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 ofChristmas Eve was usually prolonged with cake and cider, "crowding, " and"geese dancing, " till the ancient carols ushered in the day, a certainlanguor not seldom pervaded the services of the Church a few hourslater. Red eyes and heavy, young limbs hardly rested from the _DashingWhite Sergeant_ and _Sir Roger_, throats husky from a plurality ofcauses--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 decadeof the century, this languor was neither more nor less apparent thanusual inside the small parish church of Ruan Lanihale, althoughChristmas fell that year on a Sunday, and dancing should, by rights, have ceased at midnight. The building stands high above a bleakpeninsula on the South Coast, and the congregation had struggled up withheads slanted sou'-west against the weather that drove up the Channel ina black fog. Now, having gained shelter, they quickly lost the glow ofendeavour, and mixed in pleasing stupor the humming of the storm in thetower above, its intermittent onslaughts on the leadwork of the southernwindows, and the voice of Parson Babbage lifted now and again from thechancel as if to correct the shambling pace of the choir in the westgallery. 

"Mark me, " whispered Old Zeb Minards, crowder and leader of themusicians, sitting back at the end of the Psalms, and eyeing his fiddledubiously; "If Sternhold be sober this morning, Hopkins be drunk as afly, or 'tis t'other way round. "

"'Twas middlin' wambly, " assented Calvin Oke, the second fiddle--ascrew-faced man tightly wound about the throat with a yellow kerchief. 

"An' 'tis a delicate matter to cuss the singers when the musicianers betwice as bad. "

"I'd a very present sense of being a bar or more behind the fair--that Ican 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 thatsloped remarkably. 

"Well, 'taint a suent engine at the best, Elias--that o' yourn, " saidhis affable leader, "nor to be lightly trusted among the proper psa'ms, 'specially since Chris'mas three year, when we sat in the forefront ofthe gallery, an' you dropped all but the mouthpiece overboard on to AuntBelovely's bonnet at 'I was glad when they said unto me. '"

"Aye, poor soul. It shook her. Never the same woman from that hour, Ido b'lieve. Though I'd as lief you didn't mention it, friends, if I maysay so; for 'twas a bitter portion. "

Elias patted his instrument sadly, and the three men looked up for amoment, as a scud of rain splashed on the window, drowning a sentence ofthe First Lesson. 

"Well, well, " resumed Old Zeb, "we all have our random intervals, and adrop 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 forthat 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 anoticeable sound, whether tunable or false. "

"Terrible shy he looks, poor chap!"

The three men turned and contemplated Young Zeb Minards, who sat ontheir 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 fromhigh up in the head of Uncle Issy, the bass-viol player; "But cast youreyes, good friends, 'pon a little slip o' heart's delight down in thenave, and mark the flowers 'pon the bonnet nid-nodding like bees in abell, with unspeakable thoughts. "

"'Tis the world's way wi' females. "

"I'll wager, though, she wouldn't miss the importance of it--yea, notfor much fine gold. "

"Well said, Uncle, " commented the crowder, a trifle more loudly as thewind 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 bassthen), an' Pa'son Babbage by the desk statin' forth my own banns, an' mewith 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 thereshe was glintin' fifty ways under her bonnet, to see how the rest o' themaidens was takin' it. "

"Hey, " murmured Elias, the bachelor; "but it must daunt a man to hearhis name loudly coupled wi' a woman's before a congregation o' folks. "

"'Tis very intimate, " assented Old Zeb. But here the First Lessonended. There was a scraping of feet, then a clearing of throats, andthe musicians plunged into "_O, all ye works of the Lord_. "

Young Zeb, amid the moaning of the storm outside the building and thescraping and zooming of the instruments, string and reed, around him, felt his head spin; but whether from the lozenge (that had suffered fromthe companionship of a twist of tobacco in Elias Sweetland's pocket), orthe dancing last night, or the turbulence of his present emotions, hecould not determine. Year in and year out, grey morning or white, agloom rested always on the singers' gallery, cast by the tower upon thesouth side, that stood apart from the main building, connected only bythe porch roof, as by an isthmus. And upon eyes used to thiscomparative obscurity the nave produced the effect of a bright parterreof flowers, especially in those days when all the women wore scarletcloaks, to scare the French if they should invade. Zeb's gaze, amid theturmoil of sound, hovered around one such cloak, rested on a slim backresolutely turned to him, and a jealous bonnet, wandered to the baldscalp of Farmer Tresidder beside it, returned to Calvin Qke's sawingelbow 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, andseemed on the point of leaving their sockets with the vigour of theperformance. 

"Sooner thee'st married the better for us, my son, " commented his fatherat the close; "else farewell to psa'mody!"

But Young Zeb did not reply. In fact, what remained of the peppermintlozenge had somehow jolted into his windpipe, and kept him occupied withthe earlier symptoms of strangulation. 

His facial contortions, though of the liveliest, were unaccompanied bysound, and, therefore, unheeded. The crowder, with his eyescontemplatively fastened on the capital of a distant pillar, waspursuing a train of reflection upon Church music; and the othersregarded the crowder. 

"Now supposin', friends, as I'd a-fashioned the wondrous words o' theditty we've just polished off; an' supposin' a friend o' mine, same asUncle Issy might he, had a-dropped in, in passin', an' heard me read thesame. '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' hisfinger), 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 thisimaginative 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 gosnorty; an' for wells, gliddery; an' likewise in a moving dulcet mannerfor the holy an' humble Men o' heart. ' Why, 'od rabbet us!--what'swrong wi' that boy?"

All turned to Young Zeb, from whose throat uncomfortable sounds wereissuing. His eyes rolled piteously, and great tears ran down hischeeks. 

"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 tolose. "

Down in the nave a light rustle of expectancy was already running frompew to pew as Calvin Oke brought down his open palm with a _whack!_knocking the sufferer out of his seat, and driving his nose smartlyagainst the back-rail in front. 

Then the voice of Parson Babbage was lifted: "I publish the Banns ofmarriage between Zebedee Minards, bachelor, and Ruby Tresidder, spinster, both of this parish. If any of you know cause, or justimpediment, why these two persons--"

At this instant the church-door flew open, as if driven in by the windthat tore up the aisle in an icy current. All heads were turned. Parson Babbage broke off his sentence and looked also, keeping hisforefinger 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 thegallery 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, inthe 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 hisaudience scrambled out over the graves and forth upon the headland. The wind here came howling across the short grass, blowing the women'sskirts wide and straining their bonnet-strings, pressing the men'strousers tight against their shins as they bent against it in theattitude of butting rams and scanned the coast-line to the sou'-west. Ruby Tresidder, on gaining the porch, saw Young Zeb tumble out of thestairway leading from the gallery and run by, stowing the pieces of hisflute in his pocket as he went, without a glance at her. Like all therest, he had clean forgotten the banns. 

Now, Ruby was but nineteen, and had seen plenty of wrecks, whereas thesebanns were to her an event of singular interest, for weeks anticipatedwith small thrills. Therefore, as the people passed her by, she feltsuddenly out of tune with them, especially with Zeb, who, at least, might have understood her better. Some angry tears gathered in her eyesat the callous indifference of her father, who just now was revolving inthe porch like a weathercock, and shouting orders east, west, north, andsouth for axes, hammers, ladders, cart-ropes, in case the vessel struckwithin reach. 

"You, Jim Lewarne, run to the mowhay, hot-foot, an' lend a hand wi' thedatchin' ladder, an'--hi! stop!--fetch along my second-best glass, underthe Dook o' Cumberland's picter i' the parlour, 'longside o' last year'sneck; an'-hi! cuss the chap--he's gone like a Torpointer! Ruby, mydear, step along an' show en--Why, hello!--"

Ruby, with head down, and scarlet cloak blown out horizontally, wasalready fighting her way out along the headland to a point where Zebstood, 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 roundwith a start, nodded as if pleased, and bent his gaze on the Channelagain. 

Ruby looked too. Just below, under veils of driving spray, the seaswere thundering past the headland into Ruan Cove. She could not seethem break, only their backs swelling and sinking, and the puffs of foamthat shot up like white smoke at her feet and drenched her gown. Beyond, the sea, the sky, and the irregular coast with its fringe ofsurf melted into one uniform grey, with just the summit of BraddenPoint, two miles away, standing out above the wrack. Of the vesselthere was, as yet, no sign. 

In Ruby's present mood the bitter blast was chiefly blameworthy forgnawing at her face, and the spray for spoiling her bonnet and takingher 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 cheekin a preoccupied manner. 

She was about to ask him what this wreck amounted to, that she shouldfor the moment sink to nothing in comparison with it. But, at thisinstant, a small group of men and women joined them, and, catching sightof the faces of Sarah Ann Nanjulian and Modesty Prowse, her friends, shetried another tack--

"Well, Zeb, no doubt 'twas disappointing for you; but don't 'ee take onso. Think how much harder 'tis for the poor souls i' that ship. "

This astute sentence, however, missed fire completely. Zeb answered itwith a point-blank stare of bewilderment. The others took no notice ofit whatever. 

"Hav'ee seen her, Zeb?" called out his father. 

"No. "

"Nor I nuther. 'Reckon 'tis all over a'ready. I've a-heard aforenow, " he went on, turning his back to the wind the better to wink at thecompany, "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 roundby Cove Head to look out?"

"Iss, a dozen or more. I saw 'em 'pon the road, a minute back, likeemmets runnin'. "

"'Twas very nice feelin', I must own--very nice indeed--of Gauger Hockento warn the church-folk first; and him a man of no faith, as you maysay. Hey? What's that? Dost see her, Zeb?"

For Zeb, with his right hand pressing down his cap, now suddenly flunghis left out in the direction of Bradden Point. Men and women cranedforward. 

Below the distant promontory, a darker speck had started out of themedley of grey tones. In a moment it had doubled its size--had become ablur--then a shape. And at length, out of the leaden wrack, thereemerged a small schooner, with tall, raking masts, flying straighttowards them. 

"Dear God!" muttered some one, while Ruby dug her finger-tips into Zeb'sarm. 

The schooner raced under bare poles, though a strip or two of canvasstreamed out from her fore-yards. Yet she came with a rush like agreyhound's, heeling over the whitened water, close under the cliffs, and closer with every instant. A man, standing on any one of the pointsshe 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 shedoes, 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 thecove--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 herbroadside, and lifted as if to fling her high and dry. The men andwomen 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 secondschoked down his words. Two possibilities they held, and each big withdoom. Either the schooner must dash upon the Raney--a reef, barelycovered 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 thatmust be added within a short half-minute. 

Ruby saw this: it was plain for a child to read. She saw the curdedtide, now at half-flood, boiling around the Raney; she saw the littlecraft swoop down on it, half buried in the seas through which she wasbeing impelled; she saw distinctly one form, and one only, on the deckbeside the helm--a form that flung up its hands as it shot by the smoothedge of the reef, a hand's-breadth off destruction. The hands werestill lifted as it passed under the ledge where she stood. 

It seemed, as she stood there shivering, covering her eyes, an agebefore the crash came, and the cry of those human souls in theirextremity. 

When at length she took her hands from her face the others were twentyyards away, and running fast. 

CHAPTER II. 

THE SECOND SHIP. 

Fate, which had freakishly hurled a ship's crew out of the void uponthis particular bit of coast, as freakishly preserved them. 

The very excess of its fury worked this wonder. For the craft came inon a tall billow that flung her, as a sling might, clean against thecliff's face, crumpling the bowsprit like paper, sending the foremastover with a crash, and driving a jagged tooth of rock five feet into herribs beside the breastbone. So, for a moment it left her, securelygripped and bumping her stern-post on the ledge beneath. As the nextsea deluged her, and the next, the folk above saw her crew fight theirway forward up the slippery deck, under sheets of foam. With the fifthor six wave her mizen-mast went; she split open amidships, pouring outher cargo. The stern slipped off the ledge and plunged twenty fathomsdown out of sight. And now the fore-part alone remained--a piece ofdeck, the stump of the foremast, and five men clinging in a tangle ofcordage, struggling up and toppling back as each successive sea sousedover them. 

Three men had detached themselves from the group above the cliff, andwere sidling down its face cautiously, for the hurricane now flattenedthem back against the rock, now tried to wrench them from it; and allthe 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 roundhim. Young Zeb followed, and Elias Sweetland, both similarly laden. 

Less than half-way down the rock plunged abruptly, cutting off fartherdescent. 

Jim Lewarne, in a cloud of foam, stood up, slipped the coil over hishead, and unwound it, glancing to right and left. Now Jim amid ordinaryevents was an acknowledged fool, and had a wife to remind him of it; butperch him out of female criticism, on a dizzy foothold such as this, andset him a desperate job, and you clarified his wits at once. This eccentricity was so notorious that the two men above halted insilence, and waited. 

Jim glanced to right and left, spied a small pinnacle of rock aboutthree 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 arunning noose, he flung it over the pinnacle, and with a tug had ittaut. This done, he tilted his body out, his toes on the ledge, hisweight on the rope, and his body inclined forward over the sea at anangle of some twenty degrees from the cliff. 

Having by this device found the position of the wreck, and judging thathis single rope would reach, he swung back, gained hold of the cliffwith his left hand, and with his right caught and flung the leaded endfar out. It fell true as a bullet, across the wreck. As it dropped, asea almost swept it clear; but the lead hitched in a tangle of cordageby the port cathead; within twenty seconds the rope was caught and madefast below. 

All was now easy. At a nod from Jim young Zeb passed down a secondline, which was lowered along the first by a noose. One by one thewhole crew--four men and a cabin-boy--were hauled up out of death, borneoff to the vicarage, and so pass out of our story. 

Their fate does not concern us, for this reason--men with a narrowhorizon and no wings must accept all apparent disproportions betweencause and effect. A railway collision has other results besideswrecking an ant-hill, but the wise ants do not pursue these in theInsurance Reports. So it only concerns us that the destruction of theschooner led in time to a lovers' difference between Ruby and youngZeb--two young people of no eminence outside of these pages. And, as amatter 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, inreality as a privateer (which explains her raking masts), but ostensiblyfor the Portugal trade; and was homeward bound from Lisbon to theThames, with a cargo of red wine and chestnuts. At Falmouth, where shehad run in for a couple of days, on account of a damaged rudder, thecaptain paid off his extra hands, foreseeing no difficulty in the voyageup Channel. She had not, however, left Falmouth harbour three hoursbefore she met with a gale that started her steering-gear afresh. To put back in the teeth of such weather was hopeless; and the attemptto run before it ended as we know. 

When Ruby looked up, after the crash, and saw her friends running alongthe headland to catch a glimpse of the wreck, her anger returned. She stood for twenty minutes at least, watching them; then, pulling hercloak closely round her, walked homewards at a snail's pace. By thechurch gate she met the belated Methodists hurrying up, and passed aword or two of information that sent them panting on. A little beyond, at the point where the peninsula joins the mainland, she faced round tothe wind again for a last glance. Three men were following her slowlydown the ridge with a burden between them. It was the first of therescued crew--a lifeless figure wrapped in oil-skins, with one armhanging limply down, as if broken. Ruby halted, and gave time to comeup. 

"Hey, lads, " shouted Old Zeb, who walked first, with a hand round eachof the figure's sea-boots; "now that's what I'd call a proper womanlymasterpiece, to run home to Sheba an' change her stockings in time forthe randivoose. "

"I don't understand, " said his prospective daughter-in-law, haughtily. 

"O boundless depth! Rest the poor mortal down, mates, while I takebreath to humour her. Why, my dear, you must know from my tellin' thatthere _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 alook at the oil-skin. The sailor's upturned face was of a sicklyyellow, smeared with blood and crusted with salt. The same white crustfilled 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 interpretationthereof is barrels an' nuts. What's more, tide'll be runnin' for twohour yet; an' it hasn' reached my ears that the fashion of thankin' theLord for His bounty have a-perished out o' this old-fangled race of menan' 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 prettyears 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-borncomes! 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 _YoungSusannah_ came ashore, that I must own. Folks blamed the Pa'son forpreachin' agen it the Sunday after. 'A disreppitable scene, ' says he, ''specially seein' you had nowt to be thankful for but a cargo o' sugarthat 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 'tisChris'mas. "

"Iss, iss; be very mild, my sons, as 'tis so holy a day. "

They tramped on, bending their heads at queer angles against theweather, that erased their outlines in a bluish mist, through which theyloomed for a while at intervals, until they passed out of sight. 

Ruby, meanwhile, had hurried on, her cloak flapping loudly as it grewheavier with moisture, and the water in her shoes squishing at everystep. At first she took the road leading down-hill to Ruan Cove, butturned to the right after a few yards, and ran up the muddy lane thatwas the one approach to Sheba, her father's farm. 

The house, a square, two-storeyed building of greystone, roofed withheavy slates, was guarded in front by a small courtlage, the wall ofwhich blocked all view from the lower rooms. From the narrow mullionedwindows on the upper floor, however, one could look over it upon theduck-pond across the road, and down across two grass meadows to thecove. A white gate opened on the courtlage, and the path from this tothe front door was marked out by slabs of blue slate, accurately laid inline. Ruby, in her present bedraggled state, avoided the frontentrance, 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 tossingthem 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'sedge and slid away across the slate flooring under the table. 

"Awgh--awgh!" she burst out, catching up her apron and clutching itround 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 thiskitchen was a simple matter, consisting of a nail driven into the centreof the chimney-piece, a number of worsted threads depending therefrom, and a steel hook attached to these threads. Fix the joint or fowlfirmly on the hook, give it a spin with the hand, and the worstedthreads wound, unwound, and wound again, turning it before the blaze--anadmirable jack, if only looked after. At present it hung motionlessover the dripping-pan, and the goose wore a suit of motley, exhibiting arich 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 Rubywalked 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 stablekey, Mary Jane, my dear?' an' then agen, 'Will'ee be so good as to fetchmaster'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 tocleanse, an' apples to chop for sauce, an' the hoarders no nearer awaythan the granary loft, with a gatherin' 'pon your second toe an' thehalf o' 'em rotten when you get there. The pore I be in! Why, MissRuby, you'm streamin'-leakin'!"

"I'm wet through, Mary Jane; an' I don't care if I die. " Ruby sank onthe 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'sbroke. 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 youlast 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 Gaugerstunnin' and shoutin' 'Wreck! wreck!' like a trumpet, an' the church wasfull o' wind, an' the folk ran this way an' that, like sheep, an' leftme sittin' there. I'll--I'll die an old maid, I will, if only tos--spite such ma--ma--manners!"

