fortune--or only the pound or two
+sewn in my belt.  The rest has been lost to me these three days and lies
+with the _Sentinel_, five fathoms deep in your cove below.  It is time
+for me to begin the world anew."
+
+"But how about that notion o' mine?"
+
+"We beat about the bush, I think," answered the other, pushing back his
+chair a bit and turning towards Ruby.  "My dear young lady, your father
+has been begging me to stay--chiefly, no doubt, out of goodwill, but
+partly also that I may set him in the way to work this newly found
+wealth of his.  I am sorry, but I must refuse."
+
+"Why?" murmured the girl, taking courage to look at him.
+
+"You oblige me to be brutal."  His look was bent on her.  He sat facing
+the window, and the light, as he leant sidewise, struck into the iris of
+his eyes and turned them blood-red in their depths.  She had seen the
+same in dogs' eyes, but never before in a man's: and it sent a small
+shiver through her.
+
+"Briefly," he went on, "I can stay on one condition only--that I marry
+you."
+
+She rose from her seat and stood, grasping the back rail of the chair.
+
+"Don't be alarmed.  I merely state the condition, but of course it's
+awkward: you're already bound.  Your father (who, I must say, honours me
+with considerable trust, seeing that he knows nothing about me) was good
+enough to suggest that your affection for this young fish-jowter was a
+transient fancy--"
+
+"Father--" began the girl, rather for the sake of hearing her own voice
+than because she knew what to say.
+
+Farmer Tresidder groaned.  "Young man, where's your gumption?  You'm
+makin' a mess o't--an' I thought 'ee so very clever."
+
+"Really," pursued the stranger imperturbably, without lifting his eyes
+from Ruby, "I don't know which to admire most, your father's head or his
+heart; his head, I think, on the whole.  So much hospitality, paternal
+solicitude, and commercial prudence was surely never packed into one
+scheme."
+
+He broke off for a minute and, still looking at her, began to drum with
+his finger-tips on the cloth.  His mouth was pursed up as if silently
+whistling an air.  Ruby could neither move nor speak.  The spell upon
+her was much like that which had lain on Young Zeb, the night before,
+during the hornpipe.  She felt weak as a child in the presence of this
+man, or rather as one recovering from a long illness.  He seemed to fill
+the room, speaking words as if they were living things, as if he were
+taking the world to bits and re-arranging it before her eyes.
+She divined the passion behind these words, and she longed to get a
+sight of it, to catch an echo of the voice that had sung beneath her
+window, an hour before.  But when he resumed, it was in the same
+bloodless and contemptuous tone.
+
+"Your father was very anxious that I should supplant this young
+jowter--"
+
+"O Lord! I never said it."
+
+"Allow me," said the stranger, without deigning to look round,
+"to carry on this courtship in my own way.  Your father, young woman,
+desired--it was none of my suggestion--that I should insinuate myself
+into your good graces.  I will not conceal from you my plain opinion of
+your father's judgment in these matters.  I think him a fool."
+
+"Name o' thunder!"
+
+"Farmer, if you interrupt again I must ask you to get out.  Young woman,
+kindly listen while I make you a formal proposition of marriage.
+My name, I have told you, is Zebedee Minards.  I was born by London
+Docks, but have neither home nor people.  I have travelled by land and
+sea; slept on silk and straw; drunk wine and the salt water; fought,
+gambled, made love, begged my bread; in all, lost much and found much,
+in many countries.  I am tossed on this coast, where I find you, and
+find also a man in my name having hold over you.  I think I want to
+marry you.  Will you give up this other man?"
+
+He pursed up his lips again.  With that sense of trifles which is
+sharpest when the world suddenly becomes too big for a human being, Ruby
+had a curiosity to know what he was whistling.  And this worried her
+even while, after a minute's silence, she stammered out--
+
+"I--I gave him up--last night."
+
+"Very good.  Now listen again.  In an hour's time I walk to Porthlooe.
+There I shall take the van to catch the Plymouth coach.  In any case, I
+must spend till Saturday in Plymouth.  It depends on you whether I come
+back at the end of that time.  You are going to cry: keep the tears back
+till you have answered me.  Will you marry me?"
+
+She put out a hand to steady herself, and opened her lips.  She felt the
+room spinning, and wanted to cry out for mercy.  But her mouth made no
+sound.
+
+"Will you marry me?"
+
+"Ye--e--yes!"
+
+As the word came, she sank down in a chair, bent her head on the table,
+and burst into a storm of tears.
+
+"The devil's in it!" shouted her father, and bounced out of the room.
+
+No sooner had the door slammed behind him than the stranger's face
+became transfigured.
+
+He stood up and laid a hand softly on the girl's head.
+
+"Ruby!"
+
+She did not look up.  Her shoulders were shaken by one great sob after
+another.
+
+"Ruby!"
+
+He took the two hands gently from her face, and forced her to look at
+him.  His eyes were alight with the most beautiful smile.
+
+"For pity's sake," she cried out, "don't look at me like that.
+You've looked me through and through--you understand me.  Don't lie with
+your eyes, as you're lying now."
+
+"My dear girl, yes--I understand you.  But you're wrong.  I lied to get
+you: I'm not lying now."
+
+"I think you must be Satan himself."
+
+The stranger laughed.  "Surely _he_ needn't to have taken so much
+trouble.  Smile back at me, Ruby, for I played a risky stroke to get
+you, and shall play a risky game for many days yet."
+
+He balanced himself on the arm of her chair and drew her head towards
+him.
+
+"Tell me," he said, speaking low in her ear, "if you doubt I love you.
+Do you know of any other man who, knowing you exactly as you are, would
+wish to marry you?"
+
+She shook her head.  It was impossible to lie to this man.
+
+"Or of another who would put himself completely into your power, as I am
+about to do?  Listen; there is no lead mine at all on Sheba farm."
+
+Ruby drew back her face and stared at him.  "I assure you it's a fact."
+
+"But the ore you uncovered--"
+
+"--Was a hoax.  I lied about it."
+
+"The stuff you melted in this very fire, last night--wasn't that lead?"
+
+"Of course it was.  I stole it myself from the top of the church tower."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"To gain a footing here."
+
+"Again, why?"
+
+"For love of you."
+
+During the silence that followed, the pair looked at each other.
+
+"I am waiting for you to go and tell your father," said the stranger at
+length.
+
+Ruby shivered.
+
+"I seem to have grown very old and wise," she murmured.
+
+He kissed her lightly.
+
+"That's the natural result of being found out.  I've felt it myself.
+Are you going?"
+
+"You know that I cannot."
+
+"You shall have twenty minutes to choose.  At the end of that time I
+shall pass out at the gate and look up at your window.  If the blind
+remain up, I go to the vicarage to put up our banns before I set off for
+Plymouth.  If it be drawn down, I leave this house for ever, taking
+nothing from it but a suit of old clothes, a few worthless specimens
+(that I shall turn out of my pockets by the first hedge), and the memory
+of your face."
+
+
+It happened, as he unlatched the gate, twenty minutes later, that the
+blind remained up.  Ruby's face was not at the window, but he kissed his
+hand for all that, and smiled, and went his way singing.  The air was
+the very same he had whistled dumbly that morning, the air that Ruby had
+speculated upon.  And the words were--
+
+   "'Soldier, soldier, will you marry me,
+    With the bagginet, fife and drum?'
+    'Oh, no, pretty miss, I cannot marry you,
+    For I've got no coat to put on.'
+
+   "So away she ran to the tailor's shop,
+    As fast as she could run,
+    And she bought him a coat of the very very best,
+    And the soldier clapped it on.
+
+   "'Soldier, soldier, will you marry me--'"
+
+His voice died away down the lane.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+THE "JOLLY PILCHARDS."
+
+On the following Saturday night (New Year's Eve) an incident worth
+record occurred in the bar-parlour of the "Jolly Pilchards" at
+Porthlooe.
+
+You may find the inn to this day on the western side of the Hauen as you
+go to the Old Quay.  A pair of fish-scales faces the entrance, and the
+jolly pilchards themselves hang over your head, on a signboard that
+creaks mightily when the wind blows from the south.
+
+The signboard was creaking that night, and a thick drizzle drove in
+gusts past the door.  Behind the red blinds within, the landlady, Prudy
+Polwarne, stood with her back to the open hearth.  Her hands rested on
+her hips, and the firelight, that covered all the opposite wall and most
+of the ceiling with her shadow, beat out between her thick ankles in the
+shape of a fan.  She was a widow, with a huge, pale face and a figure
+nearly as broad as it was long; and no man thwarted her.  Weaknesses she
+had none, except an inability to darn her stockings.  That the holes at
+her heels might not be seen, she had a trick of pulling her stockings
+down under her feet, an inch or two at a time, as they wore out; and
+when the tops no longer reached to her knee, she gartered--so gossip
+said--half-way down the leg.
+
+Around her, in as much of the warmth as she spared, sat Old Zeb, Uncle
+Issy, Jim Lewarne, his brother, and six or seven other notables of the
+two parishes.  They were listening just now, and though the mug of
+eggy-hot passed from hand to hand as steadily as usual, a certain
+restrained excitement might have been guessed from the volumes of smoke
+ascending from their clay pipes.
+
+"A man must feel it, boys," the hostess said, "wi' a rale four-poster
+hung wi' yaller on purpose to suit his wife's complexion, an' then to
+have no wife arter all."
+
+"Ay," assented Old Zeb, who puffed in the corner of a settle on her
+left, with one side of his face illuminated and the other in deep
+shadow, "he feels it, I b'lieve.  Such a whack o' dome as he'd a-bought,
+and a weather-glass wherein the man comes forth as the woman goes
+innards, an' a dresser, painted a bright liver colour, engaging to the
+eye."
+
+"I niver seed a more matterimonial outfit, as you might say," put in
+Uncle Issy.
+
+"An' a warmin'-pan, an' likewise a lookin'-glass of a high pattern."
+
+"An' what do he say?" inquired Calvin Oke, drawing a short pipe from his
+lips.
+
+"In round numbers, he says nothing, but takes on."
+
+"A wisht state!"
+
+"Ay, 'tis wisht.  Will 'ee be so good as to frisk up the beverage,
+Prudy, my dear?"
+
+Prudy took up a second large mug that stood warming on the hearthstone,
+and began to pour the eggy-hot from one vessel to the other until a
+creamy froth covered the top.
+
+"'T'other chap's a handsome chap," she said, with her eyes on her work.
+
+"Handsome is as handsome does," squeaked Uncle Issy.
+
+"If you wasn' such an aged man, Uncle, I' call 'ee a very tame talker."
+
+Uncle Issy collapsed.
+
+"I reckon you'm all afeard o' this man," continued Prudy, looking round
+on the company, "else I'd have heard some mention of a shal-lal
+afore this."
+
+The men with one accord drew their pipes out and looked at her.
+
+"I mean it.  If Porthlooe was the place it used to be, there'd be tin
+kettles in plenty to drum en out o' this naybourhood to the Rogue's
+March next time he showed his face here.  When's he comin' back?"
+
+No one knew.
+
+"The girl's as bad; but 'twould be punishment enough for her to know her
+lover was hooted out o' the parish.  Mind you, _I_'ve no grudge agen the
+man.  I liked his dare-devil look, the only time I saw en.  I'm only
+sayin' what I think--that you'm all afeard."
+
+"I don't b'long to the parish," remarked a Landaviddy man, in the pause
+that followed, "but 'tis incumbent on Lanihale, I'm fain to admit."
+
+The Lanihale men fired up at this.
+
+"I've a tin-kettle," said Calvin Oke, "an' I'm ready."
+
+"An' I for another," said Elias Sweetland.  "An' I, An' I," echoed
+several voices.
+
+"Stiddy there, stiddy, my hearts of oak," began Old Zeb, reflectively.
+"A still tongue makes a wise head, and 'twill be time enough to talk o'
+shal-lals when the weddin'-day's fixed.  Now I've a better notion.
+It will not be gain-said by any of 'ee that I've the power of logic in a
+high degree--hey?"
+
+"Trew, O king!"
+
+"Surely, surely."
+
+"The rarity that you be, crowder!  Sorely we shall miss 'ee when you'm
+gone."
+
+"Very well, then," Old Zeb announced.  "I'm goin' to be logical wi' that
+chap.  The very next time I see en, I'm goin' to step up to en an' say,
+as betwixt man an' man, 'Look 'ee here,' I'll say, 'I've a lawful son.
+You've a-took his name, an' you've a-stepped into his shoes, an'
+therefore I've a right to spake'" (he pulled at his churchwarden),
+"'to spake to 'ee'" (another pull) "'like a father.'" Here followed
+several pulls in quick succession.
+
+The pipe had gone out.  So, still holding the attention of the room, he
+reached out a hand towards the tongs.  Prudy, anticipating his
+necessity, caught them up, dived them into the blaze, and drawing out a
+blazing end of stick, held it over the pipe while he sucked away.
+
+During this pause a heavy step was heard in the passage.  The door was
+pushed open, and a tall man, in dripping cloak and muddy boots, stalked
+into the room.
+
+It was the man they had been discussing.
+
+"A dirty night, friends, and a cold ride from Plymouth."  He shook the
+water out of his hat over the sanded floor.  "I'll take a pull at
+something hot, if you please."
+
+Every one looked at him.  Prudy, forgetting what she was about, waved
+the hot brand to and fro under Old Zeb's nose, stinging his eyes with
+smoke.  Between confusion and suffocation, his face was a study.
+
+"You seem astonished, all of you.  May I ask why?"
+
+"To tell 'ee the truth, young man," said Prudy, "'twas a case of 'talk
+of the devil an' you'll see his horns.'"
+
+"Indeed.  You were speaking good of me, I hope."
+
+"Which o' your ears is burning?"
+
+"Both."
+
+"Then it shu'd be the left ear only.  Old Zeb, here--"
+
+"Hush 'ee now, Prudy!" implored the crowder.
+
+"--Old Zeb here," continued Prudy, relentlessly, "was only a-sayin', as
+you walked in, that he'd read you the Riot Act afore you was many days
+older.  He's mighty fierce wi' your goin's on, I 'sure 'ee."
+
+"Is that so, Mr. Minards?"
+
+Mr. Minards had, it is probable, never felt so uncomfortable in all his
+born days, and the experience of standing between two fires was new to
+him.  He looked from the stranger around upon the company, and was met
+on all hands by the same expectant stare.
+
+"Well, you see--" he began, and looked around again.  The faces were
+inexorable.  "I declare, friends, the pore chap is drippin' wet.  Sich a
+tiresome v'yage, too, as it must ha' been from Plymouth, i' this
+weather!  I dunno how we came to forget to invite en nigher the hearth.
+Well, as I was a-sayin'--"
+
+He stopped to search for his hat beneath the settle.  Producing a large
+crimson handkerchief from the crown, he mopped his brow slowly.
+
+"The cur'ous part o't, naybours, is the sweatiness that comes over a
+man, this close weather."
+
+"I'm waiting for your answer," put in the stranger, knitting his brows.
+
+"Surely, surely, that's the very thing I was comin' to.  The answer, as
+you may say, is this--but step a bit nigher, for there's lashins o'
+room--the answer, as far as that goes, is what I make to you, sayin'--
+that if you wasn' so passin' wet, may be I'd blurt out what I had i' my
+mind.  But, as things go, 'twould seem like takin' an advantage."
+
+"Not at all."
+
+"'Tis very kind o' you to say so, to be sure."  Old Zeb picked up his
+pipe again.  "An' now, friends, that this little bit of onpleasantness
+have a-blown over, doin' ekal credit to both parties this
+New Year's-eve, after the native British fashion o' fair-play (as why
+shu'd it not?), I agree we be conformable to the pleasant season an' let
+harmony prevail--"
+
+"Why, man," interrupted Prudy, "you niver gave no answer at all.  'Far
+as I could see you've done naught but fidget like an angletwitch and
+look fifty ways for Sunday."
+
+"'Twas the roundaboutest, dodge-my-eyedest, hole-an'-cornerdest bit of a
+chap's mind as iver I heard given," pronounced the traitorous Oke.
+
+"Oke--Oke," Old Zeb exclaimed, "all you know 'pon the fiddle I taught
+'ee!"
+
+Said Prudy--"That's like what the chap said when the donkey kicked en.
+''Taint the stummick that I do vally,' he said, ''tis the cussed
+ongratefulness o' the jackass.'"
+
+"I'm still waiting," repeated the stranger.
+
+"Well, then"--Old Zeb cast a rancorous look around--"I'll tell 'ee,
+since you'm so set 'pon hearin'.  Afore you came in, the good folks here
+present was for drummin' you out o' the country.  'Shockin' behayviour!'
+'Aw, very shockin' indeed!' was the words I heerd flyin' about, an'
+'Who'll make en sensible o't?' an' 'We'll give en what-for.'  'A silent
+tongue makes a wise head,' said I, an' o' this I call Uncle Issy here to
+witness."
+
+Uncle Issy corroborated.  "You was proverbial, crowder, I can duly vow,
+an' to that effect, unless my mem'ry misgives me."
+
+"So, in a mollifyin' manner, I says, 'What hev the pore chap done, to
+be treated so bad?' I says.  Says I, 'better lave me use logic wi' en'--
+eh, Uncle Issy?"
+
+"Logic was the word."
+
+The stranger turned round upon the company, who with one accord began to
+look extremely foolish as Old Zeb so adroitly turned the tables.
+
+"Is this true?" he asked.
+
+"'Tis the truth, I must admit," volunteered Uncle Issy, who had not been
+asked, but was fluttered with delight at having stuck to the right side
+against appearances.
+
+"I think," said the stranger, deliberately, "it is as well that you and
+I, my friends, should understand each other.  The turn of events has
+made it likely that I shall pass my days in this neighbourhood, and I
+wish to clear up all possible misconceptions at the start.  In the first
+place, I am going to marry Miss Ruby Tresidder.  Our banns will be asked
+in church to-morrow; but let us have a rehearsal.  Can any man here show
+cause or just impediment why this marriage should not take place?"
+
+"You'd better ask that o' Young Zeb, mister," said Prudy.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"You owe your life to'n, I hear."
+
+"When next you see him you can put two questions.  Ask him in the first
+place if he saved it at my request."
+
+"Tut-tut.  A man likes to live, whether he axes for it or no," grunted
+Elias Sweetland.  "And what the devil do you know about it?" demanded
+the stranger.
+
+"I reckon I know what a man's like."
+
+"Oh, you do, do you?  Wait a while, my friend.  In the second place," he
+went on, returning to Prudy, "ask young Zebedee Minards, if he wants my
+life back, to come and fetch it.  And now attend all.  Do you see
+these?"
+
+He threw back his cloak, and, diving a hand into his coat-pocket,
+produced a couple of pistols.  The butts were rich with brass-work, and
+the barrels shone as he held them out in the firelight.
+
+"You needn't dodge your heads about so gingerly.  I'm only about to give
+you an exhibition.  How many tall candlesticks have you in the house
+besides the pair here?" he inquired of Prudy.
+
+"Dree pair."
+
+"Put candles in the other two pairs and set them on the chimney-shelf."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Do as I tell you."
+
+"Now here's summat _like_ a man!" said Prudy, and went out obediently to
+fetch them.
+
+Until she returned there was dead silence in the bar-parlour.  The men
+puffed uneasily at their pipes, not one of which was alight, and avoided
+the stranger's eye, which rested on each in turn with a sardonic humour.
+
+Prudy lit the candles, one from the other, and after snuffing them with
+her fingers that they might burn steadily, arranged them in a row on the
+mantelshelf.  Now above this shelf the chimney-piece was panelled to the
+height of some two and a half feet, and along the panel certain ballads
+that Prudy had purchased of the Sherborne messenger were stuck in a row
+with pins.
+
+"Better take those ballads down, if you value them," the stranger
+remarked.
+
+She turned round inquiringly.
+
+"I'm going to shoot."
+
+"Sakes alive--an' my panel, an' my best brass candlesticks!"
+
+"Take them down."
+
+She gave in, and unpinned the ballads.
+
+"Now stand aside."
+
+He stepped back to the other side of the room, and set his back to the
+door.
+
+"Don't move," he said to Calvin Oke, whose chair stood immediately under
+the line of fire, "your head is not the least in the way.  And don't
+turn it either, but keep your eye on the candle to the right."
+
+This was spoken in the friendliest manner, but it hardly reassured Oke,
+who would have preferred to keep his eye on the deadly weapon now being
+lifted behind his back.  Nevertheless he did not disobey, but sat still,
+with his eyes fixed on the mantelshelf, and only his shoulders twitching
+to betray his discomposure.
+
+_Bang!_
+
+The room was suddenly full of sound, then of smoke and the reek of
+gunpowder.  As the noise broke on their ears one of the candles went out
+quietly.  The candlestick did not stir, but a bullet was embedded in the
+panel behind.  Calvin Oke felt his scalp nervously.
