Meanwhile the Admiral was not idle; and had anything been needed to whet his desire for a Club, it would have been found in a dreadful event that happened shortly afterwards.

It was May-morning, and the Admiral was planted in the sunshine outside No. 2, Alma Villas, loudly discussing the question of the hour with Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys, Lawyer Pellow, and the little Doctor.

"No, we can't have him," he was roundly declaring; "the Club must be select, or it is useless to discuss it further."

"Must draw the line somewhere," murmured the Honourable Frederic.

"Quite so; at this rate we shall be admitting all the 'Jolly Trojans.'"

Just then an enormous wheelbarrow was observed approaching, seemingly by supernatural means, for no driver could be seen. The barrow was piled to a great height, and staggered drunkenly from side to side of the road; but the load, whatever it was, lay hidden beneath a large white cloth.

"H'm!" said the little Doctor dubiously. "Well, of course, you know best, but I should have thought that as an old inhabitant of Troy—"

"Pooh, my dear fellow," snapped the Admiral, "it is natural that the feelings of a few will be hurt; but if once we begin to elect the 'Jolly Trojans'—"

The barrow had drawn near meanwhile, and now halted at the Admiral's feet. From behind it stepped into view an exceeding small boy, attired mainly in a gigantic pair of corduroys that reached to the armpits, and were secured with string around the shoulders. His face was a mask of woe, and he staunched his tears on a very grimy shirt-sleeve as he stood and gazed mutely into the Admiral's face.

"Go away, boy!" said Admiral Buzza severely.

The boy sobbed loudly, but made no sign of moving.

"Go away, I tell you!"

"'Tes for you, sir."

"For me? What does the boy mean?"

"Iss, sir. Missusses orders that I was to bring et to Adm'ral Buzza's; an' ef I don't pay out Billy Higgs for this nex' time I meets wi' 'un—"

"The child's daft!" roared the Admiral. "D—— the boy! what has Billy Higgs to do with me?"

"Poured a teacupful o' water down the nape o' my breeches when I'd got ha'f-way up the hill an' cudn' set the barrow down to fight 'un—the coward! Boo-hoo!" and tears flowed again at the recollection.

"What is it?"

"Cake, sir."

"Cake!"

"Iss, sir—cake."

The youth stifled a sob, and removed the white cover from the wheelbarrow.

"Bless my soul!" gasped the Admiral, "there must be some mistake."

"It certainly seems to be cake," observed the Honourable Frederic, examining the load through his eye-glass; "and very good cake, too, by the smell."



He was right. High on the barrow, and symmetrically piled, rested five-and-twenty huge cakes—yellow cakes such as all Trojans love— each large as a mill-stone, tinctured with saffron, plentifully stowed with currants, and crisp with brown crust, steaming to heaven, and wooing the nostrils of the gods.

"Bless my soul!" repeated the Admiral, "but I never ordered this."

Each member of the group in turn advanced, inspected the cake, sniffed the savour, pronounced it excellent, and looked from the Admiral to the boy for explanation.

"Mrs. Dymond down to the 'Man-'o-War' sent et, sir, wi' her compliments to Maaster Sam, an' hopin' as he'll find et plum i' the bakin' as it leaves her at present, an' the currants all a-picked careful, knowin' as he'd a sweet tooth."

"Sam! Do you mean to tell me that Sam—that my son—ordered this? Upon my word, of all—"

"Didn' azackly order et, sir. Won et fair an' square. Bill Odgers comed nex' wi' seven-an'-ninety gallon. But Master Sam topped the lot by a dozen gallon aisy."

"Gallons! What the devil is the boy talking bout?"

"Beer, sir—beer; fust prize for top score o' beer drunk down to the 'Man-o'-War' sence fust o' November last. He's a wunner for beer, es Maaster Sam," pursued the relentless urchin, who by this time had forgotten his tears. "Hunderd an' nine gallons, sir, an' Bill Odgers so jallous as fire—says he'd ha' won et same as he did last time, on'y Maaster Sam's got the longer purse—offered to fight 'un, an' the wuss man to pay for both nex' time."

Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys turned aside to conceal a smile. Lawyer Pellow rubbed his chin. The Admiral stamped.

"Take it away!"

"Where be I to take it to, plaise, sir?"

"Take it away—anywhere; take it to the devil!"

But worse remained for the little man. During this conversation there had come unperceived up the road a gentleman of mild appearance, dressed in black, and carrying under his arm a large parcel wrapped about with whitey-brown paper.

The new-comer, who was indeed our friend Mr. Fogo, now advanced towards the Admiral with a bow.

"Admiral Buzza, I believe?"

The Admiral turned and faced the speaker; his jaw fell like a signal flag; but he drew himself up with fine self-repression.

"Sir, I am Admiral Buzza."

"I have come," said Mr. Fogo, quietly pulling the pins out of his parcel, "to restore what I believe is your property (Will somebody oblige me by holding this pin? Thank you), and at the same time to apologise for the circumstances under which it came into my hands. (Dear me, what a number of pins, to be sure!) I have done what lay in my power with a clothes-brush and emery-powder to restore it to its pristine brilliance. The treatment (That is the last, I think) has not, I am bound to admit, answered my expectations; its result, however, is as you see."

Here Mr. Fogo withdrew the wrapper and with a pleasant smile held out—a cocked hat.

The Admiral, purple with fury, bounced back like a shot on a red-hot shovel; stared; tried to speak, but could not; gulped; tried again; and finally, shaking his fist in Mr. Fogo's face, flung into the house and slammed the front door.

The cause of this transport turned a pair of bewildered spectacles on the others, and found them convulsed with unseemly mirth. He singled out the Honourable Frederic, and addressed himself to that gentleman.