"Aw, pore dear! But there's better tricks than dyin' unwed. Bind up myfinger, Miss Ruby, an' listen. You shall play Don't Care, an' changeyour frock, an' we'll step down to th' cove after dinner an' there beheartless and fancy-free. Lord! when the dance strikes up, to see youcarryin' off the other maids' danglers an' treating your own man likedirt!"

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 theyard, 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 tome. "

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 ofenforcing her wishes. 

Sure enough, soon after dinner was cleared away (a meal through whichRuby had sulked and Farmer Tresidder eaten heartily, talking with a fullmouth about the rescue, and coarsely ignoring what he called hisdaughter's "faddles"), the two girls retired to the chamber up-stairs;where the mistress was as good as her word, and pulled the dimitycurtains before settling herself down in an easy-chair to listen toextracts 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 howledaround the angle of the house and whipped a spray of the monthly-rosebush on the quarrels of the window, filling the pauses during whichMary Jane wrestled with a hard word. Ruby herself had taught the girlthis accomplishment--rare enough at the time--and Mary Jane handled itgingerly, beginning each sentence in a whisper, as if awed by her ownintrepidity, and ending each in a kind of gratulatory cheer. The workwas of that class of epistolary fiction then in vogue, and the extractsingularly well fitted to Ruby's mood. 

"My dearest Wil-hel-mina, " began Mary Jane, "racked with a hun-dredconflicting em-otions, I resume the nar-rative of those fa-tal momentswhich rapt me from your affec-tion-ate em-brace. Suffer me to re--tore-cap--"

"Better spell it, Mary Jane. "

"To r. E. , re--c. A. P. , cap, recap--i. T, it, re--capit--Lor'! what atwister!--u, recapitu--l. A. T. E, late, re-cap-it-u-late the eventsde-tailed in my last letter, full stop--there! if I han't read that fullstop out loud! Lord Bel-field, though an ad-ept in all the arts ofdis-sim-u-la-tion (and how of-ten do we not see these arts al-lied withun-scru-pu-lous pas-sions?), was un-able to sus-tain the gaze of myin-fu-ri-a-ted pa-pa, though he com-port-ed himself with suf-fic-ientp. H. L. E. G. M--Lor'! what a funny word!"

Ruby yawned. It is true she had drawn the dimity curtains--all but acouple of inches. Through this space she could see the folk busy on thebeach below like a swarm of small black insects, and continuallyaugmented 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 broughtwithin reach; others (among whom she seemed to descry Young Zeb) wereclambering out with grapnels along the western rocks; a third largegroup was gathered in the very centre of the beach, and from the midstof these a blue wreath of smoke began to curl up. At the same instantshe heard the gate click outside, and pulling the curtain wider, saw herfather trudging away down the lane. 

Mary Jane, glancing up, and seeing her mistress crane forward withcuriosity, 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 yourreading, this instant. " (A pause. ) "Mary Jane, I do believe they'mroastin' 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 lownotions. You shall bring me word o' what's doin'--an' mind you're backbefore dark. "

Mary Jane fled precipitately, lest the order should be revoked. Five minutes later, Ruby heard the small gate click again, and with asigh saw the girl's rotund figure waddling down the lane. Then shepicked up the book and strove to bury herself in the woes of Wilhelmina, but still with frequent glances out of window. Twice the book droppedoff her lap; twice she picked it up and laboriously found the pageagain. Then she gave it up, and descended to the back door, to see ifanyone were about who might give her news. But the town-place wasdeserted by all save the ducks, the old white sow, and a melancholy crewof cocks and hens huddled under the dripping eaves of the cow-house. Returning to her room, she settled down on the window-seat, and watchedthe blaze of the bonfire increase as the short day faded. 

The grey became black. It was six o'clock, and neither her father norMary Jane had returned. Seven o'clock struck from the tall clock in thekitchen, and was echoed ten minutes after by the Dutch clock in theparlour below. The sound whirred up through the planching twice as loudas usual. It was shameful to be left alone like this, to be robbed, murdered, goodness knew what. The bonfire began to die out, but everynow and then a circle of small black figures would join hands and danceround it, scattering wildly after a moment or two. In a lull of thewind she caught the faint sound of shouts and singing, and thisdetermined 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 prettybut tear-stained pair of cheeks; and when she touched off the brimstonematch, 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 creptdown-stairs. Her clogs were in the hall; and four horn lanterns dangledfrom a row of pegs above them. She caught down one, lit it, andthrowing the shawl over her head, stepped out into the night. 

The wind was dying down and seemed almost warm upon her face. A youngmoon fought gallantly, giving the massed clouds just enough light tosail by; but in the lane it was dark as pitch. This did not so muchmatter, as the rain had poured down it like a sluice, washing the flintsclean. Ruby's lantern swung to and fro, casting a yellow glare on thetall hedges, drawing queer gleams from the holly-bushes, and flinging anugly, 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 allthe details of the scene. 

In the glow of the dying fire sat a semicircle of men--Jim Lewarne, sunkin a drunken slumber, Calvin Oke bawling in his ear, Old Zeb on handsand knees, scraping the embers together, Toby Lewarne (Jim's elderbrother) thumping a pannikin on his knee and bellowing a carol, and adozen others--in stages varying from qualified sobriety to stark andshameless intoxication--peering across the fire at the game in progressbetween them and the faint line that marked where sand ended and seabegan. 

"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' kissth' hugliest!"

It was true. Ruby, halting with her lantern a pace or two behind thedark semicircle of backs, saw her perfidious Zeb moving from right toleft slowly round the circle of men and maids that, with joined handsand 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 itshot. 

The dancers looked; the few sober men by the fire turned and lookedalso. 

"'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, twentyyards away, where Ruby stood holding the lantern high, its ray full onher face. As she started she kicked off her clogs, turned, and ran forher life. 

Then, in an instant, a new game began upon the sands. Young Zeb, wavinghis kerchief and pursuing the flying lantern, was turned, baffled, intercepted--here, there, and everywhere--by the dancers, who scatteredover the beach with shouts and peals of laughter, slipping in betweenhim and his quarry. The elders by the fire held their sides and cheeredthe sport. Twice Zeb was tripped up by a mischievous boot, flounderedand went sprawling; and the roar was loud and long. Twice he pickedhimself up and started again after the lantern, that zigzagged now alongthe fringe of the waves, now up towards the bonfire, now off along thedark shadow of the cliffs. 

Ruby could hardly sift her emotions when she found herself panting anddoubling in flight. The chase had started without her will or dissent;had suddenly sprung, as it were, out of the ground. She only knew thatshe was very angry with Zeb; that she longed desperately to elude him;and that he must catch her soon, for her breath and strength wereebbing. 

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 seatowards the fire, with Zeb's feet pounding behind her, and her soulpossessed with the dread to feel his grasp upon her shoulders. As it fell, Old Zeb leapt up to his feet with excitement, and opened hismouth wide to cheer. 

But no voice came for three seconds: and when he spoke this was what hesaid--

"Good Lord, deliver us!"

She saw his gaze pass over her shoulder; and then heard these words comeslowly, one by one, like dropping stones. His face was like a ghost'sin 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 dowith Young Zeb, whose arms were binding hers, and whose breath was hoton 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, andsquare-sails of a full-rigged ship. 

The men and women must have stood a whole minute--dumb as stones--beforethere came that long curdling shriek for which they waited. The greatmasts 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 orlingering, was blotted out. There was no help possible; no arm thatcould throw across the three hundred yards that separated her from thecliffs; no swimmer that could carry a rope across those breakers; norany boat that could, with a chance of life, put out among them. Now andthen a dull crash divided the dark hours, but no human cry again reachedthe shore. 

Day broke on a grey sea still running angrily, a tired and shiveringgroup upon the beach, and on the near side of the Raney a shapelessfragment, pounded and washed to and fro--a relic on which the watcherscould in their minds re-build the tragedy. 

The Raney presents a sheer edge to seaward--an edge under which thefirst vessel, though almost grazing her side, had driven in plenty ofwater. Shorewards, however, it descends by gradual ledges. Beguiled by the bonfire, or mistaking Ruby's lantern for the tossingstern-light of a comrade, the second ship had charged full-tilt on thereef and hung herself upon it, as a hunter across a fence. Before shecould swing round, her back was broken; her stern parted, slipped backand settled in many fathoms; while the fore-part heaved forwards, toppled down the reef till it stuck, and there was slowly brayed intopieces by the seas. The tide had swept up and ebbed without dislodgingit, and now was almost at low-water mark. 

"'May so well go home to breakfast, " said Elias Sweetland, grimly, as hetook 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 grogwith the parson and the rescued men, when Sim Udy ran up with news ofthe fresh disaster; and his first business on descending to the Cove hadbeen to pack Ruby and Mary Jane off to bed with a sound rating. ParsonBabbage had descended also, carrying a heavy cane (the very same withwhich he broke the head of a Radical agitator in the bar of the "JollyPilchards, " to the mild scandal of the diocese), and had routed the restof the women and chastised the drunken. The parson was a remarkableman, and looked it, just now, in spite of the red handkerchief thatbound 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' closeunder 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, andhanded 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 muchrope 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 alegacy, 'pon which, he sets up as jowter--han'some painted cart, tidylittle mare, an' all complete, besides a bravish sum laid by. A man ofsubstance, 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 veryfair 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 birthup: 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 acome-by-chance furriner? No, I didn'; an' I'll see thee jiggered aforeI ties 'ee up. Pa'son Babbage--"

"Ye dundering old shammick!" broke in the parson, driving the ferule ofhis cane deep in the sand, "be content to have begotten a fool, andthank heaven and his mother he's a gamey fool. "

"Thank'ee, Pa'son, " said Young Zeb, turning his head as Jim Lewarnefastened the belt of corks under his armpits. "Now the line--not tootight round the waist, an' pay out steady. You, Jim, look to this. R-r-r--mortal cold water, friends!" He stood for a moment, clenchinghis teeth--a fine figure of a youth for all to see. Then, shouting forplenty of line, he ran twenty yards down the beach and leapt in on thetop of a tumbling breaker. 

"When a man's old, " muttered the parson, half to himself, "he may yetthank God for what he sees, sometimes. Hey, Farmer! I wish I was amarried 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 outyonder?"

The man on the wreck was still clinging, drenched twice or thrice in thehalf-minute and hidden from sight, but always emerging. He sat astrideof the dangling foremast, and had wound tightly round his wrist the endof a rope that hung over the bows. If the rope gave, or the mast workedclear 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 theirlungs, seemed to take no notice--only moved feebly, once or twice, toget a firmer seat. 

Zeb also could only be descried at intervals, his head appearing, nowand again, like a cork on the top of a billow. But the last of the ebbwas helping him, and Jim Lewarne, himself at times neck-high in thesurf, continued to pay out the line slowly. In fact, the feat was lessdangerous than it seemed to the spectators. A few hours before, it wasimpossible; but by this there was little more than a heavy swell afterthe first twenty yards of surf. Zeb's chief difficulty would be tocatch a grip or footing on the reef where the sea again grew broken, andhis foremost dread lest cramp should seize him in the bitterly coldwater. Rising on the swell, he could spy the seaman tossing and sinkingon the mast just ahead. 

As it happened, he was spared the main peril of the reef, for in fiftymore strokes he found himself plunging down into a smooth trough ofwater with the mast directly beneath. As he shot down, the mast rose tohim, he flung his arms out over it, and was swept up, clutching it, tothe summit of the next swell. 

Oddly enough, his first thought, as he hung there, was not for the manhe had come to save, but for that which had turned him pale when firsthe glanced through the telescope. The foremast across which he lay wascomplete almost to the royal-mast, though the yards were gone; and tohis left, just above the battered fore-top, five men were lashed, deadand drowned. Most of them had their eyes wide open, and seemed to stareat 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 outto them at first, and then he dragged his gaze off them, and turned itto the right. The survivor still clung here, and Zeb--who had beenvaguely wondering how on earth he contrived to keep his seat and yethold on by the rope without being torn limb from limb--now discoveredthis end of the mast to be so tightly jammed and tangled against thewreck as practically to be immovable. The man's face was about asscaring as the corpses'; for, catching sight of Zeb, he betrayed nosurprise, but only looked back wistfully over his left shoulder, whilehis blue lips worked without sound. At least, Zeb heard none. 

He waited while they plunged again and emerged, and then, drawingbreath, began to pull himself along towards the stranger. They had seenhis success from the beach, and Jim Lewarne, with plenty of line yet tospare, waited for the next move. Zeb worked along till he could touchthe 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 pettishchild 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 strugglefollowed, which ended in Zeb's getting by and gripping the mast againbetween him and the wreck. 

"Now list to me, " he shouted, pulling himself up and flinging a leg overthe 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, snatchedthe rope out of the other's hand, threw his weight upon it, and swung intowards the vessel's ribs till he touched one, caught, and passed theline around it, high up, with a quick double half-hitch. Running a handdown the line, he dropped back upon the mast. The stranger regarded himwith 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 andhollow-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 hada cultivated ring. 

"Yes, " answered Zeb, as, with one hand on the line that now connectedthe wreck with the shore, he sat down astride the mast facing him; "Ireckon 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 roundyourn. How your fingers do shake, to be sure!"

"I call you to witness, " said the other, with a shiver, "you are savingme 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 onthe 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; letme chafe your legs a bit, for how you've lasted out as you have is morethan I know. "

"I was on the foretop most of the night. Those fools--" he broke off tonod at the corpses. 

"They'm dead, " put in Zeb, curtly. 

"They lashed themselves, thinking the foremast would stand tilldaylight. I climbed down half an hour before it went. I tell youwhat, though; my legs are too cramped to move. If you want to save meyou must carry me. "

"I was thinkin' the same. Well, come along; for tho' I don't like thecut o' your jib, you'm a terrible handsome chap, and as clean-built asever 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 theLord, the tide's running. "

So they began their journey. Zeb had taken barely a dozen strokes whenthe other groaned and began to hang more heavily on his neck. But hefought on, though very soon the struggle became a blind and horriblenightmare to him. The arm seemed to creep round his throat and stranglehim, and the blackness of a great night came down over his eyes. Still he struck out, and, oddly enough, found himself calling to hiscomrade to hold tight. 

When Sim Udy and Elias Sweetland dashed in from the shore and swam tothe rescue, they found the pair clinging to the line, and at astandstill. And when the four were helped through the breakers to firmearth, Zeb tottered two steps forward and dropped in a swoon, buryinghis face in the sand. 

"He's not as strong as I, " muttered the stranger, staring at ParsonBabbage in a dazed, uncertain fashion, and uttering the words as if theyhad no connection with his thoughts. "I'm afraid--sir--I've broken--hisheart. "

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 thekitchen, sleepy-eyed, getting ready the breakfast, dashed up-stairs withthe news that two dead men had been taken off the wreck and were evennow 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 domake 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 mustknow 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 tobehold. 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 todrink, 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 thekitchen door she flung it open, calling "Zeb! Zeb!"

But Young Zeb had fainted for the third time, and while others of thegroup merely lifted their heads at her entrance, the old crowder strodetowards her with some amount of sternness on his face. 

"Kape off my son!" he shouted. "Kape off my son Zebedee, and goup-stairs agen to your prayers; for this be all your work, in a way--yougay good-for-nuthin'!"

"Indeed, Mr. Minards, " retorted Ruby, firing up under this extravagantcharge and bridling, "pray remember whose roof you're under, with yourlow language. "

"Begad, " interposed a strange voice, "but that's the spirit for me, andthe mouth to utter it!"

Ruby, turning, met a pair of luminous eyes gazing on her with boldadmiration. The eyes were set in a cadaverous, but handsome, face; andthe face belonged to the stranger, who had recovered of his swoon, andwas 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, afishing town of fifteen hundred inhabitants or less, that blocks theseaward exit of a narrow coombe. A little stream tumbles down thiscoombe towards the "Hauen, " divides the folk into parishioners ofLanihale and Landaviddy, and receives impartially the fish offal ofboth. There is a good deal of this offal, especially during pilchardtime, and the towns-folk live on their first storeys, using the lowerfloors as fish cellars, or "pallaces. " But even while the nose mostabhors, the eye is delighted by jumbled houses, crazy stairways leadingto green doors, a group of children dabbling in the mud at low tide, acongregation of white gulls, a line of fishing boats below the quaywhere 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 skybetween. 

Mr. Zebedee Minards the elder dwelt on the eastern or Lanihale side ofthe stream, and a good way back from the Hauen, beside the road thatwinds inland up the coombe. Twenty yards of garden divided his cottagedoor from the road, and prevented the inmates from breaking their necksas they stepped over its threshold. Even as it was, Old Zeb hadacquired a habit of singing out "Ware heads!" to the wayfarers wheneverhe chanced to drop a rotund object on his estate; and if any smallarticle were missing indoors, would descend at once to the highway withthe cheerful assurance, based on repeated success, of finding itsomewhere below. 

Over and above its recurrent crop of potatoes and flatpoll cabbages, this precipitous garden depended for permanent interest on a collectionof marine curiosities, all eloquent of disaster to shipping. To beginwith, a colossal and highly varnished Cherokee, once the figure-head ofa West Indiaman, stood sentry by the gate and hung forward over theroad, to the discomfiture of unwarned and absent-minded bagmen. Thepath to the door was guarded by a low fence of split-bamboo baskets thathad once contained sugar from Batavia; a coffee bag from the wreck of aDutch barque served for door-mat; a rum-cask with a history caughtrain-water from the eaves; and a lapdog's pagoda--a dainty affair, striped in scarlet and yellow, the jetsom of some passenger ship--hadbeen deftly adapted by Old Zeb, and stood in line with three strawbee-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 GulfStream. Uncle Issy, passing up the road at nine o'clock, halted by theCherokee to pass a word with its proprietor, who presented the veryantipodes of a bird's-eye view, as he knocked about the crumbling clodswith 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 thecoombe, 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' yoursmall-clothes, tryin' to think 'pon what I wanted to say; for I'd anotion 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' thatvery 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 waslookin' 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 upin the night to spekilate thereon. For I felt it very curious thereshud he three Zebedee Minardses i' this parish a-drawin' separate breathat 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 weekagone, 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' herebe 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 kitchenan' says 'My name is Zebedee Minards, ' you might ha' blown me down wi' apuff; an' says I to mysel', wakin' up last night an' thinkin'--'I'll axa 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 leaningon his visgy began to contemplate the opposite slope of the coombe, asif the answer were written, in letters hard to decipher, along thehill-side. 

