Chapter XV: Which? (9)

"The man gave a start, and his hat, which he had pulled off, and with the brim of which he was fumbling, slipped from his fingers and rolled on the turf.

"'Oh, yes, I forgot!' put in Dick. 'I ought to have told you that Mr. West here is the Rector of Lansulyan, and was at the time of the wreck."

"'Indeed, Sir!' John Emmet had recovered his hat, and confronted me with a face for which I spared a glance before bending my eyes on the daisies at my feet. 'I--I took service here some months after that event.'

"'Come, Padre'--these were the next words I heard--'if you wish to prod up all the daisies on Felicia's property, arise early to-morrow and begin. But if we're to dine at the Hall to-night it's time to be getting back to the inn and changing our clothes.'

"I looked up, and my eyes fell on the retreating back of John Emmet, already half-way towards the Italian garden."

"'Queer fellow, that--what's his name?--John Emmet,' said I late that night on our return to the inn, as Dick and I mixed our whiskey and prepared for a smoke before his sitting-room fire.

"'Tile loose, I fancy,' answered Dick, pausing with a lighted match in his hand. 'I've an idea that he owes me a grudge for coming here and carrying off Felicia.'

"'What gives you that notion?'

"'Well, you see he has always been a favourite of hers. She tells me that the hours she managed to steal and spend in the garden, chatting with John Emmet while he worked, were the happiest in her childhood. He seems to have been a kind of out-of-door protector to her, and I'll bet she twisted him round her small thumb.'

"'That's little enough to go upon,' was my comment. 'It struck me, on the contrary, that the man eyed you with some affection, not to say pride.'

"'Well, it's a small thing, but I can't help remembering how he took the news of Felicia's--of our engagement. You see, it happened at a fancy-dress dance.'

"'What happened?'

"'Don't be dense, Padre. Why, _it_--the engagement. The dance was given by some people who live two miles from here--people called Bargrave. Felicia and I drove over. She wore an old Court dress of her grandmother's or great-grand-mother's: I'm no hand at costumes, and can only tell you that she looked particularly jolly in it. I went in uniform--mess uniform, that is. It's one of the minor advantages of the service that on these occasions a man hasn't to put on a cavalier's wig and look like a goat out for a holiday. Well, as I was saying, at this particular dance _it_ happened. It was daybreak when we started to drive home; a perfect midsummer morning, sun shining, dew on the hedges, and the birds singing fit to split themselves. Felicia and I had a lot to say to each other, naturally; and it occurred to us to stop the carriage at the gates and send it on while we walked up to the house together. We took the path leading through the Italian garden, and there--pretty well in the same place where you saw him this afternoon-- we came on John Emmet, already out and at work: or rather he was leaning on a hoe and staring after the carriage as it moved up the avenue behind the limes. We came on him from behind, and, I suppose, suddenly. Anyhow, we scared him. I never saw such a face in my life as he turned on us! It went all white in an instant, and then slowly whiter. No doubt our dress was unusual: but I'm not accustomed to be taken for a ghost--'

"'Was it _you_ who frightened him?'

"'Yes, I think so. He kept his eyes on me, anyway: and at first, when Felicia asked him to congratulate her, he didn't seem to hear. After a bit, however, he picked up his speech and muttered something about fate, and wishing her joy--I forget what. Felicia confessed afterwards that his face had fairly frightened her.'

"'Look here,' I asked; 'it may seem an irrelevant question, but has the 2-th made any changes in its uniform lately?--any important changes, I mean.'

"'No: the War Office has been obliging enough to leave us alone in that respect: out of sight out of mind, I suppose. In point of fact we've kept the same rig--officers and men--for something like a quarter of a century.' He paused. 'I see what you're driving at. The man, you think, may be an old deserter!'

"'Not so fast, please. Now here's another question. You remember the night after the wreck of the _Nerbuddha_: the night you took a turn in Lansulyan Church, watching the bodies? You came to me in the morning with a story which I chose to laugh at--'

"'About the face at the window, you mean?' Dick gave a mock shudder. 'I suppose my nerves were shaken. I've been through some queer things since: but upon my soul I'd as soon face the worst of them again as take another spell with a line of corpses in that church of yours.'

"'But--the face?'

"'Well, at the time I'd have sworn I saw it: peering in through the last window westward in the south aisle--the one above the font. I ran out, you remember, and found nobody: then I fetched a lantern and flashed it about the churchyard.'

"'There were gravestones in plenty a man could hide behind. Should you remember the face?'

"Dick considered for a while. 'No: it didn't strike me as a face so much as a pair of eyes; I remember the eyes only. They were looking straight into mine."

"'Well, now. I've always guessed there was something queer about that _Nerbuddha_ business: though till now I've never told a soul my chief reason for believing so. After you left me that night, and while I was dressing, it occurred to me from the last of the three signals--the only one I saw--that the wreck must be somewhere near the Carracks, and that Farmer Tregaskis had a seine-boat drawn up by the old pallace [1] at Gunner's Meadow, just opposite the Carracks.'"