"I have not the pleasure to be acquainted with you, sir; but if you can supply me with any reason for this display of temper, believe me—"

"My name is Goodwyn-Sandys, sir, at your—"

"What!"

Mr. Fogo dropped the cocked hat and sat down suddenly among the cakes.

"Are you," he gasped—"are you Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys—the Honourable Frederic Augustus Hythe Good—? Heavens!"

"No, sir," said the Honourable Frederic, who had grown a thought pale. "Good wyn, sir—Goodwyn-Sandys. What then?"

"I never saw your face before," murmured Mr. Fogo faintly.

"That, sir, if a misfortune, is one which you share with a number of your fellow-men. And permit me to tell you, sir," continued Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys, with unaccountable change of mood, "that I consider your treatment of my friend Admiral Buzza unworthy of a gentleman, sir—unworthy of a gentleman. Come, Doctor; come, Pellow—I want a word or two more with you about this Club."

And Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys ruffled away, followed by his two slightly puzzled companions.

For the space of two minutes Mr. Fogo gazed up the road after them. Then he sighed, took off his spectacles, and wiped them carefully.

"So that," he said slowly, "is the man she married."

"Iss, sir."

Mr. Fogo started, turned round on the barrow, and beheld the urchin from the "Man-o'-War."

"Little boy," he said sternly, "your conduct is unworthy of a—I mean, what are you doing here?"

"You've a-been an' squashed a cake," said the boy.

Mr. Fogo gave him a shilling, and hurried away down the road; but stopped once or twice on his homeward way to repeat to himself—

"So that—is the man—she married."



It took Admiral Buzza several days to recover his composure; but when he did, the project of the new Club grew with the conjugal disintegration of Troy, and at a rate of progress scarcely inferior. Within a week or two a house was hired in Nelson Row, a brass-plate bearing the words "Trojan Club" affixed to the door, and Admiral Buzza installed in the Presidential Chair. The Presidential Chair occupied the right-hand side of the reading-room window, which overlooked the harbour; and the Presidential duties consisted mainly in conning the morning papers and discussing their contents with Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys, who usually sat, with a glass of whiskey and the Club telescope, on the left-hand side of the window. Indeed, it would be hard to say to which of the two, the whiskey or the telescope, the Honourable Frederic more sedulously devoted himself: it is certain, at least, that under the Admiral's instruction he soon developed a most amazing familiarity with nautical terms, was a mine of information (almost as soon as the Club invested in a Yacht Register) on the subject of Lord Sinkport's yacht, the auxiliary screw Niobe, and swept the horizon with a persistence that made his fellow-members stare.

But the most noticeable feature in this nautical craze was the disproportionate attention which the Honourable Frederic lavished on barques. It was the first rig that he learnt to distinguish, and his early interest developed before long into something like a passion.

One morning, for instance, Sam Buzza lounged into the reading-room and observed—

"I say, have you seen that American barque that came in last night— the Maritana?"

"What name?" asked Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys, looking up suddenly.

"The Maritana, or the Mariana, or Mary Ann, or something of the—Hullo! what's wrong?"

But the Honourable Frederic had caught up his hat and fled. Half an hour afterwards, when he returned, his usual calm self, the little Doctor took occasion to remark, "Upon my word, you might be a detective, you keep such a look-out on the harbour"—a remark which caused Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys to laugh so consumedly that the Doctor, without exactly seeing the point, began to think he had perpetrated quite a considerable joke.

But let no one imagine that the disruption of Trojan morals avoided heart-burning or escaped criticism. For the line which Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys declared must be drawn somewhere was found not only to bisect the domestic hearth, but to lead to a surprising number of social problems. It fell across the parallels of our small society, and demonstrated that Mrs. A and Mrs. B could never meet; that one room could not contain the two unequal families X and Y; and that while one rested on the basis of trade, and the other on professional skill, it was unreasonable to expect the apex Mrs. Y to coincide with the apex Mrs. X. Finally the New Geometry culminated in a triumphant process, which proved that while Mrs. Simpson was allowed to imbibe tea and scandal in the company of the great, her husband must sip his gin and water in solitude at home.

We had always been select in Troy; but then, In the old days, all Troy had been included in the term. When Mr. Simpson had spoken of the "Jack of Oaks" (meaning the Knave of Clubs), or had said "fainaiguing" (where others said "revoking"), we had pretended not to notice it, until at length we actually did not. So that a human as well as a philological interest attaches to the date when fashion narrowed the meaning of Cumeelfo to exclude the Jack of Oaks, and sent Mr. Simpson home to his gin and water.

The change was discussed with some asperity in the bar-parlour of the "Man-o'-War."

"The hupper classes in Troy es bloomin' fine nowadays," remarked Rechab Geddye (locally known as Rekkub) over his beer on the night when the resignations of Mr. Buzza Junior and Mr. Moggridge had been received by the "Jolly Trojans."

"Ef they gets the leastest bit finer, us shan't be able to see mun," answered Bill Odgers, who was reckoned a wit. "I have heerd tell as Trojans was cousins an' hail-fellow-well-met all the world over; but the hayleet o' this place es a-gettin' a bit above itsel'."

"That's a true word, Bill," interposed Mrs. Dymond from the bar; "an' to say 'Gie us this day our daily bread,' an' then turn up a nose at good saffron cake es flyin' i' the face o' Pruvvidence, an' no less."

"I niver knawed good to come o' titled gentry yet," said Bill.

"You doan't say that?" exclaimed Rekkub, who was an admirer of Bill's Radical views.