"Well, now, " he began, after opening his mouth twice and shutting itwithout 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 atwister, 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 forhis 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' openthe 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 tuken to church, tho', there was a pretty shape. 'Name this cheeld, ' saysPa'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. Youmight so well call en Amen. ' So bein' hurried in mind, what wi' thecheeld 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, 'tisso very life-like. "

A silence followed, full of thought. It was cut short by the rattle ofwheels 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, andseemed 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 goneup Channel these two months. "

"To Liskeard, for a chest-o'-drawers. " Young Zeb, to be ready formarried life, had taken a house for himself--a neat cottage with a yardand stable, farther up the coombe. But stress of business hadinterfered 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 'twasrale. So, as 'tis a fine day, I'm drivin' in to Mister Pennyway's shopo' 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 wenton, "let alone a legacy an' a green cart. 'Tain't that: 'tis themaid. "

"How's mother?" asked the young man, to shift the conversation. 

"Hugly, my son. Hi! Rachel!" he shouted, turning his head towards thecottage; and then went on, dropping his voice, "As between naybours, I'm fain to say she don't shine this mornin'. Hi, mother! here'sZebedee waitin' to pay his respects. "

Mrs. Minards appeared on the cottage threshold, with a blue check dusterround her head--a tall, angular woman, of severe deportment. Her husband's bulletin, it is fair to say, had reference rather to hertemper 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 outfor to see? Was it to pass the time o' day wi' an agedshaken-by-the-wind kind o' loiterer they name Uncle Issy?"

Apparently it was not, for Uncle Issy by this time was twenty yards upthe road, and still fleeing, with his head bent and shouldersextravagantly 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 aforeyour 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'swell. "

The old man turned back to his work, while Young Zeb rattled on in anill humour. He had the prettiest sweetheart and the richest inLanihale parish, and nobody said a good word for her. He tried to thinkof her as a wronged angel, and grew angry with himself on finding theeffort hard to sustain. Moreover, he felt uneasy about the stranger. Fate must be intending mischief, he fancied, when it led him to rescue aman 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 likeit. In spite of the day, and the merry breath of it that blew from thesea upon his right cheek, black care dogged him all the way up the longhill that led out of Porthlooe, and clung to the tail-board of his greencart as he jolted down again towards Ruan Cove. 

After passing the Cove-head, Young Zeb pulled up the mare, and was takenwith a fit of thoughtfulness, glancing up towards Sheba farm, and thenalong the high-road, as if uncertain. The mare settled the questionafter 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 comingon 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' mytay-cup, a week come Friday. "

"H'm. "

"Iss, fay; an' a great long-legged stranger he was. So I stuck en 'ponmy 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 'ponhis pins, like Nanny Painter's hens, for mine be all the purgy-bustiousshape just now. ' Well, Sunday night he came to Raney Rock, an' Mondaymornin' to Sheba farm; and no thanks to you that brought en, for not asingle 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 knivesto 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 _didnsteal more'n my name_"

Meantime, a group of four was standing in the middle of Parc Dew, thetwenty-acred field behind the farmstead. The stranger, dressed in ablue jersey and outfit of Farmer Tresidder's, that made up in boots forits shortcomings elsewhere, was addressing the farmer, Ruby, and JimLewarne, who heard him with lively attention. In his right hand he helda walking-stick armed with a spud, for uprooting thistles; and in hisleft 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'sonly for your own sakes I insist on convincing you. You'll grant methat, I suppose. To-morrow, or the next day, I go; and the chances arethat we never meet again in this world. But 'twould be a pleasantthought 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) bya 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, whowas the only hostile listener, perhaps because he saw no chance ofsharing in the promised wealth. 

"Jim, hold your tongue!" snapped Ruby. 

"I ask you, " went on the stranger, without deigning to answer, "I askyou if it does not look like Providence? Here have you been for years, dwelling amid wealth of which you never dreamed. A ship is wreckedclose 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, nursehim. As soon as he can crawl about, he picks a walking-stick out ofhalf-a-dozen or more in the hall, and goes out with you to take a lookat the farm. On his way he notes many things. He sees (you'll excuseme, Farmer, but I can't help it) that you're all behind the world, andthe land is yielding less than half of what it ought. Have you everseen a book by Lord Dundonald on the connection between Agriculture andChemistry? No? I thought not. Do you know of any manure better thanthe ore-weed you gather down at the Cove? Or the plan of malting grainto feed your cattle on through the winter? Or the respective merits ofoxen and horses as beasts of draught? But these matters, though thelife and soul of modern husbandry, are as nothing to this lump in myhand. 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 nameshould have told you. But you lay it down in grass, and but for thechance of this spud and a lucky thistle, I might have walked over it ascore of times without guessing its secret. Man alive, it's red gold Ihave here--red, wicked, damnable, delicious gold--the root of all eviland 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 quantityyou shall find out--"

At this juncture a voice was heard calling over the hedge, at the bottomof 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 tamariskbushes. 

"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 Rubythinks 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 tohear. "Who is this absurd person?"

Jim Lewarne answered--"A low-lived chap, mister, as saved your skinawhile back. "

"Dear, dear--how unpardonable of me! I hadn't, the least idea at thisdistance. Excuse me, I must go and thank him at once. "

He moved towards the hedge with a brisk step that seemed to cost himsome 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 astiver less. 'Mornin', Ruby, my dear. "

"And you'll forgive me if I also interrupt, " put in the stranger, withthe pleasantest smile, "but it is time I thanked the friend who saved mylife on Monday morning. I would come round and shake hands if only Icould see the gate. "

"Don't 'ee mention it, " replied Zeb, blushing hotly. "I'm glad to markye 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 fatherand Jim Lewarne), the stranger, with his bold features and easyconciliating carriage, had the advantage. It is probable that he knewit, 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, thewords be winnin' enow. But be danged, my dear, if I wudn' as lief yousaid, 'Go to blazes!'"

"Fact is, my son, " said Farmer Tresidder, candidly, "you'm good butuntimely, like kissin' the wrong maid. This here surpassin' youngfriend o' mine was speech-makin' after a pleasant fashion in our earswhen you began to bawl--"

"Then you don't want to hear about the chest o' drawers?" interruptedZeb 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 notrace 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 paceand gazing after the back of Zeb's head as it passed down the line ofthe hedge. "What a messenger! He seems eaten up with desire to get youa chest of drawers that shall be wholly satisfying. But why do youallow him to call you 'my dear'?"

"Because, I suppose, that's what I am, " answered Ruby; "because I'mgoin' 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 whenModesty Prowse could be surprised under the kissing-bush, and Old Zebwiped his spectacles, thrust his chair back, and pushed out his elbowsto 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 intaking any chance guest as a standard of the average conviviality. Mr. And Mrs. Jim Lewarne, for example, were accustomed on such occasionsto 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 alace 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 theirhandkerchiefs went through the motions of fanning or polishing, according to sex. In their midst circulated Farmer Tresidder, with athree-handled mug of shenachrum, hot from the embers, and furred withwood-ash. 

"Take an' drink, thirsty souls. Niver do I mind the Letterpooch sofooted i' my born days. "

"'Twas conspirator--very conspirator, " assented Old Zeb, screwing up hisA string a trifle, and turning _con spirito_ into a dark saying. 

"What's that?"

"Greek for elbow-grease. Phew!" He rubbed his fore-finger roundbetween 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, MaryJane!"

"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 ofthe season?"

"You may, an' yet you mayn't, " answered the host, passing on with themug. 

"Uncle Issy, " asked Jim Lewarne, lurching up, "I durstn' g-glint over myshoulder--but wud 'ee mind tellin' me if th' old woman's lookin' thisway--afore I squench my thirst?"

"Iss, she be. "

Jim groaned. "Then wud 'ee mind a-hofferin' me a taste out o' yourpannikin? an' I'll make b'lieve to say 'Norronany' count. ' Amazin' 'ott' night, " he added, tilting back on his heels, and then dipping forwardwith a vague smile. 

Uncle Issy did as he was required, and the henpecked one played his partof the comedy with elaborate slyness. "I don't like that strangechap, " he announced, irrelevantly. 

"Nor I nuther, " agreed Elias Sweetland, "tho' to be sure, I've a-kept myeye '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 callfor 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 sono' mine is lookin' blacker than the horned man, an' may be 'twillcomfort 'en to dance afore the public eye; for there's none can take hiswind in a hornpipe. "

In fact, it was high time that somebody comforted Young Zeb, for hisheart 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'sshop, an armchair, in the worst taste, to be a pleasant surprise forRuby when the happy day came for installing her. Finding he had stilltwenty minutes to spare after giving the last twitch to his neckerchief, and the last brush to his anointed locks, he had sat down facing thischair, and had striven to imagine her in it, darning his stockings. Zeb was not, as a rule, imaginative, but love drew this deliciouspicture for him. He picked up his hat, and set out for Sheba in thebest of tempers. 

But at Sheba all had gone badly. Ruby's frock of white muslin andRuby's small sandal shoes were bewitching, but Ruby's mood passed hisintelligence. It was true she gave him half the dances, but then shegave the other half to that accursed stranger, and the stranger had allher smiles, which was carrying hospitality too far. Not a word had sheuttered to Zeb beyond the merest commonplaces; on the purchase of thechest of drawers she had breathed no question; she hung listlessly onhis arm, and spoke only of the music, the other girls' frocks, thearrangement of the supper-table. And at supper the stranger had notonly sat on the other side of her, but had talked all the time, and onbooks, a subject entirely uninteresting to Zeb. Worst of all, Ruby hadlistened. No; the worst of all was a remark of Modesty Prowse's that hechanced to overhear afterwards. 

So when the fiddles struck up the air of "Randy my dandy, " Zeb, knowingthat the company would call upon him, at first felt his heart turn sickwith loathing. He glanced across the room at Ruby, who, with heightenedcolour, was listening to the stranger, and looking up at his handsomeface. Already one or two voices were calling "Zeb!" "Young Zeb for ahornpipe!" "Now then, Young Zeb!"

He had a mind to refuse. For years after he remembered every smalldetail 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; thekissing-bush that some tall dancer's head had set swaying from the lowrafter; the light of a sconce gleaming on Tresidder's bald scalp. Years after, he could recall the exact poise of Ruby's head as sheanswered some question of her companion. The stranger left her, andstrolled slowly down the room to the fireplace, when he faced round, throwing an arm negligently along the mantel-shelf, and leant with legscrossed, waiting. 

Then Young Zeb made up his mind, and stepped out into the middle of thefloor. The musicians were sawing with might and main at high speed. He crossed his arms, and, fixing his eyes on the stranger's, began thehornpipe. 

When it ceased, he had danced his best. It was only when the applausebroke out that he knew he had fastened, from start to finish, on the manby the fireplace a pair of eyes blazing with hate. The other had staredback quietly, as if he noted only the performance. As the music endedsharply with the click of Young Zeb's two heels, the stranger bent, tookup a pair of tongs, and rearranged the fire before lifting his head. 

"Yes, " he said, slowly, but in tones that were extremely distinct as theclapping died away, "that was wonderfully danced. In some ways I shouldalmost say you were inspired. A slight want of airiness in thedouble-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, droppingon one knee and beginning to unfasten the cumbrous boots he had borrowedof Farmer Tresidder. 

Indeed, the curious likeness in build of these two men--a likenessaccentuated, rather than slurred, by their contrast in colour and face, was now seen to extend even to their feet. When the stranger stood upat length in Zeb's shoes, they fitted him to a nicety, the broad steelbuckles lying comfortably over the instep, the back of the uppersclosing round the hollow of his ankle like a skin. 

Young Zeb, by this, had crossed shoeless to the fireplace, and now stoodin the position lately occupied by his rival: only, whereas the strangerhad lolled easily, Zeb stood squarely, with his legs wide apart and hishands deep in his pockets. He had no eyes for the intent faces around, no ears for their whispering, nor for the preliminary scrape of theinstruments; but stood like an image, with the firelight flickering outbetween 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 atwinkling scampered along into "Randy my dandy. " As the quick aircaught at the listeners' pulses, the stranger crossed his arms, drew hisright heel up along the inner side of his left ankle, and with a lightnod towards the chimney-place began. 

To the casual eye there was for awhile little to choose between the twodancers, the stranger's style being accurate, restrained, even a trifledull. But of all the onlookers, Zeb knew best what hornpipe-dancingreally was; and knew surely, after the first dozen steps, that he wasgoing to be mastered. So far, the performance was academic only. Zeb, unacquainted with the word, recognised the fact, and was quite aware ofthe inspiration--the personal gift--held in reserve to transfigure thisprecise art in a minute or so, and give it life. He saw the forcegathering in the steady rhythmical twinkle of the steel buckles, andheard it speak in the light recurrent tap with which the stranger'sheels kissed the floor. It was doubly bitter that he and his enemyalone should know what was coming; trebly bitter that his enemy shouldbe aware that he knew. 

The crowder slackened speed for a second, to give warning, and dashedinto the heel-and-toe. Zeb caught the light in the dancer's eyes, andstill 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 eightrapidly, and suddenly began a step the like of which none present hadever witnessed, Above the hips his body swayed steadily, softly, to themeasure; his eyes never took their pleasant smile off Zeb's face, buthis feet--

The steel buckles had become two sparkling moths, spinning, poising, darting. They no longer belonged to the man, but had taken separatelife: and merely the absolute symmetry of their loops and circles, andthe _click-click-click_ on boards, regular as ever, told of the art thatinformed them. 

"Faster!"

They crossed and re-crossed now like small flashes of lightning, or asif the boards were flints giving out a score of sparks at every touch ofthe man's heel. 

"Faster!"

They seemed suddenly to catch the light out of every sconce, and kneadit into a ball of fire, that spun and yet was motionless, in the verymiddle of the floor, while all the rest of the room grew suddenlydimmed. 

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 beengazing on. He looked along the pale faces to the place where Rubystood. She, too, glanced up, and their eyes met. 

What he saw fetched a sob from his throat. Then something on the floorcaught his attention: something bright, close by his feet. 

Between his out-spread legs, as it seemed, a thin streak of silver wascreeping 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 theair, 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: forthe 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 ofearth rested among the ashen sticks. 

"Witchcraft!" muttered one or two of the guests, peering forward withround eyes. 

"Fiddlestick-end! I put the clod there myself. 'Tis _lead!_"

"Lead?"

"Ay, naybours all, " broke in Farmer Tresidder, his bald head bedewedwith sweat, "I don't want to abash 'ee, Lord knows; but 'tis trew asdoom that I be a passing well-to-do chap. I shudn' wonder now"--andhere 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 agilded coach afore Michaelmas--I be so tremenjous rich, by allaccounts. "

"You'll excoose my sayin' it, Farmer, " spoke up Old Zeb out of the awedsilence that followed, "for doubtless I may be thick o' hearin', but didI, 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 themouth speaketh' or wantonly and in round figgers, as it might happen toa 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 mineo' 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' thefreaks 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, whostood 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 haveagreed 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 aspan'el dog. Fetch you shall, an' carry, for my pleasure. You shall beslave, an' I your taskmaster; an' the sweetness o' your love shall comeby 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 asbefore 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 thefirst breath of the pale day, when he heard the garden gate unlatchedand saw Young Zeb coming up the path. 

The young man still wore his festival dress; but his best stockings andbuckled shoes were stained and splashed, as from much walking in miryways. 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 contemplatesa worm. 

"I smell a wise wit, somewhere. Young man, who taught you so capital anotion?"

"Ruby did. "

"Pack o' stuff! Ruby hadn't the--stop a minute! 'twas that cleverfellow you fetched ashore, on Monday. Of course--of course! How cameit 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 yourjudgment on. Bitter, eh? I dessay. I dessay. I'm thinking of walkingher--lemon spot on the left ear--Rattler strain, of course. Dear me, this makes six generations I can count back that spot--an' game everyone. 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 brightlyover the wall into the courtlage at Sheba--when Ruby awoke from adreamless sleep. As she lifted her head from the pillow and felt thefatigue of last night yet in her limbs, she was aware also of a richtenor voice uplifted beneath her window. Air and words were strange toher, 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 noteswith 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 drewthe blind an inch aside. The stranger's footstep had ceased to crunchthe gravel, and he stood now just beneath her, before the monthly-rosebush. Throughout the winter a blossom or two lingered in that shelteredcorner; 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, andtwirling the rose between finger and thumb. 

"Men are all ninnies, " Ruby decided as she dropped the blind; "and Ithank the fates that framed me female and priced me high. Heigho! butit's a difficult world for women. Either a man thinks you an angel, andthen you know him for a fool, or he sees through you and won't marry youfor 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 leftoff. 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 appearedin the parlour the two men were already seated at breakfast. The roomstill bore traces of last night's frolic. The uncarpeted boards gleamedas the guests' feet had polished them; and upon the very spot where thestranger had danced now stood the breakfast-table, piled with brokenmeats. This alone of all the heavier pieces of furniture had beenrestored to its place. As Ruby entered, the stranger broke off anearnest conversation he was holding with the farmer, and stood up togreet 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 beingmine, '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 besure. Likewise junkets an' heavy cake be a responsibility, for if noteaten quick, they perish. But let it be mine to pass my days with acheek o' pork like the present instance. Ruby, my dear, the young manhere wants to lave us. "

"Leave us?" echoed Ruby, pricking her finger deep in the act of pinningthe stranger's rose in her bosom. 

"You hear, young man. That's the tone o' speech signifyin' 'damn itall!' among women. And so say I, wi' all these vittles cryin' out to beate. "

"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 twosewn in my belt. The rest has been lost to me these three days and lieswith the _Sentinel_, five fathoms deep in your cove below. It is timefor 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 hischair a bit and turning towards Ruby. "My dear young lady, your fatherhas been begging me to stay--chiefly, no doubt, out of goodwill, butpartly also that I may set him in the way to work this newly foundwealth 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 facingthe window, and the light, as he leant sidewise, struck into the iris ofhis eyes and turned them blood-red in their depths. She had seen thesame in dogs' eyes, but never before in a man's: and it sent a smallshiver through her. 

"Briefly, " he went on, "I can stay on one condition only--that I marryyou. "

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'sawkward: you're already bound. Your father (who, I must say, honours mewith considerable trust, seeing that he knows nothing about me) was goodenough to suggest that your affection for this young fish-jowter was atransient fancy--"

"Father--" began the girl, rather for the sake of hearing her own voicethan because she knew what to say. 