+
+"One," counted the stranger.  He walked quietly to the table, set down
+his smoking pistol, and took up the other, looking round at the same
+time on the white faces that stared on him behind the thick curls of
+smoke.  Stepping back to his former position, he waited while they could
+count twenty, lifted the second pistol high, brought it smartly down to
+the aim and fired again.
+
+The second candle went out, and a second bullet buried itself in Prudy's
+panel.
+
+So he served the six, one after another, without a miss.  Twice he
+reloaded both pistols slowly, and while he did so not a word was spoken.
+Indeed, the only sound to be heard came from Uncle Issy, who, being a
+trifle asthmatical with age, felt some inconvenience from the smoke in
+his throat.  By the time the last shot was fired the company could
+hardly see one another.  Prudy, two of whose dishes had been shaken off
+the dresser, had tumbled upon a settle, and sat there, rocking herself
+to and fro, with her apron over her head.
+
+The sound of firing had reached the neighbouring houses, and by this
+time the passage was full of men and women, agog for a tragedy.
+The door burst open.  Through the dense atmosphere the stranger descried
+a crowd of faces in the passage.  He was the first to speak.
+
+"Good folk, you alarm yourselves without cause.  I have merely been
+pointing an argument that I and my friends happen to be holding here."
+
+Then he turned to Calvin Oke, who lay in his chair like a limp sack,
+slowly recovering from his emotions at hearing the bullets whiz over his
+head.
+
+"When I assure you that I carry these weapons always about me, you will
+hardly need to be warned against interfering with me again.  The first
+man that meddles, I'll shoot like a rabbit--by the Lord Harry, I will!
+You hear?"
+
+He slipped the pistols into his pocket, pulled out two crown pieces, and
+tossed them to Prudy.
+
+"That'll pay for the damage, I daresay." So, turning on his heel, he
+marched out, leaving them in the firelight.  The crowd in the passage
+fell back to right and left, and in a moment more he had disappeared
+into the black drizzle outside.
+
+But the tradition of his feat survives, and the six holes in Prudy's
+panel still bear witness to its truth.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+YOUNG ZEB SELLS HIS SOUL.
+
+These things were reported to Young Zeb as he sat in his cottage, up the
+coombe, and nursed his pain.  He was a simple youth, and took life in
+earnest, being very slow to catch fire, but burning consumedly when once
+ignited.  Also he was sincere as the day, and had been treacherously
+used.  So he raged at heart, and (for pride made him shun the public
+eye) he sat at home and raged--the worst possible cure for love, which
+goes out only by open-air treatment.  From time to time his father,
+Uncle Issy, and Elias Sweetland sat around him and administered comfort
+after the manner of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.
+
+"Your cheeks be pale, my son--lily-white, upon my soul.  Rise, my son,
+an' eat, as the wise king recommended, sayin', 'Stay me wi' flagons,
+comfort me wi' yapples, for I be sick o' love.' A wise word that."
+
+"Shall a man be poured out like water," inquired Uncle Issy, "an' turn
+from his vittles, an' pass his prime i' blowin' his nose, an' all for a
+woman?"
+
+"I wasn' blowin' my nose," objected Zeb, shortly.
+
+"Well, in black an' white you wasn', but ye gave me that idee."
+
+Young Zeb stared out of the window.  Far down the coombe a slice of blue
+sea closed the prospect, and the tan sails of a small lugger were
+visible there, rounding the point to the westward.  He watched her
+moodily until she passed out of sight, and turned to his father.
+
+"To-morrow, did 'ee say?"
+
+"Iss, to-morrow, at eleven i' the forenoon.  Jim Lewarne brought me
+word."
+
+"Terrible times they be for Jim, I reckon," said Elias Sweetland.
+"All yestiddy he was goin' back'ards an' forrards like a lost dog in a
+fair, movin' his chattels.  There's a hole in the roof of that new
+cottage of his that a man may put his Sunday hat dro'; and as for his
+old Woman, she'll do nought but sit 'pon the lime-ash floor wi' her
+tout-serve over her head, an' call en ivery name but what he was
+chris'ened."
+
+"Nothin' but neck-an'-crop would do for Tresidder, I'm told," said Old
+Zeb.  "'I've a-sarved 'ee faithful,' said Jim, 'an' now you turns me out
+wi' a week's warnin'.'  'You've a-crossed my will,' says Tresidder, 'an'
+I've engaged a more pushin' hind in your place.'  'Tis a new fashion o'
+speech wi' Tresidder nowadays."
+
+"Ay, modern words be drivin' out the old forms.  But 'twas only to get
+Jim's cottage for that strong-will'd supplantin' furriner because Ruby
+said 'twas low manners for bride an' groom to go to church from the same
+house.  So no sooner was the Lewarnes out than he was in, like shufflin'
+cards, wi' his marriage garment an' his brush an' comb in a hand-bag.
+Tresidder sent down a mattress for en, an' he slept there last night."
+
+"Eh, but that's a trifle for a campaigner."
+
+"Let this be a warnin' to 'ee, my son niver to save no more lives from
+drownin'."
+
+"I won't," promised Young Zeb.
+
+"We've found 'ee a great missment," Elias observed to him, after a
+pause.  "The Psa'ms, these three Sundays, bain't what they was for lack
+o' your enlivenin' flute--I can't say they be.  An' to hear your very
+own name called forth in the banns wi' Ruby's, an' you wi'out part nor
+lot therein--"
+
+"Elias, you mean it well, no doubt; but I'd take it kindly if you
+sheered off."
+
+"'Twas a wisht Psa'm, too," went on Elias, "las' Sunday mornin'; an' I
+cudn' help my thoughts dwellin' 'pon the dismals as I blowed, nor
+countin' how that by this time to-morrow--"
+
+But Young Zeb had caught up his cap and rushed from the cottage.
+
+He took, not the highway to Porthlooe, but a footpath that slanted up
+the western slope of the coombe, over the brow of the hill, and led in
+time to the coast and a broader path above the cliffs.  The air was
+warm, and he climbed in such hurry that the sweat soon began to drop
+from his forehead.  By the time he reached the cliffs he was forced to
+pull a handkerchief out and mop himself; but without a pause, he took
+the turning westward towards Troy harbour, and tramped along sturdily.
+For his mind was made up.
+
+Ship's-chandler Webber, of Troy, was fitting out a brand-new privateer,
+he had heard, and she was to sail that very week.  He would go and offer
+himself as a seaman, and if Webber made any bones about it, he would
+engage to put a part of his legacy into the adventure.  In fact, he was
+ready for anything that would take him out of Porthlooe.  To live there
+and run the risk of meeting Ruby on the other man's arm was more than
+flesh and blood could stand.  So he went along with his hands deep in
+his pockets, his eyes fastened straight ahead, his heart smoking, and
+the sweat stinging his eyelids.  And as he went he cursed the day of his
+birth.
+
+From Porthlooe to Troy Ferry is a good six miles by the cliffs, and when
+he had accomplished about half the distance, he was hailed by name.
+
+Between the path at this point and the cliff's edge lay a small patch
+cleared for potatoes, and here an oldish man was leaning on his shovel
+and looking up at Zeb.
+
+"Good-mornin', my son!"
+
+"Mornin', hollibubber!"
+
+The old man had once worked inland at St. Teath slate-quarries, and made
+his living as a "hollibubber," or one who carts away the refuse slates.
+On returning to his native parish he had brought back and retained the
+name of his profession, the parish register alone preserving his true
+name of Matthew Spry.  He was a fervent Methodist--a local preacher, in
+fact--and was held in some admiration by "the people" for his lustiness
+in prayer-meeting.  A certain intensity in his large grey eyes gave
+character to a face that was otherwise quite insignificant.  You could
+see he was a good man.
+
+"Did 'ee see that dainty frigate go cruisin' by, two hour agone?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then ye missed a sweet pretty sight.  Thirty guns, I do b'lieve, an'
+all sail set.  I cou'd a'most count her guns, she stood so close."
+
+"Hey?"
+
+"She tacked just here an' went round close under Bradden Point; so she's
+for Troy, that's certain.  Be you bound that way, too?"
+
+"Iss, I'll see her, if she's there."
+
+"Best not go too close, my son; for I know the looks o' those customers.
+By all accounts you'm a man of too much substance to risk yourself near
+a press-gang."
+
+Young Zeb gazed over the old man's head at the horizon line, and
+answered, as if reading the sentence there, "I might fare worse,
+hollibubber."
+
+The hollibubber seemed, for a second, about to speak; for, of course, he
+knew Zeb's trouble.  But after a while he took his shovel out of the
+ground slowly.
+
+"Ay, ye might," he said; "pray the Lord ye don't."
+
+Zeb went on, faster than ever.  He passed Bradden Point and Widdy Cove
+at the rate of five miles an hour, or thereabouts, then he turned aside
+over a stile and crossed a couple of meadows; and after these he was on
+the high-road, on the very top of the hill overlooking Troy Harbour.
+
+He gazed down.  The frigate was there, as the hollibubber had guessed,
+anchored at the harbour's mouth.  Two men in a small boat were pulling
+from her to the farther shore.  A thin haze of blue smoke lay over the
+town at his feet, and the noise of mallets in the ship-building yards
+came across to him through the clear afternoon.  Zeb hardly noticed all
+this, for his mind was busy with a problem.  He halted by a milestone on
+the brow of the hill, to consider.
+
+And then suddenly he sat down on the stone and shivered.  The sweat was
+still trickling down his face and down his back; but it had turned cold
+as ice.  A new idea had taken him, an idea of which at first he felt
+fairly afraid.  He passed a hand over his eyes and looked down again at
+the frigate.  But he stared at her stupidly, and his mind was busy with
+another picture.
+
+It occurred to him that he must go on if he meant to arrange with
+Webber, that afternoon.  So he got up from the stone and went down the
+steep hill towards the ferry, stumbling over the rough stones in the
+road and hardly looking at his steps, but moving now rapidly, now
+slowly, like a drunken man.
+
+The street that led down to the ferry dated back to an age before carts
+had superseded pack-horses, and the makers had cut it in stairs and
+paved it with cobbles.  It plunged so steeply, and the houses on either
+side wedged it in so tightly, that to look down from the top was like
+peering into a well.  A patch of blue water shone at the foot, framing a
+small dark square--the signboard of the "Four Lords" Inn.  Just now
+there were two or three men gathered under the signboard.
+
+As Young Zeb drew near he saw that they wore pig-tails and round shiny
+hats: and, as he noticed this, his face, which had been pale for the
+last five minutes, grew ashen-white.  He halted for a moment, and then
+went on again, meaning to pass the signboard and wait on the quay for
+the ferry.
+
+There were half a dozen sailors in front of the "Four Lords."  Three sat
+on a bench beside the door, and three more, with mugs of beer in their
+hands, were skylarking in the middle of the roadway.
+
+"Hi!" called out one of those on the bench, as Zeb passed.  And Zeb
+turned round and came to a halt again.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Where 're ye bound, mate?"
+
+"For the ferry."
+
+"Then stop an' drink, for the boat left two minutes since an' won't be
+back for another twenty."
+
+Zeb hung on his heel for a couple of seconds.  The sailor held out his
+mug with the friendliest air, his head thrown back and the left corner
+of his mouth screwed up into a smile.
+
+"Thank 'ee," said Zeb, "I will; an' may the Lord judge 'atween us."
+
+"There's many a way o' takin' a drink," the sailor said, staring at him;
+"but split me if yours ain't the rummiest _I_'ve run across."
+
+"Oh, man, man," Zeb answered, "I wasn' thinkin' o' _you!_"
+
+Back by the cliff's edge the hollibubber had finished his day's work and
+was shouldering his shovel to start for home, when he spied a dark
+figure coming eastwards along the track; and, putting up a hand to ward
+off the level rays of the sun, saw that it was the young man who had
+passed him at noonday.  So he set down the shovel again, and waited.
+
+Young Zeb came along with his head down.  When he noticed the
+hollibubber standing in the path he started like a man caught in a
+theft.
+
+"My son, ye 've come to lift a weight off my heart.  God forgi'e me
+that, i' my shyness, I let 'ee go by wi'out a word for your trouble."
+
+"All the country seems to know my affairs," Zeb answered with a scowl.
+
+The hollibubber's grey eyes rested on him tenderly.  He was desperately
+shy, as he had confessed: but compassion overcame his shyness.
+
+"Surely," said he, "all we be children o' one Father: an' surely we may
+know each other's burdens; else, not knowin', how shall we bear 'em?"
+
+"You'm too late, hollibubber."
+
+Zeb stood still, looking out over the purple sea.  The old man touched
+his arm gently.
+
+"How so?"
+
+"I've a-sold my soul to hell."
+
+"I don't care.  You'm alive an' standin' here, an' I can save 'ee."
+
+"Can 'ee so?" Zeb asked ironically.
+
+"Man, I feel sure o't."  His ugly earnest face became almost grand in
+the flame of the sunset.  "Turn aside, here, an' kneel down; I will
+wrestle wi' the Lord for thee till comfort comes, if it take the long
+night."
+
+"You'm a strange chap.  Can such things happen i' these days?"
+
+"Kneel and try."
+
+"No, no, no," Zeb flung out his hands.  "It's too late, I tell 'ee.
+No man's words will I hear but the words of Lamech--'I ha' slain a man
+to my wounding, an' a young man to my hurt.'  Let me go--'tis too late.
+Let me go, I say--"
+
+As the hollibubber still clung to his arm, he gave a push and broke
+loose.  The old man tumbled beside the path with his head against the
+potato fence.  Zeb with a curse took to his heels and ran; nor for a
+hundred yards did he glance behind.
+
+When at last he flung a look over his shoulder, the hollibubber had
+picked himself up and was kneeling in the pathway.  His hands were
+clasped and lifted.
+
+"Too late!" shouted Zeb again, and dashed on without a second look.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+YOUNG ZEB WINS HIS SOUL BACK.
+
+At half-past nine, next morning, the stranger sat in the front room of
+the cottage vacated by the Lewarnes.  On a rough table, pushed into a
+corner, lay the remains of his breakfast.  A plum-coloured coat with
+silver buttons hung over the back of a chair by his side, and a
+waist-coat and silver-laced hat to match rested on the seat.
+For the wedding was to take place in an hour and a half.
+
+He sat in frilled shirt, knee-breeches and stockings, and the sunlight
+streamed in upon his dark head as he stooped to pull on a shoe.
+The sound of his whistling filled the room, and the tune was, "Soldier,
+soldier, will you marry me?"
+
+His foot was thrust into the first shoe, and his forefinger inserted at
+the heel, shoe-horn fashion, to slip it on, when the noise of light
+wheels sounded on the road outside, and stopped beside the gate.
+Looking up, he saw through the window the head and shoulders of Young
+Zeb's grey mare, and broke off his whistling sharply.
+
+_Rat-a-tat!_
+
+"Come in!" he called, and smiled softly to himself.
+
+The door was pushed open, and Young Zeb stood on the threshold, looking
+down on the stranger, who wheeled round quietly on his chair to face
+him.  Zeb's clothes were disordered, and looked as if he had spent the
+night in them; his face was yellow and drawn, with dark semicircles
+underneath the eyes; and he put a hand up against the door-post for
+support.
+
+"To what do I owe this honour?" asked the stranger, gazing back at him.
+
+Zeb pulled out a great turnip-watch from his fob, and said--
+
+"You'm dressin?"
+
+"Ay, for the wedding."
+
+"Then look sharp.  You've got a bare five-an'-twenty minnits."
+
+"Excuse me, I'm not to be married till eleven."
+
+"Iss, iss, but _they_'re comin' at ten, sharp."
+
+"And who in the world may 'they' be?"
+
+"The press-gang."
+
+The stranger sprang up to his feet, and seemed for a moment about to fly
+at Zeb's throat.
+
+"You treacherous hound!"
+
+"Stand off," said Zeb wearily, without taking his hand from the
+door-post.  "I reckon it don't matter what I may be, or may not be, so
+long as you'm dressed i' ten minnits."
+
+The other dropped his hands, with a short laugh.
+
+"I beg your pardon.  For aught I know you may have nothing to do with
+this infernal plot except to warn me against it."
+
+"Don't make any mistake.  'Twas I that set the press-gang upon 'ee,"
+answered Zeb, in the same dull tones.
+
+There was silence between them for half a minute, and then the stranger
+spoke, as if to himself--
+
+"My God!  Love has made this oaf a man!"  He stood for a while, sucking
+at his under-lip, and regarding Zeb gloomily.  "May I ask why you have
+deliberately blown up this pretty mine at the eleventh hour?"
+
+"I couldn't do it," Zeb groaned; "Lord knows 'twas not for love of you,
+but I couldn't."
+
+"Upon my word, you fascinate me.  People say that evil is more easily
+learnt than goodness; but that's great nonsense.  The footsteps of the
+average beginner are equally weak in both pursuits.  Would you mind
+telling me why you chose this particular form of treachery, in
+preference (let us say) to poison or shooting from behind a hedge?
+Was it simply because you risked less?  Pardon the question, but I have
+a particular reason for knowing."
+
+"We're wastin' time," said Zeb, pulling out his watch again.
+
+"It's extraordinary how a fool will stumble on good luck.  Why, sir, but
+for one little accident, the existence of which you could not possibly
+have known, I might easily have waited for the press-gang, stated the
+case to them, and had you lugged off to sea in my place.  Has it
+occurred to you, in the course of your negotiations, that the wicked
+occasionally stumble into pits of their own digging?  You, who take part
+in the psalm-singing every Sunday, might surely have remembered this.
+As it is, I suppose I must hurry on my clothes, and get to church by
+some roundabout way."
+
+"I'm afeard you can't, without my help."
+
+"Indeed?  Why?"
+
+"'Cause the gang is posted all round 'ee.  I met the lot half an hour
+back, an' promised to call 'pon you and bring word you was here."
+
+"Come, come; I retract my sneers.  You begin to excite my admiration.
+I shall undoubtedly shoot you before I'm taken, but it shall be your
+comfort to die amid expressions of esteem."
+
+"You'm mistaken.  I came to save 'ee, if you'll be quick."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I've a load of ore-weed outside, in the cart.  By the lie o' the
+cottage none can spy ye while you slip underneath it; but I'll fetch a
+glance round, to make sure.  Underneath it you'll be safe, and I'll
+drive 'ee past the sailors, and send 'em on here to search."
+
+"You develop apace.  But perhaps you'll admit a flaw in your scheme.
+What on earth induced you to imagine I should trust you?"
+
+"Man, I reckoned all that.  My word's naught.  But 'tis your one
+chance--and I would kneel to 'ee, if by kneelin' I could persuade 'ee.
+We'll fight it out after; bring your pistols.  Only come!"
+
+The stranger slipped on his other shoe, then his waistcoat and jacket,
+whistling softly.  Then he stepped to the chimney-piece, took down his
+pistols, and stowed them in his coat-pockets.
+
+"I'm quite ready."
+
+Zeb heaved a great sigh like a sob; but only said:--
+
+"Wait a second while I see that the coast's clear."
+
+In less than three minutes the stranger was packed under the
+evil-smelling weed, drawing breath with difficulty, and listening, when
+the jolting allowed, to Zeb's voice as he encouraged the mare.
+Jowters' carts travel fast as a rule, for their load perishes soon, and
+the distance from the coast to the market is often considerable.
+In this case Jessamy went at a round gallop, the loose stones flying
+from under her hoofs.  Now and then one struck up against the bottom of
+the cart.  It was hardly pleasant to be rattled at this rate, Heaven
+knew whither.  But the stranger had chosen his course, and was not the
+man to change his mind.
+
+After about five minutes of this the cart was pulled up with a scramble,
+and he heard a voice call out, as it seemed, from the hedge--
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Right you are," answered Young Zeb;
+
+"He's in the front room, pullin' on his boots.  You'd best look slippy."
+
+"Where's the coin?"
+
+"There!"  The stranger heard the click of money, as of a purse being
+caught.  "You'll find it all right."
+
+"H'm; best let me count it, though.  One--two--three--four.  I feels it
+my dooty to tell ye, young man, that it be a dirty trick.  If this
+didn't chime in wi' my goodwill towards his Majesty's service, be danged
+if I'd touch the job with a pair o' tongs!"
+
+"Ay--but I reckon you'll do't, all the same, for t'other half that's to
+come when you've got en safe an' sound.  Dirty hands make clean money."
+
+"Well, well; ye've been dirtily sarved.  I'll see 'ee this arternoon at
+the 'Four Lords.'  We've orders to sail at five, sharp; so there's no
+time to waste."
+
+"Then I won't detain 'ee.  Clk, Jessamy!"
+
+The jolting began again, more furiously than ever, as the stranger drew
+a long breath.  He waited till he judged they must be out of sight, and
+then began to stir beneath his load of weed.
+
+"Keep quiet," said Zeb; "you shall get out as soon as we're up the
+hill."