"I do, tho'. Look at King Richard—him i' the play-actin'. I reckon he was wan o' the hupper ten ef anybody. An' what does he do? Why, throttles a pair o' babbies, puts a gen'l'm'n he'd a gridge agen into a cask o' wine—which were the spoliation o' both—murders 'most ivery wan he claps eyes on, an' then when he've a-got the jumps an' sees the sperrits an' blue fire, goes off an' offers to swap hes whole bloomin' kingdom for a hoss—a hoss, mind you, he hadn' seen, let alone not bein' in a state o' mind to jedge hoss-flesh. What's true o' kings I reckon es true o' Hon'rubbles; they'm all reared up to the same high notions, an' I reckon us'll find et out afore long. I niver seed no good in makin' Troy fash'nubble mysel'."



CHAPTER XIII.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF POMEROY'S CAT; AND HOW THE MEN AND WOMEN OF TROY ENSUED AFTER PLEASURE IN BOATS.

The historian of Troy here feels at liberty to pass over six weeks with but scanty record. During that time the Bankshire rose bloomed over Kit's House, peered in at the windows, and found Mr. Fogo for the most part busied in peaceful carpentry, though with a mysterious trouble in his breast that at times drove him afield on venturous perambulations, or to his boat to work off by rowing his too-meditative fit. From these excursions he would return tired in body but in heart eased, and resume his humdrum life tranquilly enough; though Caleb was growing uneasy, and felt it necessary, more than once, to retire apart and "have et out," as he put it, with his conscience.

"Question es," he would repeat, "whether I be justyfied in meddlin' wi' the Cou'se o' Natur'—'speshully when the Cou'se o' Natur' es sich as I approves. An' s'posin' I bain't, furder question es, whether I be right in receivin' wan pound a week an' a new set o' small-clothes."

This nice point in casuistry was settled for the time by his waiving claim to the small-clothes, and inserting in his old pair a patch of blue seacloth that contrasted extravagantly with the veteran stuff— so extravagantly as to compel Mr. Fogo's attention.

"Does it never strike you," he asked one day as Caleb was stooping over the wood-pile, "that the repairs in your trousers, Caleb, are a trifle emphatic? Purpureus, late qui splendeat—h'm, h'm— adsuitur pannus. I mean, in the seat of your—"

"Conscience, sir," said Caleb abruptly. "Some ties a bit o' string round the finger to help the mem'ry. I does et this way."

"Well, well, I should have thought it more apt to assist the memory of others. Still, of course, you know best."

And Mr. Fogo resumed his work, and thought no more about it; but Caleb alternated between moods of pensiveness and fussy energy for some days after.

In Troy, summer was leading on a train of events not to be classed among periodic phenomena. It stands on record, for instance—

That Loo began to be played at the Club, and the Admiral's weekly accounts to grow less satisfactory than in the days when he and Mrs. Buzza were steadfast opponents at Whist.

That Mrs. Simpson discovered her great uncle to have been a baronet on this earth.

That Mrs. Payne had prefixed "Ellicome" to her surname, and spoke of "the Ellicome-Paynes, you know."

That Mr. Moggridge had been heard to speak of Sam Buzza as a "low fellow."

That Sam had retorted by terming the poet a "conceited ass."

And—

That Admiral Buzza intended a Picnic.

To measure the importance of this last item, you must know that a Trojan picnic is no ordinary function. To begin with, it is essentially patriotic—devoted, in fact, to the cult of the Troy river, in honour of which it forms a kind of solemn procession. Undeviating tradition has fixed its goal at a sacred rock, haunted of heron and kingfisher, and wrapped around with woodland, beside a creek so tortuous as to simulate a series of enchanted lakes. Here the self-respecting Trojan, as his boat cleaves the solitude, will ask his fellows earnestly and at regular intervals whether they ever beheld anything more lovely; and they, in duty bound and absolute truthfulness, will answer that they never did.

It follows that a Trojan picnic depends for its success to quite a peculiar degree upon the weather. But on the day of the Admiral's merry-making, this was, beyond cavil, kind. Four boats started from the Town Quay; four boats—alas!—could by this time contain the cumeelfo of Troy; for everybody who was anybody had been invited, and nobody (with the exception of the Honourable Frederic, who could not leave his telescope) had refused. Sam Buzza did not start with the rest, but was to follow later; and in his absence Mr. Moggridge paid impressive court to Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys, though uneasily, for Sophia's saddened eyes were upon him.

Yet everybody seemed in the best of spirits and tempers. The Admiral, after bestowing his wife in another boat, and glaring vindictively at Kit's House, where the figure of Mr. Fogo was visible on the beach, grew exceedingly jocose, and cracked his most admired jokes, including his famous dialogue with the echo just beyond Kit's House—a performance which Miss Limpenny declared she had seldom heard him give with such spirit. She herself, spurred to emulation, told her favourite story, which began, "In the Great Exhibition of Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-one, when her Majesty—long may she reign!—partook of a public luncheon—" and contained a most diverting incident about a cherry-pie. And always, at decent intervals, she would exclaim—

"Did you ever see anything more lovely?"

To which the Admiral as religiously would reply—

"Really, I never did."

Indeed the scene was, as Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys, in another boat, observed, "Like a poet's dream"—a remark at which Mr. Moggridge blushed very much. I wish I could linger and describe with amorous precision the bright talk, the glories of the day, each bend and vista of the river which I have loved from childhood; but amid the stress of events now crowding with epic vehemence on Troy, the Muse must hasten. Fain would she dally over the disembarkation, the feast, the manner in which Admiral Buzza carved the chicken-pie, and his humorous allusion to the merry thought; or dwell upon the salad compounded by Mr. Moggridge, the spider that was found in it, and the conundrum composed upon that singular occurrence; or loiter to tell how Miss Lavinia upset the claret cup over the Vicar's coat-tails, and, in her confusion, said it "did not signify," which was very amusing. On this, and more, would she blithely discourse, did not sterner themes invite her.