Farmer Tresidder groaned. "Young man, where's your gumption? You'mmakin' a mess o't--an' I thought 'ee so very clever. "

"Really, " pursued the stranger imperturbably, without lifting his eyesfrom Ruby, "I don't know which to admire most, your father's head or hisheart; his head, I think, on the whole. So much hospitality, paternalsolicitude, and commercial prudence was surely never packed into onescheme. "

He broke off for a minute and, still looking at her, began to drum withhis finger-tips on the cloth. His mouth was pursed up as if silentlywhistling an air. Ruby could neither move nor speak. The spell uponher 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 thisman, or rather as one recovering from a long illness. He seemed to fillthe room, speaking words as if they were living things, as if he weretaking the world to bits and re-arranging it before her eyes. She divined the passion behind these words, and she longed to get asight of it, to catch an echo of the voice that had sung beneath herwindow, an hour before. But when he resumed, it was in the samebloodless and contemptuous tone. 

"Your father was very anxious that I should supplant this youngjowter--"

"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 myselfinto your good graces. I will not conceal from you my plain opinion ofyour 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 LondonDocks, but have neither home nor people. I have travelled by land andsea; 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, andfind also a man in my name having hold over you. I think I want tomarry you. Will you give up this other man?"

He pursed up his lips again. With that sense of trifles which issharpest when the world suddenly becomes too big for a human being, Rubyhad a curiosity to know what he was whistling. And this worried hereven 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, Imust spend till Saturday in Plymouth. It depends on you whether I comeback at the end of that time. You are going to cry: keep the tears backtill you have answered me. Will you marry me?"

She put out a hand to steady herself, and opened her lips. She felt theroom spinning, and wanted to cry out for mercy. But her mouth made nosound. 

"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 facebecame 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 afteranother. 

"Ruby!"

He took the two hands gently from her face, and forced her to look athim. 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 withyour eyes, as you're lying now. "

"My dear girl, yes--I understand you. But you're wrong. I lied to getyou: I'm not lying now. "

"I think you must be Satan himself. "

The stranger laughed. "Surely _he_ needn't to have taken so muchtrouble. Smile back at me, Ruby, for I played a risky stroke to getyou, and shall play a risky game for many days yet. "

He balanced himself on the arm of her chair and drew her head towardshim. 

"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, wouldwish 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 amabout 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 atlength. 

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 Ishall pass out at the gate and look up at your window. If the blindremain up, I go to the vicarage to put up our banns before I set off forPlymouth. If it be drawn down, I leave this house for ever, takingnothing 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 memoryof your face. "

It happened, as he unlatched the gate, twenty minutes later, that theblind remained up. Ruby's face was not at the window, but he kissed hishand for all that, and smiled, and went his way singing. The air wasthe very same he had whistled dumbly that morning, the air that Ruby hadspeculated 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 worthrecord occurred in the bar-parlour of the "Jolly Pilchards" atPorthlooe. 

You may find the inn to this day on the western side of the Hauen as yougo to the Old Quay. A pair of fish-scales faces the entrance, and thejolly pilchards themselves hang over your head, on a signboard thatcreaks mightily when the wind blows from the south. 

The signboard was creaking that night, and a thick drizzle drove ingusts past the door. Behind the red blinds within, the landlady, PrudyPolwarne, stood with her back to the open hearth. Her hands rested onher hips, and the firelight, that covered all the opposite wall and mostof the ceiling with her shadow, beat out between her thick ankles in theshape of a fan. She was a widow, with a huge, pale face and a figurenearly as broad as it was long; and no man thwarted her. Weaknesses shehad none, except an inability to darn her stockings. That the holes ather heels might not be seen, she had a trick of pulling her stockingsdown under her feet, an inch or two at a time, as they wore out; andwhen the tops no longer reached to her knee, she gartered--so gossipsaid--half-way down the leg. 

Around her, in as much of the warmth as she spared, sat Old Zeb, UncleIssy, Jim Lewarne, his brother, and six or seven other notables of thetwo parishes. They were listening just now, and though the mug ofeggy-hot passed from hand to hand as steadily as usual, a certainrestrained excitement might have been guessed from the volumes of smokeascending from their clay pipes. 

"A man must feel it, boys, " the hostess said, "wi' a rale four-posterhung wi' yaller on purpose to suit his wife's complexion, an' then tohave no wife arter all. "

"Ay, " assented Old Zeb, who puffed in the corner of a settle on herleft, with one side of his face illuminated and the other in deepshadow, "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 goesinnards, an' a dresser, painted a bright liver colour, engaging to theeye. "

"I niver seed a more matterimonial outfit, as you might say, " put inUncle 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 hislips. 

"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 acreamy 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 roundon the company, "else I'd have heard some mention of a shal-lalafore 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 tinkettles in plenty to drum en out o' this naybourhood to the Rogue'sMarch 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 herlover was hooted out o' the parish. Mind you, _I_'ve no grudge agen theman. I liked his dare-devil look, the only time I saw en. I'm onlysayin' what I think--that you'm all afeard. "

"I don't b'long to the parish, " remarked a Landaviddy man, in the pausethat 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, " echoedseveral 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 ahigh degree--hey?"

"Trew, O king!"

"Surely, surely. "

"The rarity that you be, crowder! Sorely we shall miss 'ee when you'mgone. "

"Very well, then, " Old Zeb announced. "I'm goin' to be logical wi' thatchap. 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 followedseveral pulls in quick succession. 

The pipe had gone out. So, still holding the attention of the room, hereached out a hand towards the tongs. Prudy, anticipating hisnecessity, caught them up, dived them into the blaze, and drawing out ablazing 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 waspushed open, and a tall man, in dripping cloak and muddy boots, stalkedinto the room. 

It was the man they had been discussing. 

"A dirty night, friends, and a cold ride from Plymouth. " He shook thewater out of his hat over the sanded floor. "I'll take a pull atsomething hot, if you please. "

Every one looked at him. Prudy, forgetting what she was about, wavedthe hot brand to and fro under Old Zeb's nose, stinging his eyes withsmoke. 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 'talkof 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', asyou walked in, that he'd read you the Riot Act afore you was many daysolder. 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 hisborn days, and the experience of standing between two fires was new tohim. He looked from the stranger around upon the company, and was meton all hands by the same expectant stare. 

"Well, you see--" he began, and looked around again. The faces wereinexorable. "I declare, friends, the pore chap is drippin' wet. Sich atiresome v'yage, too, as it must ha' been from Plymouth, i' thisweather! 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 largecrimson handkerchief from the crown, he mopped his brow slowly. 

"The cur'ous part o't, naybours, is the sweatiness that comes over aman, 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, asyou 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' mymind. 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 hispipe again. "An' now, friends, that this little bit of onpleasantnesshave a-blown over, doin' ekal credit to both parties thisNew Year's-eve, after the native British fashion o' fair-play (as whyshu'd it not?), I agree we be conformable to the pleasant season an' letharmony prevail--"

"Why, man, " interrupted Prudy, "you niver gave no answer at all. 'Faras I could see you've done naught but fidget like an angletwitch andlook fifty ways for Sunday. "

"'Twas the roundaboutest, dodge-my-eyedest, hole-an'-cornerdest bit of achap'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 cussedongratefulness 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 herepresent 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 silenttongue makes a wise head, ' said I, an' o' this I call Uncle Issy here towitness. "

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, tobe 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 tolook 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 beenasked, but was fluttered with delight at having stuck to the right sideagainst appearances. 

"I think, " said the stranger, deliberately, "it is as well that you andI, my friends, should understand each other. The turn of events hasmade it likely that I shall pass my days in this neighbourhood, and Iwish to clear up all possible misconceptions at the start. In the firstplace, I am going to marry Miss Ruby Tresidder. Our banns will be askedin church to-morrow; but let us have a rehearsal. Can any man here showcause 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 firstplace if he saved it at my request. "

"Tut-tut. A man likes to live, whether he axes for it or no, " gruntedElias Sweetland. "And what the devil do you know about it?" demandedthe stranger. 

"I reckon I know what a man's like. "

"Oh, you do, do you? Wait a while, my friend. In the second place, " hewent on, returning to Prudy, "ask young Zebedee Minards, if he wants mylife back, to come and fetch it. And now attend all. Do you seethese?"

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, andthe barrels shone as he held them out in the firelight. 

"You needn't dodge your heads about so gingerly. I'm only about to giveyou an exhibition. How many tall candlesticks have you in the housebesides 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 tofetch them. 

Until she returned there was dead silence in the bar-parlour. The menpuffed uneasily at their pipes, not one of which was alight, and avoidedthe 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 withher fingers that they might burn steadily, arranged them in a row on themantelshelf. Now above this shelf the chimney-piece was panelled to theheight of some two and a half feet, and along the panel certain balladsthat Prudy had purchased of the Sherborne messenger were stuck in a rowwith pins. 

"Better take those ballads down, if you value them, " the strangerremarked. 

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 thedoor. 

"Don't move, " he said to Calvin Oke, whose chair stood immediately underthe line of fire, "your head is not the least in the way. And don'tturn 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 beinglifted behind his back. Nevertheless he did not disobey, but sat still, with his eyes fixed on the mantelshelf, and only his shoulders twitchingto betray his discomposure. 

_Bang!_

The room was suddenly full of sound, then of smoke and the reek ofgunpowder. As the noise broke on their ears one of the candles went outquietly. The candlestick did not stir, but a bullet was embedded in thepanel behind. Calvin Oke felt his scalp nervously. 

"One, " counted the stranger. He walked quietly to the table, set downhis smoking pistol, and took up the other, looking round at the sametime on the white faces that stared on him behind the thick curls ofsmoke. Stepping back to his former position, he waited while they couldcount twenty, lifted the second pistol high, brought it smartly down tothe aim and fired again. 

The second candle went out, and a second bullet buried itself in Prudy'spanel. 

So he served the six, one after another, without a miss. Twice hereloaded 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 atrifle asthmatical with age, felt some inconvenience from the smoke inhis throat. By the time the last shot was fired the company couldhardly see one another. Prudy, two of whose dishes had been shaken offthe dresser, had tumbled upon a settle, and sat there, rocking herselfto and fro, with her apron over her head. 

The sound of firing had reached the neighbouring houses, and by thistime the passage was full of men and women, agog for a tragedy. The door burst open. Through the dense atmosphere the stranger descrieda crowd of faces in the passage. He was the first to speak. 

"Good folk, you alarm yourselves without cause. I have merely beenpointing 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 hishead. 

"When I assure you that I carry these weapons always about me, you willhardly need to be warned against interfering with me again. The firstman 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, andtossed them to Prudy. 

"That'll pay for the damage, I daresay. " So, turning on his heel, hemarched out, leaving them in the firelight. The crowd in the passagefell back to right and left, and in a moment more he had disappearedinto the black drizzle outside. 

But the tradition of his feat survives, and the six holes in Prudy'spanel 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 thecoombe, and nursed his pain. He was a simple youth, and took life inearnest, being very slow to catch fire, but burning consumedly when onceignited. Also he was sincere as the day, and had been treacherouslyused. So he raged at heart, and (for pride made him shun the publiceye) he sat at home and raged--the worst possible cure for love, whichgoes out only by open-air treatment. From time to time his father, Uncle Issy, and Elias Sweetland sat around him and administered comfortafter 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' turnfrom his vittles, an' pass his prime i' blowin' his nose, an' all for awoman?"

"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 bluesea closed the prospect, and the tan sails of a small lugger werevisible there, rounding the point to the westward. He watched hermoodily 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 meword. "

"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 afair, movin' his chattels. There's a hole in the roof of that newcottage of his that a man may put his Sunday hat dro'; and as for hisold Woman, she'll do nought but sit 'pon the lime-ash floor wi' hertout-serve over her head, an' call en ivery name but what he waschris'ened. "

"Nothin' but neck-an'-crop would do for Tresidder, I'm told, " said OldZeb. "'I've a-sarved 'ee faithful, ' said Jim, 'an' now you turns me outwi' 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 getJim's cottage for that strong-will'd supplantin' furriner because Rubysaid 'twas low manners for bride an' groom to go to church from the samehouse. 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 fromdrownin'. "

"I won't, " promised Young Zeb. 

"We've found 'ee a great missment, " Elias observed to him, after apause. "The Psa'ms, these three Sundays, bain't what they was for lacko' your enlivenin' flute--I can't say they be. An' to hear your veryown name called forth in the banns wi' Ruby's, an' you wi'out part norlot therein--"

"Elias, you mean it well, no doubt; but I'd take it kindly if yousheered off. "

"'Twas a wisht Psa'm, too, " went on Elias, "las' Sunday mornin'; an' Icudn' help my thoughts dwellin' 'pon the dismals as I blowed, norcountin' 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 upthe western slope of the coombe, over the brow of the hill, and led intime to the coast and a broader path above the cliffs. The air waswarm, and he climbed in such hurry that the sweat soon began to dropfrom his forehead. By the time he reached the cliffs he was forced topull a handkerchief out and mop himself; but without a pause, he tookthe 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 offerhimself as a seaman, and if Webber made any bones about it, he wouldengage to put a part of his legacy into the adventure. In fact, he wasready for anything that would take him out of Porthlooe. To live thereand run the risk of meeting Ruby on the other man's arm was more thanflesh and blood could stand. So he went along with his hands deep inhis pockets, his eyes fastened straight ahead, his heart smoking, andthe sweat stinging his eyelids. And as he went he cursed the day of hisbirth. 

From Porthlooe to Troy Ferry is a good six miles by the cliffs, and whenhe 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 patchcleared for potatoes, and here an oldish man was leaning on his shoveland looking up at Zeb. 

"Good-mornin', my son!"

"Mornin', hollibubber!"

The old man had once worked inland at St. Teath slate-quarries, and madehis living as a "hollibubber, " or one who carts away the refuse slates. On returning to his native parish he had brought back and retained thename of his profession, the parish register alone preserving his truename of Matthew Spry. He was a fervent Methodist--a local preacher, infact--and was held in some admiration by "the people" for his lustinessin prayer-meeting. A certain intensity in his large grey eyes gavecharacter to a face that was otherwise quite insignificant. You couldsee 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'sfor 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 neara press-gang. "

Young Zeb gazed over the old man's head at the horizon line, andanswered, as if reading the sentence there, "I might fare worse, hollibubber. "

The hollibubber seemed, for a second, about to speak; for, of course, heknew Zeb's trouble. But after a while he took his shovel out of theground slowly. 

"Ay, ye might, " he said; "pray the Lord ye don't. "

Zeb went on, faster than ever. He passed Bradden Point and Widdy Coveat the rate of five miles an hour, or thereabouts, then he turned asideover a stile and crossed a couple of meadows; and after these he was onthe 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 pullingfrom her to the farther shore. A thin haze of blue smoke lay over thetown at his feet, and the noise of mallets in the ship-building yardscame across to him through the clear afternoon. Zeb hardly noticed allthis, for his mind was busy with a problem. He halted by a milestone onthe brow of the hill, to consider. 

And then suddenly he sat down on the stone and shivered. The sweat wasstill trickling down his face and down his back; but it had turned coldas ice. A new idea had taken him, an idea of which at first he feltfairly afraid. He passed a hand over his eyes and looked down again atthe frigate. But he stared at her stupidly, and his mind was busy withanother picture. 

It occurred to him that he must go on if he meant to arrange withWebber, that afternoon. So he got up from the stone and went down thesteep hill towards the ferry, stumbling over the rough stones in theroad and hardly looking at his steps, but moving now rapidly, nowslowly, like a drunken man. 

The street that led down to the ferry dated back to an age before cartshad superseded pack-horses, and the makers had cut it in stairs andpaved it with cobbles. It plunged so steeply, and the houses on eitherside wedged it in so tightly, that to look down from the top was likepeering into a well. A patch of blue water shone at the foot, framing asmall dark square--the signboard of the "Four Lords" Inn. Just nowthere were two or three men gathered under the signboard. 

As Young Zeb drew near he saw that they wore pig-tails and round shinyhats: and, as he noticed this, his face, which had been pale for thelast five minutes, grew ashen-white. He halted for a moment, and thenwent on again, meaning to pass the signboard and wait on the quay forthe ferry. 

There were half a dozen sailors in front of the "Four Lords. " Three saton a bench beside the door, and three more, with mugs of beer in theirhands, were skylarking in the middle of the roadway. 

"Hi!" called out one of those on the bench, as Zeb passed. And Zebturned 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 beback for another twenty. "

Zeb hung on his heel for a couple of seconds. The sailor held out hismug with the friendliest air, his head thrown back and the left cornerof 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 andwas shouldering his shovel to start for home, when he spied a darkfigure coming eastwards along the track; and, putting up a hand to wardoff the level rays of the sun, saw that it was the young man who hadpassed him at noonday. So he set down the shovel again, and waited. 

Young Zeb came along with his head down. When he noticed thehollibubber standing in the path he started like a man caught in atheft. 

"My son, ye 've come to lift a weight off my heart. God forgi'e methat, 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 desperatelyshy, as he had confessed: but compassion overcame his shyness. 

"Surely, " said he, "all we be children o' one Father: an' surely we mayknow 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 touchedhis 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 inthe flame of the sunset. "Turn aside, here, an' kneel down; I willwrestle wi' the Lord for thee till comfort comes, if it take the longnight. "

"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 manto 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 brokeloose. The old man tumbled beside the path with his head against thepotato fence. Zeb with a curse took to his heels and ran; nor for ahundred yards did he glance behind. 

When at last he flung a look over his shoulder, the hollibubber hadpicked himself up and was kneeling in the pathway. His hands wereclasped 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 ofthe cottage vacated by the Lewarnes. On a rough table, pushed into acorner, lay the remains of his breakfast. A plum-coloured coat withsilver buttons hung over the back of a chair by his side, and awaist-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 sunlightstreamed 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 atthe heel, shoe-horn fashion, to slip it on, when the noise of lightwheels sounded on the road outside, and stopped beside the gate. Looking up, he saw through the window the head and shoulders of YoungZeb'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, lookingdown on the stranger, who wheeled round quietly on his chair to facehim. Zeb's clothes were disordered, and looked as if he had spent thenight in them; his face was yellow and drawn, with dark semicirclesunderneath the eyes; and he put a hand up against the door-post forsupport. 

"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 flyat Zeb's throat. 

"You treacherous hound!"