+
+The cart began to move more slowly, and tilted back with a slant that
+sent the stranger's heels against the tail-board.  Zeb jumped down and
+trudged at the side. The hill was long, and steep from foot to brow; and
+when at length the slope lessened, the wheels turned off at a sharp
+angle and began to roll softly over turf.
+
+The weight and smell of the weed were beginning to suffocate the man
+beneath it, when Zeb called out "Woa-a!" and the mare stopped.
+
+"Now you can come out."
+
+The other rose on his knees, shook some of his burden off, and blinked
+in the strong sunlight.
+
+The cart stood on the fringe of a desolate tract of downs, high above
+the coast. Over the hedge to the right appeared a long narrow strip of
+sea. On the three remaining sides nothing was visible but undulating
+stretches of brown turf, except where, to northward, the summits of two
+hills in the heart of the county just topped the rising ground that hid
+twenty intervening miles of broken plain.
+
+"We can leave the mare to crop.  There's a hollow, not thirty yards off,
+that'll do for us."
+
+Zeb led the way to the spot.  It was indeed the fosse of a
+half-obliterated Roman camp, and ran at varying depth around a cluster
+of grassy mounds, the most salient of which--the praetorian--still
+served as a landmark for the Porthlooe fishing boats.  But down in the
+fosse the pair were secure from all eyes.  Not a word was spoken until
+they stood together at the bottom.
+
+Here Zeb pulled out his watch once more.  "We'd best be sharp," he said;
+"you must start in twenty minnits to get to the church in time."
+
+"It would be interesting to know what you propose doing."  The stranger
+sat down on the slope, picked a strip of sea-weed off his breeches, and
+looked up with a smile.
+
+"I reckon you'll think it odd."
+
+"Of that I haven't a doubt."
+
+"Well, you've a pair o' pistols i' your pockets, an' they're loaded, I
+expect."
+
+"They are."
+
+"I'd a notion of askin' 'ee, as a favour, to give and take a shot with
+me."
+
+The stranger paused a minute before giving his answer.
+
+"Can you fire a pistol?"
+
+"I've let off a blunderbust, afore now, an' I suppose 'tis the same
+trick."
+
+"And has it struck you that your body may be hard to dispose of?
+Or that, if found, it may cause me some inconvenience?"
+
+"There's a quag on t'other side o' the Castle[1] here.  I han't time to
+go round an' point it out; but 'tis to be known by bein' greener than
+the rest o' the turf.  What's thrown in there niver comes up, an' no man
+can dig for it.  The folks'll give the press-gang the credit when I'm
+missin'--"
+
+"You forget the mare and cart."
+
+"Lead her back to the road, turn her face to home, an' fetch her a cut
+across th' ears.  She always bolts if you touch her ears."
+
+"And you really wish to die?"
+
+"Oh, my God!" Zeb broke out; "would I be standin' here if I didn'?"
+
+The stranger rose to his feet, and drew out his pistols slowly.
+
+"It's a thousand pities," he said; "for I never saw a man develop
+character so fast."
+
+He cocked the triggers, and handed the pistols to Zeb, to take his
+choice.
+
+"Stand where you are, while I step out fifteen paces."  He walked slowly
+along the fosse, and, at the end of that distance, faced about.
+"Shall I give the word?"
+
+Zeb nodded, watching him sullenly.
+
+"Very well.  I shall count three slowly, and after that we can fire as
+we please.  Are you ready?--stand a bit sideways.  Your chest is a
+pretty broad target--that's right; I'm going to count.
+_One--two--three--_"
+
+The word was hardly spoken before one of the pistols rang out.  It was
+Zeb's; and Heaven knows whither his bullet flew.  The smoke cleared away
+in a blue, filmy streak, and revealed his enemy standing where he stood
+before, with his pistol up, and a quiet smile on his face.
+
+Still holding the pistol up, the stranger now advanced deliberately
+until he came to a halt about two paces from Zeb, who, with white face
+and set jaw, waited for the end.  The eyes of the two men met, and
+neither flinched.
+
+"Strip," commanded the stranger.  "Strip--take off that jersey."
+
+"Why not kill me without ado?  Man, isn't this cruel?"
+
+"Strip, I say."
+
+Zeb stared at him for half a minute, like a man in a trance; and began
+to pull the jersey off.
+
+"Now your shirt.  Strip--till you are naked as a babe."
+
+Zeb obeyed.  The other laid his pistol down on the turf, and also
+proceeded to undress, until the two men stood face to face, stark naked.
+
+"We were thus, or nearly thus, a month ago, when you gave me my life.
+Does it strike you that, barring our faces, we might be twin brothers?
+Now, get into my clothes, and toss me over your own!"
+
+"What's the meanin' o't?" stammered Zeb, hoarsely.
+
+"I am about to cry quits with you.  Hurry; for the bride must be at the
+church by this."
+
+"What's the meanin' o't?" Zeb repeated.
+
+"Why, that you shall marry the girl.  Steady--don't tremble.  The banns
+are up in your name, and you shall walk into church, and the woman shall
+be married to Zebedee Minards.  Stop, don't say a word, or I'll repent
+and blow your brains out.  You want to know who I am, and what's to
+become of me.  Suppose I'm the Devil; suppose I'm your twin soul, and in
+exchange for my life have given you the half of manhood that you lacked
+and I possessed; suppose I'm just a deserter from his Majesty's fleet, a
+poor devil of a marine, with gifts above his station, who ran away and
+took to privateering, and was wrecked at your doors.  Suppose that I am
+really Zebedee Minards; or suppose that I heard your name spoken in
+Sheba kitchen, and took a fancy to wear it myself.  Suppose that I shall
+vanish to-day in a smell of brimstone; or that I shall leave in irons in
+the hold of the frigate now in Troy harbour.  What's her name?"
+
+He was dressed by this time in Zeb's old clothes.
+
+"The _Recruit_."
+
+"Whither bound?"
+
+"Back to Plymouth to-night, an' then to the West Indies wi' a convoy."
+
+"Hurry, then; don't fumble, or Ruby'll be tired of waiting.  You'll find
+a pencil and scrap of paper in my breast pocket.  Hand them over."
+
+Zeb did so, and the stranger, seating himself again on the slope, tore
+the paper in half, and began to scribble a few lines on each piece.
+By the time he had finished and folded them up, Zeb stood before him
+dressed in the plum-coloured suit.
+
+"Ay," said the stranger, looking him up and down, and sucking the pencil
+contemplatively; "she'll marry you out of hand."
+
+"I doubt it."
+
+"These notes will make sure.  Give one to the farmer, and one to Ruby,
+as they stand by the chancel rails.  But mainly it rests with you.
+Take no denial.  Say you've come to make her your wife, and won't leave
+the church till you've done it.  She's still the same woman as when she
+threw you over.  Ah, sir, we men change our natures; but woman is always
+Eve.  I suppose you know a short cut to the church?  Very well.
+I shall take your cart and mare, and drive to meet the press-gang, who
+won't be in the sweetest of tempers just now.  Come, what are you
+waiting for?  You're ten minutes late as it is, and you can't be married
+after noon."
+
+"Sir," said Zeb, with a white face; "it's a liberty, but will 'ee let me
+shake your hand?"
+
+"I'll be cursed if I do.  But I'll wish you good luck and a hard heart,
+and maybe ye'll thank me some day."
+
+So Zeb, with a sob, turned and ran from him out of the fosse and towards
+a gap in the hedge, where lay a short cut through the fields.  In the
+gap he turned and looked back.  The stranger stood on the lip of the
+fosse, and waved a hand to him to hurry.
+
+[1] Camp.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+THE THIRD SHIP.
+
+We return to Ruan church, whence this history started.  The parson was
+there in his surplice, by the altar; the bride was there in her white
+frock, by the chancel rails; her father, by her side, was looking at his
+watch; and the parishioners thronged the nave, shuffling their feet and
+loudly speculating.  For the bridegroom had not appeared.
+
+Ruby's face was white as her frock.  Parson Babbage kept picking up the
+heavy Prayer-book, opening it, and laying it down impatiently.
+Occasionally, as one of the congregation scraped an impatient foot, a
+metallic sound made itself heard, and the buzz of conversation would
+sink for a moment, as if by magic.
+
+For beneath the seats, and behind the women's gowns, the whole pavement
+of the church was covered with a fairly representative collection of
+cast-off kitchen utensils--old kettles, broken cake-tins, frying-pans,
+saucepans--all calculated to emit dismal sounds under percussion.
+Scattered among these were ox-bells, rook-rattles, a fog-horn or two,
+and a tin trumpet from Liskeard fair.  Explanation is simple: the
+outraged feelings of the parish were to be avenged by a shal-lal as
+bride and bridegroom left the church.  Ruby knew nothing of the storm
+brewing for her, but Mary Jane, whose ears had been twice boxed that
+morning, had heard a whisper of it on her way down to the church, and
+was confirmed in her fears by observing the few members of the
+congregation who entered after her.  Men and women alike suffered from
+an unwonted corpulence and tightness of raiment that morning, and each
+and all seemed to have cast the affliction off as they arose from their
+knees.  It was too late to interfere, so she sat still and trembled.
+
+Still the bridegroom did not come.
+
+"A more onpresidented feat I don't recall," remarked Uncle Issy to a
+group that stood at the west end under the gallery, "not since 'Melia
+Spry's buryin', when the devil, i' the shape of a black pig, followed us
+all the way to the porch."
+
+"That was a brave while ago, Uncle."
+
+"Iss, iss; but I mind to this hour how we bearers perspired--an' she
+such a light-weight corpse.  But plague seize my old emotions!--we'm
+come to marry, not to bury."
+
+"By the look o't 'tis' neither marry nor bury, Nim nor Doll," observed
+Old Zeb, who had sacrificed his paternal feelings and come to church in
+order to keep abreast with the age; "'tis more like Boscastle Fair,
+begin at twelve o'clock an' end at noon.  Why tarry the wheels of his
+chariot?"
+
+"'Tis possible Young Zeb an' he have a-met 'pon the road hither,"
+hazarded Calvin Oke by a wonderful imaginative effort; "an' 'tis
+possible that feelings have broke loose an' one o' the twain be
+swelterin' in his own bloodshed, or vicey-versey."
+
+"I heard tell of a man once," said Uncle Issy, "that committed murder
+upon another for love; but, save my life, I can't think 'pon his name,
+nor where 't befell."
+
+"What an old store-house 'tis!" ejaculated Elias Sweetland, bending a
+contemplative gaze on Uncle Issy.
+
+"Mark her pale face, naybours," put in a woman; "an' Tresidder, he looks
+like a man that's neither got nor lost."
+
+"Trew, trew."
+
+"Quarter past the hour, I make it," said Old Zeb, pulling out his
+timepiece.
+
+Still the bridegroom tarried.
+
+Higher up the church, in the front pew but one, Modesty Prowse said
+aloud to Sarah Ann Nan Julian--
+
+"If he doesn' look sharp, we'll be married before she after all."
+
+Ruby heard the sneer, and answered it with a look of concentrated spite.
+Probably she would have risked her dignity to retort, had not Parson
+Babbage advanced down the chancel at this juncture.
+
+"Has anyone seen the bridegroom to-day?" he inquired of Tresidder.
+"Or will you send some one to hurry him?"
+
+"Be danged if I know," the farmer began testily, mopping his bald head,
+and then he broke off, catching sound of a stir among the folk behind.
+
+"Here he be--here he be at last!" cried somebody.  And with that a hush
+of bewilderment fell on the congregation.
+
+In the doorway, flushed with running and glorious in bridal attire,
+stood Young Zeb.
+
+It took everybody's breath away, and he walked up the nave between
+silent men and women.  His eyes were fastened on Ruby, and she in turn
+stared at him as a rabbit at a snake, shrinking slightly on her father's
+arm.  Tresidder's jaw dropped, and his eyes began to protrude.
+
+"What's the meanin' o' this?" he stammered.
+
+"I've come to marry your daughter," answered Zeb, very slow and
+distinct.  "She was to wed Zebedee Minards to-day, an' I'm Zebedee
+Minards."
+
+"But--"
+
+"I've a note to hand to each of 'ee.  Better save your breath till
+you've read 'em."
+
+He delivered the two notes, and stood, tapping a toe on the tiles, in
+the bridegroom's place on the right of the chancel-rails.
+
+"Damnation!"
+
+"Mr. Tresidder," interrupted the parson, "I like a man to swear off his
+rage if he's upset, but I can't allow it in the church."
+
+"I don't care if you do or you don't."
+
+"Then do it, and I'll kick you out with this very boot."
+
+The farmer's face was purple, and big veins stood out by his temples.
+
+"I've been cheated," he growled.  Zeb, who had kept his eyes on Ruby,
+stepped quickly towards her.  First picking up the paper that had
+drifted to the pavement, he crushed it into his pocket.  He then took
+her hand.  It was cold and damp.
+
+"Parson, will 'ee marry us up, please?"
+
+"You haven't asked if she'll have you."
+
+"No, an' I don't mean to.  I didn't come to ax questions--that's your
+business--but to answer."
+
+"Will you marry this man?" demanded the parson, turning to Ruby.
+
+Zeb's hand still enclosed hers, and she felt she was caught and held for
+life.  Her eyes fluttered up to her lover's face, and found it
+inexorable.
+
+"Yes," she gasped out, as if the word had been suffocating her.
+And with the word came a rush of tears--helpless, but not altogether
+unhappy.
+
+"Dry your eyes," said Parson Babbage, after waiting a minute; "we must
+be quick about it."
+
+
+So it happened that the threatened shal-lal came to nothing.
+Susan Jago, the old woman who swept the church, discovered its forgotten
+apparatus scattered beneath the pews on the following Saturday, and
+cleared it out, to the amount (she averred) of two cart-loads.
+She tossed it, bit by bit, over the west wall of the churchyard, where
+in time it became a mound, covered high with sting-nettles.  If you poke
+among these nettles with your walking-stick, the odds are that you turn
+up a scrap of rusty iron.  But there exists more explicit testimony to
+Zeb's wedding within the church--and within the churchyard, too, where
+he and Ruby have rested this many a year.
+
+Though the bubble of Farmer Tresidder's dreams was pricked that day,
+there was feasting at Sheba until late in the evening.  Nor until eleven
+did the bride and bridegroom start off, arm in arm, to walk to their new
+home.  Before them, at a considerable distance, went the players and
+singers--a black blur on the moonlit road; and very crisply their music
+rang out beneath a sky scattered with cloud and stars.  All their songs
+were simple carols of the country, and the burden of them was but the
+joy of man at Christ's nativity; but the young man and maid who walked
+behind were well pleased.
+
+"Now then," cried the voice of Old Zeb, "lads an' lasses all together
+an' wi' a will--"
+
+     All under the leaves, an the leaves o' life,
+      I met wi' virgins seven,
+     An' one o' them was Mary mild,
+      Our Lord's mother of Heaven.
+
+    'O what are 'ee seekin', you seven fair maids,
+      All under the leaves o life;
+    Come tell, come tell, what seek ye
+      All under the leaves o' life?'
+
+    'We're seekin' for no leaves, Thomas,
+      But for a friend o' thine,
+     We're seekin' for sweet Jesus Christ
+      To be our guide an' thine.'
+
+    'Go down, go down, to yonder town
+      An' sit in the gallery,
+     An there you'll see sweet Jesus Christ
+      Nailed to a big yew-tree.'
+
+     So down they went to yonder town
+      As fast as foot could fall,
+     An' many a grievous bitter tear
+      From the Virgin's eye did fall.
+
+    'O peace, Mother--O peace, Mother,
+      Your weepin' doth me grieve;
+     I must suffer this,' he said,
+     'For Adam an' for Eve.
+
+    'O Mother, take John Evangelist
+      All for to be your son,
+     An' he will comfort you sometimes
+      Mother, as I've a-done.'
+
+    'O come, thou John Evangelist,
+      Thou'rt welcome unto me,
+     But more welcome my own dear Son
+      Whom I nursed on my knee.'
+
+     Then he laid his head 'pon his right shoulder
+      Seein death it struck him nigh;
+    'The holy Mother be with your soul--
+      I die, Mother, I die.'
+
+     O the rose, the gentle rose,
+      An the fennel that grows so green!
+     God gi'e us grace in every place
+      To pray for our king an' queen.
+
+     Furthermore, for our enemies all
+      Our prayers they should be strong;
+     Amen, good Lord; your charity
+      Is the endin' of my song!
+
+In the midst of this carol Ruby, with a light pull on Zeb's arm, brought
+him to a halt.
+
+"How lovely it all is, Zeb!"  She looked upwards at the flying moon,
+then dropped her gaze over the frosty sea, and sighed gently.
+"Just now I feel as if I'd been tossin' out yonder through many fierce
+days an' nights an' were bein' taken at last to a safe haven.
+You'll have to make a good wife of me, Zeb.  I wonder if you'll do 't."
+
+Zeb followed the direction of her eyes, and seemed to discern off
+Bradden Point a dot of white, as of a ship in sail.  He pressed her arm
+to his side, but said nothing.
+
+"Clear your throats, friends," shouted his father, up the road,
+"an' let fly--"
+
+     As I sat on a sunny bank,
+      --A sunny bank, a sunny bank,
+     As I sat on a sunny bank
+      On Chris'mas day i' the mornin,
+
+     I saw dree ships come sailin' by,
+      --A-sailin' by, a-sailin' by,
+     I saw dree ships come sailin' by
+      On Chris'mas day i' the mornin'.
+
+     Now who shud be i' these dree ships--
+
+
+And to this measure Zeb and Ruby stepped home.
+
+At the cottage door Zeb thanked the singers, who went their way and
+flung back shouts and joyful wishes as they went.  Before making all
+fast for the night, he stood a minute or so, listening to their voices
+as they died away down the road.  As he barred the door, he turned and
+saw that Ruby had lit the lamp, and was already engaged in setting the
+kitchen to rights; for, of course, no such home-coming had been dreamt
+of in the morning, and all was in disorder.  He stood and watched her
+for a while, then turned to the window.
+
+After a minute or two, finding that he did not speak, she too came to
+the window.  He bent and kissed her.
+
+For he had seen, on the patch of sea beyond the haven, a white frigate
+steal up Channel like a ghost.  She had passed out of his sight by this
+time, but he was still thinking of one man that she bore.
+
+
+
+THE HAUNTED DRAGOON.
+
+
+Beside the Plymouth road, as it plunges down-hill past Ruan Lanihale
+church towards Ruan Cove, and ten paces beyond the lych-gate--where the
+graves lie level with the coping, and the horseman can decipher their
+inscriptions in passing, at the risk of a twisted neck--the base of the
+churchyard wall is pierced with a low archway, festooned with toad-flax
+and fringed with the hart's-tongue fern.  Within the archway bubbles a
+well, the water of which was once used for all baptisms in the parish,
+for no child sprinkled with it could ever be hanged with hemp.  But this
+belief is discredited now, and the well neglected: and the events which
+led to this are still a winter's tale in the neighbourhood.  I set them
+down as they were told me, across the blue glow of a wreck-wood fire, by
+Sam Tregear, the parish bedman.  Sam himself had borne an inconspicuous
+share in them; and because of them Sam's father had carried a white face
+to his grave.
+
+
+My father and mother (said Sam) married late in life, for his trade was
+what mine is, and 'twasn't till her fortieth year that my mother could
+bring herself to kiss a gravedigger.  That accounts, maybe, for my being
+born rickety and with other drawbacks that only made father the fonder.
+Weather permitting, he'd carry me off to churchyard, set me upon a flat
+stone, with his coat folded under, and talk to me while he delved.
+I can mind, now, the way he'd settle lower and lower, till his head
+played hidey-peep with me over the grave's edge, and at last he'd be
+clean swallowed up, but still discoursing or calling up how he'd come
+upon wonderful towns and kingdoms down underground, and how all the
+kings and queens there, in dyed garments, was offering him meat for his
+dinner every day of the week if he'd only stop and hobbynob with them--
+and all such gammut.  He prettily doted on me--the poor old ancient!
+
+But there came a day--a dry afternoon in the late wheat harvest--when we
+were up in the churchyard together, and though father had his tools
+beside him, not a tint did he work, but kept travishing back and forth,
+one time shading his eyes and gazing out to sea, and then looking far
+along the Plymouth road for minutes at a time.  Out by Bradden Point
+there stood a little dandy-rigged craft, tacking lazily to and fro, with
+her mains'le all shiny-yellow in the sunset.  Though I didn't know it
+then, she was the Preventive boat, and her business was to watch the
+Hauen: for there had been a brush between her and the _Unity_ lugger, a
+fortnight back, and a Preventive man shot through the breast-bone, and
+my mother's brother Philip was hiding down in the town.  I minded,
+later, how that the men across the vale, in Farmer Tresidder's
+wheat-field, paused every now and then, as they pitched the sheaves, to
+give a look up towards the churchyard, and the gleaners moved about in
+small knots, causeying and glancing over their shoulders at the cutter
+out in the bay; and how, when all the field was carried, they waited
+round the last load, no man offering to cry the _Neck_, as the fashion
+was, but lingering till sun was near down behind the slope and the long
+shadows stretching across the stubble.