"'It struck me that if it were possible to knock up Tregaskis and his boys and the farmhand who slept on the premises, and get this boat launched through the surf, we should reach the wreck almost as soon as the life-boat. So I took a lantern and ran across the fields to the farm. Lights were burning there in two or three windows, and Mrs. Tregaskis, who answered my knock, told me that her husband and the boys had already started off--she believed for Gunner's Meadow, to launch their boat. There had been talk of doing so, anyhow, before they set out. Accordingly, off I pelted hot-foot for the meadow, but on reaching the slope above it could see no lanterns either about the pallace or on the beach. It turned out afterwards that the Tregaskis family had indeed visited the beach, ten minutes ahead of me, but judging it beyond their powers to launch the boat short-handed through the surf, were by this time on their way towards the Porth. I thought this likely enough at the time, but resolved to run down and make sure.

"'Hitherto I had carried my lantern unlit: but on reaching the coombe bottom I halted for a moment under the lee of the pallace-wall to strike a match. In that moment, in a sudden lull of the breakers, it seemed to me that I heard a footstep on the loose stones of the beach; and having lit my candle hastily I ran round the wall and gave a loud hail. It was not answered: the sound had ceased: but hurrying down the beach with my lantern held high, I presently saw a man between me and the water's edge. I believe now that he was trying to get away unobserved: but finding this hopeless he stood still with his hands in his pockets, and allowed me to come up. He was bare-headed, and dressed only in shirt and trousers and boots. Somehow, though I did not recognise him, I never doubted for a moment that the man belonged either to my own or the next parish. I was a newcomer in those days, you remember.

"'"Hulloa!" said I, "where do you come from?"'

"'He stared at me stupidly and jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the west. I inferred that he came from one of the shore-farms in that direction. He looked like a middle-aged farmer--a grizzled man with a serious, responsible face. "But you're wet through," I said, for his clothes were drenched.

"'For answer he pointed towards the surf, and lifting my lantern again, I detected a small cask floating a little beyond the breakers. Now before coming to Lansulyan I had heard some ugly tales of the wrecking done in these parts, and at the sight of this I fairly lost my temper. 'It seems to me,' said I, "a man of your age should be ashamed of himself, lurking here for miserable booty when there are lives to save! In God's name, if you have a spark of manhood in you, follow me to the Porth!" I swung off in a rage, and up the beach: after a moment I heard him slowly following. On the cliff track I swallowed down my wrath and waited for him to come up, meaning to expostulate more gently. He did not come up. I hailed twice, but he had vanished into the night.

"'Now this looked ugly. And on reflection, when I reached the Porth and heard men wondering how on earth a fine ship found herself on Menawhidden in such weather, it looked uglier yet. The fellow--now I came to think it over--had certainly shrunk from detection. Then, thirty hours later, came your story of the face, and upset me further. I kept my suspicions to myself, however. The matter was too grave for random talking: but I resolved to keep eyes and ears open, and if this horrible practice of wrecking did really exist, to expose it without mercy.

"'Well I have lived some years since in Lansulyan: and I am absolutely sure now that no such horrors exist, if they ever existed.'

"'But the man?' was Dick's query.

"'That's what I'm coming to. You may be sure I looked out for him: for, unlike you, I remembered the face I saw. Yet until to-day I have never seen it since.'

"'Until to-day?'

"'Yes. The man I saw on the beach was Miss Felicia's gardener, John Emmet. He has shaved his beard; but I'll swear to him.'

"All that Dick could do was to pull the pipe from his mouth and give a long whistle. 'But what do you make of it?' he asked with a frown.

"'As yet, nothing. Where does the man live?'

"'In a small cottage at the end of the village, just outside the gate of the kitchen-garden.'

"'Married?'

"'No: a large family lives next door and he pays the eldest girl to do some odd jobs of housework.'

"'Then to-morrow,' said I, 'I'll pay him a call.'

"'Seen your man?' asked Dick next evening, as we walked up towards the house, where again we were due for dinner.

"'I have just come from him: and what's more I have a proposition to make to Miss Felicia, if you and she can spare me an hour this evening.'

"The upshot of our talk was that, a week later, as I drove home from the station after my long railway journey, John Emmet sat by my side. He had taken service with me as gardener, and for nine years he served me well. You'll hardly believe it"--here the Vicar's gaze travelled over the unkempt flower-beds--"but under John Emmet's hand this garden of mine was a picture. The fellow would have half a day's work done before the rest of the parish was out of bed. I never knew a human creature who needed less sleep--that's not the way to put it, though-- the man _couldn't_ sleep: he had lost the power (so he said) ever since the night the _Nerbuddha_ struck.

"So it was that every afternoon found the day's work ended in my garden, and John Emmet, in my sixteen-foot boat, exploring the currents and soundings about Menawhidden. And almost every day I went with him. He had become a learner--for the third time in his life; and the quickest learner (in spite of his years) I have ever known, for his mind was bent on that single purpose. I should tell you that the Trinity House had discovered Menawhidden at last and placed the bell-buoy there --which is and always has been entirely useless: also that the Lifeboat Institution had listened to some suggestions of mine and were re-organising the service down at the Porth. And it was now my hope that John Emmet might become coxswain of the boat as soon as he had local knowledge to back up the seamanship and aptitude for command in which I knew him to excel every man in the Porth. There were jealousies, of course: but he wrangled with no man, and in the end I had my way pretty easily. Within four years of his coming John Emmet knew more of Menawhidden than any man in the parish; possibly more than all the parish put together. And to-day the parish is proud of him and his record.