"Stand off, " said Zeb wearily, without taking his hand from thedoor-post. "I reckon it don't matter what I may be, or may not be, solong 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 withthis 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 strangerspoke, as if to himself--

"My God! Love has made this oaf a man!" He stood for a while, suckingat his under-lip, and regarding Zeb gloomily. "May I ask why you havedeliberately 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 easilylearnt than goodness; but that's great nonsense. The footsteps of theaverage beginner are equally weak in both pursuits. Would you mindtelling me why you chose this particular form of treachery, inpreference (let us say) to poison or shooting from behind a hedge?Was it simply because you risked less? Pardon the question, but I havea 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, butfor one little accident, the existence of which you could not possiblyhave known, I might easily have waited for the press-gang, stated thecase to them, and had you lugged off to sea in my place. Has itoccurred to you, in the course of your negotiations, that the wickedoccasionally stumble into pits of their own digging? You, who take partin 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 bysome 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 hourback, 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 yourcomfort 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' thecottage none can spy ye while you slip underneath it; but I'll fetch aglance round, to make sure. Underneath it you'll be safe, and I'lldrive '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 onechance--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 hispistols, 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 theevil-smelling weed, drawing breath with difficulty, and listening, whenthe jolting allowed, to Zeb's voice as he encouraged the mare. Jowters' carts travel fast as a rule, for their load perishes soon, andthe distance from the coast to the market is often considerable. In this case Jessamy went at a round gallop, the loose stones flyingfrom under her hoofs. Now and then one struck up against the bottom ofthe cart. It was hardly pleasant to be rattled at this rate, Heavenknew whither. But the stranger had chosen his course, and was not theman 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 beingcaught. "You'll find it all right. "

"H'm; best let me count it, though. One--two--three--four. I feels itmy dooty to tell ye, young man, that it be a dirty trick. If thisdidn't chime in wi' my goodwill towards his Majesty's service, be dangedif 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 tocome 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 atthe 'Four Lords. ' We've orders to sail at five, sharp; so there's notime to waste. "

"Then I won't detain 'ee. Clk, Jessamy!"

The jolting began again, more furiously than ever, as the stranger drewa long breath. He waited till he judged they must be out of sight, andthen began to stir beneath his load of weed. 

"Keep quiet, " said Zeb; "you shall get out as soon as we're up thehill. "

The cart began to move more slowly, and tilted back with a slant thatsent the stranger's heels against the tail-board. Zeb jumped down andtrudged at the side. The hill was long, and steep from foot to brow; andwhen at length the slope lessened, the wheels turned off at a sharpangle and began to roll softly over turf. 

The weight and smell of the weed were beginning to suffocate the manbeneath 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 blinkedin the strong sunlight. 

The cart stood on the fringe of a desolate tract of downs, high abovethe coast. Over the hedge to the right appeared a long narrow strip ofsea. On the three remaining sides nothing was visible but undulatingstretches of brown turf, except where, to northward, the summits of twohills in the heart of the county just topped the rising ground that hidtwenty 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 ahalf-obliterated Roman camp, and ran at varying depth around a clusterof grassy mounds, the most salient of which--the praetorian--stillserved as a landmark for the Porthlooe fishing boats. But down in thefosse the pair were secure from all eyes. Not a word was spoken untilthey 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 strangersat down on the slope, picked a strip of sea-weed off his breeches, andlooked 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, Iexpect. "

"They are. "

"I'd a notion of askin' 'ee, as a favour, to give and take a shot withme. "

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 sametrick. "

"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 togo round an' point it out; but 'tis to be known by bein' greener thanthe rest o' the turf. What's thrown in there niver comes up, an' no mancan dig for it. The folks'll give the press-gang the credit when I'mmissin'--"

"You forget the mare and cart. "

"Lead her back to the road, turn her face to home, an' fetch her a cutacross 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 developcharacter so fast. "

He cocked the triggers, and handed the pistols to Zeb, to take hischoice. 

"Stand where you are, while I step out fifteen paces. " He walked slowlyalong 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 aswe please. Are you ready?--stand a bit sideways. Your chest is apretty 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 wasZeb's; and Heaven knows whither his bullet flew. The smoke cleared awayin a blue, filmy streak, and revealed his enemy standing where he stoodbefore, with his pistol up, and a quiet smile on his face. 

Still holding the pistol up, the stranger now advanced deliberatelyuntil he came to a halt about two paces from Zeb, who, with white faceand set jaw, waited for the end. The eyes of the two men met, andneither 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 beganto 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 alsoproceeded 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 thechurch by this. "

"What's the meanin' o't?" Zeb repeated. 

"Why, that you shall marry the girl. Steady--don't tremble. The bannsare up in your name, and you shall walk into church, and the woman shallbe married to Zebedee Minards. Stop, don't say a word, or I'll repentand blow your brains out. You want to know who I am, and what's tobecome of me. Suppose I'm the Devil; suppose I'm your twin soul, and inexchange for my life have given you the half of manhood that you lackedand I possessed; suppose I'm just a deserter from his Majesty's fleet, apoor devil of a marine, with gifts above his station, who ran away andtook to privateering, and was wrecked at your doors. Suppose that I amreally Zebedee Minards; or suppose that I heard your name spoken inSheba kitchen, and took a fancy to wear it myself. Suppose that I shallvanish to-day in a smell of brimstone; or that I shall leave in irons inthe 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 finda pencil and scrap of paper in my breast pocket. Hand them over. "

Zeb did so, and the stranger, seating himself again on the slope, torethe 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 himdressed in the plum-coloured suit. 

"Ay, " said the stranger, looking him up and down, and sucking the pencilcontemplatively; "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 leavethe church till you've done it. She's still the same woman as when shethrew you over. Ah, sir, we men change our natures; but woman is alwaysEve. 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, whowon't be in the sweetest of tempers just now. Come, what are youwaiting for? You're ten minutes late as it is, and you can't be marriedafter noon. "

"Sir, " said Zeb, with a white face; "it's a liberty, but will 'ee let meshake 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 towardsa gap in the hedge, where lay a short cut through the fields. In thegap he turned and looked back. The stranger stood on the lip of thefosse, 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 wasthere in his surplice, by the altar; the bride was there in her whitefrock, by the chancel rails; her father, by her side, was looking at hiswatch; and the parishioners thronged the nave, shuffling their feet andloudly speculating. For the bridegroom had not appeared. 

Ruby's face was white as her frock. Parson Babbage kept picking up theheavy Prayer-book, opening it, and laying it down impatiently. Occasionally, as one of the congregation scraped an impatient foot, ametallic sound made itself heard, and the buzz of conversation wouldsink for a moment, as if by magic. 

For beneath the seats, and behind the women's gowns, the whole pavementof the church was covered with a fairly representative collection ofcast-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: theoutraged feelings of the parish were to be avenged by a shal-lal asbride and bridegroom left the church. Ruby knew nothing of the stormbrewing for her, but Mary Jane, whose ears had been twice boxed thatmorning, had heard a whisper of it on her way down to the church, andwas confirmed in her fears by observing the few members of thecongregation who entered after her. Men and women alike suffered froman unwonted corpulence and tightness of raiment that morning, and eachand all seemed to have cast the affliction off as they arose from theirknees. 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 agroup that stood at the west end under the gallery, "not since 'MeliaSpry's buryin', when the devil, i' the shape of a black pig, followed usall 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' shesuch a light-weight corpse. But plague seize my old emotions!--we'mcome to marry, not to bury. "

"By the look o't 'tis' neither marry nor bury, Nim nor Doll, " observedOld Zeb, who had sacrificed his paternal feelings and come to church inorder 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 hischariot?"

"'Tis possible Young Zeb an' he have a-met 'pon the road hither, "hazarded Calvin Oke by a wonderful imaginative effort; "an' 'tispossible that feelings have broke loose an' one o' the twain beswelterin' in his own bloodshed, or vicey-versey. "

"I heard tell of a man once, " said Uncle Issy, "that committed murderupon 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 acontemplative gaze on Uncle Issy. 

"Mark her pale face, naybours, " put in a woman; "an' Tresidder, he lookslike a man that's neither got nor lost. "

"Trew, trew. "

"Quarter past the hour, I make it, " said Old Zeb, pulling out histimepiece. 

Still the bridegroom tarried. 

Higher up the church, in the front pew but one, Modesty Prowse saidaloud 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 ParsonBabbage 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 hushof 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 betweensilent men and women. His eyes were fastened on Ruby, and she in turnstared at him as a rabbit at a snake, shrinking slightly on her father'sarm. 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 anddistinct. "She was to wed Zebedee Minards to-day, an' I'm ZebedeeMinards. "

"But--"

"I've a note to hand to each of 'ee. Better save your breath tillyou've read 'em. "

He delivered the two notes, and stood, tapping a toe on the tiles, inthe bridegroom's place on the right of the chancel-rails. 

"Damnation!"

"Mr. Tresidder, " interrupted the parson, "I like a man to swear off hisrage 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 haddrifted to the pavement, he crushed it into his pocket. He then tookher 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 yourbusiness--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 forlife. Her eyes fluttered up to her lover's face, and found itinexorable. 

"Yes, " she gasped out, as if the word had been suffocating her. And with the word came a rush of tears--helpless, but not altogetherunhappy. 

"Dry your eyes, " said Parson Babbage, after waiting a minute; "we mustbe 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 forgottenapparatus scattered beneath the pews on the following Saturday, andcleared it out, to the amount (she averred) of two cart-loads. She tossed it, bit by bit, over the west wall of the churchyard, wherein time it became a mound, covered high with sting-nettles. If you pokeamong these nettles with your walking-stick, the odds are that you turnup a scrap of rusty iron. But there exists more explicit testimony toZeb's wedding within the church--and within the churchyard, too, wherehe 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 elevendid the bride and bridegroom start off, arm in arm, to walk to their newhome. Before them, at a considerable distance, went the players andsingers--a black blur on the moonlit road; and very crisply their musicrang out beneath a sky scattered with cloud and stars. All their songswere simple carols of the country, and the burden of them was but thejoy of man at Christ's nativity; but the young man and maid who walkedbehind were well pleased. 

"Now then, " cried the voice of Old Zeb, "lads an' lasses all togetheran' 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, broughthim 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 fiercedays 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 offBradden Point a dot of white, as of a ship in sail. He pressed her armto 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 andflung back shouts and joyful wishes as they went. Before making allfast for the night, he stood a minute or so, listening to their voicesas they died away down the road. As he barred the door, he turned andsaw that Ruby had lit the lamp, and was already engaged in setting thekitchen to rights; for, of course, no such home-coming had been dreamtof in the morning, and all was in disorder. He stood and watched herfor a while, then turned to the window. 

After a minute or two, finding that he did not speak, she too came tothe window. He bent and kissed her. 

For he had seen, on the patch of sea beyond the haven, a white frigatesteal up Channel like a ghost. She had passed out of his sight by thistime, 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 Lanihalechurch towards Ruan Cove, and ten paces beyond the lych-gate--where thegraves lie level with the coping, and the horseman can decipher theirinscriptions in passing, at the risk of a twisted neck--the base of thechurchyard wall is pierced with a low archway, festooned with toad-flaxand fringed with the hart's-tongue fern. Within the archway bubbles awell, 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 thisbelief is discredited now, and the well neglected: and the events whichled to this are still a winter's tale in the neighbourhood. I set themdown as they were told me, across the blue glow of a wreck-wood fire, bySam Tregear, the parish bedman. Sam himself had borne an inconspicuousshare in them; and because of them Sam's father had carried a white faceto his grave. 

My father and mother (said Sam) married late in life, for his trade waswhat mine is, and 'twasn't till her fortieth year that my mother couldbring herself to kiss a gravedigger. That accounts, maybe, for my beingborn rickety and with other drawbacks that only made father the fonder. Weather permitting, he'd carry me off to churchyard, set me upon a flatstone, 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 headplayed hidey-peep with me over the grave's edge, and at last he'd beclean swallowed up, but still discoursing or calling up how he'd comeupon wonderful towns and kingdoms down underground, and how all thekings and queens there, in dyed garments, was offering him meat for hisdinner 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 wewere up in the churchyard together, and though father had his toolsbeside 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 faralong the Plymouth road for minutes at a time. Out by Bradden Pointthere stood a little dandy-rigged craft, tacking lazily to and fro, withher mains'le all shiny-yellow in the sunset. Though I didn't know itthen, she was the Preventive boat, and her business was to watch theHauen: for there had been a brush between her and the _Unity_ lugger, afortnight back, and a Preventive man shot through the breast-bone, andmy mother's brother Philip was hiding down in the town. I minded, later, how that the men across the vale, in Farmer Tresidder'swheat-field, paused every now and then, as they pitched the sheaves, togive a look up towards the churchyard, and the gleaners moved about insmall knots, causeying and glancing over their shoulders at the cutterout in the bay; and how, when all the field was carried, they waitedround the last load, no man offering to cry the _Neck_, as the fashionwas, but lingering till sun was near down behind the slope and the longshadows 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 climbskywards for a change. "

And with that, he took my hand, and pushing abroad the belfry door beganto climb the stairway. Up and up, round and round we went, in a sort ofblind-man's-holiday full of little glints of light and whiff's of windwhere the open windows came; and at last stepped out upon the leads ofthe tower and drew breath. 

"There's two-an'-twenty parishes to be witnessed from where we'restandin', sonny--if ye've got eyes, " says my father. 

Well, first I looked down towards the harvesters and laughed to see themso small: and then I fell to counting the church-towers dotted acrossthe high-lands, and seeing if I could make out two-and-twenty. 'Twas the prettiest sight--all the country round looking as if 'twasdusted with gold, and the Plymouth road winding away over the hills likea long white tape. I had counted thirteen churches, when my fatherpointed 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 tincan--"

"Dragooners!" shouts my father; and then, running to the side of thetower facing the harvest-field, he put both hands to his mouth andcalled:

"_What have 'ee? What have 'ee?_"--very loud and long. 

"_A neck--a neck!_" came back from the field, like as if all shouted atonce--dear, the sweet sound! And then a gun was fired, and craningforward over the coping I saw a dozen men running across the stubble andout into the road towards the Hauen; and they called as they ran, "_Aneck--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 theirscarlet coats and armour blazing in the dust as they came. And whenthey drew near within a mile, and our limbs ached with crouching--forfear they should spy us against the sky--father took me by the hand andpulled hot foot down the stairs. Before they rode by he had picked uphis shovel and was shovelling out a grave for his life. 

Forty valiant horsemen they were, riding two-and-two (by reason of thenarrowness of the road) and a captain beside them--men broad and long, with hairy top-lips, and all clad in scarlet jackets and white breechesthat showed bravely against their black war-horses and jet-blackholsters, 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 ahalf-moon jingling from his horse's cheek-strap. 12 D was the numberingon every saddle, meaning the Twelfth Dragoons. 

Tramp, tramp! they rode by, talking and joking, and taking no more heedof me--that sat upon the wall with my heels dangling above them--than ifI'd been a sprig of stonecrop. But the captain, who carried a drawnsword and mopped his face with a handkerchief so that the dust ranacross it in streaks, drew rein, and looked over my shoulder to wherefather 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 hissleeve with the three stripes upon it--a handsome red-faced fellow, withcurly black hair. 

Says he, "That we did, sir--a man with sloping shoulders and a boy witha 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 acloud of dust, the sergeant looking back and smiling, as if 'twas a jokethat he shared with us. Well, to be short, they rode down into the townas night fell. But 'twas too late, Uncle Philip having had fair warningand plenty of time to flee up towards the little secret hold under MabelDown, 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 outto 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, bythis, was pesky cross-tempered, and flounced off to the "JollyPilchards" in a huff. "Sergeant, " says he, "here's an inn, though adamned bad 'un, an' here I means to stop. Somewheres about there's afarm 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 seeyer face till to-morra, " says he. 

So Sergeant Basket--that was his name--gave the salute, and rode histroop up the street, where--for his manners were mighty winning, notwithstanding the dirty nature of his errand--he soon found plenty todirect him to Farmer Noy's, of Constantine; and up the coombe they rodeinto the darkness, a dozen or more going along with them to show theway, being won by their martial bearing as well as the sergeant's veryfriendly way of speech. 

Farmer Noy was in bed--a pock-marked, lantern-jawed old gaffer ofsixty-five; and the most remarkable point about him was the wife he hadmarried 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 wifewore a brass wedding-ring, weekdays, to save the genuine article fromwearing out. She was a Ruan woman, too, and therefore ought to haveknown 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 thedoor, down comes the old curmudgeon with a candle held high above hishead. 

"What the devil's here?" he calls out. Sergeant Basket looks over theold man's shoulder; and there, halfway up the stairs, stood Madam Noy inher night rail--a high-coloured ripe girl, languishing for love, her redlips parted and neck all lily-white against a loosened pile ofdark-brown hair. 

"Be cussed if I turn back!" said the sergeant to himself; and added outloud--

"Forty souldjers, in the King's name!"

"Forty devils!" says old Noy. 

"They're devils to eat, " answered the sergeant, in the most friendlymanner; "an', begad, ye must feed an' bed 'em this night--or else I'llsearch your cellars. Ye are a loyal man--eh, farmer? An' your cellarsare 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 honestsouldjers--forty damned honest gormandisin' souldjers--be come in hisMajesty's name, forty strong, to protect honest folks' rights in theintervals of eatin' 'em out o' house an' home. Sergeant, ye be verywelcome i' the King's name. Cheese an' cider ye shall have, an' I praythe 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 andstow the men about on clean straw in the outhouses. They were turningback to the house, and the old man was turning over in his mind that thesergeant hadn't yet said a word about where he was to sleep, when by thedoor they found Madam Noy waiting, in her wedding gown, and with herhair freshly braided. 

Now, the farmer was mortally afraid of the sergeant, knowing he hadthirty ankers and more of contraband liquor in his cellars, and mindingthe 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 firstplace, 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 achair to sleep in. "

By this they were in the passage together, and her gaze devouring hisregimentals. 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, ifonly you stay another night. "

For she saw the glint in the farmer's eye; and so Sergeant Basket sleptbolt upright that night in an arm-chair by the parlour fender. Next daythe dragooners searched the town again, and were billeted all aboutamong the cottages. But the sergeant returned to Constantine, andbefore going to bed--this time in the spare room--played a game ofcribbage with Madam Noy, the farmer smoking sulkily in his arm-chair. 

"Two for his heels!" said the rosy woman suddenly, halfway through thegame. "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 uponit. 'Tis true he had forgot to mark; and feeling the hot pulse in herwrist, and beholding the hunger in her eyes, 'tis to be supposed he'dhave forgot his own soul. 