+
+"Sha'n't thee go underground to-day, father?" says I, at last.
+
+He turned slowly round, and says he, "No, sonny.  'Reckon us'll climb
+skywards for a change."
+
+And with that, he took my hand, and pushing abroad the belfry door began
+to climb the stairway.  Up and up, round and round we went, in a sort of
+blind-man's-holiday full of little glints of light and whiff's of wind
+where the open windows came; and at last stepped out upon the leads of
+the tower and drew breath.
+
+"There's two-an'-twenty parishes to be witnessed from where we're
+standin', sonny--if ye've got eyes," says my father.
+
+Well, first I looked down towards the harvesters and laughed to see them
+so small: and then I fell to counting the church-towers dotted across
+the high-lands, and seeing if I could make out two-and-twenty.
+'Twas the prettiest sight--all the country round looking as if 'twas
+dusted with gold, and the Plymouth road winding away over the hills like
+a long white tape.  I had counted thirteen churches, when my father
+pointed his hand out along this road and called to me--
+
+"Look'ee out yonder, honey, an' say what ye see!"
+
+"I see dust," says I.
+
+"Nothin' else?  Sonny boy, use your eyes, for mine be dim."
+
+"I see dust," says I again, "an' suthin' twinklin' in it, like a tin
+can--"
+
+"Dragooners!" shouts my father; and then, running to the side of the
+tower facing the harvest-field, he put both hands to his mouth and
+called:
+
+"_What have 'ee?  What have 'ee?_"--very loud and long.
+
+"_A neck--a neck!_" came back from the field, like as if all shouted at
+once--dear, the sweet sound!  And then a gun was fired, and craning
+forward over the coping I saw a dozen men running across the stubble and
+out into the road towards the Hauen; and they called as they ran, "_A
+neck--a neck!_"
+
+"Iss," says my father, "'tis a neck, sure 'nuff.  Pray God they save en!
+Come, sonny--"
+
+But we dallied up there till the horsemen were plain to see, and their
+scarlet coats and armour blazing in the dust as they came.  And when
+they drew near within a mile, and our limbs ached with crouching--for
+fear they should spy us against the sky--father took me by the hand and
+pulled hot foot down the stairs.  Before they rode by he had picked up
+his shovel and was shovelling out a grave for his life.
+
+Forty valiant horsemen they were, riding two-and-two (by reason of the
+narrowness of the road) and a captain beside them--men broad and long,
+with hairy top-lips, and all clad in scarlet jackets and white breeches
+that showed bravely against their black war-horses and jet-black
+holsters, thick as they were wi' dust.  Each man had a golden helmet,
+and a scabbard flapping by his side, and a piece of metal like a
+half-moon jingling from his horse's cheek-strap.  12 D was the numbering
+on every saddle, meaning the Twelfth Dragoons.
+
+Tramp, tramp! they rode by, talking and joking, and taking no more heed
+of me--that sat upon the wall with my heels dangling above them--than if
+I'd been a sprig of stonecrop.  But the captain, who carried a drawn
+sword and mopped his face with a handkerchief so that the dust ran
+across it in streaks, drew rein, and looked over my shoulder to where
+father was digging.
+
+"Sergeant!" he calls back, turning with a hand upon his crupper;
+"didn't we see a figger like this a-top o' the tower, some way back?"
+
+The sergeant pricked his horse forward and saluted.  He was the tallest,
+straightest man in the troop, and the muscles on his arm filled out his
+sleeve with the three stripes upon it--a handsome red-faced fellow, with
+curly black hair.
+
+Says he, "That we did, sir--a man with sloping shoulders and a boy with
+a goose neck."  Saying this, he looked up at me with a grin.
+
+"I'll bear it in mind," answered the officer, and the troop rode on in a
+cloud of dust, the sergeant looking back and smiling, as if 'twas a joke
+that he shared with us.  Well, to be short, they rode down into the town
+as night fell.  But 'twas too late, Uncle Philip having had fair warning
+and plenty of time to flee up towards the little secret hold under Mabel
+Down, where none but two families knew how to find him.  All the town,
+though, knew he was safe, and lashins of women and children turned out
+to see the comely soldiers hunt in vain till ten o'clock at night.
+
+The next thing was to billet the warriors.  The captain of the troop, by
+this, was pesky cross-tempered, and flounced off to the "Jolly
+Pilchards" in a huff.  "Sergeant," says he, "here's an inn, though a
+damned bad 'un, an' here I means to stop.  Somewheres about there's a
+farm called Constantine, where I'm told the men can be accommodated.
+Find out the place, if you can, an' do your best: an' don't let me see
+yer face till to-morra," says he.
+
+So Sergeant Basket--that was his name--gave the salute, and rode his
+troop up the street, where--for his manners were mighty winning,
+notwithstanding the dirty nature of his errand--he soon found plenty to
+direct him to Farmer Noy's, of Constantine; and up the coombe they rode
+into the darkness, a dozen or more going along with them to show the
+way, being won by their martial bearing as well as the sergeant's very
+friendly way of speech.
+
+Farmer Noy was in bed--a pock-marked, lantern-jawed old gaffer of
+sixty-five; and the most remarkable point about him was the wife he had
+married two years before--a young slip of a girl but just husband-high.
+Money did it, I reckon; but if so, 'twas a bad bargain for her.
+He was noted for stinginess to such a degree that they said his wife
+wore a brass wedding-ring, weekdays, to save the genuine article from
+wearing out.  She was a Ruan woman, too, and therefore ought to have
+known all about him.  But woman's ways be past finding out.
+
+Hearing the hoofs in his yard and the sergeant's _stram-a-ram_ upon the
+door, down comes the old curmudgeon with a candle held high above his
+head.
+
+"What the devil's here?" he calls out.  Sergeant Basket looks over the
+old man's shoulder; and there, halfway up the stairs, stood Madam Noy in
+her night rail--a high-coloured ripe girl, languishing for love, her red
+lips parted and neck all lily-white against a loosened pile of
+dark-brown hair.
+
+"Be cussed if I turn back!" said the sergeant to himself; and added out
+loud--
+
+"Forty souldjers, in the King's name!"
+
+"Forty devils!" says old Noy.
+
+"They're devils to eat," answered the sergeant, in the most friendly
+manner; "an', begad, ye must feed an' bed 'em this night--or else I'll
+search your cellars.  Ye are a loyal man--eh, farmer?  An' your cellars
+are big, I'm told."
+
+"Sarah," calls out the old man, following the sergeant's bold glance,
+"go back an' dress yersel' dacently this instant!  These here honest
+souldjers--forty damned honest gormandisin' souldjers--be come in his
+Majesty's name, forty strong, to protect honest folks' rights in the
+intervals of eatin' 'em out o' house an' home.  Sergeant, ye be very
+welcome i' the King's name.  Cheese an' cider ye shall have, an' I pray
+the mixture may turn your forty stomachs."
+
+In a dozen minutes he had fetched out his stable-boys and farm-hands,
+and, lantern in hand, was helping the sergeant to picket the horses and
+stow the men about on clean straw in the outhouses.  They were turning
+back to the house, and the old man was turning over in his mind that the
+sergeant hadn't yet said a word about where he was to sleep, when by the
+door they found Madam Noy waiting, in her wedding gown, and with her
+hair freshly braided.
+
+Now, the farmer was mortally afraid of the sergeant, knowing he had
+thirty ankers and more of contraband liquor in his cellars, and minding
+the sergeant's threat.  None the less his jealousy got the upper hand.
+
+"Woman," he cries out, "to thy bed!"
+
+"I was waiting," said she, "to say the Cap'n's bed--"
+
+"Sergeant's," says the dragoon, correcting her.
+
+"--Was laid i' the spare room."
+
+"Madam," replies Sergeant Basket, looking into her eyes and bowing,
+"a soldier with my responsibility sleeps but little.  In the first
+place, I must see that my men sup."
+
+"The maids be now cuttin' the bread an' cheese and drawin' the cider."
+
+"Then, Madam, leave me but possession of the parlour, and let me have a
+chair to sleep in."
+
+By this they were in the passage together, and her gaze devouring his
+regimentals.  The old man stood a pace off, looking sourly.
+The sergeant fed his eyes upon her, and Satan got hold of him.
+
+"Now if only," said he, "one of you could play cards!"
+
+"But I must go to bed," she answered; "though I can play cribbage, if
+only you stay another night."
+
+For she saw the glint in the farmer's eye; and so Sergeant Basket slept
+bolt upright that night in an arm-chair by the parlour fender.  Next day
+the dragooners searched the town again, and were billeted all about
+among the cottages.  But the sergeant returned to Constantine, and
+before going to bed--this time in the spare room--played a game of
+cribbage with Madam Noy, the farmer smoking sulkily in his arm-chair.
+
+"Two for his heels!" said the rosy woman suddenly, halfway through the
+game.  "Sergeant, you're cheatin' yoursel' an' forgettin' to mark.
+Gi'e me the board; I'll mark for both."
+
+She put out her hand upon the board, and Sergeant Basket's closed upon
+it.  'Tis true he had forgot to mark; and feeling the hot pulse in her
+wrist, and beholding the hunger in her eyes, 'tis to be supposed he'd
+have forgot his own soul.
+
+He rode away next day with his troop: but my uncle Philip not being
+caught yet, and the Government set on making an example of him, we
+hadn't seen the last of these dragoons.  'Twas a time of fear down in
+the town.  At dead of night or at noonday they came on us--six times in
+all: and for two months the crew of the _Unity_ couldn't call their
+souls their own, but lived from day to day in secret closets and
+wandered the country by night, hiding in hedges and straw-houses.
+All that time the revenue men watched the Hauen, night and day, like
+dogs before a rat-hole.
+
+But one November morning 'twas whispered abroad that Uncle Philip had
+made his way to Falmouth, and slipped across to Guernsey.  Time passed
+on, and the dragooners were seen no more, nor the handsome
+devil-may-care face of Sergeant Basket.  Up at Constantine, where he had
+always contrived to billet himself, 'tis to be thought pretty Madam Noy
+pined to see him again, kicking his spurs in the porch and smiling out
+of his gay brown eyes; for her face fell away from its plump condition,
+and the hunger in her eyes grew and grew.  But a more remarkable fact
+was that her old husband--who wouldn't have yearned after the dragoon,
+ye'd have thought--began to dwindle and fall away too.  By the New Year
+he was a dying man, and carried his doom on his face.  And on New Year's
+Day he straddled his mare for the last time, and rode over to Looe, to
+Doctor Gale's.
+
+"Goody-losh!" cried the doctor, taken aback by his appearance--
+"What's come to ye, Noy?"
+
+"Death!" says Noy.  "Doctor, I hain't come for advice, for before this
+day week I'll be a clay-cold corpse.  I come to ax a favour.  When they
+summon ye, before lookin' at my body--that'll be past help--go you to
+the little left-top corner drawer o' my wife's bureau, an' there ye'll
+find a packet.  You're my executor," says he, "and I leaves ye to deal
+wi' that packet as ye thinks fit."
+
+With that, the farmer rode away home-along, and the very day week he
+went dead.
+
+The doctor, when called over, minded what the old chap had said, and
+sending Madam Noy on some pretence to the kitchen, went over and
+unlocked the little drawer with a duplicate key, that the farmer had
+unhitched from his watch-chain and given him.  There was no parcel of
+letters, as he looked to find, but only a small packet crumpled away in
+the corner.  He pulled it out and gave a look, and a sniff, and another
+look: then shut the drawer, locked it, strode straight down-stairs to
+his horse and galloped away.
+
+In three hours' time, pretty Madam Noy was in the constables' hands upon
+the charge of murdering her husband by poison.
+
+They tried her, next Spring Assize, at Bodmin, before the Lord Chief
+Justice.  There wasn't evidence enough to put Sergeant Basket in the
+dock alongside of her--though 'twas freely guessed he knew more than
+anyone (saving the prisoner herself) about the arsenic that was found in
+the little drawer and inside the old man's body.  He was subpoena'd from
+Plymouth, and cross-examined by a great hulking King's Counsel for
+three-quarters of an hour.  But they got nothing out of him.
+All through the examination the prisoner looked at him and nodded her
+white face, every now and then, at his answers, as much as to say,
+"That's right--that's right: they shan't harm thee, my dear."  And the
+love-light shone in her eyes for all the court to see.  But the sergeant
+never let his look meet it.  When he stepped down at last she gave a sob
+of joy, and fainted bang-off.
+
+They roused her up, after this, to hear the verdict of _Guilty_ and her
+doom spoken by the judge.  "Pris'ner at the bar," said the Clerk of
+Arraigns, "have ye anything to say why this court should not pass
+sentence o' death?"
+
+She held tight of the rail before her, and spoke out loud and clear--
+
+"My Lord and gentlemen all, I be a guilty woman; an' I be ready to die
+at once for my sin.  But if ye kill me now, ye kill the child in my
+body--an' he is innocent."
+
+Well, 'twas found she spoke truth; and the hanging was put off till
+after the time of her delivery.  She was led back to prison, and there,
+about the end of June, her child was born, and died before he was six
+hours old.  But the mother recovered, and quietly abode the time of her
+hanging.
+
+
+I can mind her execution very well; for father and mother had determined
+it would be an excellent thing for my rickets to take me into Bodmin
+that day, and get a touch of the dead woman's hand, which in those times
+was considered an unfailing remedy.  So we borrowed the parson's
+manure-cart, and cleaned it thoroughly, and drove in together.
+
+The place of the hangings, then, was a little door in the prison-wall,
+looking over the bank where the railway now goes, and a dismal piece of
+water called Jail-pool, where the townsfolk drowned most of the dogs and
+cats they'd no further use for.  All the bank under the gallows was that
+thick with people you could almost walk upon their heads; and my ribs
+were squeezed by the crowd so that I couldn't breathe freely for a month
+after.  Back across the pool, the fields along the side of the valley
+were lined with booths and sweet-stalls and standings--a perfect
+Whitsun-fair; and a din going up that cracked your ears.
+
+But there was the stillness of death when the woman came forth, with the
+sheriff and the chaplain reading in his book, and the unnamed man
+behind--all from the little door.  She wore a strait black gown, and a
+white kerchief about her neck--a lovely woman, young and white and
+tearless.
+
+She ran her eye over the crowd and stepped forward a pace, as if to
+speak; but lifted a finger and beckoned instead: and out of the people a
+man fought his way to the foot of the scaffold.  'Twas the dashing
+sergeant, that was here upon sick-leave.  Sick he was, I believe.
+His face above his shining regimentals was grey as a slate; for he had
+committed perjury to save his skin, and on the face of the perjured no
+sun will ever shine.
+
+"Have you got it?" the doomed woman said, many hearing the words.
+
+He tried to reach, but the scaffold was too high, so he tossed up what
+was in his hand, and the woman caught it--a little screw of
+tissue-paper.
+
+"I must see that, please!" said the sheriff, laying a hand upon her arm.
+
+"'Tis but a weddin'-ring, sir"--and she slipped it over her finger.
+Then she kissed it once, under the beam, and, lookin' into the dragoon's
+eyes, spoke very slow--
+
+"_Husband, our child shall go wi' you; an' when I want you he shall
+fetch you._"
+
+--and with that turned to the sheriff, saying:
+
+"I be ready, sir."
+
+
+The sheriff wouldn't give father and mother leave for me to touch the
+dead woman's hand; so they drove back that evening grumbling a good bit.
+'Tis a sixteen-mile drive, and the ostler in at Bodmin had swindled the
+poor old horse out of his feed, I believe; for he crawled like a slug.
+But they were so taken up with discussing the day's doings, and what a
+mort of people had been present, and how the sheriff might have used
+milder language in refusing my father, that they forgot to use the whip.
+The moon was up before we got halfway home, and a star to be seen here
+and there; and still we never mended our pace.
+
+'Twas in the middle of the lane leading down to Hendra Bottom, where for
+more than a mile two carts can't pass each other, that my father pricks
+up his ears and looks back.
+
+"Hullo!" says he; "there's somebody gallopin' behind us."
+
+Far back in the night we heard the noise of a horse's hoofs, pounding
+furiously on the road and drawing nearer and nearer.
+
+"Save us!" cries father; "whoever 'tis, he's comin' down th' lane!"
+And in a minute's time the clatter was close on us and someone shouting
+behind.
+
+"Hurry that crawlin' worm o' yourn--or draw aside in God's name, an' let
+me by!" the rider yelled.
+
+"What's up?" asked my father, quartering as well as he could.
+"Why!  Hullo!  Farmer Hugo, be that you?"
+
+"There's a mad devil o' a man behind, ridin' down all he comes across.
+A's blazin' drunk, I reckon--but 'tisn' _that_--'tis the horrible voice
+that goes wi' en--Hark!  Lord protect us, he's turn'd into the lane!"
+
+Sure enough, the clatter of a second horse was coming down upon us, out
+of the night--and with it the most ghastly sounds that ever creamed a
+man's flesh.  Farmer Hugo pushed past us and sent a shower of mud in our
+faces as his horse leapt off again, and 'way-to-go down the hill.  My
+father stood up and lashed our old grey with the reins, and down we went
+too, bumpity-bump for our lives, the poor beast being taken suddenly
+like one possessed.  For the screaming behind was like nothing on earth
+but the wailing and sobbing of a little child--only tenfold louder.
+'Twas just as you'd fancy a baby might wail if his little limbs was
+being twisted to death.
+
+At the hill's foot, as you know, a stream crosses the lane--that widens
+out there a bit, and narrows again as it goes up t'other side of the
+valley.  Knowing we must be overtaken further on--for the screams and
+clatter seemed at our very backs by this--father jumped out here into
+the stream and backed the cart well to one side; and not a second too
+soon.
+
+The next moment, like a wind, this thing went by us in the moonlight--
+a man upon a black horse that splashed the stream all over us as he
+dashed through it and up the hill.  'Twas the scarlet dragoon with his
+ashen face; and behind him, holding to his cross-belt, rode a little
+shape that tugged and wailed and raved.  As I stand here, sir, 'twas the
+shape of a naked babe!
+
+
+Well, I won't go on to tell how my father dropped upon his knees in the
+water, or how my mother fainted off.  The thing was gone, and from that
+moment for eight years nothing was seen or heard of Sergeant Basket.
+The fright killed my mother.  Before next spring she fell into a
+decline, and early next fall the old man--for he was an old man now--had
+to delve her grave.  After this he went feebly about his work, but held
+on, being wishful for me to step into his shoon, which I began to do as
+soon as I was fourteen, having outgrown the rickets by that time.
+
+
+But one cool evening in September month, father was up digging in the
+yard alone: for 'twas a small child's grave, and in the loosest soil,
+and I was off on a day's work, thatching Farmer Tresidder's stacks.
+He was digging away slowly when he heard a rattle at the lych-gate, and
+looking over the edge of the grave, saw in the dusk a man hitching his
+horse there by the bridle.
+
+'Twas a coal-black horse, and the man wore a scarlet coat all powdered
+with pilm; and as he opened the gate and came over the graves, father
+saw that 'twas the dashing dragoon.  His face was still a slaty-grey,
+and clammy with sweat; and when he spoke, his voice was all of a
+whisper, with a shiver therein.
+
+"Bedman," says he, "go to the hedge and look down the road, and tell me
+what you see."
+
+My father went, with his knees shaking, and came back again.
+
+"I see a woman," says he, "not fifty yards down the road.  She is
+dressed in black, an' has a veil over her face; an' she's comin' this
+way."
+
+"Bedman," answers the dragoon, "go to the gate an' look back along the
+Plymouth road, an' tell me what you see."
+
+"I see," says my father, coming back with his teeth chattering, "I see,
+twenty yards back, a naked child comin'.  He looks to be callin', but he
+makes no sound."
+
+"Because his voice is wearied out," says the dragoon.  And with that he
+faced about, and walked to the gate slowly.
+
+"Bedman, come wi' me an' see the rest," he says, over his shoulder.
+
+He opened the gate, unhitched the bridle and swung himself heavily up in
+the saddle.
+
+Now from the gate the bank goes down pretty steep into the road, and at
+the foot of the bank my father saw two figures waiting.  'Twas the woman
+and the child, hand in hand; and their eyes burned up like coals: and
+the woman's veil was lifted, and her throat bare.
+
+As the horse went down the bank towards these two, they reached out and
+took each a stirrup and climbed upon his back, the child before the
+dragoon and the woman behind.  The man's face was set like a stone.
+Not a word did either speak, and in this fashion they rode down the hill
+towards Ruan sands.  All that my father could mind, beyond, was that the
+woman's hands were passed round the man's neck, where the rope had
+passed round her own.
+
+No more could he tell, being a stricken man from that hour.  But Aunt
+Polgrain, the house-keeper up to Constantine, saw them, an hour later,
+go along the road below the town-place; and Jacobs, the smith, saw them
+pass his forge towards Bodmin about midnight.  So the tale's true
+enough.  But since that night no man has set eyes on horse or riders.