"But they do not know--and you are to be one of the four persons in the world who know--that _John Emmet was no other than John Murchison, the captain who lost the 'Nerbuddha'!_ He had come ashore in the darkness some five minutes before I had surprised him on the beach: had come ashore clinging to the keg which I saw floating just beyond the breakers. Then and there, stunned and confounded by the consequences of his carelessness, he had played the coward for the first and last time in his life. He had run away--and Heaven knows if in his shoes I should not have done the same. For two nights and a day a hideous fascination tied him to the spot. It was his face Dick had seen at the window. The man had been hiding all day in the trench by the north wall of the churchyard; as Dick ran out with a lantern he slipped behind a gravestone, and when Dick gave up the search, he broke cover and fled inland. He changed his name: let this be his excuse, he had neither wife nor child. The man knew something of gardening: he had a couple of pounds and some odd shillings in his pocket--enough to take him to one of the big midland towns--Wolverhampton, I think--where he found work as a jobbing gardener. But something of the fascination which had held him lurking about Lansulyan, drove him to Cressingham, which--he learned from the newspaper accounts of the wreck--was Colonel Stanhope's country seat. Or perhaps he had some vague idea that Heaven would grant him a chance to make amends. You understand now how the little Felicia became his idol.

"At Lansulyan he had but two desires. The first was to live until he had saved as many lives as his carelessness had lost in the _Nerbuddha_. For it was nothing worse, but mere forgetfulness to change the course: one of those dreadful lapses of memory which baffle all Board of Trade inquiry. You may light, and buoy, and beacon every danger along the coast, and still you leave that small kink in the skipper's brain which will cast away a ship for all your care. The second of his desires you have helped me to fulfil. He wished in death to be John Murchison again, and lie where his ship lies: lie with his grand error atoned for. John Emmet needs no gravestone: for John Emmet lived but to earn John Murchison's right to a half-forgotten tablet describing him as a brave man. And I believe that Heaven, which does not count by tally, has granted his wish."

[1] Pilchard store.

ELISHA

A rough track--something between a footpath and a water course--led down the mountain-side through groves of evergreen oak, and reached the Plain of Jezreel at the point where the road from Samaria and the south divided into two--its main stem still climbing due north towards Nazareth, while the branch bent back eastward and by south across the flat, arable country to join the Carmel road at Megiddo.

An old man came painfully down the mountain-track. He wore a white burnoos, and a brown garment of camel's hair, with a leathern belt that girt it high about his bare legs. He carried a staff, and tapped the ground carefully before planting his feet. It was the time of barley harvest, and a scorching afternoon. On the burnt plain below, the road to Megiddo shone and quivered in the heat. But he could not see it. Cataract veiled his eyes and blurred the whole landscape for them.

The track now wound about a foot-hill that broke away in a sharp slope on his right and plunged to a stony ravine. Once or twice he paused on its edge and peered downward, as if seeking for a landmark. He was leaning forward to peer again, but suddenly straightened his body and listened.

Far down in the valley a solitary dog howled. But the old man's ear had caught another sound, that came from the track, not far in front.

_Cling--cling--clink! Cling--clink!_

It was the sound of hammering; of stone on metal.

_Cling--cling--clink!_

He stepped forward briskly, rounded an angle of rock, and found himself face to face with a man--as well as he could see, a tall man--standing upright by a heap of stones on the left edge of the path.

"May it be well with you, my son: and with every man who repairs a path for the traveller. But tell me if the way be unsafe hereabouts? For my eyes are very dim, and it is now many years since last I came over the hills to Shunem."

The man did not reply.

"--So many years that for nigh upon an hour I have been saying, 'Surely here should Shunem come in sight--or here--its white walls among the oaks below--the house of Miriam of Shunem'. But I forget the curtain on my eyes, and the oaks will have grown tall."

Still there came no answer. Slightly nettled, the old man went on--

"My son, it is said 'To return a word before hearing the matter is folly.' But also, 'Every man shall kiss the lips of him who answereth fit words.' And further, 'To the aged every stranger shall be a staff, nor shall he twice inquire his way.' Though I may not scan thy face, thou scannest mine; and I, who now am blind, have been a seer in Israel."

As he ceased, another figure--a woman's--stepped out, as it seemed to him, from behind the man; stepped forward and touched him on the arm.

"Hail, then, Elisha, son of Shaphat!"

"Thou knowest? . . ."

"Who better than Miriam of Shunem? Put near thy face and look."

"My eyes are very dim."

"And the oaks are higher than Shunem. My face has changed: my voice also."

"For the moment it was strange to me. As I came along I was reckoning thy years at three-score."

"Mayst add five."

"We may not complain. And thy son, how fares he?"

"That is he, behind us. He is a good son, and leaves his elders to speak first. If we sit awhile and talk he will wait for us."

"And thy house and the farm-steading?"