He rode away next day with his troop: but my uncle Philip not beingcaught yet, and the Government set on making an example of him, wehadn't seen the last of these dragoons. 'Twas a time of fear down inthe town. At dead of night or at noonday they came on us--six times inall: and for two months the crew of the _Unity_ couldn't call theirsouls their own, but lived from day to day in secret closets andwandered the country by night, hiding in hedges and straw-houses. All that time the revenue men watched the Hauen, night and day, likedogs before a rat-hole. 

But one November morning 'twas whispered abroad that Uncle Philip hadmade his way to Falmouth, and slipped across to Guernsey. Time passedon, and the dragooners were seen no more, nor the handsomedevil-may-care face of Sergeant Basket. Up at Constantine, where he hadalways contrived to billet himself, 'tis to be thought pretty Madam Noypined to see him again, kicking his spurs in the porch and smiling outof 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 factwas 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 Yearhe was a dying man, and carried his doom on his face. And on New Year'sDay he straddled his mare for the last time, and rode over to Looe, toDoctor 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 thisday week I'll be a clay-cold corpse. I come to ax a favour. When theysummon ye, before lookin' at my body--that'll be past help--go you tothe little left-top corner drawer o' my wife's bureau, an' there ye'llfind a packet. You're my executor, " says he, "and I leaves ye to dealwi' that packet as ye thinks fit. "

With that, the farmer rode away home-along, and the very day week hewent dead. 

The doctor, when called over, minded what the old chap had said, andsending Madam Noy on some pretence to the kitchen, went over andunlocked the little drawer with a duplicate key, that the farmer hadunhitched from his watch-chain and given him. There was no parcel ofletters, as he looked to find, but only a small packet crumpled away inthe corner. He pulled it out and gave a look, and a sniff, and anotherlook: then shut the drawer, locked it, strode straight down-stairs tohis horse and galloped away. 

In three hours' time, pretty Madam Noy was in the constables' hands uponthe charge of murdering her husband by poison. 

They tried her, next Spring Assize, at Bodmin, before the Lord ChiefJustice. There wasn't evidence enough to put Sergeant Basket in thedock alongside of her--though 'twas freely guessed he knew more thananyone (saving the prisoner herself) about the arsenic that was found inthe little drawer and inside the old man's body. He was subpoena'd fromPlymouth, and cross-examined by a great hulking King's Counsel forthree-quarters of an hour. But they got nothing out of him. All through the examination the prisoner looked at him and nodded herwhite 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 thelove-light shone in her eyes for all the court to see. But the sergeantnever let his look meet it. When he stepped down at last she gave a sobof joy, and fainted bang-off. 

They roused her up, after this, to hear the verdict of _Guilty_ and herdoom spoken by the judge. "Pris'ner at the bar, " said the Clerk ofArraigns, "have ye anything to say why this court should not passsentence 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 dieat once for my sin. But if ye kill me now, ye kill the child in mybody--an' he is innocent. "

Well, 'twas found she spoke truth; and the hanging was put off tillafter 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 sixhours old. But the mother recovered, and quietly abode the time of herhanging. 

I can mind her execution very well; for father and mother had determinedit would be an excellent thing for my rickets to take me into Bodminthat day, and get a touch of the dead woman's hand, which in those timeswas considered an unfailing remedy. So we borrowed the parson'smanure-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 ofwater called Jail-pool, where the townsfolk drowned most of the dogs andcats they'd no further use for. All the bank under the gallows was thatthick with people you could almost walk upon their heads; and my ribswere squeezed by the crowd so that I couldn't breathe freely for a monthafter. Back across the pool, the fields along the side of the valleywere lined with booths and sweet-stalls and standings--a perfectWhitsun-fair; and a din going up that cracked your ears. 

But there was the stillness of death when the woman came forth, with thesheriff and the chaplain reading in his book, and the unnamed manbehind--all from the little door. She wore a strait black gown, and awhite kerchief about her neck--a lovely woman, young and white andtearless. 

She ran her eye over the crowd and stepped forward a pace, as if tospeak; but lifted a finger and beckoned instead: and out of the people aman fought his way to the foot of the scaffold. 'Twas the dashingsergeant, that was here upon sick-leave. Sick he was, I believe. His face above his shining regimentals was grey as a slate; for he hadcommitted perjury to save his skin, and on the face of the perjured nosun 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 whatwas in his hand, and the woman caught it--a little screw oftissue-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'seyes, spoke very slow--

"_Husband, our child shall go wi' you; an' when I want you he shallfetch 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 thedead 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 thepoor 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 amort of people had been present, and how the sheriff might have usedmilder 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 hereand there; and still we never mended our pace. 

'Twas in the middle of the lane leading down to Hendra Bottom, where formore than a mile two carts can't pass each other, that my father pricksup 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, poundingfuriously 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 shoutingbehind. 

"Hurry that crawlin' worm o' yourn--or draw aside in God's name, an' letme 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 voicethat 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, outof the night--and with it the most ghastly sounds that ever creamed aman's flesh. Farmer Hugo pushed past us and sent a shower of mud in ourfaces as his horse leapt off again, and 'way-to-go down the hill. Myfather stood up and lashed our old grey with the reins, and down we wenttoo, bumpity-bump for our lives, the poor beast being taken suddenlylike one possessed. For the screaming behind was like nothing on earthbut 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 wasbeing twisted to death. 

At the hill's foot, as you know, a stream crosses the lane--that widensout there a bit, and narrows again as it goes up t'other side of thevalley. Knowing we must be overtaken further on--for the screams andclatter seemed at our very backs by this--father jumped out here intothe stream and backed the cart well to one side; and not a second toosoon. 

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 hedashed through it and up the hill. 'Twas the scarlet dragoon with hisashen face; and behind him, holding to his cross-belt, rode a littleshape that tugged and wailed and raved. As I stand here, sir, 'twas theshape of a naked babe!

Well, I won't go on to tell how my father dropped upon his knees in thewater, or how my mother fainted off. The thing was gone, and from thatmoment for eight years nothing was seen or heard of Sergeant Basket. The fright killed my mother. Before next spring she fell into adecline, and early next fall the old man--for he was an old man now--hadto delve her grave. After this he went feebly about his work, but heldon, being wishful for me to step into his shoon, which I began to do assoon as I was fourteen, having outgrown the rickets by that time. 

But one cool evening in September month, father was up digging in theyard 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, andlooking over the edge of the grave, saw in the dusk a man hitching hishorse there by the bridle. 

'Twas a coal-black horse, and the man wore a scarlet coat all powderedwith pilm; and as he opened the gate and came over the graves, fathersaw 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 awhisper, with a shiver therein. 

"Bedman, " says he, "go to the hedge and look down the road, and tell mewhat 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 isdressed in black, an' has a veil over her face; an' she's comin' thisway. "

"Bedman, " answers the dragoon, "go to the gate an' look back along thePlymouth 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 hemakes no sound. "

"Because his voice is wearied out, " says the dragoon. And with that hefaced 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 inthe saddle. 

Now from the gate the bank goes down pretty steep into the road, and atthe foot of the bank my father saw two figures waiting. 'Twas the womanand the child, hand in hand; and their eyes burned up like coals: andthe woman's veil was lifted, and her throat bare. 

As the horse went down the bank towards these two, they reached out andtook each a stirrup and climbed upon his back, the child before thedragoon 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 hilltowards Ruan sands. All that my father could mind, beyond, was that thewoman's hands were passed round the man's neck, where the rope hadpassed round her own. 

No more could he tell, being a stricken man from that hour. But AuntPolgrain, the house-keeper up to Constantine, saw them, an hour later, go along the road below the town-place; and Jacobs, the smith, saw thempass his forge towards Bodmin about midnight. So the tale's trueenough. 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 nevervisited 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 somedetail perfectly familiar. The high-road ran straight ahead to a notchin the long chine of Huel Tor; and this notch was filled with the yellowball of the westering sun. Whenever I turned my head and blinked, redsimulacra of this ball hopped up and down over the brown moors. Milesof wasteland, dotted with peat-ricks and cropping ponies, stretched tothe 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 thatnow, in November, allowed a glimpse, and no more, of the grey facade. Ihad looked down that coombe as we drove by; and catching sight of thesechimneys felt something like reassurance, as if I had been counting, allthe 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 theUniversity I had taken orders; but, for reasons impertinent to thisnarrative, was led, after five years of parochial work in Surrey, toaccept an Inspectorship of Schools. Just now I was bound for Pitt'sScawens, a desolate village among the Cornish clay-moors, there toexamine and report upon the Board School. Pitt's Scawens lies some ninemiles off the railway, and six from the nearest market-town;consequently, on hearing there was a comfortable inn near the village, Ihad determined to make that my resting-place for the night and do mybusiness 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 wereforming the syllables almost before he spoke. As he flicked up his greyhorse and the gig began to oscillate in more business-like fashion, Iput 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 ofamazement. 

"Well--considerin' I've lived in these parts five-an'-forty year, manand boy, I reckon I _ought_ to be sure. "

The reproof was just, and I apologised. Nevertheless Parkyn was not thename I wanted. What was the name? And why did I want it? I had notthe least idea. For the next mile I continued to hunt my brain for theright combination of syllables. I only knew that somewhere, now at theback of my head, now on my tongue-tip, there hung a word I desired toutter, but could not. I was still searching for it when the gig climbedover 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 Inever doubted this must be the case with Pitt's Scawens. Nor was I inthe least surprised by the appearance of this lonely tavern, with theblack peat-pool behind it and the high-road in front, along which itsend windows stare for miles, as if on the look-out for the ghosts ofdeparted coaches full of disembodied travellers for the Land's End. I knew the sign-board over the porch: I knew--though now in the twilightit was impossible to distinguish colours--that upon either side of itwas painted an Indian Queen in a scarlet turban and blue robe, takingtwo black children with scarlet parasols to see a blue palm-tree. I recognised the hepping-stock and granite drinking-trough beside theporch; as well as the eight front windows, four on either side of thedoor, and the dummy window immediately over it. Only the landlord wasunfamiliar. He appeared as the gig drew up--a loose-fleshed, heavy man, something over six feet in height--and welcomed me with an air ofanxious hospitality, as if I were the first guest he had entertained formany 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 torisk cooking the fowl till you were really come. 'Railways be thatuncertain, ' she said. 'Something may happen to the train and he'll bedone to death and all in pieces. '"

It took me a couple of seconds to discover that these gloomyanticipations 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 mybedroom, I'll have a wash and change my clothes, for I've beentravelling since ten this morning. "

I was standing in the passage by this time, and examined it in the duskwhile the landlord was fetching a candle. Yes, again: I had felt surethe staircase lay to the right. I knew by heart the Ionic pattern ofits broad balusters; the tick of the tall clock, standing at the firstturn of the stairs; the vista down the glazed door opening on thestable-yard. When the landlord returned with my portmanteau and acandle and I followed him up-stairs, I was asking myself for thetwentieth time--'When--in what stage of my soul's history--had I beendoing all this before? And what on earth was that tune that kepthumming in my head?'

I dismissed these speculations as I entered the bedroom and began tofling off my dusty clothes. I had almost forgotten about them by thetime I began to wash away my travel-stains, and rinse the coal-dust outof my hair. My spirits revived, and I began mentally to arrange myplans for the next day. The prospect of dinner, too, after my colddrive was wonderfully comforting. Perhaps (thought I), there is goodwine in this inn; it is just the house wherein travellers find, or boastthat they find, forgotten bins of Burgundy or Teneriffe. When mylandlord returned to conduct me to the Blue Room, I followed him down tothe first landing in the lightest of spirits. 

Therefore, I was startled when, as the landlord threw open the door andstood aside to let me pass, _it_ came upon me again--and this time notas a merely vague sensation, but as a sharp and sudden fear taking melike a cold hand by the throat. I shivered as I crossed the thresholdand began to look about me. The landlord observed it, and said--

"It's chilly weather for travelling, to be sure. Maybe you'd be betterdown-stairs in the coffee-room, after all. "

I felt that this was probable enough. But it seemed a pity to have puthim to the pains of lighting this fire for nothing. So I promised him Ishould be comfortable enough. 

He appeared to be relieved, and asked me what I would drink with mydinner. "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 myOxford days, and a long evening lay before me, with a snug armchair, anda 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 notless than ten paces broad. It was wainscotted to the height of fourfeet from the ground, probably with oak, but the wood had been so lardedwith 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 ofred-coated riders in three-cornered hats blew large horns while theyhunted a stag. This pattern, striking enough in itself, becameimmeasurably more so when repeated a dozen times; for the stag of onehunt 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 atthe bottom of the room stood high in the wall, with short blue curtainsand a blue-cushioned seat beneath. In the corner to the right of itstood a tall clock, and by the clock an old spinet, decorated with twoplated cruets, a toy cottage constructed of shells and gum, and anormolu clock under glass--the sort of ornament that an AgriculturalSociety presents to the tenant of the best-cultivated farm within thirtymiles of somewhere or other. The floor was un-carpeted save for onesmall oasis opposite the fire. Here stood my table, cleanly spread, with two plated candlesticks, each holding three candles. Along thewainscot extended a regiment of dark, leather-cushioned chairs, sostraight 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 tothe fire. I turned towards it. 

As I sat down I caught sight of my reflection in the mirror above thefireplace. It was an unflattering glass, with a wave across the surfacethat 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 ofthis mirror and the fireplace itself were by far the most noteworthyobjects 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 ofthe fireplace two Ionic pilasters of dark oak supported a narrowmantel-ledge. Above this rested the mirror, flanked by a couple ofnaked, flat-cheeked boys, who appeared to be lowering it over the fireby a complicated system of pulleys, festoons, and flowers. These flowers and festoons, as well as the frame of the mirror, were ofsome light wood--lime, I fancy--and reminded me of Grinling Gibbons'work; and the glass tilted forward at a surprising angle, as if about totumble on the hearth-rug. The carving was exceedingly delicate. I rose to examine it more narrowly. As I did so, my eyes fell on threeletters, cut in flowing italic capitals upon a plain boss of woodimmediately 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 memoriesof 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 themirror?"

"I've heard my wife say, sir, it was the motto of the Cardinnocks thatused 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 theframe--R. C. --one letter in each corner. "

As he spoke it, I knew this name--Cardinnock--for that which had beenhaunting 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 mydinner. "

"There's not much to tell, " he answered, taking a chair; "and I'm notthe 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 thehands 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 PhilipCardinnock, as he was called. Squire Philip came into the property whenhe was twenty-three: and before he reached twenty-seven, he was forcedto let the old place. He was wild, they say--thundering wild; adrinking, dicing, cock-fighting, horse-racing young man; poured out hismoney like water through a sieve. That was bad enough: but when it cameto carrying off a young lady and putting a sword through her father andrunning 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 wasforced to let Tremenhuel, he took what money he could raise and clearedout of the neighbourhood for a time; went off to Tregarrick when themilitia was embodied, he being an officer; and there he cast hisaffections upon old Sir Felix Williams's daughter. Miss Cicely--"

I was expecting it: nevertheless I dropped my fork clumsily as I heardthe name, and for a few seconds the landlord's voice sounded like thatof 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 andgot 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 afteryear, old Parkyn, his tenant, took the rent of Tremenhuel out of hisright pocket and paid it into his left: and in time, there being noheir, he just took over the property and stepped into Cardinnock's shoeswith a 'by your leave' to nobody, and there his grandson is to thisday. "

"What became of the young lady--of Miss Cicely Williams?" I asked. 

"Died an old maid. There was something curious between her and her onlybrother who had helped to stop the runaway match. Nobody knows what itwas: 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 angerat his interference rather far, 'specially as she remained good friendswith her father. "

He broke off here to fetch up the second course. We talked no more, forI 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 supposeI ate: but it was only when the landlord swept the cloth, and produced abottle 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 thefire, 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-backedchair with vigour, as though he had caught it standing at ease and weregiving it a round dozen for insubordination in the ranks. "Was thereanything 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 runningin my head. 

My pipe went out. I pulled out my pouch and was filling it afresh whena puff of wind came down the chimney and blew a cloud of blue smoke outinto the room. 

The smoke curled up and spread itself over the face of the mirrorconfronting me. I followed it lazily with my eyes. Then suddenly Ibent forward, staring up. Something very curious was happening to theglass. 

II. 

WHAT I SAW IN THE MIRROR. 

The smoke that had dimmed the mirror's face for a moment was rolling offits surface and upwards to the ceiling. But some of it still lingeredin filmy, slowly revolving eddies. The glass itself, too, was stirringbeneath this film and running across its breadth in horizontal waveswhich broke themselves silently, one after another, against the darkframe, while the circles of smoke kept widening, as the ripples widenwhen a stone is tossed into still water. 

I rubbed my eyes. The motion on the mirror's surface was quickeningperceptibly, while the glass itself was steadily becoming more opaque, the film deepening to a milky colour and lying over the surface in heavyfolds. I was about to start up and touch the glass with my hand, whenbeneath this milky colour and from the heart of the whirling film, therebegan to gleam an underlying brilliance after the fashion of the lightin 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 moreslowly; the smoke-wreaths faded: and as they died wholly out, the bluelight 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 thatthough its face reflected the room in which I sat, there was oneomission. 

_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 leastfrightened. I continued, at any rate, to gaze steadily into the glass, and now took note of two particulars that had escaped me. The table Isaw was laid for two. Forks, knives and glasses gleamed at either end, and a couple of decanters caught the sparkle of the candles in thecentre. This was my first observation. The second was that the coloursof the hearth-rug had gained in freshness, and that a dark spot justbeyond it--a spot which in my first exploration I had half-amusedlytaken 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 wassome difficulty in determining whether the tune by which I was stillhaunted ran in my head or was tinkling from within the old spinet by thewindow. But after a while the music, whencesoever it came, faded awayand ceased. A dead silence held everything for about thirty seconds. 

And then, still looking in the mirror, I saw the door behind me openslowly. 