+
+
+
+A BLUE PANTOMIME.
+
+
+I.
+
+
+HOW I DINED AT THE "INDIAN QUEENS."
+
+The sensation was odd; for I could have made affidavit I had never
+visited the place in my life, nor come within fifty miles of it.
+Yet every furlong of the drive was earmarked for me, as it were, by some
+detail perfectly familiar.  The high-road ran straight ahead to a notch
+in the long chine of Huel Tor; and this notch was filled with the yellow
+ball of the westering sun.  Whenever I turned my head and blinked, red
+simulacra of this ball hopped up and down over the brown moors.  Miles
+of wasteland, dotted with peat-ricks and cropping ponies, stretched to
+the northern horizon: on our left three long coombes radiated seaward,
+and in the gorge of the midmost was a building stuck like a fish-bone,
+its twisted Jacobean chimneys overtopping a plantation of ash-trees that
+now, in November, allowed a glimpse, and no more, of the grey facade.  I
+had looked down that coombe as we drove by; and catching sight of these
+chimneys felt something like reassurance, as if I had been counting, all
+the way, to find them there.
+
+But here let me explain who I am and what brought me to these parts.
+My name is Samuel Wraxall--the Reverend Samuel Wraxall, to be precise:
+I was born a Cockney and educated at Rugby and Oxford.  On leaving the
+University I had taken orders; but, for reasons impertinent to this
+narrative, was led, after five years of parochial work in Surrey, to
+accept an Inspectorship of Schools.  Just now I was bound for Pitt's
+Scawens, a desolate village among the Cornish clay-moors, there to
+examine and report upon the Board School.  Pitt's Scawens lies some nine
+miles off the railway, and six from the nearest market-town;
+consequently, on hearing there was a comfortable inn near the village, I
+had determined to make that my resting-place for the night and do my
+business early on the morrow.
+
+"Who lives down yonder?" I asked my driver.
+
+"Squire Parkyn," he answered, not troubling to follow my gaze.
+
+"Old family?"
+
+"May be: Belonged to these parts before I can mind."
+
+"What's the place called?"
+
+"Tremenhuel."
+
+I had certainly never heard the name before, nevertheless my lips were
+forming the syllables almost before he spoke.  As he flicked up his grey
+horse and the gig began to oscillate in more business-like fashion, I
+put him a fourth question--a question at once involuntary and absurd.
+
+"Are you sure the people who live there are called Parkyn?"
+
+He turned his head at this, and treated me quite excusably to a stare of
+amazement.
+
+"Well--considerin' I've lived in these parts five-an'-forty year, man
+and boy, I reckon I _ought_ to be sure."
+
+The reproof was just, and I apologised.  Nevertheless Parkyn was not the
+name I wanted.  What was the name?  And why did I want it?  I had not
+the least idea.  For the next mile I continued to hunt my brain for the
+right combination of syllables.  I only knew that somewhere, now at the
+back of my head, now on my tongue-tip, there hung a word I desired to
+utter, but could not.  I was still searching for it when the gig climbed
+over the summit of a gentle rise, and the "Indian Queens" hove in sight.
+
+It is not usual for a village to lie a full mile beyond its inn: yet I
+never doubted this must be the case with Pitt's Scawens.  Nor was I in
+the least surprised by the appearance of this lonely tavern, with the
+black peat-pool behind it and the high-road in front, along which its
+end windows stare for miles, as if on the look-out for the ghosts of
+departed coaches full of disembodied travellers for the Land's End.
+I knew the sign-board over the porch: I knew--though now in the twilight
+it was impossible to distinguish colours--that upon either side of it
+was painted an Indian Queen in a scarlet turban and blue robe, taking
+two black children with scarlet parasols to see a blue palm-tree.
+I recognised the hepping-stock and granite drinking-trough beside the
+porch; as well as the eight front windows, four on either side of the
+door, and the dummy window immediately over it.  Only the landlord was
+unfamiliar.  He appeared as the gig drew up--a loose-fleshed, heavy man,
+something over six feet in height--and welcomed me with an air of
+anxious hospitality, as if I were the first guest he had entertained for
+many years.
+
+"You received my letter, then?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, surely.  The Rev. S. Wraxall, I suppose.  Your bed's aired, sir,
+and a fire in the Blue Room, and the cloth laid.  My wife didn't like to
+risk cooking the fowl till you were really come.  'Railways be that
+uncertain,' she said.  'Something may happen to the train and he'll be
+done to death and all in pieces.'"
+
+It took me a couple of seconds to discover that these gloomy
+anticipations referred not to me but to the fowl.
+
+"But if you can wait half an hour--" he went on.
+
+"Certainly," said I.  "In the meanwhile, if you'll show me up to my
+bedroom, I'll have a wash and change my clothes, for I've been
+travelling since ten this morning."
+
+I was standing in the passage by this time, and examined it in the dusk
+while the landlord was fetching a candle.  Yes, again: I had felt sure
+the staircase lay to the right.  I knew by heart the Ionic pattern of
+its broad balusters; the tick of the tall clock, standing at the first
+turn of the stairs; the vista down the glazed door opening on the
+stable-yard.  When the landlord returned with my portmanteau and a
+candle and I followed him up-stairs, I was asking myself for the
+twentieth time--'When--in what stage of my soul's history--had I been
+doing all this before?  And what on earth was that tune that kept
+humming in my head?'
+
+I dismissed these speculations as I entered the bedroom and began to
+fling off my dusty clothes.  I had almost forgotten about them by the
+time I began to wash away my travel-stains, and rinse the coal-dust out
+of my hair.  My spirits revived, and I began mentally to arrange my
+plans for the next day.  The prospect of dinner, too, after my cold
+drive was wonderfully comforting.  Perhaps (thought I), there is good
+wine in this inn; it is just the house wherein travellers find, or boast
+that they find, forgotten bins of Burgundy or Teneriffe.  When my
+landlord returned to conduct me to the Blue Room, I followed him down to
+the first landing in the lightest of spirits.
+
+Therefore, I was startled when, as the landlord threw open the door and
+stood aside to let me pass, _it_ came upon me again--and this time not
+as a merely vague sensation, but as a sharp and sudden fear taking me
+like a cold hand by the throat.  I shivered as I crossed the threshold
+and began to look about me.  The landlord observed it, and said--
+
+"It's chilly weather for travelling, to be sure.  Maybe you'd be better
+down-stairs in the coffee-room, after all."
+
+I felt that this was probable enough.  But it seemed a pity to have put
+him to the pains of lighting this fire for nothing.  So I promised him I
+should be comfortable enough.
+
+He appeared to be relieved, and asked me what I would drink with my
+dinner.  "There's beer--I brew it myself; and sherry--"
+
+I said I would try his beer.
+
+"And a bottle of sound port to follow?"
+
+Port upon home-brewed beer!  But I had dared it often enough in my
+Oxford days, and a long evening lay before me, with a snug armchair, and
+a fire fit to roast a sheep.  I assented.
+
+He withdrew to fetch up the meal, and I looked about me with curiosity.
+The room was a long one--perhaps fifty feet from end to end, and not
+less than ten paces broad.  It was wainscotted to the height of four
+feet from the ground, probably with oak, but the wood had been so larded
+with dark blue paint that its texture could not be discovered.
+Above this wainscot the walls were covered with a fascinating paper.
+The background of this was a greenish-blue, and upon it a party of
+red-coated riders in three-cornered hats blew large horns while they
+hunted a stag.  This pattern, striking enough in itself, became
+immeasurably more so when repeated a dozen times; for the stag of one
+hunt chased the riders of the next, and the riders chased the hounds,
+and so on in an unbroken procession right round the room.  The window at
+the bottom of the room stood high in the wall, with short blue curtains
+and a blue-cushioned seat beneath.  In the corner to the right of it
+stood a tall clock, and by the clock an old spinet, decorated with two
+plated cruets, a toy cottage constructed of shells and gum, and an
+ormolu clock under glass--the sort of ornament that an Agricultural
+Society presents to the tenant of the best-cultivated farm within thirty
+miles of somewhere or other.  The floor was un-carpeted save for one
+small oasis opposite the fire.  Here stood my table, cleanly spread,
+with two plated candlesticks, each holding three candles.  Along the
+wainscot extended a regiment of dark, leather-cushioned chairs, so
+straight in the back that they seemed to be standing at attention.
+There was but one easy-chair in the room, and this was drawn close to
+the fire.  I turned towards it.
+
+As I sat down I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror above the
+fireplace.  It was an unflattering glass, with a wave across the surface
+that divided my face into two ill-fitting halves, and a film upon it,
+due, I suppose, to the smoke of the wood-fire below.  But the setting of
+this mirror and the fireplace itself were by far the most noteworthy
+objects in the whole room.  I set myself idly to examine them.
+
+It was an open hearth, and the blazing faggot lay on the stone itself.
+The andirons were of indifferently polished steel, and on either side of
+the fireplace two Ionic pilasters of dark oak supported a narrow
+mantel-ledge.  Above this rested the mirror, flanked by a couple of
+naked, flat-cheeked boys, who appeared to be lowering it over the fire
+by a complicated system of pulleys, festoons, and flowers.
+These flowers and festoons, as well as the frame of the mirror, were of
+some light wood--lime, I fancy--and reminded me of Grinling Gibbons'
+work; and the glass tilted forward at a surprising angle, as if about to
+tumble on the hearth-rug.  The carving was exceedingly delicate.
+I rose to examine it more narrowly.  As I did so, my eyes fell on three
+letters, cut in flowing italic capitals upon a plain boss of wood
+immediately over the frame, and I spelt out the word _FVI_.
+
+_Fui_--the word was simple enough; but what of its associations?
+Why should it begin to stir up again those memories which were memories
+of nothing?  _Fui_--"I have been"; but what the dickens have I been?
+
+The landlord came in with my dinner.
+
+"Ah!" said he, "you're looking at our masterpiece, I see."
+
+"Tell me," I asked; "do you know why this word is written here, over the
+mirror?"
+
+"I've heard my wife say, sir, it was the motto of the Cardinnocks that
+used to own this house.  Ralph Cardinnock, father to the last squire,
+built it.  You'll see his initials up there, in the top corners of the
+frame--R. C.--one letter in each corner."
+
+As he spoke it, I knew this name--Cardinnock--for that which had been
+haunting me.  I seated myself at table, saying--
+
+"They lived at Tremenhuel, I suppose.  Is the family gone?--died out?"
+
+"Why yes; and the way of it was a bit curious, too."
+
+"You might sit down and tell me about it," I said, "while I begin my
+dinner."
+
+"There's not much to tell," he answered, taking a chair; "and I'm not
+the man to tell it properly.  My wife is a better hand at it, but"--
+here he looked at me doubtfully--"it always makes her cry."
+
+"Then I'd rather hear it from you.  How did Tremenhuel come into the
+hands of the Parkyns?--that's the present owner's name, is it not?"
+
+The landlord nodded.  "The answer to that is part of the story.
+Old Parkyn, great-great-grandfather to the one that lives there now,
+took Tremenhuel on lease from the last Cardinnock--Squire Philip
+Cardinnock, as he was called.  Squire Philip came into the property when
+he was twenty-three: and before he reached twenty-seven, he was forced
+to let the old place.  He was wild, they say--thundering wild; a
+drinking, dicing, cock-fighting, horse-racing young man; poured out his
+money like water through a sieve.  That was bad enough: but when it came
+to carrying off a young lady and putting a sword through her father and
+running the country, I put it to you it's worse."
+
+"Did he disappear?"
+
+"That's part of the story, too.  When matters got desperate and he was
+forced to let Tremenhuel, he took what money he could raise and cleared
+out of the neighbourhood for a time; went off to Tregarrick when the
+militia was embodied, he being an officer; and there he cast his
+affections upon old Sir Felix Williams's daughter.  Miss Cicely--"
+
+I was expecting it: nevertheless I dropped my fork clumsily as I heard
+the name, and for a few seconds the landlord's voice sounded like that
+of a distant river as it ran on--
+
+"And as Sir Felix wouldn't consent--for which nobody blamed him--
+Squire Philip and Miss Cicely agreed to go off together one dark night.
+But the old man found them out and stopped them in the nick of time and
+got six inches of cold steel for his pains.  However, he kept his girl,
+and Squire Philip had to fly the country.  He went off that same night,
+they say: and wherever he went, he never came back."
+
+"What became of him?"
+
+"Ne'er a soul knows; for ne'er a soul saw his face again.  Year after
+year, old Parkyn, his tenant, took the rent of Tremenhuel out of his
+right pocket and paid it into his left: and in time, there being no
+heir, he just took over the property and stepped into Cardinnock's shoes
+with a 'by your leave' to nobody, and there his grandson is to this
+day."
+
+"What became of the young lady--of Miss Cicely Williams?" I asked.
+
+"Died an old maid.  There was something curious between her and her only
+brother who had helped to stop the runaway match.  Nobody knows what it
+was: but when Sir Felix died--as he did about ten years after--
+she packed up and went somewhere to the North of England and settled.
+They say she and her brother never spoke: which was carrying her anger
+at his interference rather far, 'specially as she remained good friends
+with her father."
+
+He broke off here to fetch up the second course.  We talked no more, for
+I was pondering his tale and disinclined to be diverted to other topics.
+Nor can I tell whether the rest of the meal was good or ill.  I suppose
+I ate: but it was only when the landlord swept the cloth, and produced a
+bottle of port, with a plate of biscuits and another of dried raisins,
+that I woke out of my musing.  While I drew the arm-chair nearer the
+fire, he pushed forward the table with the wine to my elbow.
+After this, he poured me out a glass and fell to dusting a high-backed
+chair with vigour, as though he had caught it standing at ease and were
+giving it a round dozen for insubordination in the ranks.  "Was there
+anything more?"  "Nothing, thank you."  He withdrew.
+
+I drank a couple of glasses and began meditatively to light my pipe.
+I was trying to piece together these words  "Philip Cardinnock--
+Cicely Williams--_fui_," and to fit them into the tune that kept running
+in my head.
+
+My pipe went out.  I pulled out my pouch and was filling it afresh when
+a puff of wind came down the chimney and blew a cloud of blue smoke out
+into the room.
+
+The smoke curled up and spread itself over the face of the mirror
+confronting me.  I followed it lazily with my eyes.  Then suddenly I
+bent forward, staring up.  Something very curious was happening to the
+glass.
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+WHAT I SAW IN THE MIRROR.
+
+The smoke that had dimmed the mirror's face for a moment was rolling off
+its surface and upwards to the ceiling.  But some of it still lingered
+in filmy, slowly revolving eddies.  The glass itself, too, was stirring
+beneath this film and running across its breadth in horizontal waves
+which broke themselves silently, one after another, against the dark
+frame, while the circles of smoke kept widening, as the ripples widen
+when a stone is tossed into still water.
+
+I rubbed my eyes.  The motion on the mirror's surface was quickening
+perceptibly, while the glass itself was steadily becoming more opaque,
+the film deepening to a milky colour and lying over the surface in heavy
+folds.  I was about to start up and touch the glass with my hand, when
+beneath this milky colour and from the heart of the whirling film, there
+began to gleam an underlying brilliance after the fashion of the light
+in an opal, but with this difference, that the light here was blue--
+a steel blue so vivid that the pain of it forced me to shut my eyes.
+When I opened them again, this light had increased in intensity.
+The disturbance in the glass began to abate; the eddies revolved more
+slowly; the smoke-wreaths faded: and as they died wholly out, the blue
+light went out on a sudden and the mirror looked down upon me as before.
+
+That is to say, I thought so for a moment.  But the next, I found that
+though its face reflected the room in which I sat, there was one
+omission.
+
+_I_ was that omission.  My arm-chair was there, but no one sat in it.
+
+I was surprised; but, as well as I can recollect, not in the least
+frightened.  I continued, at any rate, to gaze steadily into the glass,
+and now took note of two particulars that had escaped me.  The table I
+saw was laid for two.  Forks, knives and glasses gleamed at either end,
+and a couple of decanters caught the sparkle of the candles in the
+centre.  This was my first observation.  The second was that the colours
+of the hearth-rug had gained in freshness, and that a dark spot just
+beyond it--a spot which in my first exploration I had half-amusedly
+taken for a blood-stain--was not reflected in the glass.
+
+As I leant back and gazed, with my hands in my lap, I remember there was
+some difficulty in determining whether the tune by which I was still
+haunted ran in my head or was tinkling from within the old spinet by the
+window.  But after a while the music, whencesoever it came, faded away
+and ceased.  A dead silence held everything for about thirty seconds.
+
+And then, still looking in the mirror, I saw the door behind me open
+slowly.
+
+The next moment, two persons noiselessly entered the room--a young man
+and a girl.  They wore the dress of the early Georgian days, as well as
+I could see; for the girl was wrapped in a cloak with a hood that almost
+concealed her face, while the man wore a heavy riding-coat.  He was
+booted and spurred, and the backs of his top-boots were splashed with
+mud.  I say the backs of his boots, for he stood with his back to me
+while he held open the door for the girl to pass, and at first I could
+not see his face.
+
+The lady advanced into the light of the candles and threw back her hood.
+Her eyes were dark and frightened: her cheeks damp with rain and
+slightly reddened by the wind.  A curl of brown hair had broken loose
+from its knot and hung, heavy with wet, across her brow.  It was a
+beautiful face; and I recognised its owner.  She was Cicely Williams.
+
+With that, I knew well enough what I was to see next.  I knew it even
+while the man at the door was turning, and I dug the nails of my right
+hand into the palm of my left, to repress the fear that swelled up as a
+wave as I looked straight into his face and saw--_my own self_.
+
+But I had expected it, as I say: and when the wave of fear had passed
+over me and gone, I could observe these two figures steadfastly enough.
+The girl dropped into a chair beside the table, and stretching her arms
+along the white cloth, bowed her head over them and wept.  I saw her
+shoulders heave and her twined fingers work as she struggled with her
+grief.  The young Squire advanced and, with a hand on her shoulder,
+endeavoured by many endearments to comfort her.  His lips moved
+vehemently, and gradually her shoulders ceased to rise and fall.
+By-and-by she raised her head and looked up into his face with wet,
+gleaming eyes.  It was very pitiful to see.  The young man took her face
+between his hands, kissed it, and pouring out a glass of wine, held it
+to her lips.  She put it aside with her hand and glanced up towards the
+tall clock in the corner.  My eyes, following hers, saw that the hands
+pointed to a quarter to twelve.
+
+The young Squire set down the glass hastily, stepped to the window and,
+drawing aside the blue curtain, gazed out upon the night.  Twice he
+looked back at Cicely, over his shoulder, and after a minute returned to
+the table.  He drained the glass which the girl had declined, poured out
+another, still keeping his eyes on her, and began to walk impatiently up
+and down the room.  And all the time Cicely's soft eyes never ceased to
+follow him.  Clearly there was need for hurry, for they had not laid
+aside their travelling-cloaks, and once or twice the young man paused in
+his walk to listen.  At length he pulled out his watch, glanced from it
+to the clock in the corner, put it away with a frown and, striding up to
+the hearth, flung himself down in the arm-chair--the very arm-chair in
+which I was seated.
+
+As he sat there, tapping the hearth-rug with the toe of his thick
+riding-boot and moving his lips now and then in answer to some
+question from the young girl, I had time to examine his every feature.
+Line by line they reproduced my own--nay, looking straight into his eyes
+I could see through them into the soul of him and recognised that soul
+for my own.  Of all the passions there I knew that myself contained the
+germs.  Vices repressed in youth, tendencies to sin starved in my own
+nature by lack of opportunity--these flourished in a rank growth.
+I saw virtues, too, that I had once possessed but had lost by degrees in
+my respectable journey through life--courage, generosity, tenderness of
+heart.  I was discovering these with envy, one by one, when he raised
+his head higher and listened for a moment, with a hand on either arm of
+the chair.
+
+The next instant he sprang up and faced the door.  Glancing at Cicely, I
+saw her cowering down in her chair.
+
+The young Squire had hardly gained his feet when the door flew open and
+the figures of two men appeared on the threshold--Sir Felix Williams and
+his only son, the father and brother of Cicely.
+
+There, in the doorway, the intruders halted; but for an instant only.
+Almost before the Squire could draw, his sweetheart's brother had sprung
+forward.  Like two serpents their rapiers engaged in the candle-light.
+The soundless blades crossed and glittered.  Then one of them flickered
+in a narrow circle, and the brother's rapier went spinning from his hand
+across the room.
+
+Young Cardinnock lowered his point at once, and his adversary stepped
+back a couple of paces.  While a man might count twenty the pair looked
+each other in the face, and then the old man, Sir Felix, stepped slowly
+forward.