The woman threw a glance down towards the valley, and answered quickly--

"My master, shall we not sit awhile? The track here looks towards the plain. Sit, and through my eyes thou shalt see again distant Carmel and the fields between that used so to delight thee. Ah! not there!"

The old man had made as if to seat himself on one of the larger stones on the edge of the heap. But she prevented him quickly; was gone for a moment; and returned, rolling a moss-covered boulder to the right-hand of the path. The prophet sat himself down on this, and she on the ground at his feet.

"Just here, from my window below, I saw thee coming down the mountain with Gehazi, thy servant, on that day when it was promised to me that I should bear a son."

He nodded.

"For as often as we passed by," he said, "we found food and a little room prepared upon the wall. 'Thou hast been careful for us,' said I, 'with all this care. What is to be done for thee? Shall I speak to the King for thee, or to the captain of the host?' Thine answer was, 'I dwell in Shunem, among my own people.'"

"There is no greener spot in Israel."

"'But,' said my servant Gehazi, 'Every spot is greener where a child plays.' Therefore this child was promised thee."

She said, "But once a year the plain is yellow and not green; yellow away to the foot of Carmel; and that is in this season of the barley harvest. It was on such a day as this that my son fell in the field among the reapers, and his father brought him in and set him on my knees. On such a day as this I left him dead, and saddled the ass and rode between the same yellow fields to Megiddo, and thence towards Carmel, seeking thee. See the white road winding, and the long blue chine yonder, by the sea. By and by, when the sun sinks over it, the blue chine and the oaks beneath will turn to one dark colour; and that will be the hour that I met thee on the slope, and lighted off the ass and caught thee by the feet. As yet it is all parched fields and sky of brass and a white road running endless--endless."

"But what are these black shadows that pass between me and the sun?"

"They are crows, my master."

"What should they do here in these numbers?"

The woman rose and flung a stone at the birds. Seating herself again, she said--

"Below, the reapers narrow the circle of the corn; and there are conies within the circle. The kites and crows know it."

"But that day of which thou hast spoken--it ended in gladness. The Lord restored thy son to thee."

"Thou rather, man of God."

"My daughter, His mercy was very great upon thee. Speak no blasphemy, thou of all women."

"The Lord had denied me a son; but thou persuadedst Him, and He gave me one. Again, the Lord had taken my child in the harvest-field, but on thy wrestling gave him back. And again the Lord meditated to take my child by famine, but at thy warning I arose and conveyed him into the land of the Philistines, nor returned to Shunem till seven years' end. My master, thou art a prophet in Israel, but I am thinking--"

She broke off, rose, and flung another stone at the birds.

"My daughter, think not slightly of God's wisdom."

"Nay, man of God, I am thinking that God was wiser than thou or I."

The old prophet rose from his stone. His dull eyes tried to read her face. She touched his hand.

"Come, and see."

The figure of the man still stood, three paces behind them, upright against the hillside, as when Elisha had first turned the corner and come upon him. But now, led by Miriam, the prophet drew quite close and peered. Dimly, and then less dimly, he discerned first that the head had fallen forward on the breast, and that the hair upon the scalp was caked in dry blood; next, that the figure did not stand of its own will at all, but was held upright to a stout post by an iron ring about the neck and a rope about the waist. He put out a finger and touched the face. It was cold.

"Thy son?"

"They stoned him with these stones. His wife stood by."

"The Syrians?"

"The Syrians. They went northward before noon, taking her. The plain is otherwise burnt than on the day when I sought across it for his sake to Carmel."

"Well did King David entreat the hand of the Lord rather than the hand of man. I had not heard of thy son's marrying."

"Five years ago he went down with a gift to Philistia, to them that sheltered us in the famine. He brought back this woman."

"She betrayed him?"

"He heard her speak with a Syrian, and fled up the hill. From the little window in the wall--see, it smokes yet--she called and pointed after him. And they ran and overtook him. With this iron they fastened him, and with these stones they stoned him. Man of God, I am thinking that God was wiser than thou or I."

The old man stood musing, and touched the heap of stones gently, stone after stone, with the end of his staff.

"He was wiser."

_Cling--cling--clink!_

Miriam had taken up a stone, and with it was hammering feebly, impotently, upon the rivets in the iron band.

As the sun dropped below Carmel the prophet cast down his staff and stretched out two groping hands to help her.

"ONCE ABOARD THE LUGGER"

Early last Fall there died in Troy an old man and his wife. The woman went first, and the husband took a chill at her grave's edge, when he stood bareheaded in a lashing shower. The loose earth crumbled under his feet, trickled over, and dropped on her coffin-lid. Through two long nights he lay on his bed without sleeping and listened to this sound. At first it ran in his ears perpetually, but afterwards he heard it at intervals only, in the pauses of acute suffering. On the seventh day he died, of pleuro-pneumonia; and on the tenth (a Sunday) they buried him. For just fifty years the dead man had been minister of the Independent chapel on the hill, and had laid down his pastorate two years before, on his golden wedding-day. Consequently there was a funeral sermon, and the young man, his successor, chose II. Samuel, i. 23, for his text--"Lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided." Himself a newly-married man, he waxed dithyrambic on the sustained affection and accord of the departed couple. "Truly," he wound up, "such marriages as theirs were made in Heaven." And could they have heard, the two bodies in the cemetery had not denied it; but the woman, after the fashion of women, would have qualified the young minister's assertion in her secret heart.