The next moment, two persons noiselessly entered the room--a young manand a girl. They wore the dress of the early Georgian days, as well asI could see; for the girl was wrapped in a cloak with a hood that almostconcealed her face, while the man wore a heavy riding-coat. He wasbooted and spurred, and the backs of his top-boots were splashed withmud. I say the backs of his boots, for he stood with his back to mewhile he held open the door for the girl to pass, and at first I couldnot 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 andslightly reddened by the wind. A curl of brown hair had broken loosefrom its knot and hung, heavy with wet, across her brow. It was abeautiful 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 evenwhile the man at the door was turning, and I dug the nails of my righthand into the palm of my left, to repress the fear that swelled up as awave 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 passedover me and gone, I could observe these two figures steadfastly enough. The girl dropped into a chair beside the table, and stretching her armsalong the white cloth, bowed her head over them and wept. I saw hershoulders heave and her twined fingers work as she struggled with hergrief. The young Squire advanced and, with a hand on her shoulder, endeavoured by many endearments to comfort her. His lips movedvehemently, 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 facebetween his hands, kissed it, and pouring out a glass of wine, held itto her lips. She put it aside with her hand and glanced up towards thetall clock in the corner. My eyes, following hers, saw that the handspointed 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 helooked back at Cicely, over his shoulder, and after a minute returned tothe table. He drained the glass which the girl had declined, poured outanother, still keeping his eyes on her, and began to walk impatiently upand down the room. And all the time Cicely's soft eyes never ceased tofollow him. Clearly there was need for hurry, for they had not laidaside their travelling-cloaks, and once or twice the young man paused inhis walk to listen. At length he pulled out his watch, glanced from itto the clock in the corner, put it away with a frown and, striding up tothe hearth, flung himself down in the arm-chair--the very arm-chair inwhich I was seated. 

As he sat there, tapping the hearth-rug with the toe of his thickriding-boot and moving his lips now and then in answer to somequestion from the young girl, I had time to examine his every feature. Line by line they reproduced my own--nay, looking straight into his eyesI could see through them into the soul of him and recognised that soulfor my own. Of all the passions there I knew that myself contained thegerms. Vices repressed in youth, tendencies to sin starved in my ownnature by lack of opportunity--these flourished in a rank growth. I saw virtues, too, that I had once possessed but had lost by degrees inmy respectable journey through life--courage, generosity, tenderness ofheart. I was discovering these with envy, one by one, when he raisedhis head higher and listened for a moment, with a hand on either arm ofthe chair. 

The next instant he sprang up and faced the door. Glancing at Cicely, Isaw her cowering down in her chair. 

The young Squire had hardly gained his feet when the door flew open andthe figures of two men appeared on the threshold--Sir Felix Williams andhis 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 sprungforward. Like two serpents their rapiers engaged in the candle-light. The soundless blades crossed and glittered. Then one of them flickeredin a narrow circle, and the brother's rapier went spinning from his handacross the room. 

Young Cardinnock lowered his point at once, and his adversary steppedback a couple of paces. While a man might count twenty the pair lookedeach other in the face, and then the old man, Sir Felix, stepped slowlyforward. 

But before he could thrust--for the young Squire still kept his pointlowered--Cicely sprang forward and threw herself across her lover'sbreast. There, for all the gentle efforts his left hand made todisengage her, she clung. She had made her choice. There was no signof faltering in her soft eyes, and her father had perforce to hold hishand. 

The old man began to speak. I saw his face distorted with passion andhis lips working. I saw the deep red gather on Cicely's cheeks and theanger in her lover's eyes. There was a pause as Sir Felix ceased tospeak, and then the young Squire replied. But his sentence stoppedmidway: for once more the old man rushed upon him. 

This time young Cardinnock's rapier was raised. Girdling Cicely withhis 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 allhis body, and before his opponent could prevent it, was wounded high inthe chest, beneath the collar-bone. 

He reeled back and fell against the table. Cicely ran forward andcaught his hand; but he pushed her away savagely and, with anotherclutch at the table's edge, dropped upon the hearth-rug. The young man, meanwhile, white and aghast, rushed to the table, filled a glass withwine, and held it to the lips of the wounded man. So the two loversknelt. 

It was at this point that I who sat and witnessed the tragedy wasassailed by a horror entirely new. Hitherto I had, indeed, seen myselfin Squire Philip Cardinnock; but now I began also to possess his souland feel with his feelings, while at the same time I continued to sitbefore the glass, a helpless onlooker. I was two men at once; the manwho knelt all unaware of what was coming and the man who waited in thearm-chair, incapable of word or movement, yet gifted with a torturingprescience. 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 upsoftly and as softly stole up behind me. I tried to shout, to warnmyself; but my tongue was tied. The brother's arm was lifted. Thecandlelight ran along the blade. Still the kneeling figure neverturned. 

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 tolife, I suffered anguish too exquisite for words to reach, too deep formemory to dive after. My eyes closed and teeth shut on the taste ofdeath; 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 coldwind was blowing on my face, as from an open door. I staggered to meetthis wind and found myself groping along a passage and down a staircasefilled with Egyptian darkness. Then the wind increased suddenly andshook 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 feltmy way forward in the direction where the twilight showed least dimly. 

Slowly the curtain shook and its folds dissolved as I moved against thewind. The clouds lifted; and by degrees I grew aware that I wasstanding on the barren moor. Night was stretched around to the horizon, where straight ahead a grey bar shone across the gloom. I pressed ontowards it. The heath was uneven under my feet, and now and then Istumbled heavily; but still I held on. For it seemed that I must get tothis grey bar or die a second time. All my muscles, all my will, werestrained upon this purpose. 

Drawing nearer, I observed that a wave-like motion kept passing overthis brighter space, as it had passed over the mirror. The glimmerwould be obscured for a moment, and then re-appear. At length a gentleacclivity of the moor hid it for a while. My legs positively raced upthis 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 wasplaying. There was no moon, no star in heaven; yet over this desolatetarn hovered a pale radiance that ceased again where the edge of itswaves lapped the further bank of peat. Their monotonous wash hardlybroke the stillness of the place. 

The formless longing was now pulling at me with an attraction I couldnot deny, though within me there rose and fought against it a horroronly less strong. Here, as in the Blue Room, two souls were strugglingfor me. It was the soul of Philip Cardinnock that drew me towards thetarn and the soul of Samuel Wraxall that resisted. Only, what was thething towards which I was being pulled?

I must have stood at least a minute on the brink before I descried ablack object floating at the far end of the tarn. What this object wasI could not make out; but I knew it on the instant to be that for whichI 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 slowlyout into the pale radiance towards me. Silently, surely, as though mywish drew it by a rope, it floated nearer and nearer over the bosom ofthe tarn; and while it was still some twenty yards from me I saw it tobe a long black box, shaped somewhat like a coffin. 

There was no doubt about it. I could hear the water now sucking at itsdark sides. I stepped down the bank, and waded up to my knees in theicy 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 thesame even speed straight up to where I stood. 

As it came, I laid my hand upon it and touched wood. But with the touchcame a further sensation that made me fling both arms around the box andbegin frantically to haul it towards the shore. 

It was a feeling of suffocation; of a weight that pressed in upon myribs and choked the lungs' action. I felt that I must open that box ordie horribly; that until I had it upon the bank and had forced the lidup 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 fewpebbles 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 overit, 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 lungsgrew more intolerable with each moment; but still I fought with thatlid. Seven devils were within me and helped me; and all the while Iknew that I was dying, that unless the box were opened in a moment ortwo it would be too late. 

The sweat ran off my eyebrows and dripped on the box. My breath cameand went in sobs. I could not die. I could not, must not die. And soI tugged and strained and tugged again. 

Then, as I felt the black anguish of the Blue Room descending a secondtime upon me, I seemed to put all my strength into my hands. From thelid or from my own throat--I could not distinguish--there came a creakand a long groan. I tore back the board and fell on the heath with oneshuddering 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 carriedme 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 guessedthat something was amiss on finding the front door open when he camedown at five o'clock. I must have turned to the left on leaving thehouse, travelled up the road for a hundred yards, and then struck almostat right angles across the moor. One of my shoes was found a furlongfrom the highway, and this had guided them. Of course they found nocoffin beside me, and I was prudent enough to hold my tongue when Ibecame convalescent. But the effect of that night was to shatter myhealth for a year and more, and force me to throw up my post of SchoolInspector. To this day I have never examined the school at Pitt'sScawens. 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 longafterwards--that when first I spied the house it put no desire in me butjust to give thanks. 

For conceive my case. It was near mid-night, and ever since dusk I hadbeen tramping the naked moors, in the teeth of as vicious a nor'-westeras ever drenched a man to the skin, and then blew the cold home to hismarrow. My clothes were sodden; my coat-tails flapped with a noise likepistol-shots; my boots squeaked as I went. Overhead, the October moonwas in her last quarter, and might have been a slice of finger-nail forall the light she afforded. Two-thirds of the time the wrack blottedher 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 todistinguish the road from the black heath to right and left. For threehours I had met neither man nor man's dwelling, and (for all I knew) wasdesperately lost. Indeed, at the cross-roads, two miles back, there hadbeen 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, turnedright-about-face, leant back against the blast with a hand on my hat, and surveyed the blackness behind. It was at this instant that, faraway 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 lightmust 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 theinformation I wanted (and perhaps a supper) by one inch--sent a strongthrill down my back. 

I cut straight across the heather towards the light, risking quags andpitfalls. Nay, so heartening was the chance to hear a fellow creature'svoice, that I broke into a run, skipping over the stunted gorse thatcropped up here and there, and dreading every moment to see the lightquenched. "Suppose it burns in an upper window, and the family is goingto bed, as would be likely at this hour--" The apprehension kept myeyes fixed on the bright spot, to the frequent scandal of my legs, thatwithin five minutes were stuck full of gorse prickles. 

But the light did not go out, and soon a flicker of moonlight gave me aglimpse of the house's outline. It proved to be a deal more imposingthan I looked for--the outline, in fact, of a tall, square barrack, witha cluster of chimneys at either end, like ears, and a high wall, toppedby the roofs of some outbuildings, concealing the lower windows. Therewas no gate in this wall, and presently I guessed the reason. I wasapproaching the place from behind, and the light came from a back windowon the first floor. 

The faintness of the light also was explained by this time. It shonebehind a drab-coloured blind, and in shape resembled the stem of awine-glass, broadening out at the foot; an effect produced by thehalf-drawn curtains within. I came to a halt, waiting for the next rayof moonlight. At the same moment a rush of wind swept over thechimney-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 Icaught myself detecting this peculiar note, and trying to disengage itfrom 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 twowindows--those next on the right to that where it had shone before. Almost at once it increased in brilliance, as if the person who carriedit from the smaller room to the larger were lighting more candles; andnow the illumination was strong enough to make fine gold threads of therain that fell within its radiance, and fling two shafts of warm yellowover the coping of the back wall. During the minute or more that Istood watching, no shadow fell on either blind. 

Between me and the wall ran a ditch, into which the ground at my feetbroke sharply away. Setting my back to the storm again, I followed thelip 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 anysuch 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 noopening. Close beside the next angle there grew a mass of thick gorsebushes, and pushing through these I found myself suddenly on a soundhigh-road, with the wind tearing at me as furiously as ever. 

But here was the front; and I now perceived that the surrounding walladvanced 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 madeit an easy matter to find the gate. But as I laid hand on its latch Ihad a surprise. 

A line of paving-stones led from the gate to a heavy porch; and alongthe wet surface of these there fell a streak of light from the frontdoor, which stood ajar. 

That a door should remain six inches open on such a night wasastonishing enough, until I entered the court and found it as still as aroom, owing to the high wall. But looking up and assuring myself thatall the rest of the facade was black as ink, I wondered at thecarelessness 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 doorand pushed it softly. It opened without noise. 

I stepped into a fair-sized hall of modern build, paved with red tilesand lit with a small hanging-lamp. To right and left were doors leadingto the ground-floor rooms. Along the wall by my shoulder ran a line ofpegs, on which hung half-a-dozen hats and great-coats, every one ofclerical shape; and full in front of me a broad staircase ran up, with astaring Brussels carpet, the colours and pattern of which I can recallas well as I can to-day's breakfast. Under this staircase was set astand full of walking-sticks, and a table littered with gloves, brushes, a hand-bell, a riding-crop, one or two dog-whistles, and a bedroomcandle, 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 mastiffdog, curled on a mat beneath the table. The arch of his back wastowards me, and one forepaw lay over his nose in a natural posture ofsleep. I leant back on the wainscotting with my eyes tightly fixed onhim, and my thoughts sneaking back, with something of regret, to thestorm I had come through. 

But a man's habits are not easily denied. At the end of three minutesthe dog had not moved, and I was down on the door-mat unlacing my soakedboots. 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 ofthe mastiff; but he never stirred. I was glad enough, however, onreaching the stairs, to find them newly built, and the carpet thick. UpI went, with a glance at every step for the table which now hid thebrute's form from me, and never a creak did I wake out of that staircasetill I was almost at the first landing, when my toe caught a loosestair-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 withthe floor of the landing, out of which branched two passages--oneturning sharply to my right, the other straight in front, so that I wasgazing down the length of it. Almost at the end, a parallelogram oflight fell across it from an open door. 

A man who has once felt it knows there is only one kind of silence thatcan fitly be called "dead. " This is only to be found in a great houseat midnight. I declare that for a few seconds after I rattled thestair-rod you might have cut the silence with a knife. If the househeld 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 theroom where the light was. 

Now perhaps it was that the very thought of liquor put warmth into mycold 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 asbold as brass, without caring a jot for the noise I made. 

In the doorway I halted. The room was long, lined for the most partwith books bound in what they call "divinity calf, " and littered withpapers like a barrister's table on assize day. A leathern elbow-chairfaced the fireplace, where a few coals burned sulkily, and beside it, onthe corner of a writing table, were set an unlit candle and a pile ofmanuscripts. At the opposite end of the room a curtained door led (as Iguessed) to the chamber that I had first seen illuminated. All this Itook 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 ofwax candles lit, in silver stands, a tray, and a decanter three-partsfull of brandy. And between me and the table stood a man. 

He stood sideways, leaning a little back, as if to keep his shadow offthe threshold, and looked at me over his left shoulder--a bald, graveman, slightly under the common height, with a long clerical coat ofpreposterous fit hanging loosely from his shoulders, a white cravat, black breeches, and black stockings. His feet were loosely thrust intocarpet slippers. I judged his age at fifty, or thereabouts; but hisface rested in the shadow, and I could only note a pair of eyes, verysmall and alert, twinkling above a large expanse of cheek. 

He was lifting a wine-glass from the table at the moment when Iappeared, and it trembled now in his right hand. I heard a spilt dropor two fall on the carpet. This was all the evidence he showed ofdiscomposure. 

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 offhis fingers. 

"You startled me, " he said, in a matter-of-fact tone, turning his eyesupon me, as he lifted his glass again, and emptied it. "How did youfind 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 thisGod-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 thedoorway. If I must entertain a burglar, I prefer him tidy. "

He walked to the fire, picked up a poker, and knocked the coals into ablaze. This done, he turned round on me with the poker still in hishand. 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 pullingthe trigger you would certainly alarm the house and the neighbourhood, and put a halter round your neck. But it strikes me as safer to assumeyou capable of using a pistol with effect at three paces. With whatmight happen subsequently I will not pretend to be concerned. The fateof your neck"--he waved a hand, --"well, I have known you for just fiveminutes, and feel but a moderate interest in your neck. As for theinmates 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 whomI dismissed yesterday at a minute's notice, for conduct which I will notshock your ears by explicitly naming. Suffice it to say, I carried themoff yesterday to my parish church, two miles away, married them anddismissed them in the vestry without characters. I wish you had knownthat butler--but excuse me; with the information I have supplied, youought to find no difficulty in fixing the price you will take to clearout 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 doesnot, indeed, disarm me, but prompts me to desire more of youracquaintance. I have found a gentleman, and must sup with him before Imake terms. "

This address seemed to please him. He shuffled across the room to asideboard, and produced a plate of biscuits, another of dried figs, aglass, 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 thebucket than the manger, as the grooms say: and the brandy you weretasting 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 theglass for him to fill. Having done so, he helped himself to a glass anda chair, and sat down facing me. 

"I was speaking, just now, of my late butler, " he began, with a sip athis brandy. "Does it strike you that, when confronted with moraldelinquency, 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 toostrongly. As a clergyman, you see, I was bound to be severe; but uponmy word, sir, since Parkinson left I have felt like a man who has lost alimb. "

He drummed with his fingers on the cloth for a few moments, and wenton--

"One has a natural disposition to forgive butlers--Pharaoh, forinstance, felt it. There hovers around butlers an atmosphere in whichcommon ethics lose their pertinence. But mine was a rare bird--a blackswan among butlers! He was more than a butler: he was a quick andbrightly gifted man. Of the accuracy of his taste, and the unusualscope of his endeavour, you will be able to form some opinion when Iassure 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 derivedpleasure from his intonation. I talk with refinement: yet he learned toanswer me in language as precise as my own. My cast-off garments fittedhim not more irreproachably than did my amenities of manner. Divest himof his tray, and you would find his mode of entering a room hardlydistinguishable from my own--the same urbanity, the same alertness ofcarriage, the same superfine deference towards the weaker sex. All--allmy idiosyncrasies I saw reflected in him; and can you doubt that I wasgratified? He was my _alter ego_--which, by the way, makes it harderfor 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 mecontinue here as your butler. "

He leant back, spreading out the fingers of each hand on the table'sedge. 

"Believe me, " I went on, "you might do worse. I have been in my time ademy of Magdalen College, Oxford, and retain some Greek and Latin. I'll undertake to read the Fathers with an accent that shall not offendyou. My taste in wine is none the worse for having been formed in othermen's cellars. Moreover, you shall engage the ugliest cook inChristendom, 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 ofone digesting a problem. From first to last his face was grave as ajudge's. 

"We are too impulsive, I think, " was his answer, after a minute'ssilence; "and your speech smacks of the amateur. You say, 'Let me ceaseto be your burglar and let me be your butler. ' The aspiration isrespectable; but a man might as well say, 'Let me cease to writesermons, let me paint pictures. ' And truly, sir, you impress me as noexpert 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, youshall say so, and I'll march from your door with nothing in my pocketbut my month's wages. Be hanged, sir! but when I reflect on the amountyou'll have to pay to get me to face to-night's storm again, you seem tobe 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 onme. It turns me from bright to black, from levity to extreme sulkiness. I have done more wickedness over this third tumbler than in all theother states of comparative inebriety within my experience. So now Iglowered at my companion and cursed. 

"Look here, I don't want to hear any more of Parkinson, and I've apretty clear notion of the game you're playing. You want to make medrink, and you're ready to sit prattling there plying me till I dropunder the table. "

"Do me the favour to remember that you came, and are staying, on yourown motion. As for the brandy, I would remind you that I suggested amilder 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 handgravely across to me. 