It happened that on this particular morning Mr. Fogo had been restless beyond his wont. For a full hour he had wandered on the beach, as Caleb expressed it, "Back'ards an' forrards, like Boscas'le Fair." He had taken up mallet and chisel; had set them down at the end of half an hour for his paintbox, and ruined a well-meaning sketch of the previous day; had deserted this in turn for another ramble on the beach, and finally returned, with a helpless look, to Caleb, who sat whistling and splicing a rope upon the little quay.

"Hurried in mind, sir, like Pomeroy's cat," suggested he sympathetically.

"I have no acquaintance with the animal you mention," said his master.

"I reckon 'twas she as got killed by care, sir. I niver knawed mysel' but wan animal as got downright put-goin' i' that way, an' that were a hen."

"A hen?"

"Iss, sir. Et happen'd up to Penhellick, the las' year I stayed 'long wi' Lawyer Mennear. 'Twas a reg'lar fool-body, this hen—a black Minorcy she were; but no egg iver laid were fuller o' meat than she o' good-feelin'; an' prenciple! she'd enuff prenciple to stock a prayer-meetin'. But high prenciple in a buffllehead's like a fish-bone i' the throat—useful, but out o' place.

"Well, sir, th' ould Mennear wan day bought a baker's dozen of porc'lain eggs over to Summercourt Fair: beautiful eggs they were, an' you cudn' tell mun from real, 'cept by the weight. The very nex' day, findin' as hes Minorcy were layin' for a brood i' the loft above the cowshed, he takes up the true egg while the old fowl were away an' sets a porc'lain egg in place of et. In cou'se, back comes the hen, an' bein' a daft body, as I told 'ee, an' not used to these 'ere refinements o' civilizashun, niver doubts but 'tes the same as she laid. 'Twarn't long afore her'd a-laid sax more, and then her sets to work to hatch mun out.

"Nat'rally, arter a while the brood was all hatched out, 'ceptin', o' cou'se, the porc'lain egg. The mother didn't take no suspishun but 'twere all right, on'y a bit stubborn. So her sot down for two days more, an' did all a hen cud do to hatch that chick. No good; 'twudn' budge. You niver seed a fowl that hurted in mind; but niver a thought o' givin' in. No, sir. 'Twasn' her way. Her jes' cocked her head aslant, tuk a long stare at the cussed thing, an' said, so plain as looks cud say, 'Well, I've a-laid this egg, an' I reckon I've a-got to hatch et; an' ef et takes me to th' aluminium, I'll see et out.'"

"The millennium," corrected Mr. Fogo, who was much interested.

"Not bein' over-eddicated, sir," said Caleb, with unconscious severity, "that old hen, I reckon, said 'aluminium.' But niver mind. Her sot, an' sot, an' kept on settin', an' neglected the rest o' they chicks for what seemingly to her was the call o' duty, till wan' by wan they all died. 'Twas pitiful, sir; an' the wust was to see her lay so much store by that egg. Th' ould Mennear was for takin' et away; but 'twud ha' broke her heart. As 'twas, what wi' anxi'ty an' too little food, her wore to a shadow. I seed her was boun' to die, anyway; an' wan arternoon, as I was in the cowshed, I heerd a weakly sort o' cluckin' overhead, an' went up to look. 'Twas too late, sir. Th' ould hen was lying beside th' egg, glazin' at et in a filmy sort o' way, an' breathin' terrable hard. When I comes, she gi'es a look same as to say, 'I reckon I've a-got to go. I've a-been a mother to that there egg; an' I'd ha' liked to see't through afore I went. But, seemingly, 'twarn't ordained.' An' wi' that there was a kind o' flutter, an' when I turned her over I seed her troubles were done. Thet fowl, sir, had passed."

"You tell the story with such sympathy, Caleb, that I appeal to you the more readily for advice. I find it hard to concentrate my attention this morning."

"Ef I mou't make free to shake 'ee agen—"

"I should prefer any other cure."

"Very well, sir. I have heerd, from trippers as comes to Troy, to spend the day an' get drunk in anuther parish for vari'ty's sake, as a pennorth o' say es uncommon refreshin'."

"A pennyworth of sea?"

"That's so, sir. Twelve in a boat, an' a copper a head to the boatman to row so far as there an' back, which es cheap an' empt'in' at the price, as a chap told me."

"You advise me to take a row?"

"Iss, sir; on'y I reckon you'd best go up the river, ef you'm goin' alone. Though whether you prefers the resk o' meetin' Adm'ral Buzza to bein' turned topsy-versy outside the harbour-mouth, es a question I leaves to you. 'Tes a matter o' taste, as Mounseer said by the yaller frog."

Mr. Fogo decided to risk an encounter with the Admiral. In a few minutes he was afloat, and briskly rowing in the wake of the picnic-party.

But black Care, that clambers aboard the sea-going galley, did not disdain a seat in the stern of Mr. Fogo's boat. She sat her down there, and would not budge for all his pulling. Neither could the smile of the clear sky woo her thence, nor the voices of the day; but as on ship-board she must still be talking to the man at the wheel, and on horseback importunately whispering to the rider from her pillion, so now she besieged the ear of Mr. Fogo, to whom her very sex was hateful.

Further and further he rowed in vain attempt to shake off this incubus; passed at some distance the rock where the picnickers had spread their meal (luckily, the Admiral's back was turned to the river), doubled the next bend, ran his boat ashore on a little patch of shingle overarched with trees, and, stepping out, sat down to smoke a pipe.