When, at the close of the year 1839, the Rev. Samuel Bax visited Troy for the first time, to preach his trial sermon at Salem Chapel, he arrived by Boutigo's van, late on a Saturday night, and departed again for Plymouth at seven o'clock on Monday morning. He had just turned twenty-one, and looked younger, and the zeal of his calling was strong upon him. Moreover he was shaken with nervous anxiety for the success of his sermon; so that it is no marvel if he carried away but blurred and misty impressions of the little port and the congregation that sat beneath him that morning, ostensibly reverent, but actually on the pounce for heresy or any sign of weakness. Their impressions, at any rate, were sharp enough. They counted his thumps upon the desk, noted his one reference to "the original Greek," saw and remembered the flush on his young face and the glow in his eyes as he hammered the doctrine of the redemption out of original sin. The deacons fixed the subject of these trial sermons, and had chosen original sin on the ground that a good beginning was half the battle. The maids in the congregation knew beforehand that he was unmarried, and came out of chapel knowing also that his eyes were brown, that his hair had a reddish tinge in certain lights; that one of his cuffs was frayed slightly, but his black coat had scarcely been worn a dozen times; with other trifles. They loitered by the chapel door until he came out in company with Deacon Snowden, who was conveying him off to dinner. The deacon on week days was harbour-master of the port, and on Sundays afforded himself roasted duck for dinner. Lizzie Snowden walked at her father's right hand. She was a slightly bloodless blonde, tall, with a pretty complexion, and hair upon which it was rumoured she could sit if she were so minded. The girls watched the young preacher and his entertainers as they moved down the hill, the deacon talking and his daughter turning her head aside as if it were merely in the half of the world on her right hand that she took the least interest.

"That's to show 'en the big plait," commented one of the group behind. "He can't turn his head t'wards her, but it stares 'en in the face."

"An' her features look best from the left side, as everybody knows."

"I reckon, if he's chosen minister, that Lizzie'll have 'en," said a tall, lanky girl. She was apprenticed to a dressmaker and engaged to a young tin-smith. Having laid aside ambition on her own account, she flung in this remark as an apple of discord.

"Jenifer Hosken has a chance. He's fair-skinned hissel', an' Lizzie's too near his own colour. Black's mate is white, as they say."

"There's Sue Tregraine. She'll have more money than either, when her father dies."

"What, marry one o' Ruan!" the speaker tittered despitefully.

"Why not?"

The only answer was a shrug. Ruan is a small town that faces Troy across the diminutive harbour, or perhaps I should say that Troy looks down upon it at this slight distance. When a Trojan speaks of it he says, "Across the water," with as much implied contempt as though he meant Botany Bay. There is no cogent reason for this, except that the poorer class at Ruan earns its livelihood by fishing. In the eyes of its neighbours the shadow of this lonely calling is cast upwards upon its wealthier inhabitants. Troy depends on commerce, and in the days of which I write employed these wealthier men of Ruan to build ships for it. Further it did not condescend. Intermarriage between the towns was almost unheard of, and even now it is rare. Yet they are connected by a penny ferry.

"Her father's a shipbuilder," urged Sue Tregraine's supporter.

"He might so well keep crab pots, for all the chance she'll have."

Now there was a Ruan girl standing just outside this group, and she heard what was said. Her name was Nance Trewartha and her father was a fisherman, who did in fact keep crab-pots. Moreover, she was his only child, and helped him at his trade. She could handle a boat as well as a man, she knew every sea mark up and down the coast for thirty miles, she could cut up bait, and her hands were horny with handling ropes from her childhood. But on Sundays she wore gloves, and came across the ferry to chapel, and was as wise as any of her sex. She had known before coming out of her pew that the young minister had a well shaped back to his head and a gold ring on his little finger with somebody's hair in the collet, under a crystal. She was dark, straight, and lissom of figure, with ripe lips and eyes as black as sloes, and she hoped that the hair in the minister's ring was his mother's. She was well aware of her social inferiority; but--the truth may be told--she chose to forget it that morning, and to wonder what this young man would be like as a husband. She had looked up into his face during sermon time, devouring his boyish features, noticing his refined accent, marking every gesture. Certainly he was comely and desirable. As he walked down the hill by Deacon Snowden's side, she was perfectly conscious of the longing in her heart, but prepared to put a stop to it, and go home to dinner as soon as he had turned the corner and passed out of sight. Then came that unhappy remark about the crab-pots. She bit her lip for a moment, turned, and walked slowly off towards the ferry, full of thought.

Three weeks after, the Rev. Samuel Bax received his call.

He arrived, to assume his duties, in the waning light of a soft January day. Boutigo's van set him down, with a carpet-bag, band-box, and chest of books, at the door of the lodgings which Deacon Snowden had taken for him. The house stood in the North Street, as it is called. It was a small, yellow-washed building, containing just half-a-dozen rooms, and of these the two set apart for the minister looked straight upon the harbour. Under his sitting-room window was a little garden, and at the end of the garden a low wall with a stretch of water beyond it, and a barque that lay at anchor but a stone's throw away, as it seemed, its masts stretching high against the misty hillside. A green-painted door was let into the garden wall--a door with two flaps, the upper of which stood open; and through this opening he caught another glimpse of grey water.