+
+But before he could thrust--for the young Squire still kept his point
+lowered--Cicely sprang forward and threw herself across her lover's
+breast.  There, for all the gentle efforts his left hand made to
+disengage her, she clung.  She had made her choice.  There was no sign
+of faltering in her soft eyes, and her father had perforce to hold his
+hand.
+
+The old man began to speak.  I saw his face distorted with passion and
+his lips working.  I saw the deep red gather on Cicely's cheeks and the
+anger in her lover's eyes.  There was a pause as Sir Felix ceased to
+speak, and then the young Squire replied.  But his sentence stopped
+midway: for once more the old man rushed upon him.
+
+This time young Cardinnock's rapier was raised.  Girdling Cicely with
+his left arm he parried her father's lunge and smote his blade aside.
+But such was the old man's passion that he followed the lunge with all
+his body, and before his opponent could prevent it, was wounded high in
+the chest, beneath the collar-bone.
+
+He reeled back and fell against the table.  Cicely ran forward and
+caught his hand; but he pushed her away savagely and, with another
+clutch at the table's edge, dropped upon the hearth-rug.  The young man,
+meanwhile, white and aghast, rushed to the table, filled a glass with
+wine, and held it to the lips of the wounded man.  So the two lovers
+knelt.
+
+It was at this point that I who sat and witnessed the tragedy was
+assailed by a horror entirely new.  Hitherto I had, indeed, seen myself
+in Squire Philip Cardinnock; but now I began also to possess his soul
+and feel with his feelings, while at the same time I continued to sit
+before the glass, a helpless onlooker.  I was two men at once; the man
+who knelt all unaware of what was coming and the man who waited in the
+arm-chair, incapable of word or movement, yet gifted with a torturing
+prescience.  And as I sat this was what I saw:--
+
+The brother, as I knelt there oblivious of all but the wounded man,
+stepped across the room to the corner where his rapier lay, picked it up
+softly and as softly stole up behind me.  I tried to shout, to warn
+myself; but my tongue was tied.  The brother's arm was lifted.  The
+candlelight ran along the blade.  Still the kneeling figure never
+turned.
+
+And as my heart stiffened and awaited it, there came a flash of pain--
+one red-hot stroke of anguish.
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+WHAT I SAW IN THE TARN.
+
+As the steel entered my back, cutting all the cords that bound me to
+life, I suffered anguish too exquisite for words to reach, too deep for
+memory to dive after.  My eyes closed and teeth shut on the taste of
+death; and as they shut a merciful oblivion wrapped me round.
+
+When I awoke, the room was dark, and I was standing on my feet.  A cold
+wind was blowing on my face, as from an open door.  I staggered to meet
+this wind and found myself groping along a passage and down a staircase
+filled with Egyptian darkness.  Then the wind increased suddenly and
+shook the black curtain around my senses.  A murky light broke in on me.
+I had a body.  That I felt; but where it was I knew not.  And so I felt
+my way forward in the direction where the twilight showed least dimly.
+
+Slowly the curtain shook and its folds dissolved as I moved against the
+wind.  The clouds lifted; and by degrees I grew aware that I was
+standing on the barren moor.  Night was stretched around to the horizon,
+where straight ahead a grey bar shone across the gloom.  I pressed on
+towards it.  The heath was uneven under my feet, and now and then I
+stumbled heavily; but still I held on.  For it seemed that I must get to
+this grey bar or die a second time.  All my muscles, all my will, were
+strained upon this purpose.
+
+Drawing nearer, I observed that a wave-like motion kept passing over
+this brighter space, as it had passed over the mirror.  The glimmer
+would be obscured for a moment, and then re-appear.  At length a gentle
+acclivity of the moor hid it for a while.  My legs positively raced up
+this slope, and upon the summit I hardly dared to look for a moment,
+knowing that if the light were an illusion all my hope must die with it.
+
+But it was no illusion.  There was the light, and there, before my feet,
+lay a sable sheet of water, over the surface of which the light was
+playing.  There was no moon, no star in heaven; yet over this desolate
+tarn hovered a pale radiance that ceased again where the edge of its
+waves lapped the further bank of peat.  Their monotonous wash hardly
+broke the stillness of the place.
+
+The formless longing was now pulling at me with an attraction I could
+not deny, though within me there rose and fought against it a horror
+only less strong.  Here, as in the Blue Room, two souls were struggling
+for me.  It was the soul of Philip Cardinnock that drew me towards the
+tarn and the soul of Samuel Wraxall that resisted.  Only, what was the
+thing towards which I was being pulled?
+
+I must have stood at least a minute on the brink before I descried a
+black object floating at the far end of the tarn.  What this object was
+I could not make out; but I knew it on the instant to be that for which
+I longed, and all my will grew suddenly intent on drawing it nearer.
+Even as my volition centred upon it, the black spot began to move slowly
+out into the pale radiance towards me.  Silently, surely, as though my
+wish drew it by a rope, it floated nearer and nearer over the bosom of
+the tarn; and while it was still some twenty yards from me I saw it to
+be a long black box, shaped somewhat like a coffin.
+
+There was no doubt about it.  I could hear the water now sucking at its
+dark sides.  I stepped down the bank, and waded up to my knees in the
+icy water to meet it.  It was a plain box, with no writing upon the lid,
+nor any speck of metal to relieve the dead black: and it moved with the
+same even speed straight up to where I stood.
+
+As it came, I laid my hand upon it and touched wood.  But with the touch
+came a further sensation that made me fling both arms around the box and
+begin frantically to haul it towards the shore.
+
+It was a feeling of suffocation; of a weight that pressed in upon my
+ribs and choked the lungs' action.  I felt that I must open that box or
+die horribly; that until I had it upon the bank and had forced the lid
+up I should know no pause from the labour and torture of dying.
+
+This put a wild strength into me.  As the box grated upon the few
+pebbles by the shore, I bent over it, caught it once more by the sides,
+and with infinite effort dragged it up out of the water.  It was heavy,
+and the weight upon my chest was heavier yet: but straining, panting,
+gasping, I hauled it up the bank, dropped it on the turf, and knelt over
+it, tugging furiously at the lid.
+
+I was frenzied--no less.  My nails were torn until the blood gushed.
+Lights danced before me; bells rang in my ears; the pressure on my lungs
+grew more intolerable with each moment; but still I fought with that
+lid.  Seven devils were within me and helped me; and all the while I
+knew that I was dying, that unless the box were opened in a moment or
+two it would be too late.
+
+The sweat ran off my eyebrows and dripped on the box.  My breath came
+and went in sobs.  I could not die.  I could not, must not die.  And so
+I tugged and strained and tugged again.
+
+Then, as I felt the black anguish of the Blue Room descending a second
+time upon me, I seemed to put all my strength into my hands.  From the
+lid or from my own throat--I could not distinguish--there came a creak
+and a long groan.  I tore back the board and fell on the heath with one
+shuddering breath of relief.
+
+And drawing it, I raised my head and looked over the coffin's edge.
+Still drawing it, I tumbled back.
+
+White, cold, with the last struggle fixed on its features and open eyes,
+it was my own dead face that stared up at me!
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+WHAT I HAVE SINCE LEARNT.
+
+They found me, next morning, lying on the brink of the tarn, and carried
+me back to the inn.  There I lay for weeks in a brain fever and talked--
+as they assure me--the wildest nonsense.  The landlord had first guessed
+that something was amiss on finding the front door open when he came
+down at five o'clock.  I must have turned to the left on leaving the
+house, travelled up the road for a hundred yards, and then struck almost
+at right angles across the moor.  One of my shoes was found a furlong
+from the highway, and this had guided them.  Of course they found no
+coffin beside me, and I was prudent enough to hold my tongue when I
+became convalescent.  But the effect of that night was to shatter my
+health for a year and more, and force me to throw up my post of School
+Inspector.  To this day I have never examined the school at Pitt's
+Scawens.  But somebody else has; and last winter I received a letter,
+which I will give in full:--
+
+                        21, Chesterham Road, KENSINGTON, W.
+                              December 3rd, 1891.
+
+    Dear Wraxall,--
+
+    It is a long time since we have corresponded, but I have just
+    returned from Cornwall, and while visiting Pitt's Scawens
+    professionally, was reminded of you.  I put up at the inn where
+    you had your long illness.  The people there were delighted to
+    find that I knew you, and desired me to send "their duty" when
+    next I wrote.  By the way, I suppose you were introduced to their
+    state apartment--the Blue Room--and its wonderful chimney carving.
+    I made a bid to the landlord for it, panels, mirror, and all, but
+    he referred me to Squire Parkyn, the landlord.  I think I may get
+    it, as the Squire loves hard coin.  When I have it up over my
+    mantel-piece here you must run over and give me your opinion on it.
+    By the way, clay has been discovered on the Tremenhuel Estate, just
+    at the back of the "Indian Queens": at least, I hear that Squire
+    Parkyn is running a Company, and is sanguine.  You remember the
+    tarn behind the inn?  They made an odd discovery there when
+    draining it for the new works.  In the mud at the bottom was
+    imbedded the perfect skeleton of a man.  The bones were quite clean
+    and white.  Close beside the body they afterwards turned up a
+    silver snuff-box, with the word "Fui" on the lid.  "Fui" was the
+    motto of the Cardinnocks, who held Tremenhuel before it passed to
+    the Parkyns.  There seems to be no doubt that these are the bones
+    of the last Squire, who disappeared mysteriously more than a
+    hundred years ago, in consequence of a love affair, I'm told.
+    It looks like foul play; but, if so, the account has long since
+    passed out of the hands of man.
+
+    Yours ever,   David E. Mainwaring.
+
+    P.S.--I reopen this to say that Squire Parkyn has accepted my offer
+    for the chimney-piece.  Let me hear soon that you'll come and look
+    at it and give me your opinion.
+
+
+
+THE TWO HOUSEHOLDERS.
+
+
+_Extract from the Memoirs of Gabriel Foot, Highwayman._
+
+I will say this--speaking as accurately as a man may, so long
+afterwards--that when first I spied the house it put no desire in me but
+just to give thanks.
+
+For conceive my case.  It was near mid-night, and ever since dusk I had
+been tramping the naked moors, in the teeth of as vicious a nor'-wester
+as ever drenched a man to the skin, and then blew the cold home to his
+marrow.  My clothes were sodden; my coat-tails flapped with a noise like
+pistol-shots; my boots squeaked as I went.  Overhead, the October moon
+was in her last quarter, and might have been a slice of finger-nail for
+all the light she afforded.  Two-thirds of the time the wrack blotted
+her out altogether; and I, with my stick clipped tight under my armpit,
+eyes puckered up, and head bent aslant, had to keep my wits alive to
+distinguish the road from the black heath to right and left.  For three
+hours I had met neither man nor man's dwelling, and (for all I knew) was
+desperately lost.  Indeed, at the cross-roads, two miles back, there had
+been nothing for me but to choose the way that kept the wind on my face,
+and it gnawed me like a dog.
+
+Mainly to allay the stinging of my eyes, I pulled up at last, turned
+right-about-face, leant back against the blast with a hand on my hat,
+and surveyed the blackness behind.  It was at this instant that, far
+away to the left, a point of light caught my notice, faint but steady;
+and at once I felt sure it burnt in the window of a house.  "The house,"
+thought I, "is a good mile off, beside the other road, and the light
+must have been an inch over my hat-brim for the last half-hour."
+This reflection--that on so wide a moor I had come near missing the
+information I wanted (and perhaps a supper) by one inch--sent a strong
+thrill down my back.
+
+I cut straight across the heather towards the light, risking quags and
+pitfalls.  Nay, so heartening was the chance to hear a fellow creature's
+voice, that I broke into a run, skipping over the stunted gorse that
+cropped up here and there, and dreading every moment to see the light
+quenched.  "Suppose it burns in an upper window, and the family is going
+to bed, as would be likely at this hour--"  The apprehension kept my
+eyes fixed on the bright spot, to the frequent scandal of my legs, that
+within five minutes were stuck full of gorse prickles.
+
+But the light did not go out, and soon a flicker of moonlight gave me a
+glimpse of the house's outline.  It proved to be a deal more imposing
+than I looked for--the outline, in fact, of a tall, square barrack, with
+a cluster of chimneys at either end, like ears, and a high wall, topped
+by the roofs of some outbuildings, concealing the lower windows.  There
+was no gate in this wall, and presently I guessed the reason.  I was
+approaching the place from behind, and the light came from a back window
+on the first floor.
+
+The faintness of the light also was explained by this time.  It shone
+behind a drab-coloured blind, and in shape resembled the stem of a
+wine-glass, broadening out at the foot; an effect produced by the
+half-drawn curtains within.  I came to a halt, waiting for the next ray
+of moonlight.  At the same moment a rush of wind swept over the
+chimney-stacks, and on the wind there seemed to ride a human sigh.
+
+On this last point I may err.  The gust had passed some seconds before I
+caught myself detecting this peculiar note, and trying to disengage it
+from the natural chords of the storm.  From the next gust it was absent;
+and then, to my dismay, the light faded from the window.
+
+I was half-minded to call out when it appeared again, this time in two
+windows--those next on the right to that where it had shone before.
+Almost at once it increased in brilliance, as if the person who carried
+it from the smaller room to the larger were lighting more candles; and
+now the illumination was strong enough to make fine gold threads of the
+rain that fell within its radiance, and fling two shafts of warm yellow
+over the coping of the back wall.  During the minute or more that I
+stood watching, no shadow fell on either blind.
+
+Between me and the wall ran a ditch, into which the ground at my feet
+broke sharply away.  Setting my back to the storm again, I followed the
+lip of this ditch around the wall's angle.  Here it shallowed, and here,
+too, was shelter; but not wishing to mistake a bed of nettles or any
+such pitfall for solid earth, I kept pretty wide as I went on.
+The house was dark on this side, and the wall, as before, had no
+opening.  Close beside the next angle there grew a mass of thick gorse
+bushes, and pushing through these I found myself suddenly on a sound
+high-road, with the wind tearing at me as furiously as ever.
+
+But here was the front; and I now perceived that the surrounding wall
+advanced some way before the house, so as to form a narrow courtlage.
+So much of it, too, as faced the road had been whitewashed, which made
+it an easy matter to find the gate.  But as I laid hand on its latch I
+had a surprise.
+
+A line of paving-stones led from the gate to a heavy porch; and along
+the wet surface of these there fell a streak of light from the front
+door, which stood ajar.
+
+That a door should remain six inches open on such a night was
+astonishing enough, until I entered the court and found it as still as a
+room, owing to the high wall.  But looking up and assuring myself that
+all the rest of the facade was black as ink, I wondered at the
+carelessness of the inmates.
+
+It was here that my professional instinct received the first jog.
+Abating the sound of my feet on the paving-stones, I went up to the door
+and pushed it softly.  It opened without noise.
+
+I stepped into a fair-sized hall of modern build, paved with red tiles
+and lit with a small hanging-lamp.  To right and left were doors leading
+to the ground-floor rooms.  Along the wall by my shoulder ran a line of
+pegs, on which hung half-a-dozen hats and great-coats, every one of
+clerical shape; and full in front of me a broad staircase ran up, with a
+staring Brussels carpet, the colours and pattern of which I can recall
+as well as I can to-day's breakfast.  Under this staircase was set a
+stand full of walking-sticks, and a table littered with gloves, brushes,
+a hand-bell, a riding-crop, one or two dog-whistles, and a bedroom
+candle, with tinder-box beside it.  This, with one notable exception,
+was all the furniture.
+
+The exception--which turned me cold--was the form of a yellow mastiff
+dog, curled on a mat beneath the table.  The arch of his back was
+towards me, and one forepaw lay over his nose in a natural posture of
+sleep.  I leant back on the wainscotting with my eyes tightly fixed on
+him, and my thoughts sneaking back, with something of regret, to the
+storm I had come through.
+
+But a man's habits are not easily denied.  At the end of three minutes
+the dog had not moved, and I was down on the door-mat unlacing my soaked
+boots.  Slipping them off, and taking them in my left hand, I stood up,
+and tried a step towards the stairs, with eyes alert for any movement of
+the mastiff; but he never stirred.  I was glad enough, however, on
+reaching the stairs, to find them newly built, and the carpet thick.  Up
+I went, with a glance at every step for the table which now hid the
+brute's form from me, and never a creak did I wake out of that staircase
+till I was almost at the first landing, when my toe caught a loose
+stair-rod, and rattled it in a way that stopped my heart for a moment,
+and then set it going in double-quick time.
+
+I stood still with a hand on the rail.  My eyes were now on a level with
+the floor of the landing, out of which branched two passages--one
+turning sharply to my right, the other straight in front, so that I was
+gazing down the length of it.  Almost at the end, a parallelogram of
+light fell across it from an open door.
+
+A man who has once felt it knows there is only one kind of silence that
+can fitly be called "dead."  This is only to be found in a great house
+at midnight.  I declare that for a few seconds after I rattled the
+stair-rod you might have cut the silence with a knife.  If the house
+held a clock, it ticked inaudibly.
+
+Upon this silence, at the end of a minute, broke a light sound--the
+_tink-tink_ of a decanter on the rim of a wine-glass.  It came from the
+room where the light was.
+
+Now perhaps it was that the very thought of liquor put warmth into my
+cold bones.  It is certain that all of a sudden I straightened my back,
+took the remaining stairs at two strides, and walked down the passage as
+bold as brass, without caring a jot for the noise I made.
+
+In the doorway I halted.  The room was long, lined for the most part
+with books bound in what they call "divinity calf," and littered with
+papers like a barrister's table on assize day.  A leathern elbow-chair
+faced the fireplace, where a few coals burned sulkily, and beside it, on
+the corner of a writing table, were set an unlit candle and a pile of
+manuscripts.  At the opposite end of the room a curtained door led (as I
+guessed) to the chamber that I had first seen illuminated.  All this I
+took in with the tail of my eye, while staring straight in front, where,
+in the middle of a great square of carpet, between me and the windows,
+stood a table with a red cloth upon it.  On this cloth were a couple of
+wax candles lit, in silver stands, a tray, and a decanter three-parts
+full of brandy.  And between me and the table stood a man.
+
+He stood sideways, leaning a little back, as if to keep his shadow off
+the threshold, and looked at me over his left shoulder--a bald, grave
+man, slightly under the common height, with a long clerical coat of
+preposterous fit hanging loosely from his shoulders, a white cravat,
+black breeches, and black stockings.  His feet were loosely thrust into
+carpet slippers.  I judged his age at fifty, or thereabouts; but his
+face rested in the shadow, and I could only note a pair of eyes, very
+small and alert, twinkling above a large expanse of cheek.
+
+He was lifting a wine-glass from the table at the moment when I
+appeared, and it trembled now in his right hand.  I heard a spilt drop
+or two fall on the carpet.  This was all the evidence he showed of
+discomposure.
+
+Setting the glass back, he felt in his breast-pocket for a handkerchief,
+failed to find one, and rubbed his hands together to get the liquor off
+his fingers.
+
+"You startled me," he said, in a matter-of-fact tone, turning his eyes
+upon me, as he lifted his glass again, and emptied it.  "How did you
+find your way in?"
+
+"By the front door," said I, wondering at his unconcern.
+
+He nodded his head slowly.
+
+"Ah! yes; I forgot to lock it.  You came to steal, I suppose?"
+
+"I came because I'd lost my way.  I've been travelling this
+God-forsaken moor since dusk--"
+
+"With your boots in your hand," he put in quietly.
+
+"I took them off out of respect to the yellow dog you keep."
+
+"He lies in a very natural attitude--eh?"
+
+"You don't tell me he was _stuffed?_"
+
+The old man's eyes beamed a contemptuous pity.
+
+"You are indifferent sharp, my dear sir, for a housebreaker. Come in.
+Set down those convicting boots, and don't drip pools of water in the
+doorway.  If I must entertain a burglar, I prefer him tidy."
+
+He walked to the fire, picked up a poker, and knocked the coals into a
+blaze.  This done, he turned round on me with the poker still in his
+hand.  The serenest gravity sat on his large, pale features.
+
+"Why have I done this?" he asked.
+
+"I suppose to get possession of the poker."
+
+"Quite right.  May I inquire your next move?"
+
+"Why?" said I, feeling in my tail-pocket, "I carry a pistol."
+
+"Which I suppose to be damp?"
+
+"By no means.  I carry it, as you see, in an oil-cloth case."
+
+He stooped, and laid the poker carefully in the fender.
+
+"That is a stronger card than I possess.  I might urge that by pulling
+the trigger you would certainly alarm the house and the neighbourhood,
+and put a halter round your neck.  But it strikes me as safer to assume
+you capable of using a pistol with effect at three paces.  With what
+might happen subsequently I will not pretend to be concerned.  The fate
+of your neck"--he waved a hand,--"well, I have known you for just five
+minutes, and feel but a moderate interest in your neck.  As for the
+inmates of this house, it will refresh you to hear that there are none.