Secure from observation, he could hear the laughter of the picnickers borne melodiously through the trees; and either this or the tobacco chased his companion from his side; for his brow cleared, the puffs of smoke came more calmly, and before the pipe was smoked out, Mr. Fogo had sunk into a most agreeable fit of abstraction.

He was rudely aroused by the sound of voices close at hand. Indeed, the speakers were but a few yards off, on the bank above him.

Now Mr. Fogo was the last man to desire to overhear a conversation. But the first word echoed so aptly his late musings, and struck his memory, too, with so deep a pang, that before he recovered it was too late.

"Geraldine!"

"Oh! why is it?"—(it was a woman's voice that asked the question, though not the voice that Mr. Fogo had half expected to hear, and his very relief brought a shudder with it)—"oh! why is it that a man and a woman cannot talk together except in lies? You ask if I am unhappy. Say what you mean. Do I hate my husband? Well, then—yes!"

"My dear Mrs.—"

"Is that frank enough? Oh! yes, I have lied so consistently throughout my married life that I tell the truth now out of pure weariness. I detest him: sometimes I feel that I must kill either Fred or myself, and end it all."

"Bless my soul!" murmured Mr. Fogo, cowering more closely. "This country teems with extraordinary people!"

He held his breath as the deeper voice answered—

"Had I thought—"

"Stop! I know what you would say, and it is untrue. Be frank as I am. You had half-guessed my secret, and were bound to convince yourself: and why? Shall I tell you, or will you copy my candour and speak for yourself?"

Dead silence followed this question. After some seconds the woman's voice resumed—

"Ah! all men are cowards. Well, I will tell you. Your question implied yet another, and it was, Do I, hating my husband, love you?"

"Geraldine!"

"Do you still wish that question answered? I will do you that favour also: Listen: for the life of me—I don't know."

And the speaker laughed—a laugh full of amused tolerance, as though her confession had left her a careless spectator of its results. Mr. Fogo shuddered.

"In heaven's name, Geraldine, don't mock me!"

"But it is true. How should I know? You have talked to me, read me your verses—and, indeed, I think them very beautiful. You have with comparative propriety, because in verse, invited me to fly with thee to a desolate isle in the Southern Sea—wherever that is—and forgetting my shame and likewise blame, while you do the same with name and fame and its laurel-leaf, go to moral grief on a coral reef—"

"Geraldine, you are torturing me."

"Do I not quote correctly? My point is this:—A woman will listen to talk, but she admires action. Prove that you are ready, not to fly to a coral reef, but to do me one small service, and you may have another answer."

"Name it."

Mr. Fogo, peering through the bushes as one fascinated, saw an extremely beautiful woman confronting an extremely pale youth, and fancied also that he saw a curious flash of contempt pass over the woman's features as she answered—

"Really unless you kill the Admiral next time he makes a pun, I do not know that just now I need such a service. By to-morrow, though, or the next day, I may think of one. Until then"—she held out her hand—"wait patiently, and be kind to Sophia."

Mr. Moggridge started as though stung by a snake; but, recollecting himself, imprinted a kiss upon the proffered fingers. Again Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys laughed with unaffected mirth, and again the hidden witness saw that curious gleam of scorn—only now, as the young man bent his head, it was not dissembled.

They were gone. Mr. Fogo sank back against the bushes, drew a long breath, and passed his hand nervously over his eyes; but though the scene had passed as a dream, the laugh still rang in his ears.

"It is a judgment on me!" muttered the poor man—"a judgment! They are all alike."

Curiously enough, his next reflection appeared to contradict this view of the sex.

"An extraordinary woman! But every fresh person I meet in this place is more eccentric than the last. Let me see," he continued, checking off the list on his fingers; "there's Caleb, and that astounding Admiral, and the Twins, and Tamsin—"

Mr. Fogo stared very hard at the water for some seconds.

"And Tamsin," he repeated slowly. "Hullo! my feet seem to be in the water—and, bless my soul! what has become of the boat?"

He might well ask. The tide had been steadily rising as he crouched under the banks, and was now lapping his boots. Worse than this, it had floated off the boat, which he had carelessly forgotten to secure, and drifted it up the river, at first under cover of the trees, afterwards more ostentatiously into mid-channel.

Mr. Fogo rushed up the patch of shingle until brought to a standstill by its sudden declension into deep water. There was no help for it. Not a soul was in sight. He divested himself rapidly of his clothes, piled them in a neat little heap beyond reach of the tide, and then with considerable spirit plunged into the flood and struck out in pursuit of the truant.



CHAPTER XIV.

OF A LADY OF SENSIBILITY THAT, BEING AWKWARDLY PLACED, MIGHT EASILY HAVE SET MATTERS RIGHT, BUT DID NOT: WITH MUCH BESIDE.

It is hardly necessary by this time to inform my readers that Miss Priscilla Limpenny was a lady of sensibility. We have already seen her obey the impulse of the heart rather than the cool dictates of judgment: her admiration of natural beauty she has herself confessed more than once during the voyage up the river. But lest more than a due share of this admiration should be set down to patriotism, I wish to put it on record that she possessed to an uncommon degree an appreciative sense of the poetic side of Nature. She was familiar with the works of Mrs. Hemans and L. E. L., and had got by heart most of the effusions in "Affection's Keepsake" and "Friendship's Offering." Nay, she had been, in her early youth, suspected, more than vaguely, of contributing fugitive verse to a periodical known as the Household Packet. She had even, many years ago, met the Poet Wordsworth "at the dinner-table," as she expressed it, "of a common friend," and was never tired of relating how the great man had spoken of the prunes as "pruins," and said "Would you obleege me with the salt?"