The landlady, who showed him into this room, and at once began to explain that the furniture was better than it looked, was hardly prepared for the rapture with which he stared out of the window. His boyhood had been spent in a sooty Lancashire town, and to him the green garden, the quay-door, the barque, and the stilly water, seemed to fall little short of Paradise.

"I reckoned you'd like it," she said. "An' to be sure, 'tis a blessing you do."

He turned his stare upon her for a moment. She was a benign-looking woman of about fifty, in a short-skirted grey gown and widow's cap.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because, leavin' out the kitchen, there's but four rooms, two for you an' two for me; two facin' the harbour, an' two facin' the street. Now, if you'd took a dislike to this look-out, I must ha' put you over the street, an' moved in here myself. I _do_ like the street, too. There's so much more goin' on."

"I think this arrangement will be better in every way," said the young minister.

"I'm glad of it. Iss, there's no denyin' that I'm main glad. From upstairs you can see right down the harbour, which is prettier again. Would'ee like to see it now? O' course you would--an' it'll be so much handier for me answerin' the door, too. There's a back door at the end o' the passage. You've only to slip a bolt an' you'm out in the garden--out to your boat, if you choose to keep one. But the garden's a tidy little spot to walk up an' down in an' make up your sermons, wi' nobody to overlook you but the folk next door; an' they'm church-goers."

After supper that evening, the young minister unpacked his books and was about to arrange them, but drifted to the window instead. He paused for a minute or two with his face close to the pane, and then flung up the sash. A faint north wind breathed down the harbour, scarcely ruffling the water. Around and above him the frosty sky flashed with innumerable stars, and over the barque's masts, behind the long chine of the eastern hill, a soft radiance heralded the rising moon. It was a young moon, and, while he waited, her thin horn pushed up through the furze brake on the hill's summit and she mounted into the free heaven. With upturned eye the young minister followed her course for twenty minutes, not consciously observant; for he was thinking over his ambitions, and at his time of life these are apt to soar with the moon. Though possessed with zeal for good work in this small seaside town, he intended that Troy should be but a stepping-stone in his journey. He meant to go far. And while he meditated his future, forgetting the chill in the night air, it was being decided for him by a stronger will than his own. More than this, that will had already passed into action. His destiny was actually launched on the full spring tide that sucked the crevices of the grey wall at the garden's end.

A slight sound drew the minister's gaze down from the moon to the quay-door. Its upper flap still stood open, allowing a square of moonlight to pierce the straight black shadow of the garden wall.

In this square of moonlight were now framed the head and shoulders of a human being. The young man felt a slight chill run down his spine. He leant forward out of the window and challenged the apparition, bating his tone as all people bate it at that hour.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

There was no reply for a moment, though he felt sure his voice must have carried to the quay-door. The figure paused for a second or two, then unbarred the lower flap of the door and advanced across the wall's shadow to the centre of the bright grass-plat under the window. It was the figure of a young woman. Her head was bare and her sleeves turned up to the elbows. She wore no cloak or wrap to cover her from the night air, and her short-skirted, coarse frock was open at the neck. As she turned up her face to the window, the minister could see by the moon's rays that it was well-favoured.

"Be you the new preacher?" she asked, resting a hand on her hip and speaking softly up to him.

"I am the new Independent minister."

"Then I've come for you."

"Come for me?"

"Iss; my name's Nance Trewartha, an' you'm wanted across the water, quick as possible. Old Mrs. Slade's a-dyin' to-night, over yonder."

"She wants me?"

"She's one o' your congregation, an' can't die easy till you've seen her. I reckon she's got something 'pon her mind; an' I was to fetch you over, quick as I could."

As she spoke the church clock down in the town chimed out the hour, and immediately after, ten strokes sounded on the clear air.

The minister consulted his own watch and seemed to be considering.

"Very well," said he after a pause. "I'll come. I suppose I must cross by the ferry."

"Ferry's closed this two hours, an' you needn't wake up any in the house. I've brought father's boat to the ladder below, an' I'll bring you back again. You've only to step out here by the back door. An' wrap yourself up, for 'tis a brave distance."

"Very well. I suppose it's really serious."

"Mortal. I'm glad you'll come," she added simply.

The young man nodded down in a friendly manner, and going back into the room, slipped on his overcoat, picked up his hat, and turned the lamp down carefully. Then he struck a match, found his way to the back-door, and unbarred it. The girl was waiting for him, still in the centre of the grass-plat.

"I'm glad you've come," she repeated, but this time there was something like constraint in her voice. As he pulled-to the door softly she moved, and led the way down to the water-side.

From the quay-door a long ladder ran down to the water. At low water one had to descend twenty feet and more; but now the high tide left but three of its rungs uncovered. At the young minister's feet a small fishing-boat lay ready, moored by a short painter to the ladder. The girl stepped lightly down and held up a hand.

"Thank you," said the young man with dignity, "but I do not want help."