+I have lived here two years with a butler and female cook, both of whom
+I dismissed yesterday at a minute's notice, for conduct which I will not
+shock your ears by explicitly naming.  Suffice it to say, I carried them
+off yesterday to my parish church, two miles away, married them and
+dismissed them in the vestry without characters.  I wish you had known
+that butler--but excuse me; with the information I have supplied, you
+ought to find no difficulty in fixing the price you will take to clear
+out of my house instanter."
+
+"Sir," I answered, "I have held a pistol at one or two heads in my time,
+but never at one stuffed with nobler indiscretion.  Your chivalry does
+not, indeed, disarm me, but prompts me to desire more of your
+acquaintance.  I have found a gentleman, and must sup with him before I
+make terms."
+
+This address seemed to please him.  He shuffled across the room to a
+sideboard, and produced a plate of biscuits, another of dried figs, a
+glass, and two decanters.
+
+"Sherry and Madeira," he said.  "There is also a cold pie in the larder,
+if you care for it."
+
+"A biscuit will serve," I replied.  "To tell the truth, I'm more for the
+bucket than the manger, as the grooms say: and the brandy you were
+tasting just now is more to my mind than wine."
+
+"There is no water handy."
+
+"I have soaked in enough to-night to last me with this bottle."
+
+I pulled over a chair, laid my pistol on the table, and held out the
+glass for him to fill.  Having done so, he helped himself to a glass and
+a chair, and sat down facing me.
+
+"I was speaking, just now, of my late butler," he began, with a sip at
+his brandy.  "Does it strike you that, when confronted with moral
+delinquency, I am apt to let my indignation get the better of me?"
+
+"Not at all," I answered heartily, refilling my glass.
+
+It appeared that another reply would have pleased him better.
+
+"H'm.  I was hoping that, perhaps, I had visited his offence too
+strongly.  As a clergyman, you see, I was bound to be severe; but upon
+my word, sir, since Parkinson left I have felt like a man who has lost a
+limb."
+
+He drummed with his fingers on the cloth for a few moments, and went
+on--
+
+"One has a natural disposition to forgive butlers--Pharaoh, for
+instance, felt it.  There hovers around butlers an atmosphere in which
+common ethics lose their pertinence.  But mine was a rare bird--a black
+swan among butlers!  He was more than a butler: he was a quick and
+brightly gifted man.  Of the accuracy of his taste, and the unusual
+scope of his endeavour, you will be able to form some opinion when I
+assure you he modelled himself upon _me_."
+
+I bowed, over my brandy.
+
+"I am a scholar: yet I employed him to read aloud to me, and derived
+pleasure from his intonation.  I talk with refinement: yet he learned to
+answer me in language as precise as my own.  My cast-off garments fitted
+him not more irreproachably than did my amenities of manner.  Divest him
+of his tray, and you would find his mode of entering a room hardly
+distinguishable from my own--the same urbanity, the same alertness of
+carriage, the same superfine deference towards the weaker sex.  All--all
+my idiosyncrasies I saw reflected in him; and can you doubt that I was
+gratified?  He was my _alter ego_--which, by the way, makes it harder
+for me to pardon his behaviour with the cook."
+
+"Look here," I broke in; "you want a new butler?"
+
+"Oh, you really grasp that fact, do you?" he retorted.
+
+"Why, then," said I, "let me cease to be your burglar and let me
+continue here as your butler."
+
+He leant back, spreading out the fingers of each hand on the table's
+edge.
+
+"Believe me," I went on, "you might do worse.  I have been in my time a
+demy of Magdalen College, Oxford, and retain some Greek and Latin.
+I'll undertake to read the Fathers with an accent that shall not offend
+you.  My taste in wine is none the worse for having been formed in other
+men's cellars.  Moreover, you shall engage the ugliest cook in
+Christendom, so long as I'm your butler.  I've taken a liking to you--
+that's flat--and I apply for the post."
+
+"I give forty pounds a year," said he.
+
+"And I'm cheap at that price."
+
+He filled up his glass, looking up at me while he did so with the air of
+one digesting a problem.  From first to last his face was grave as a
+judge's.
+
+"We are too impulsive, I think," was his answer, after a minute's
+silence; "and your speech smacks of the amateur.  You say, 'Let me cease
+to be your burglar and let me be your butler.'  The aspiration is
+respectable; but a man might as well say, 'Let me cease to write
+sermons, let me paint pictures.'  And truly, sir, you impress me as no
+expert even in your present trade."
+
+"On the other hand," I argued, "consider the moderation of my demands;
+that alone should convince you of my desire to turn over a new leaf.
+I ask for a month's trial; if at the end of that time I don't suit, you
+shall say so, and I'll march from your door with nothing in my pocket
+but my month's wages.  Be hanged, sir! but when I reflect on the amount
+you'll have to pay to get me to face to-night's storm again, you seem to
+be getting off dirt cheap!" cried I, slapping my palm on the table.
+
+"Ah, if you had only known Parkinson!" he exclaimed.
+
+Now the third glass of clean spirit has always a deplorable effect on
+me.  It turns me from bright to black, from levity to extreme sulkiness.
+I have done more wickedness over this third tumbler than in all the
+other states of comparative inebriety within my experience.  So now I
+glowered at my companion and cursed.
+
+"Look here, I don't want to hear any more of Parkinson, and I've a
+pretty clear notion of the game you're playing.  You want to make me
+drink, and you're ready to sit prattling there plying me till I drop
+under the table."
+
+"Do me the favour to remember that you came, and are staying, on your
+own motion.  As for the brandy, I would remind you that I suggested a
+milder drink.  Try some Madeira."
+
+He handed me the decanter, as he spoke, and I poured out a glass.
+
+"Madeira!" said I, taking a gulp, "Ugh! it's the commonest Marsala!"
+
+I had no sooner said the words than he rose up, and stretched a hand
+gravely across to me.
+
+"I hope you will shake it," he said; "though, as a man who after three
+glasses of neat spirit can distinguish between Madeira and Marsala, you
+have every right to refuse me.  Two minutes ago you offered to become my
+butler, and I demurred.  I now beg you to repeat that offer.  Say the
+word, and I employ you gladly; you shall even have the second decanter
+(which contains genuine Madeira) to take to bed with you."
+
+We shook hands on our bargain, and catching up a candlestick, he led the
+way from the room.
+
+Picking up my boots, I followed him along the passage and down the
+silent staircase.  In the hall he paused to stand on tip-toe, and turn
+up the lamp, which was burning low.  As he did so, I found time to fling
+a glance at my old enemy, the mastiff.  He lay as I had first seen him--
+a stuffed dog, if ever there was one.  "Decidedly," thought I, "my wits
+are to seek to-night;" and with the same, a sudden suspicion made me
+turn to my conductor, who had advanced to the left-hand door, and was
+waiting for me, with a hand on the knob.
+
+"One moment!" I said: "This is all very pretty, but how am I to know
+you're not sending me to bed while you fetch in all the countryside to
+lay me by the heels?"
+
+"I'm afraid," was his answer, "you must be content with my word, as a
+gentleman, that never, to-night or hereafter, will I breathe a syllable
+about the circumstances of your visit.  However, if you choose, we will
+return up-stairs."
+
+"No; I'll trust you," said I; and he opened the door.
+
+It led into a broad passage paved with slate, upon which three or four
+rooms opened.  He paused by the second and ushered me into a
+sleeping-chamber, which, though narrow, was comfortable enough--a vast
+improvement, at any rate, on the mumpers' lodgings I had been used to
+for many months past.
+
+"You can undress here," he said.  "The sheets are aired, and if you'll
+wait a moment, I'll fetch a nightshirt--one of my own."
+
+"Sir, you heap coals of fire on me."
+
+"Believe me that for ninety-nine of your qualities I do not care a
+tinker's curse; but for your palate you are to be taken care of."
+
+He shuffled away, but came back in a couple of minutes with the
+nightshirt.
+
+"Good-night," he called to me, flinging it in at the door; and without
+giving me time to return the wish, went his way up-stairs.
+
+Now it might be supposed I was only too glad to toss off my clothes and
+climb into the bed I had so unexpectedly acquired a right to.  But, as a
+matter of fact, I did nothing of the kind.  Instead, I drew on my boots
+and sat on the bed's edge, blinking at my candle till it died down in
+its socket, and afterwards at the purple square of window as it slowly
+changed to grey with the coming of dawn.  I was cold to the heart, and
+my teeth chattered with an ague.  Certainly I never suspected my host's
+word; but was even occupied in framing good resolutions and shaping out
+a reputable future, when I heard the front door gently pulled to, and a
+man's footsteps moving quietly to the gate.
+
+The treachery knocked me in a heap for the moment.  Then, leaping up and
+flinging my door wide, I stumbled through the uncertain light of the
+passage into the front hall.  There was a fan-shaped light over the
+door, and the place was very still and grey.  A quick thought, or,
+rather, a sudden, prophetic guess at the truth, made me turn to the
+figure of the mastiff curled under the hall table.
+
+I laid my hand on the scruff of his neck.  He was quite limp, and my
+fingers sank into the flesh on either side of the vertebrae.
+Digging them deeper, I dragged him out into the middle of the hall and
+pulled the front door open to see the better.
+
+His throat was gashed from ear to ear.
+
+How many seconds passed after I dropped the senseless lump on the floor,
+and before I made another movement, it would puzzle me to say.  Twice I
+stirred a foot as if to run out at the door.  Then, changing my mind, I
+stepped over the mastiff, and ran up the staircase.
+
+The passage at the top was now dark; but groping down it, I found the
+study door open, as before, and passed in.  A sick light stole through
+the blinds--enough for me to distinguish the glasses and decanters on
+the table, and find my way to the curtain that hung before the inner
+room.
+
+I pushed the curtain aside, paused for a moment, and listened to the
+violent beat of my heart; then felt for the door-handle and turned
+it.
+
+All I could see at first was that the chamber was small; next, that the
+light patch in a line with the window was the white coverlet of a bed;
+and next that somebody, or something, lay on the bed.
+
+I listened again.  There was no sound in the room; no heart beating but
+my own.  I reached out a hand to pull up the blind, and drew it back
+again.  I dared not.
+
+The daylight grew minute by minute on the dull oblong of the blind, and
+minute by minute that horrible thing on the bed took something of
+distinctness.
+
+The strain beat me at last.  I fetched a loud yell to give myself
+courage, and, reaching for the cord, pulled up the blind as fast as it
+would go.
+
+The face on the pillow was that of an old man--a face waxen and
+peaceful, with quiet lines about the mouth and eyes, and long lines of
+grey hair falling back from the temples.  The body was turned a little
+on one side, and one hand lay outside the bedclothes in a very natural
+manner.  But there were two big dark stains on the pillow and coverlet.
+
+Then I knew I was face to face with the real householder, and it flashed
+on me that I had been indiscreet in taking service as his butler, and
+that I knew the face his ex-butler wore.
+
+And, being by this time awake to the responsibilities of the post, I
+quitted it three steps at a time, not once looking behind me.
+Outside the house the storm had died down, and white daylight was
+gleaming over the sodden moors.  But my bones were cold, and I ran
+faster and faster.
+
+
+
+THE DISENCHANTMENT OF 'LIZABETH.
+
+
+"So you reckon I've got to die?"
+
+The room was mean, but not without distinction. The meanness lay in
+lime-washed walls, scant fittings, and uncovered boards; the distinction
+came of ample proportions and something of durability in the furniture.
+Rooms, like human faces, reflect their histories; and that generation
+after generation of the same family had here struggled to birth or death
+was written in this chamber unmistakably.  The candle-light, twinkling
+on the face of a dark wardrobe near the door, lit up its rough
+inscription, "S.T. and M.T., MDCLXVII"; the straight-backed oaken chairs
+might well claim an equal age; and the bed in the corner was a spacious
+four-poster, pillared in smooth mahogany and curtained in faded green
+damask.
+
+In the shadow of this bed lay the man who had spoken.  A single candle
+stood on a tall chest at his left hand, and its ray, filtering through
+the thin green curtain, emphasised the hue of death on his face.
+The features were pinched, and very old.  His tone held neither
+complaint nor passion: it was matter-of-fact even, as of one whose talk
+is merely a concession to good manners.  There was the faintest
+interrogation in it; no more.
+
+After a minute or so, getting no reply, he added more querulously--
+
+"I reckon you might answer, 'Lizabeth.  Do 'ee think I've got to die?"
+
+'Lizabeth, who stood by the uncurtained window, staring into the
+blackness without, barely turned her head to answer--
+
+"Certain."
+
+"Doctor said so, did he?"
+
+'Lizabeth, still with her back towards him, nodded.  For a minute or two
+there was silence.
+
+"I don't feel like dyin'; but doctor ought to know.  Seemed to me 'twas
+harder, an'--an' more important.  This sort o' dyin' don't seem o' much
+account."
+
+"No?"
+
+"That's it.  I reckon, though, 'twould be other if I had a family round
+the bed.  But there ain't none o' the boys left to stand by me now.
+It's hard."
+
+"What's hard?"
+
+"Why, that two out o' the three should be called afore me.  And hard is
+the manner of it.  It's hard that, after Samuel died o' fever, Jim shud
+be blown up at Herodsfoot powder-mill.  He made a lovely corpse, did
+Samuel; but Jim, you see, he hadn't a chance.  An' as for William, he's
+never come home nor wrote a line since he joined the Thirty-Second; an'
+it's little he cares for his home or his father.  I reckoned, back
+along, 'Lizabeth, as you an' he might come to an understandin'."
+
+"William's naught to me."
+
+"Look here!" cried the old man sharply; "he treated you bad, did
+William."
+
+"Who says so?"
+
+"Why, all the folks.  Lord bless the girl! do 'ee think folks use their
+eyes without usin' their tongues?  An' I wish it had come about, for
+you'd ha' kept en straight.  But he treated you bad, and he treated me
+bad, tho' he won't find no profit o' that.  You'm my sister's child,
+'Lizabeth," he rambled on; "an' what house-room you've had you've fairly
+earned--not but what you was welcome: an' if I thought as there was harm
+done, I'd curse him 'pon my deathbed, I would."
+
+"You be quiet!"
+
+She turned from the window and cowed him with angry grey eyes.
+Her figure was tall and meagre; her face that of a woman well over
+thirty--once comely, but worn over-much, and prematurely hardened.
+The voice had hardened with it, perhaps.  The old man, who had risen on
+his elbow in an access of passion, was taken with a fit of coughing, and
+sank back upon the pillows.
+
+"There's no call to be niffy," he apologised at last.  "I was on'y
+thinkin' of how you'd manage when I'm dead an' gone."
+
+"I reckon I'll shift."
+
+She drew a chair towards the bed and sat beside him.  He seemed drowsy,
+and after a while stretched out an arm over the coverlet and fell
+asleep.  'Lizabeth took his hand, and sat there listlessly regarding the
+still shadows on the wall.  The sick man never moved; only muttered
+once--some words that 'Lizabeth did not catch.  At the end of an hour,
+alarmed perhaps by some sound within the bed's shadow, or the feel of
+the hand in hers, she suddenly pushed the curtain back, and, catching up
+the candle, stooped over the sick man.
+
+His lids were closed, as if he slept still; but he was quite dead.
+
+'Lizabeth stood for a while bending over him, smoothed the bedclothes
+straight, and quietly left the room.  It was a law of the house to doff
+boots and shoes at the foot of the stairs, and her stocking'd feet
+scarcely raised a creak from the solid timbers.  The staircase led
+straight down into the kitchen.  Here a fire was blazing cheerfully, and
+as she descended she felt its comfort after the dismal room above.
+
+Nevertheless, the sense of being alone in the house with a dead man, and
+more than a mile from any living soul, was disquieting.  In truth, there
+was room for uneasiness.  'Lizabeth knew that some part of the old man's
+hoard lay up-stairs in the room with him.  Of late she had, under his
+eye, taken from a silver tankard in the tall chest by the bed such
+moneys as from week to week were wanted to pay the farm hands; and she
+had seen papers there, too--title-deeds, maybe.  The house itself lay in
+a cup of the hill-side, backed with steep woods--so steep that, in
+places, anyone who had reasons (good or bad) for doing so, might well
+see in at any window he chose.  And to Hooper's Farm, down the valley,
+was a far cry for help.  Meditating on this, 'Lizabeth stepped to the
+kitchen window and closed the shutter; then, reaching down an old
+horse-pistol from the rack above the mantelshelf, she fetched out powder
+and bullet and fell to loading quietly, as one who knew the trick of it.
+
+And yet the sense of danger was not so near as that of loneliness--of a
+pervading silence without precedent in her experience, as if its
+master's soul in flitting had, whatever Scripture may say, taken
+something out of the house with it.  'Lizabeth had known this kitchen
+for a score of years now; nevertheless, to-night it was unfamiliar, with
+emptier corners and wider intervals of bare floor.  She laid down the
+loaded pistol, raked the logs together, and set the kettle on the flame.
+She would take comfort in a dish of tea.
+
+There was company in the singing of the kettle, the hiss of its overflow
+on the embers, and the rattle with which she set out cup, saucer, and
+teapot.  She was bending over the hearth to lift the kettle, when a
+sound at the door caused her to start up and listen.
+
+The latch had been rattled: not by the wind, for the December night
+without was misty and still.  There was somebody on the other side of
+the door; and, as she turned, she saw the latch lowered back into its
+place.
+
+With her eyes fastened on this latch, she set down the kettle softly and
+reached out for her pistol.  For a moment or two there was silence.
+Then someone tapped gently.
+
+The tapping went on for half a minute; then followed silence again.
+'Lizabeth stole across the kitchen, pistol in hand, laid her ear
+against the board, and listened.
+
+Yes, assuredly there was someone outside.  She could catch the sound of
+breathing, and the shuffling of a heavy boot on the door-slate.  And now
+a pair of knuckles repeated the tapping, more imperiously.
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+A man's voice, thick and husky, made some indistinct reply.
+
+'Lizabeth fixed the cap more securely on her pistol, and called again--
+
+"Who's there?"
+
+"What the devil--" began the voice.
+
+'Lizabeth shot back the bolt and lifted the latch.
+
+"If you'd said at once 'twas William come back, you'd ha' been let in
+sooner," she said quietly.
+
+A thin puff of rain floated against her face as the door opened, and a
+tall soldier stepped out of the darkness into the glow of the warm
+kitchen.
+
+"Well, this here's a queer home-coming.  Why, hullo, 'Lizabeth--with a
+pistol in your hand, too!  Do you shoot the fatted calf in these parts
+now?  What's the meaning of it?"
+
+The overcoat of cinder grey that covered his scarlet tunic was powdered
+with beads of moisture; his black moustaches were beaded also; his face
+was damp, and smeared with the dye that trickled from his sodden cap.
+As he stood there and shook himself, the rain ran down and formed small
+pools upon the slates around his muddy boots.
+
+He was a handsome fellow, in a florid, animal fashion; well-set, with
+black curls, dark eyes that yet contrived to be exceedingly shallow, and
+as sanguine a pair of cheeks as one could wish to see.  It seemed to
+'Lizabeth that the red of his complexion had deepened since she saw him
+last, while the white had taken a tinge of yellow, reminding her of the
+prize beef at the Christmas market last week.  Somehow she could find
+nothing to say.
+
+"The old man's in bed, I reckon.  I saw the light in his window."
+
+"You've had a wet tramp of it," was all she found to reply, though aware
+that the speech was inconsequent and trivial.
+
+"Damnably.  Left the coach at Fiddler's Cross, and trudged down across
+the fields.  We were soaked enough on the coach, though, and couldn't
+get much worse."
+
+"We?"
+
+"Why, you don't suppose I was the only passenger by the coach, eh?" he
+put in quickly.
+
+"No, I forgot."
+
+There was an awkward silence, and William's eyes travelled round the
+kitchen till they lit on the kettle standing by the hearthstone.
+"Got any rum in the cupboard?"  While she was getting it out, he took
+off his cap and great-coat, hung them up behind the door, and, pulling
+the small table close to the fire, sat beside it, toasting his knees.
+'Lizabeth set bottle and glass before him, and stood watching as he
+mixed the stuff.
+
+"So you're only a private."
+
+William set down the kettle with some violence.
+
+"You still keep a cursedly rough tongue, I notice."
+
+"An' you've been a soldier five year.  I reckoned you'd be a sergeant at
+least," she pursued simply, with her eyes on his undecorated sleeve.
+
+William took a gulp.
+
+"How do you know I've not been a sergeant?"
+
+"Then you've been degraded.  I'm main sorry for that."
+
+"Look here, you hush up!  Damn it! there's girls enough have fancied
+this coat, though it ain't but a private's; and that's enough for you, I
+take it."
+
+"It's handsome."
+
+"There, that'll do.  I do believe you're spiteful because I didn't offer
+to kiss you when I came in.  Here, Cousin 'Lizabeth," he exclaimed,
+starting up, "I'll be sworn for all your tongue you're the prettiest
+maid I've seen this five year.  Give me a kiss."
+
+"Don't, William!"