With such qualifications for communion with nature it is not wonderful that, on this particular afternoon, Miss Limpenny should have wandered pensively along the river's bank, and surrendered herself to its romantic charm. Possessed by the spirit of the place and hour, she even caught herself straying by the extreme brink, and repeating those touching lines from "Affection's Keepsake":—

"The eye roams widely o'er glad Nature's face, To mark each varied and delightful scene; The simple and magnificent we trace, While loveliness and brightness intervene; Oh! everywhere is something found to—"

At this point Miss Limpenny's gaze lost its dreamy expansiveness, and grew rigid with horror. Immediately before her feet, and indelicately confronting her, lay a suit of man's clothing.

It is a curious fact, though one we need not linger to discuss, that while clothes are the very symbol and first demand of decency, few things become so flagrantly immodest when viewed in themselves and apart from use. The crimson rushed to Miss Limpenny's cheek. She uttered a cry and looked around.

Inexorable fate, whose compulsion directed that gaze! If raiment apart from its wearer be unseemly, how much more—

About thirty yards from her, wading down the stream, and tugging the painter of his recovered boat, advanced Mr. Fogo.

To add a final touch of horror, that gentleman, finding that the damp on his spectacles completely dimmed his vision, had deposited them in the boat, and was therefore blind to the approaching catastrophe. Unconscious even of observation, he advanced nearer and nearer.

Miss Limpenny's emotion found vent in a squeal.

Mr. Fogo, heard, halted, and gazed blankly around.

"How singular!" he murmured. "I could have sworn I heard a cry."

He made another step. The sound was repeated, more shrilly.

"Again! And, dear me, it sounds human—as of some fellow-creature in distress."

"Go away! Go away at once!"

"Eh? Bless my soul, what can it be?" Mr. Fogo stared in the direction whence the voice proceeded, but of course without seeing anything.

"I beg your pardon?" he observed mildly.

"Go away!"

"If you will allow me—" he began, courteously addressing vacancy.

"Monster!"

The awful truth began to dawn upon him, and was followed by a hasty impulse to dive.

"If," he stammered, "I am right in supposing myself to address a lady—"

"Don't talk to me, but go away."

"I was about to ask permission to resume my spectacles, which I have unfortunately laid aside."

"No, no. That would be worse. Oh! go away at once."

"Pardon me, madam. I am aware that spectacles are insufficient as a—I mean, I did not propose to consider them in the light of a costume, but as an assistance to my sight, without which—"

"Oh! I shall faint."

"Without which it will be impossible for me to extricate myself from this extremely unfortunate situation. I am notoriously short-sighted, madam, and at this distance could not tell you from Adam—I should say, from Eve," continued Mr. Fogo, desperately reaching out for his spectacles and adjusting them.

By the imperfect glimpse which he obtained through the glasses (which were still damp) he was almost moved to adopt his first impulse of deserting the boat and diving. But even if he swam away the case would be no better, for this unreasonable female stood sentry beside his clothes.

"If I might make a suggestion, madam—"

But by this time Miss Limpenny had broken forth into a series of sobs and plaintive cries for protection. Alas! the rest of the picnic-party were deep within the woods, and out of hearing.

"Believe me, my dear madam—"

"I am not your dear madam."

"I have no other intention than to get out of this."

"Ah! he confesses it."

"I assure you—"

"Will no one protect me?" wailed the lady, wringing her hands and sobbing anew. But help was near, though from an unexpected quarter.



"Hulloa!" cried a voice on the bank above, "what be all this?"

And Peter Dearlove pushed aside the bushes and descended to the shingle, closely followed by Paul. He was just in time, for Miss Limpenny, with a thankful little cry, staggered and fell fainting into his arms.

"Mercy 'pon us!" exclaimed Peter, seeing only the lady, and not at first the cause of her distress, "'tes Miss Limpenny."

"Well, I'm jiggered!" ejaculated Paul, "so 'tes."

The Twins bent over the lady, and looked at each other in dismay. To Mr. Fogo the tableau might have borne a ridiculous likeness to that scene in Cymbeline where Guiderius and Arviragus stoop over the unconscious Imogen. But Mr. Fogo, as he stood neck-high in water, was far beyond drawing any such comparison; and Peter, instead of adjuring Miss Limpenny to fear no more the heat o' the sun, accinged himself to the practical difficulty.

"Did 'ee iver hear tell o' what's best to be done when a leddy's took like this?" he asked his brother.

"No," answered Paul; "Tamsin was niver took this way. But that there little book us used to study when her had the whoopin'-cough an' measles wud likely tell all about et; I wish 'twas here. Wait a bit. I remembers the 'Instructions for Discoverin' th' Appariently Drownded.' Do 'ee reckon Miss Limpenny here es 'appariently drownded'?"

"Why, no."

"I don't think so nuther. Ef she was," added Paul regretfully, "you'd have to be extry partic'lar not to roll her body 'pon casks. That was a great p'int."

"'Tes a long step round to fetch that book," sighed Peter.

"An' terrable long words i' th' index when you've got et. Stop, now: es et faintin', do 'ee think?"

"Well," answered Paul thoughtfully, "et mou't be faintin'."

"'Cos, ef so, the best way es to hold the sufferer upsi-down an' dash cold water over the face."

"That wud be takin' too much of a liberty, wudn' et, Paul?"

But at this point the blood came trickling back into Miss Limpenny's cheeks; the eyelids fluttered, opened; she gasped a little, looked up, and—

"Is he gone?" she asked in a weak whisper.

"Gone? Who, ma'am?"

"The monster."

"Light-headed yet," muttered Peter. But following Miss Limpenny's stare the brothers caught sight of Mr. Fogo simultaneously, and for the first time. Their mahogany faces grew sensibly paler.