"I hope you will shake it, " he said; "though, as a man who after threeglasses of neat spirit can distinguish between Madeira and Marsala, youhave every right to refuse me. Two minutes ago you offered to become mybutler, and I demurred. I now beg you to repeat that offer. Say theword, 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 theway from the room. 

Picking up my boots, I followed him along the passage and down thesilent staircase. In the hall he paused to stand on tip-toe, and turnup the lamp, which was burning low. As he did so, I found time to flinga 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 witsare to seek to-night;" and with the same, a sudden suspicion made meturn to my conductor, who had advanced to the left-hand door, and waswaiting for me, with a hand on the knob. 

"One moment!" I said: "This is all very pretty, but how am I to knowyou're not sending me to bed while you fetch in all the countryside tolay me by the heels?"

"I'm afraid, " was his answer, "you must be content with my word, as agentleman, that never, to-night or hereafter, will I breathe a syllableabout the circumstances of your visit. However, if you choose, we willreturn 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 fourrooms opened. He paused by the second and ushered me into asleeping-chamber, which, though narrow, was comfortable enough--a vastimprovement, at any rate, on the mumpers' lodgings I had been used tofor many months past. 

"You can undress here, " he said. "The sheets are aired, and if you'llwait 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 atinker'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 thenightshirt. 

"Good-night, " he called to me, flinging it in at the door; and withoutgiving 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 andclimb into the bed I had so unexpectedly acquired a right to. But, as amatter of fact, I did nothing of the kind. Instead, I drew on my bootsand sat on the bed's edge, blinking at my candle till it died down inits socket, and afterwards at the purple square of window as it slowlychanged to grey with the coming of dawn. I was cold to the heart, andmy teeth chattered with an ague. Certainly I never suspected my host'sword; but was even occupied in framing good resolutions and shaping outa reputable future, when I heard the front door gently pulled to, and aman's footsteps moving quietly to the gate. 

The treachery knocked me in a heap for the moment. Then, leaping up andflinging my door wide, I stumbled through the uncertain light of thepassage into the front hall. There was a fan-shaped light over thedoor, and the place was very still and grey. A quick thought, or, rather, a sudden, prophetic guess at the truth, made me turn to thefigure of the mastiff curled under the hall table. 

I laid my hand on the scruff of his neck. He was quite limp, and myfingers sank into the flesh on either side of the vertebrae. Digging them deeper, I dragged him out into the middle of the hall andpulled 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 Istirred a foot as if to run out at the door. Then, changing my mind, Istepped over the mastiff, and ran up the staircase. 

The passage at the top was now dark; but groping down it, I found thestudy door open, as before, and passed in. A sick light stole throughthe blinds--enough for me to distinguish the glasses and decanters onthe table, and find my way to the curtain that hung before the innerroom. 

I pushed the curtain aside, paused for a moment, and listened to theviolent beat of my heart; then felt for the door-handle and turnedit. 

All I could see at first was that the chamber was small; next, that thelight 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 butmy own. I reached out a hand to pull up the blind, and drew it backagain. I dared not. 

The daylight grew minute by minute on the dull oblong of the blind, andminute by minute that horrible thing on the bed took something ofdistinctness. 

The strain beat me at last. I fetched a loud yell to give myselfcourage, and, reaching for the cord, pulled up the blind as fast as itwould go. 

The face on the pillow was that of an old man--a face waxen andpeaceful, with quiet lines about the mouth and eyes, and long lines ofgrey hair falling back from the temples. The body was turned a littleon one side, and one hand lay outside the bedclothes in a very naturalmanner. 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 flashedon me that I had been indiscreet in taking service as his butler, andthat I knew the face his ex-butler wore. 

And, being by this time awake to the responsibilities of the post, Iquitted it three steps at a time, not once looking behind me. Outside the house the storm had died down, and white daylight wasgleaming over the sodden moors. But my bones were cold, and I ranfaster 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 inlime-washed walls, scant fittings, and uncovered boards; the distinctioncame of ample proportions and something of durability in the furniture. Rooms, like human faces, reflect their histories; and that generationafter generation of the same family had here struggled to birth or deathwas written in this chamber unmistakably. The candle-light, twinklingon the face of a dark wardrobe near the door, lit up its roughinscription, "S. T. And M. T. , MDCLXVII"; the straight-backed oaken chairsmight well claim an equal age; and the bed in the corner was a spaciousfour-poster, pillared in smooth mahogany and curtained in faded greendamask. 

In the shadow of this bed lay the man who had spoken. A single candlestood on a tall chest at his left hand, and its ray, filtering throughthe thin green curtain, emphasised the hue of death on his face. The features were pinched, and very old. His tone held neithercomplaint nor passion: it was matter-of-fact even, as of one whose talkis merely a concession to good manners. There was the faintestinterrogation 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 theblackness 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 twothere was silence. 

"I don't feel like dyin'; but doctor ought to know. Seemed to me 'twasharder, an'--an' more important. This sort o' dyin' don't seem o' muchaccount. "

"No?"

"That's it. I reckon, though, 'twould be other if I had a family roundthe 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 isthe manner of it. It's hard that, after Samuel died o' fever, Jim shudbe blown up at Herodsfoot powder-mill. He made a lovely corpse, didSamuel; but Jim, you see, he hadn't a chance. An' as for William, he'snever 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, backalong, '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, didWilliam. "

"Who says so?"

"Why, all the folks. Lord bless the girl! do 'ee think folks use theireyes without usin' their tongues? An' I wish it had come about, foryou'd ha' kept en straight. But he treated you bad, and he treated mebad, 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 fairlyearned--not but what you was welcome: an' if I thought as there was harmdone, 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 overthirty--once comely, but worn over-much, and prematurely hardened. The voice had hardened with it, perhaps. The old man, who had risen onhis elbow in an access of passion, was taken with a fit of coughing, andsank back upon the pillows. 

"There's no call to be niffy, " he apologised at last. "I was on'ythinkin' 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 fellasleep. 'Lizabeth took his hand, and sat there listlessly regarding thestill shadows on the wall. The sick man never moved; only mutteredonce--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 ofthe hand in hers, she suddenly pushed the curtain back, and, catching upthe 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 bedclothesstraight, and quietly left the room. It was a law of the house to doffboots and shoes at the foot of the stairs, and her stocking'd feetscarcely raised a creak from the solid timbers. The staircase ledstraight down into the kitchen. Here a fire was blazing cheerfully, andas she descended she felt its comfort after the dismal room above. 

Nevertheless, the sense of being alone in the house with a dead man, andmore than a mile from any living soul, was disquieting. In truth, therewas room for uneasiness. 'Lizabeth knew that some part of the old man'shoard lay up-stairs in the room with him. Of late she had, under hiseye, taken from a silver tankard in the tall chest by the bed suchmoneys as from week to week were wanted to pay the farm hands; and shehad seen papers there, too--title-deeds, maybe. The house itself lay ina cup of the hill-side, backed with steep woods--so steep that, inplaces, anyone who had reasons (good or bad) for doing so, might wellsee 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 thekitchen window and closed the shutter; then, reaching down an oldhorse-pistol from the rack above the mantelshelf, she fetched out powderand 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 apervading silence without precedent in her experience, as if itsmaster's soul in flitting had, whatever Scripture may say, takensomething out of the house with it. 'Lizabeth had known this kitchenfor a score of years now; nevertheless, to-night it was unfamiliar, withemptier corners and wider intervals of bare floor. She laid down theloaded 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 overflowon the embers, and the rattle with which she set out cup, saucer, andteapot. She was bending over the hearth to lift the kettle, when asound at the door caused her to start up and listen. 

The latch had been rattled: not by the wind, for the December nightwithout was misty and still. There was somebody on the other side ofthe door; and, as she turned, she saw the latch lowered back into itsplace. 

With her eyes fastened on this latch, she set down the kettle softly andreached 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 earagainst the board, and listened. 

Yes, assuredly there was someone outside. She could catch the sound ofbreathing, and the shuffling of a heavy boot on the door-slate. And nowa 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 insooner, " she said quietly. 

A thin puff of rain floated against her face as the door opened, and atall soldier stepped out of the darkness into the glow of the warmkitchen. 

"Well, this here's a queer home-coming. Why, hullo, 'Lizabeth--with apistol in your hand, too! Do you shoot the fatted calf in these partsnow? What's the meaning of it?"

The overcoat of cinder grey that covered his scarlet tunic was powderedwith beads of moisture; his black moustaches were beaded also; his facewas 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 smallpools upon the slates around his muddy boots. 

He was a handsome fellow, in a florid, animal fashion; well-set, withblack curls, dark eyes that yet contrived to be exceedingly shallow, andas 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 himlast, while the white had taken a tinge of yellow, reminding her of theprize beef at the Christmas market last week. Somehow she could findnothing 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 awarethat the speech was inconsequent and trivial. 

"Damnably. Left the coach at Fiddler's Cross, and trudged down acrossthe fields. We were soaked enough on the coach, though, and couldn'tget much worse. "

"We?"

"Why, you don't suppose I was the only passenger by the coach, eh?" heput in quickly. 

"No, I forgot. "

There was an awkward silence, and William's eyes travelled round thekitchen till they lit on the kettle standing by the hearthstone. "Got any rum in the cupboard?" While she was getting it out, he tookoff his cap and great-coat, hung them up behind the door, and, pullingthe small table close to the fire, sat beside it, toasting his knees. 'Lizabeth set bottle and glass before him, and stood watching as hemixed 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 atleast, " 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 fanciedthis coat, though it ain't but a private's; and that's enough for you, Itake it. "

"It's handsome. "

"There, that'll do. I do believe you're spiteful because I didn't offerto kiss you when I came in. Here, Cousin 'Lizabeth, " he exclaimed, starting up, "I'll be sworn for all your tongue you're the prettiestmaid I've seen this five year. Give me a kiss. "

"Don't, William!"

Such passionate entreaty vibrated in her voice that William, who wasadvancing, stopped for a second to stare. Then, with a laugh, he hadcaught 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, forany 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 knowI'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 acomfortable 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 ashamedof. "

"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 thedoor. '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 glassfulwith a shaking hand. 'Lizabeth noticed that this time he added nowater. 

"He died to-night, " she explained; "but he's been ailin' for a yearpast, 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'msick 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 hisway 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 endto the kettle. She remembered that the tea was still to make, and, onstooping to set the kettle back upon the logs, found it emptied byWilliam's potations. Donning her stout shoes and pattens, and slippinga shawl over her head, she reached down the lantern from its peg, litit, and went out to fill the kettle at the spring. 

It was pitch-dark; the rain was still falling, and as she crossed theyard the sodden straw squeaked beneath her tread. The yard had beenfashioned generations since, by levelling back from the house to thenatural rock of the hill-side, and connecting the two on the right bycow-house and stable, with an upper storey for barn and granary, on theleft by a low wall, where, through a rough gate, the cart-track from thevalley found its entrance. Against the further end of this wall leantan open cart-shed; and within three paces of it a perpetual spring ofwater gushing down the rock was caught and arrested for a while in astone trough before it hurried out by a side gutter, and so down to jointhe trout-stream in the valley below. The spring first came to lighthalf-way down the rock's face. Overhead its point of emergence wascurtained by a network of roots pushed out by the trees above andsprawling over the lip in helpless search for soil. 

'Lizabeth's lantern threw a flare of yellow on these and on the bubblingwater as she filled her kettle. She was turning to go when a soundarrested her. 

It was the sound of a suppressed sob, and seemed to issue from thecart-shed. 'Lizabeth turned quickly and held up her lantern. Under theshed, and barely four paces from her, sat a woman. 

The woman was perched against the shaft of a hay-waggon, with her feetresting on a mud-soiled carpet-bag. She made but a poor appealingfigure, tricked out in odds and ends of incongruous finery, with abonnet, once smart, hanging limply forward over a pair oflight-coloured eyes and a very lachrymose face. The ambition of thestranger's toilet, which ran riot in cheap jewellery, formed so odd acontrast with her sorry posture that 'Lizabeth, for all her wonder, feltinclined 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 skirtsand 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 thosefal-lals, an' sit in your petticoat by the fire, here; you ain't wetthrough--on'y your feet; and here's a dry pair o' stockings, if you'venone i' the bag. You must be possessed, to come trampin' over HighCompton in them gingerbread things. " She pointed scornfully at thestranger's boots. 

Mrs. William Transom, finding her notions of gentility thus ridiculed, acquiesced. 

"An' now, " resumed 'Lizabeth, when her visitor was seated by the firepulling 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 helpedherself with freedom. She made no comment, however, but set aboutmaking 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'tfret about them. "

Mrs. William showed no disposition to fret. On the contrary, under theinfluence 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 inbarracks, which she disliked, but put up with because she doted on a redcoat; that William had always been meaning to tell his father, butfeared 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 hadmade up his mind at last, "'for, ' as he said to me, 'the old man must benearin' his end, and then the farm'll be mine by rights;'" that he hadobtained his furlough two days back, and come by coach all the way tothis doleful spot--for doleful she must call it, though she _would_ haveto live there some day--with no shops nor theayters, of which last itappeared Mrs. Transom was inordinately fond. Her chatter wasinterrupted 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, thoughI say it. "

"We ain't neither of us pretty now--you especially. "

"I'd a knack o' dressin', " pursued the egregious Mrs. Transom, "an' niceeyes an' hair. 'Why, Maria, darlin', ' said William one day, when himan' 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 himtramp 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' allthis time. "

"Come and see. "

'Lizabeth rose. Her contempt of this foolish, faded creature recoiledupon herself, until she could bear to sit still no longer. With William's wife at her heels, she mounted the stair, their shoelessfeet 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 lookedinto the room, and then, with a quick impulse, darted in front of hercompanion. 

It was too late. Mrs. Transom was already at her shoulder, and the eyesof the two women rested on the sorry spectacle before them. 

Candle in hand, the prodigal was kneeling by the dead man's bed. He wasnot 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 startlehim. He dropped the lid with a crash, turned sharply round, andscrambled to his feet. His look embraced the two women in one briefflicker, 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 waittill your father was cold, but must needs be groping under his pillowfor the key of that chest? You woman, there--you wife of this man--I'mmain grieved you should ha' seen this. Lord knows I had the will tohide it!"

The wife, who had sunk into the nearest chair, and lay there huddledlike a half-empty bag, answered with a whimper. 

"Stop that whining!" roared William, turning upon her, "or I'll breakevery bone in your skin. "

"Fie on you, man! Why, she tells me you haven't struck her for a wholeyear, " 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?--youdidn't score this last trick. "

"What do you mean?" The innuendo at the end diverted her wrath at theman's hateful coarseness. 

"Mean? Oh, o' course, you're innocent as a lamb! Mean? Why, lookhere. "

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 inhis eye seemed to meditate violence. But he thought better of it; andwhen 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 hiscomposition. 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 thisdisinheritance of William struck her conservative mind as a violation ofNature's laws. 

William's silence was his wife's opportunity. 

"Robbery's the word, you baggage! You thought to buy him wi' yourill-got gains. Ugh! go along wi' you!"

'Lizabeth threw a desperate look towards the cause of this trouble--thepale mask lying on the pillows. Finding no help, she turned to Williamagain--

"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 ofwrath. "Woman, listen to me. Time was I loved that man o' your'n; timewas he swore I was all to him. He was a liar from his birth. It's yournatur' to think I'm jealous; a better woman would know I'm _sick_--sickwi' shame an' scorn o' mysel'. That man, there, has kissed me, oft'nan' oft'n--kissed me 'pon the mouth. Bein' what you are, you can'tunderstand 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 atthe edge and wrap the whole in fire. The paper dropped from her hand tothe bare boards, and with a dying flicker was consumed. The charredflakes 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 turnedto 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 pickup my things and tramp down to Hooper's Farm; they'll give me a place, Iknow, 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'tto be had!"

"Shut up!" said William savagely; "an' listen to this: If you was todie to-night I'd marry 'Lizabeth next week. "

Time passed. The old man was buried, and Mr. And Mrs. Transom tookpossession at Compton Burrows and reigned in his stead. 'Lizabeth dwelta 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 inyears, and gladly resigned the dairy work to a girl who, as she told herhusband, 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 andshut its clasps tight. 

She never met William to speak to. Now and then she caught sight of himas he rode past on horseback, on his way to market or to the "ComptonArms, " where he spent more time and money than was good for him. He hadbought himself out of the army, of course; but he retained his barracktales and his air of having seen life. These, backed up with a baritonevoice and a largehandedness in standing treat, made him popular in thebar parlour. Meanwhile, Mrs. Transom, up at Compton Burrows--perhapsbecause she missed her "theayters"--sickened and began to pine; and oneJanuary afternoon, little more than a year after the home-coming, 'Lizabeth, standing in the dairy by her cream-pans, heard that she wasdead. 

"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 Williamrode down the valley, and, dismounting by Farmer Hooper's, hitched hisbridle 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 outher 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 mainlonely 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 tofind she harboured no malice. "It's troubled me, since, that way youburnt the will, an' us turnin' you out; for in a way the place belongedto you. The old man meant it, anyhow. "

"Well, " said 'Lizabeth, setting down her basket, and looking him full inthe eyes. 

"Well, I reckon we might set matters square, you an' me, 'Lizabeth, bymarryin' 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 'eesay, cousin?"

'Lizabeth picked a full pod from the bush beside her, and began shellingthe peas, one by one, into her hand. Her face was cool andcontemplative. 

"'Tis eight years ago, William, since last you asked me. Ain't thatso?" 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. Ithank you, but it can't be. " She passed the peas slowly to and fro inher 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 youonce, but now I'm only weary when I think o't. You wouldn't understandme 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; Williamwatched 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 dayat the "Compton Arms. " When he returned home, which was not beforemidnight, he was boisterously drunk. 

Now it so happened that when William dismounted at the gate Mrs. Hooperhad spied him from her bedroom window, and, guessing his errand, hadstolen down on the other side of the garden wall parallel with which thepeas were planted. Thus sheltered, she contrived to hear every word ofthe foregoing conversation, and repeated it to her good man that verynight. 

"An' I reckon William said true, " she wound up. "If 'Lizabeth don'tknow 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 fairlysee my way about in it. I'm main puzzled what can ha' become o' thatwill 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 putit fairly to her. "

"That's just it, you ninny!" interrupted his wiser wife; "I gave Williamcredit for more sense. Put it fairly, indeed! If he'd said nothin', but just caught her in his arms, an' clipped an' kissed her, shecouldn't ha' stood out. But he's lost his chance, an' now she'll nevermarry. "

And it was as she said. 

THE END.