She made no answer to this; but as he stepped down, went forward and unmoored the painter. Then she pushed gently away from the ladder, hoisted the small foresail, and, returning to her companion, stood beside him for a moment with her hand on the tiller.

"Better slack the fore-sheet," she said suddenly.

The young man looked helplessly at her. He had not the slightest idea of her meaning, did not in fact know the difference between a fore-sheet and a mainsail. And it was just to find out the depth of his ignorance that she had spoken.

"Never mind," she said, "I'll do it myself." She slackened and made fast the rope, and took hold of the tiller again. The sails shook and filled softly as they glided out from under the wall. The soft breeze blew straight behind them, the tide was just beginning to ebb. She loosed the main sheet a little, and the water hissed as they spun down under the grey town towards the harbour's mouth.

A dozen vessels lay at anchor below the town quay, their lamps showing a strange orange yellow in the moonlight; between them the minister saw the cottages of Ruan glimmering on the eastern shore, and over it the coast-guard flagstaff, faintly pencilled above the sky-line. It seemed to him that they were not shaping their course for the little town.

"I thought you told me," he said at length, "that Mrs.--the dying woman--lived across there."

The girl shook her head. "Not in Ruan itsel'--Ruan parish. We'll have to go round the point."

She was leaning back and gazing straight before her, towards the harbour's mouth. The boat was one of the class that serves along that coast for hook-and-line as well as drift net fishing, clinker-built, about twenty-seven feet in the keel, and nine in beam. It had no deck beyond a small cuddy forward, on top of which a light hoar-frost was gathering as they moved. The minister stood beside the girl, and withdrew his eyes from this cuddy roof to contemplate her.

"Do you mean to say," he asked, "that you don't take cold, wearing no wrap or bonnet on frosty nights like this?"

She let the tiller go for a moment, took his hand by the wrist, and laid it on her own bare arm. He felt the flesh, but it was firm and warm. Then he withdrew his hand hastily, without finding anything to say. His eyes avoided hers. When, after half a minute, he looked at her again, her gaze was fixed straight ahead, upon the misty stretch of sea beyond the harbour's mouth.

In a minute or two they were gliding out between the tall cliff and the reef of rocks that guard this entrance on either side. On the reef stood a wooden cross, painted white, warning vessels to give a wide berth; on the cliff a grey castle, with a battery before it, under the guns of which they spun seaward, still with the wind astern.

Outside, the sea lay as smooth as within the harbour. The wind blew steadily off the shore, so that, close-hauled, one might fetch up or down Channel with equal ease. The girl began to flatten the sails, and asked her companion to bear a hand. Their hands met over a rope, and the man noted with surprise that the girl's was feverishly hot. Then she brought the boat's nose round to the eastward and, heeling gently over the dark water, they began to skirt the misty coast with the breeze on their left cheeks.

"How much farther?" asked the minister.

She nodded towards the first point in the direction of Plymouth. He turned his coat-collar up about his ears and wondered if his duty would often take him on such journeys as this. Also he felt thankful that the sea was smooth. He might, or might not, be given to sea-sickness: but somehow he was sincerely glad that he had not to be put to the test for the first time in this girl's presence.

They passed the small headland and still the boat held on its way.

"I had no idea you were going to take me this distance. Didn't you promise me the house lay just beyond the point we've just passed?"

To his amazement the girl drew herself up, looked him straight in the face and said--

"There's no such place."

"_What?_"

"There's no such place. There's nobody ill at all. I told you a lie."

"You told me a lie--then why in the name of common sense am I here?"

"Because, young man--because, sir, I'm sick o' love for you, an' I want'ee to marry me."

"Great heaven!" the young minister muttered, recoiling. "Is the girl mad?"

"Ah, but look at me, sir!" She seemed to grow still taller as she stood there, resting one hand on the tiller and gazing at him with perfectly serious eyes. "Look at me well before you take up with some other o' the girls. To-morrow they'll be all after 'ee, an' this'll be my only chance; for my father's no better'n a plain fisherman, an' they're all above me in money an' rank. I be but a Ruan girl, an' my family is naught. But look at me well; there's none stronger nor comelier, nor that'll love thee so dear!"

The young man gasped. "Set me ashore at once!" he commanded, stamping his foot.

"Nay, that I will not till thou promise, an' that's flat. Dear lad, listen--an' consent, consent--an' I swear to thee thou'll never be sorry for't."

"I never heard such awful impropriety in my life. Turn back; I order you to steer back to the harbour at once!"

She shook her head. "No, lad; I won't. An' what's more, you don't know how to handle a boat, an' couldn't get back by yoursel', not in a month."

"This is stark madness. You--you abandoned woman, how long do you mean to keep me here?"

"Till thou give in to me. We'm goin' straight t'wards Plymouth now, an' if th' wind holds--as 'twill--we'll be off the Rame in two hours. If you haven't said me yes by that maybe we'll go on; or perhaps we'll run across to the coast o' France--"

"Girl, do you know that if I'm not back by day-break, I'm ruined!"

"And oh, man, man! Can't 'ee see that I'm ruined, too, if I turn back without your word? How shall I show my face in Troy streets again, tell me?"