"Well, this beats cock-fightin'!"

"Would you mind taking that lady away?" pleaded Mr. Fogo, through his chattering teeth; "I am very cold indeed, and wish to dress."

"Oh! that voice again," sobbed Miss Limpenny; "please tell him to go away."

Being nonplussed by these two appeals, Peter addressed his reply to his brother.

"I dunno, Paul, as we've a-got to the bottom o' this; but I reck'n Mr. Fogo's been a-lettin' hes principles take 'n too far. As for dislikin' womankind, 'tes in a way 'scuseable p'raps; but notices es wan thing, an' teasin' anuther."

"That's so, Peter. Ef 'tes a matter o' fash'n, tho', I dunno as we've any call to interfere, not knawin' what's what."

"Ef you plaise, sir," shouted Peter, "Paul an' me wants to know whether you be a-doin' et by way o' bein' fash'nubble?"

"I don't know what you mean. I only wish to be allowed to get at my clothes. I really am suffering considerably, being quite unused to these long immersions."

Peter looked around and caught sight of the neat pile of Mr. Fogo's attire lying underneath the bank. Light began to dawn on him; he turned to Miss Limpenny—

"You'll excuse me, ma'am, but was you present by any chance when—?"

"Heaven forbid!" she cried, and put her hands before her face.

"Then, beggin' your pard'n, but how did you come here?"

"I was wandering on the bank—and lost in thought—and came upon these—these articles. And then—oh! I cannot, I cannot."

"Furder question es," pursued Peter, with an interrogative glance at his brother, who nodded, "why not ha' gone away?"

"Dear me!" exclaimed Miss Limpenny, "I never thought of it!"

She gathered up her skirts, and disdaining the assistance of the gallant Paul, clambered up the bank, and with a formal bow left the Twins staring. As she remarked tearfully to Lavinia that evening, "What one requires in these cases is presence of mind, my dear," and she heaved a piteous little sigh.

"But consider," urged the sympathetic Lavinia, "your feelings at the moment. I am sure that under similar circumstances"—she shuddered— "I should have behaved in precisely the same way."



Mr. Fogo emerged in so benumbed a condition, his teeth chattered so loudly, and his nose had grown so appallingly blue, that the Twins, who had in delicacy at first retired to a little distance, were forced to return and help him into his clothes. Even then, however, he continued to shiver to such an extent that the pair, after consulting in whispers for some moments, took off their coats, wrapped him carefully about, set him in the stern of his boat, and, jumping in themselves, pushed off and rowed rapidly homewards.

Their patient endeavoured to express his thanks, but was gravely desired not to mention it. For ten minutes or so the Twins rowed in silence, at the end of this time Paul suddenly dropped the bow oar; then, leaning forward, touched his brother on the shoulder and whispered one word—

"Shenachrum."

"Or Samson," said Peter.

"I think poorly o' Samson."

"Wi' hes hair on?"

"Wi' or wi'out, I don't lay no store by Samson."

"Very well, then—Shenachrum."

The rowing was resumed, and Mr. Fogo left to speculate on these dark sayings. But as the boat drew near the column of blue smoke that, rising from the hazels on the left bank, marked the whereabouts of the Dearloves' cottage, he grew aware of a picture that, perhaps by mere charm of composition, set his pulse extravagantly beating.

At the gate above the low cliff, her frock of pink print distinct against the hazels, stood Tamsin Dearlove, and looked up the river.

She was bare-headed; and the level rays of evening powdered her dark tresses with gold, and touched the trees behind into bronze. One hand shielded her eyes; the other rested on the half-open gate, and swayed it softly to and fro upon its hinge. As she stood thus, some happy touch of opportunity, some trick of circumstance or grouping, must, I think, have helped Mr. Fogo to a conclusion he had been seeking for weeks. It is certain that though he has since had abundant opportunities of studying Tamsin, and noting that untaught grace of body in which many still find the secret of her charm, to his last day she will always be for him the woman who stood, this summer evening, beside the gate and looked up the river.

And yet, as the boat drew near, the pleasantest feature in the picture was the smile with which she welcomed her brothers, though it contained some wonder to see them in Mr. Fogo's boat, and gave place to quick alarm as she remarked the extreme blueness of that gentleman's nose and the extreme pallor of his other features.

"Tamsin, my dear, es the cloth laid?"

"Yes, Peter, and the kettle ready to boil."

"We was thinkin' as Shenachrum would be suitin' Mr. Fogo better. He've met wi' an accident."

"Again?" There was something of disdain in her eyes as she curtseyed to him, but it softened immediately. "You're kindly welcome, sir," she added, "and the Shenachrum shall be ready in ten minutes."

Within five minutes Mr. Fogo was seated by the corner of the hearth, and watching her as she heated the beer which, together with rum, sugar, and lemon, forms the drink known and loved by Trojans as Shenachrum. The Twins had retired to wash in the little out-house at the back, and their splashing was audible every now and again above the crackling of the wood fire, which now, as before, filled the kitchen with fragrance. Its warmth struck kindly into Mr. Fogo's knees, and coloured Tamsin's cheeks with a hot red as she bent over the flame. He watched her profile in thoughtful silence for some moments, and then fell to staring at the glowing sticks and the shadows of the pot-hooks and hangers on the chimney-back.

"So that is Shenachrum?" he said at last, to break the silence.

"Yes."

"And what, or who, is Samson?"

"Samson is brandy and cider and sugar."

"With his hair on?"

She laughed.

"That means more brandy. Samson was double as strong, you know, with his hair on."

"I see."