+
+Such passionate entreaty vibrated in her voice that William, who was
+advancing, stopped for a second to stare.  Then, with a laugh, he had
+caught and kissed her loudly.
+
+Her cheeks were flaming when she broke free.
+
+William turned, emptied his glass at a gulp, and began to mix a second.
+
+"There, there; you never look so well as when you're angered,
+'Lizabeth."
+
+"'Twas a coward's trick," she panted.
+
+"Christmas-time, you spitfire.  So you ain't married yet?  Lord!
+I don't wonder they fight shy of you; you'd be a handful, my vixen, for
+any man to tame.  How's the old man?"
+
+"He'll never be better."
+
+"Like enough at his age.  Is he hard set against me?"
+
+"We've never spoke of you for years now, till to-night."
+
+"To-night?  That's queer.  I've a mind to tip up a stave to let him know
+I'm about.  I will, too.  Let me see--"
+
+    "When Johnny comes marching home again,
+                Hooray! Hoo--"
+
+"Don't, don't!  Oh, why did you come back to-night, of all nights?"
+
+"And why the devil not to-night so well as any other?  You're a
+comfortable lot, I must say!  Maybe you'd like common metre better:--
+
+    "Within my fathers house
+      The blessed sit at meat.
+    Whilst I my belly stay
+      With husks the swine did eat."
+
+--"Why shouldn't I wake the old man?  I've done naught that I'm ashamed
+of."
+
+"It don't seem you're improved by soldiering."
+
+"Improved?  I've seen life."  William drained his glass.
+
+"An' got degraded."
+
+"Burn your tongue!  I'm going to see him."  He rose and made towards the
+door. 'Lizabeth stepped before him.
+
+"Hush! You mustn't."
+
+"'Mustn't?'  That's a bold word."
+
+"Well, then--'can't.'  Sit down, I tell you."
+
+"Hullo!  Ain't you coming the mistress pretty free in this house?
+Stand aside.  I've got something to tell him--something that won't wait.
+Stand aside, you she-cat!"
+
+He pushed by her roughly, but she held on to his sleeve.
+
+"It _must_ wait.  Listen to me."
+
+"I won't."
+
+"You shall.  He's dead."
+
+"_Dead!_"  He reeled back to the table and poured out another glassful
+with a shaking hand.  'Lizabeth noticed that this time he added no
+water.
+
+"He died to-night," she explained; "but he's been ailin' for a year
+past, an' took to his bed back in October."
+
+William's face was still pallid; but he merely stammered--
+
+"Things happen queerly.  I'll go up and see him; I'm master here now.
+You can't say aught to that.  By the Lord! but I can buy myself out--I'm
+sick of soldiering--and we'll settle down here and be comfortable."
+
+"We?"
+
+His foot was on the stair by this time.  He turned and nodded.
+
+"Yes, _we_.  It ain't a bad game being mistress o' this house.
+Eh, Cousin 'Lizabeth?"
+
+She turned her hot face to the flame, without reply; and he went on his
+way up the stairs.
+
+
+'Lizabeth sat for a while staring into the wood embers with shaded eyes.
+Whatever the path by which her reflections travelled, it led in the end
+to the kettle.  She remembered that the tea was still to make, and, on
+stooping to set the kettle back upon the logs, found it emptied by
+William's potations.  Donning her stout shoes and pattens, and slipping
+a shawl over her head, she reached down the lantern from its peg, lit
+it, and went out to fill the kettle at the spring.
+
+It was pitch-dark; the rain was still falling, and as she crossed the
+yard the sodden straw squeaked beneath her tread.  The yard had been
+fashioned generations since, by levelling back from the house to the
+natural rock of the hill-side, and connecting the two on the right by
+cow-house and stable, with an upper storey for barn and granary, on the
+left by a low wall, where, through a rough gate, the cart-track from the
+valley found its entrance.  Against the further end of this wall leant
+an open cart-shed; and within three paces of it a perpetual spring of
+water gushing down the rock was caught and arrested for a while in a
+stone trough before it hurried out by a side gutter, and so down to join
+the trout-stream in the valley below.  The spring first came to light
+half-way down the rock's face.  Overhead its point of emergence was
+curtained by a network of roots pushed out by the trees above and
+sprawling over the lip in helpless search for soil.
+
+'Lizabeth's lantern threw a flare of yellow on these and on the bubbling
+water as she filled her kettle.  She was turning to go when a sound
+arrested her.
+
+It was the sound of a suppressed sob, and seemed to issue from the
+cart-shed.  'Lizabeth turned quickly and held up her lantern.  Under the
+shed, and barely four paces from her, sat a woman.
+
+The woman was perched against the shaft of a hay-waggon, with her feet
+resting on a mud-soiled carpet-bag.  She made but a poor appealing
+figure, tricked out in odds and ends of incongruous finery, with a
+bonnet, once smart, hanging limply forward over a pair of
+light-coloured eyes and a very lachrymose face.  The ambition of the
+stranger's toilet, which ran riot in cheap jewellery, formed so odd a
+contrast with her sorry posture that 'Lizabeth, for all her wonder, felt
+inclined to smile.
+
+"What's your business here?"
+
+"Oh, tell me," whimpered the woman, "what's he doing all this time?
+Won't his father see me?  He don't intend to leave me here all night,
+surely, in this bitter cold, with nothing to eat, and my gown ruined!"
+
+"He?"  'Lizabeth's attitude stiffened with suspicion of the truth.
+
+"William, I mean; an' a sorry day it was I agreed to come."
+
+"William?"
+
+"My husband.  I'm Mrs. William Transom."
+
+"Come along to the house."  'Lizabeth turned abruptly and led the way.
+
+Mrs. William Transom gathered up her carpet-bag and bedraggled skirts
+and followed, sobbing still, but in _diminuendo_.  Inside the kitchen
+'Lizabeth faced round on her again.
+
+"So you'm William's wife."
+
+"I am; an' small comfort to say so, seein' this is how I'm served.
+Reely, now, I'm not fit to be seen."
+
+"Bless the woman, who cares here what you look like?  Take off those
+fal-lals, an' sit in your petticoat by the fire, here; you ain't wet
+through--on'y your feet; and here's a dry pair o' stockings, if you've
+none i' the bag.  You must be possessed, to come trampin' over High
+Compton in them gingerbread things."  She pointed scornfully at the
+stranger's boots.
+
+Mrs. William Transom, finding her notions of gentility thus ridiculed,
+acquiesced.
+
+"An' now," resumed 'Lizabeth, when her visitor was seated by the fire
+pulling off her damp stockings, "there's rum an' there's tea.
+Which will you take to warm yoursel'?"
+
+Mrs. William elected to take rum; and 'Lizabeth noted that she helped
+herself with freedom.  She made no comment, however, but set about
+making tea for herself; and, then, drawing up her chair to the table,
+leant her chin on her hand and intently regarded her visitor.
+
+"Where's William?" inquired Mrs. Transom.
+
+"Up-stairs."
+
+"Askin' his father's pardon?"
+
+"Well," 'Lizabeth grimly admitted, "that's like enough; but you needn't
+fret about them."
+
+Mrs. William showed no disposition to fret.  On the contrary, under the
+influence of the rum she became weakly jovial and a trifle garrulous--
+confiding to 'Lizabeth that, though married to William for four years,
+she had hitherto been blessed with no children; that they lived in
+barracks, which she disliked, but put up with because she doted on a red
+coat; that William had always been meaning to tell his father, but
+feared to anger him, "because, my dear," she frankly explained,
+"I was once connected with the stage"--a form of speech behind which
+'Lizabeth did not pry; that, a fortnight before Christmas, William had
+made up his mind at last, "'for,' as he said to me, 'the old man must be
+nearin' his end, and then the farm'll be mine by rights;'" that he had
+obtained his furlough two days back, and come by coach all the way to
+this doleful spot--for doleful she must call it, though she _would_ have
+to live there some day--with no shops nor theayters, of which last it
+appeared Mrs.  Transom was inordinately fond.  Her chatter was
+interrupted at length with some abruptness.
+
+"I suppose," said 'Lizabeth meditatively, "you was pretty, once."
+
+Mrs. Transom, with her hand on the bottle, stared, and then tittered.
+
+"Lud! my dear, you ain't over-complimentary.  Yes, pretty I was, though
+I say it."
+
+"We ain't neither of us pretty now--you especially."
+
+"I'd a knack o' dressin'," pursued the egregious Mrs. Transom, "an' nice
+eyes an' hair.  'Why, Maria, darlin',' said William one day, when him
+an' me was keepin' company, 'I believe you could sit on that hair o'
+yours, I do reely.'  'Go along, you silly!' I said, 'to be sure I can.'"
+
+"He called you darling?"
+
+"Why, in course.  H'ain't you never had a young man?"
+
+'Lizabeth brushed aside the question by another.
+
+"Do you love him?  I mean so that--that you could lie down and let him
+tramp the life out o' you?"
+
+"Good Lord, girl, what questions you do ask!  Why, so-so, o' course,
+like other married women.  He's wild at times, but I shut my eyes; an'
+he hav'n struck me this year past.  I wonder what he can be doin' all
+this time."
+
+"Come and see."
+
+'Lizabeth rose.  Her contempt of this foolish, faded creature recoiled
+upon herself, until she could bear to sit still no longer.
+With William's wife at her heels, she mounted the stair, their shoeless
+feet making no sound.  The door of the old man's bed-room stood ajar,
+and a faint ray of light stole out upon the landing.  'Lizabeth looked
+into the room, and then, with a quick impulse, darted in front of her
+companion.
+
+It was too late.  Mrs. Transom was already at her shoulder, and the eyes
+of the two women rested on the sorry spectacle before them.
+
+Candle in hand, the prodigal was kneeling by the dead man's bed.  He was
+not praying, however; but had his head well buried in the oaken chest,
+among the papers of which he was cautiously prying.
+
+The faint squeal that broke from his wife's lips sufficed to startle
+him.  He dropped the lid with a crash, turned sharply round, and
+scrambled to his feet.  His look embraced the two women in one brief
+flicker, and then rested on the blazing eyes of 'Lizabeth.
+
+"You mean hound!" said she, very slowly.
+
+He winced uneasily, and began to bluster:
+
+"Curse you!  What do you mean by sneaking upon a man like this?"
+
+"A man!" echoed 'Lizabeth.  "Man, then, if you will--couldn't you wait
+till your father was cold, but must needs be groping under his pillow
+for the key of that chest?  You woman, there--you wife of this man--I'm
+main grieved you should ha' seen this.  Lord knows I had the will to
+hide it!"
+
+The wife, who had sunk into the nearest chair, and lay there huddled
+like a half-empty bag, answered with a whimper.
+
+"Stop that whining!" roared William, turning upon her, "or I'll break
+every bone in your skin."
+
+"Fie on you, man!  Why, she tells me you haven't struck her for a whole
+year," put in 'Lizabeth, immeasurably scornful.
+
+"So, cousin, you've found out what I meant by 'we.'  Lord! you fancied
+_you_ was the one as was goin' to settle down wi' me an' be comfortable,
+eh?  You're jilted, my girl, an' this is how you vent your jealousy.
+You played your hand well; you've turned us out.  It's a pity--eh?--you
+didn't score this last trick."
+
+"What do you mean?"  The innuendo at the end diverted her wrath at the
+man's hateful coarseness.
+
+"Mean?  Oh, o' course, you're innocent as a lamb!  Mean?  Why, look
+here."
+
+He opened the chest again, and, drawing out a scrap of folded foolscap,
+began to read :--
+
+    "_I, Ebenezer Transom, of Compton Burrows, in the parish of
+    Compton, yeoman, being of sound wit and health, and willing, though
+    a sinner, to give my account to God, do hereby make my last will and
+    testament_."
+
+    "_My house, lands, and farm of Compton Burrows, together with every
+    stick that I own, I hereby (for her good care of me) give and
+    bequeath to Elizabeth Rundle, my dead sister's child_"
+
+--"Let be, I tell you!"
+
+But 'Lizabeth had snatched the paper from him. For a moment the devil in
+his eye seemed to meditate violence.  But he thought better of it; and
+when she asked for the candle held it beside her as she read on slowly.
+
+     "_ . . . to Elizabeth Rundle, my dead sister's child, desiring
+     that she may marry and bequeath the same to the heirs of her body;
+     less the sum of one shilling sterling, which I command to be sent
+     to my only surviving son William--_"
+
+"You needn't go on," growled William.
+
+     "_ . . . because he's a bad lot, and he may so well know I think
+     so.  And to this I set my hand, this 17th day of September, 1856._"
+                        "_Signed_"
+                            "_Ebenezer Transom._"
+
+                        "_Witnessed by_"
+                             "_John Hooper._"
+                             "_Peter Tregaskis._"
+
+The document was in the old man's handwriting, and clearly of his
+composition. But it was plain enough, and the signatures genuine.
+'Lizabeth's hand dropped.
+
+"I never knew a word o' this, William," she said humbly.
+
+Mrs. Transom broke into an incredulous titter.
+
+"Ugh! get along, you designer!"
+
+"William," appealed 'Lizabeth, "I've never had no thought o' robbin'
+you."
+
+'Lizabeth had definite notions of right and wrong, and this
+disinheritance of William struck her conservative mind as a violation of
+Nature's laws.
+
+William's silence was his wife's opportunity.
+
+"Robbery's the word, you baggage!  You thought to buy him wi' your
+ill-got gains.  Ugh! go along wi' you!"
+
+'Lizabeth threw a desperate look towards the cause of this trouble--the
+pale mask lying on the pillows.  Finding no help, she turned to William
+again--
+
+"You believe I meant to rob you?"
+
+Meeting her eyes, William bent his own on the floor, and lied.
+
+"I reckon you meant to buy me, Cousin 'Lizabeth."
+
+His wife tittered spitefully.
+
+"Woman!" cried the girl, lapping up her timid merriment in a flame of
+wrath.  "Woman, listen to me.  Time was I loved that man o' your'n; time
+was he swore I was all to him.  He was a liar from his birth.  It's your
+natur' to think I'm jealous; a better woman would know I'm _sick_--sick
+wi' shame an' scorn o' mysel'.  That man, there, has kissed me, oft'n
+an' oft'n--kissed me 'pon the mouth.  Bein' what you are, you can't
+understand how those kisses taste now, when I look at _you_."
+
+"Well, I'm sure!"
+
+"Hold your blasted tongue!" roared William.  Mrs. Transom collapsed.
+
+"Give me the candle," 'Lizabeth commanded.  "Look here--"
+
+She held the corner of the will to the flame, and watched it run up at
+the edge and wrap the whole in fire.  The paper dropped from her hand to
+the bare boards, and with a dying flicker was consumed.  The charred
+flakes drifted idly across the floor, stopped, and drifted again.
+In dead silence she looked up.
+
+Mrs. Transom's watery eyes were open to their fullest.  'Lizabeth turned
+to William and found him regarding her with a curious frown.
+
+"Do you know what you've done?" he asked hoarsely.
+
+'Lizabeth laughed a trifle wildly.
+
+"I reckon I've made reparation."
+
+"There was no call--" began William.
+
+"You fool--'twas to _myself!_  An' now," she added quietly, "I'll pick
+up my things and tramp down to Hooper's Farm; they'll give me a place, I
+know, an' be glad o' the chance.  They'll be sittin' up to-night, bein'
+Christmas time.  Good-night, William!"
+
+She moved to go; but, recollecting herself, turned at the door, and,
+stepping up to the bed, bent and kissed the dead man's forehead.
+Then she was gone.
+
+It was the woman who broke the silence that followed with a base speech.
+
+"Well!  To think she'd lose her head like that when she found you wasn't
+to be had!"
+
+"Shut up!" said William savagely; "an' listen to this:  If you was to
+die to-night I'd marry 'Lizabeth next week."
+
+
+Time passed.  The old man was buried, and Mr. and Mrs. Transom took
+possession at Compton Burrows and reigned in his stead.  'Lizabeth dwelt
+a mile or so down the valley with the Hoopers, who, as she had said,
+were thankful enough to get her services, for Mrs. Hooper was well up in
+years, and gladly resigned the dairy work to a girl who, as she told her
+husband, was of good haveage, and worth her keep a dozen times over.
+So 'Lizabeth had settled down in her new home, and closed her heart and
+shut its clasps tight.
+
+She never met William to speak to.  Now and then she caught sight of him
+as he rode past on horseback, on his way to market or to the "Compton
+Arms," where he spent more time and money than was good for him.  He had
+bought himself out of the army, of course; but he retained his barrack
+tales and his air of having seen life.  These, backed up with a baritone
+voice and a largehandedness in standing treat, made him popular in the
+bar parlour.  Meanwhile, Mrs. Transom, up at Compton Burrows--perhaps
+because she missed her "theayters"--sickened and began to pine; and one
+January afternoon, little more than a year after the home-coming,
+'Lizabeth, standing in the dairy by her cream-pans, heard that she was
+dead.
+
+"Poor soul," she said; "but she looked a sickly one."  That was all.
+She herself wondered that the news should affect her so little.
+
+"I reckon," said Mrs. Hooper with meaning, "William will soon be lookin'
+round for another wife."
+
+'Lizabeth went quietly on with her skimming.
+
+It was just five months after this, on a warm June morning, that William
+rode down the valley, and, dismounting by Farmer Hooper's, hitched his
+bridle over the garden gate, and entered.  'Lizabeth was in the garden;
+he could see her print sun-bonnet moving between the rows of peas.
+She turned as he approached, dropped a pod into her basket, and held out
+her hand.
+
+"Good day, William."  Her voice was quite friendly.
+
+William had something to say, and 'Lizabeth quickly guessed what it was.
+
+"I thought I'd drop in an' see how you was gettin' on; for it's main
+lonely up at Compton Burrows since the missus was took."
+
+"I daresay."
+
+"An' I'd a matter on my mind to tell you," he pursued, encouraged to
+find she harboured no malice.  "It's troubled me, since, that way you
+burnt the will, an' us turnin' you out; for in a way the place belonged
+to you.  The old man meant it, anyhow."
+
+"Well," said 'Lizabeth, setting down her basket, and looking him full in
+the eyes.
+
+"Well, I reckon we might set matters square, you an' me, 'Lizabeth, by
+marryin' an' settlin' down comfortable.  I've no children to pester you,
+an' you're young yet to be givin' up thoughts o' marriage.  What do 'ee
+say, cousin?"
+
+'Lizabeth picked a full pod from the bush beside her, and began shelling
+the peas, one by one, into her hand.  Her face was cool and
+contemplative.
+
+"'Tis eight years ago, William, since last you asked me.  Ain't that
+so?" she asked absently.
+
+"Come, Cousin, let bygones be, and tell me; shall it be, my dear?"
+
+"No, William," she answered; "'tis too late an hour to ask me now.  I
+thank you, but it can't be."  She passed the peas slowly to and fro in
+her fingers.
+
+"But why, 'Lizabeth?" he urged; "you was fond o' me once.  Come, girl,
+don't stand in your own light through a hit o' pique."
+
+"It's not that," she explained; "it's that I've found myself out--an'
+you.  You've humbled my pride too sorely."
+
+"You're thinking o' Maria."
+
+"Partly, maybe; but it don't become us to talk o' one that's dead.
+You've got my answer, William, and don't ask me again.  I loved you
+once, but now I'm only weary when I think o't.  You wouldn't understand
+me if I tried to tell you."
+
+She held out her hand.  William took it.
+
+"You're a great fool, 'Lizabeth."
+
+"Good-bye, William."
+
+She took up her basket and walked slowly back to the house; William
+watched her for a moment or two, swore, and returned to his horse.
+He did not ride home wards, but down the valley, where he spent the day
+at the "Compton Arms."  When he returned home, which was not before
+midnight, he was boisterously drunk.
+
+Now it so happened that when William dismounted at the gate Mrs. Hooper
+had spied him from her bedroom window, and, guessing his errand, had
+stolen down on the other side of the garden wall parallel with which the
+peas were planted.  Thus sheltered, she contrived to hear every word of
+the foregoing conversation, and repeated it to her good man that very
+night.
+
+"An' I reckon William said true," she wound up.  "If 'Lizabeth don't
+know which side her bread's buttered she's no better nor a fool--an'
+William's another."
+
+"I dunno," said the farmer; "it's a queer business, an' I don't fairly
+see my way about in it.  I'm main puzzled what can ha' become o' that
+will I witnessed for th' old man."
+
+"She's a fool, I say."
+
+"Well, well; if she didn't want the man I reckon she knows best.  He put
+it fairly to her."
+
+"That's just it, you ninny!" interrupted his wiser wife; "I gave William
+credit for more sense.  Put it fairly, indeed!  If he'd said nothin',
+but just caught her in his arms, an' clipped an' kissed her, she
+couldn't ha' stood out.  But he's lost his chance, an' now she'll never
+marry."
+
+And it was as she said.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of I Saw Three Ships and Other Winter
+Tales, by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
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