At this sudden transference of responsibility the minister was staggered.

"You should have thought of that before," he said, employing the one obvious answer.

"O' course I thought of it. But for love o' you I made up my mind to risk it. An' now there's no goin' back." She paused a moment and then added, as a thought struck her, "Why, lad, doesn' that prove I love 'ee uncommon?"

"I prefer not to consider the question. Once more--will you go back?"

"I can't."

He bit his lips and moved forward to the cuddy, on the roof of which he seated himself sulkily. The girl tossed him an end of rope.

"Dear, better coil that up an' sit 'pon it. The frost'll strike a chill into thee."

With this she resumed her old attitude by the tiller. Her eyes were fixed ahead, her gaze passing just over the minister's hat. When he glanced up he saw the rime twinkling on her shoulders and the star-shine in her dark eyes. Around them the heavens blazed with constellations. Never had the minister seen them so multitudinous or so resplendent. Never before had the firmament seemed so alive to him. He could almost hear it breathe. And beneath the stars the little boat raced eastward, with the reef-points pattering on its tan sails.

Neither spoke. For the most part the minister avoided the girl's eyes, and sat nursing his wrath. The whole affair was ludicrous; but it meant the sudden ruin of his good name, at the very start of his career. This was the word he kept grinding between his teeth--"ruin," "ruin." Whenever it pleased this mad creature to set him ashore, he must write to Deacon Snowden for his boxes and resign all connection with Troy. But would he ever get rid of the scandal? Could he ever be sure that, to whatever distance he might flee, it would not follow him? Had he not better abandon his calling, once and for all? It was hard.

A star shot down from the Milky Way and disappeared in darkness behind the girl's shoulders. His eyes, following it, encountered hers. She left the tiller and came slowly forward.

"In three minutes we'll open Plymouth Sound," she said quietly, and then with a sharp gesture flung both arms out towards him. "Oh, lad, think better o't an' turn back wi' me! Say you'll marry me, for I'm perishin' o' love!"

The moonshine fell on her throat and extended arms. Her lips were parted, her head was thrown back a little, and for the first time the young minister saw that she was a beautiful woman.

"Ay, look, look at me!" she pleaded. "That's what I've wanted 'ee to do all along. Take my hands: they'm shapely to look at and strong to work for 'ee."

Hardly knowing what he did, the young man took them; then in a moment he let them go--but too late; they were about his neck.

With that he sealed his fate for good or ill. He bent forward a little and their lips met.

So steady was the wind that the boat still held on her course; but no sooner had the girl received the kiss than she dropped her arms, walked off, and shifted the helm.

"Unfasten the sheet there," she commanded, "and duck your head clear."

As soon as their faces were set for home, the minister walked back to the cuddy roof and sat down to reflect. Not a word was spoken till they reached the harbour's mouth again, and then he pulled out his watch. It was half-past four in the morning.

Outside the Battery Point the girl hauled down the sails and got out the sweeps; and together they pulled up under the still sleeping town to the minister's quay-door. He was clumsy at this work, but she instructed him in whispers, and they managed to reach the ladder as the clocks were striking five. The tide was far down by this time, and she held the boat close to the ladder while he prepared to climb. With his foot on the first round, he turned. She was white as a ghost, and trembling from top to toe.

"Nance--did you say your name was Nance?"

She nodded.

"What's the matter?"

"I'll--I'll let you off, if you want to be let off."

"I'm not sure that I do," he said, and stealing softly up the ladder, stood at the top and watched her boat as she steered it back to Ruan.

Three months after, they were married, to the indignant amazement of the minister's congregation. It almost cost him his pulpit, but he held on and triumphed. There is no reason to believe that he ever repented of his choice, or rather of Nance's. To be sure, she had kidnapped him by a lie; but perhaps she wiped it out by fifty years of honest affection. On that point, however, I, who tell the tale, will not dogmatise.

WHICH?

The scene was a street in the West End of London, a little south of Eaton Square: the hour just twenty-five minutes short of midnight.

A wind from the North Sea had been blowing all day across the Thames marshes, and collecting what it could carry; and the shop-keepers had scarcely drawn their iron shutters before a thin fog drifted up from lamp-post to lamp-post and filled the intervals with total darkness--all but one, where, half-way down the street on the left-hand side, an enterprising florist had set up an electric lamp at his private cost, to shine upon his window and attract the attention of rich people as they drove by on their way to the theatres. At nine o'clock he closed his business: but the lamp shone on until midnight, to give the rich people another chance, on their way home, of reading that F. Stillman was prepared to decorate dinner-tables and ball-rooms, and to supply bridal bouquets or mourning wreaths at short notice.

The stream of homeward-bound carriages had come to a sudden lull. The red eyes of a belated four-wheeler vanished in the fog, and the florist's lamp flung down its ugly incandescent stare on an empty pavement. Himself in darkness, a policeman on the other side of the street flashed his lantern twice, closed the slide and halted for a moment to listen by an area railing.

Halting so, he heard a rapid footfall at the upper corner of the street. It drew nearer. A man suddenly stepped into the circle of light on the pavement, as if upon a miniature stage; and as suddenly paused to gaze upward at the big white globe.