The silence was resumed. Only the tick-tack of the tall clock and the splashing of the Twins disturbed it. She turned to glance at him once, and then, seeing his gaze fixed upon the fire that twinkled on the rim of his spectacles and emphasised the hollows of his face, had looked for a moment more boldly before she bent over her task again.

"She is quite beautiful, but—"

He spoke in a dreamy abstracted tone, as if addressing the pot-hooks. Tamsin started, set down the pan with a clatter, and turned sharply round.

"Eh?" said Mr. Fogo, aroused by the clatter, "you were saying—?" And then it struck him that he had spoken aloud. He broke off, and looked up with appealing helplessness.

There was a second's pause.

"You were saying—"

The words came as if dragged from her by an effort. Her eyes were full of wrath as she stood above him and waited for his reply.

"I am very sorry," he stammered; "I never meant you to hear."

"You were talking of—?"

"Of you," he answered simply. He was horribly frightened; but it was not in the man's nature to lie, or even evade the question.

The straightforwardness of the reply seemed to buffet her in the face. She put up a hand against the chimney-piece and caught her breath.

"What is 'but'?" she asked with a kind of breathless vehemence. "Finish your sentence. What right have you to talk of me?" she went on, as he did not reply. "If I am not a lady, what is that to you? Oh!" she persisted, in answer to the swift remonstrance on his face, "I can end your sentence: 'She is quite beautiful, but—quite low, of course.' What right have you to call me either—to speak of me at all? We were content enough before you came—Peter and Paul and I. Why cannot you let us alone? I hate you! Yes, I hope there is no doubt now that I am low—hate you!"

She stamped her foot in passion as two angry tears sparkled in her eyes.

"Why, Tamsin!" cried Paul's voice at the door, "the Shenachrum not ready yet? I niver knawed 'ee so long afore."

She turned sharply, caught up the pan, and stooped over the fire again. But the glow on her cheeks now was hotter than any fire could bring.

"'Tes rare stuff, sir," said the Twin encouragingly, as Tamsin filled a steaming glass, and handed it, without a look, to Mr. Fogo. "Leastways, 'tes thought a deal of i' these parts by them as, wi'out bein' perlite, es yet reckoned jedges."

Mr. Fogo took the glass and sipped bravely. The stuff was so hot that tears sprang to his eyes, but he gulped it down, nevertheless.

"An' now, sir," began Peter, who had joined the group, and was looking on approvingly, "Paul an' me was considerin' in the back-kitchen, an' agreed that makin' so bold as to ax 'ee, an' hopin' 'twont' be thought over free, you must stay the night, seein' you've took this cold, an' the night air bein', as es well known, terrable apt to give 'ee inflammation."

"We'd planned," put in Paul, "to go down wi' the boat to Kit's House an' fetch up your things, and tell Caleb about et, so's he shudn' be decomposed. An' Tamsin'll tell 'ee there's a room at your sarvice, an' reckoned purty—lookin' on to the bee-skeps an' the orchard at the back," he explained with a meaning glance at Tamsin, who was silent.

"Why, Tamsin, girl, what's amiss that you don't spake?" asked Peter; and then his amazement got the better of his tact, as he added in a stage whisper, "'Tes on'y to change rooms. Paul an' me can aisy sleep down here afore the fire; an' us on'y offered your room as bein' more genteel—"

"I assure you," broke in Mr. Fogo, "that I am quite recovered of my chill, thanks to your kindness, and would rather return—much rather: though I thank you all the same." He spoke to the Twins, but kept his eyes on Tamsin.

"No kindness at all," muttered Peter. His face fell, and he, too, looked at the girl.

Finding their eyes upon her, she was compelled to speak.

"Mr. Fogo wudn' care for the likes o' what we cou'd offer him," she said. Then, seeing the pain on the men's faces, she added with an effort to be gracious, "But ef he can put up wi' us, he knows he shall be made welcome."

She did not look up, and her voice, in which the peculiar sing-song of Trojan intonation was intentionally emphasised, sounded so strangely that still greater amazement fell upon the Twins.

"Why, Tamsin, I niver knawed 'ee i' this mood afore," stammered Paul.

"I assure you," interposed Mr. Fogo, "that I value your hospitality more than I can say, and shall not forget it. But it would be absurd to accept it when I am so near home. If one of you would consent to row me down to Kit's House, it would be the exact kindness I should prefer."

The Twins assented, though not without regret at his refusal to accept more. Paul agreed to row him down, and the two started in the early twilight. As he shook Peter's hand, Mr. Fogo looked at Tamsin.

"Good-night," he said.

"Good-night, sir."

She did not offer to shake hands; she scarcely even looked up, but stood there before the chimney-place, with the fire-light outlining her form and throwing into deep shadow the side of her face that was towards him. One arm was thrown up to grasp the mantelshelf, and against this her head rested. The other hung listlessly at her side. And this was the picture Mr. Fogo carried out into the grey evening.

As the door closed upon him, Peter sank into the stiff-backed chair beside the hearth with a puzzled sigh.

"Why, Tamsin," he said, as he slowly drew out his pipe and filled it, "what ailed 'ee, girl, to behave like that?"

Looking up, he saw a tear, and then a second, drop brightly on the hearth-stone.

"Little maid!"

Before he could say more she had stepped to him, and, sitting on the chair-arm, had flung her arms around his neck and drawn his head towards her, that he might not look into her face.

"I hate him," she sobbed—"I hate him! I wish I had never seen him. He despises us, and—and I was so happy before he came."

The Twin set down his pipe upon his knee, and stared into the fire.

"As for hatin', Tamsin," he said gravely, "'tain't right. Us shud love our neighbours, Scriptur' says; an' I reckon that includes tenants. I' the matter o' hes despisin' us, I dunno as you'm right nuther. He's fash'nubble, o' cou'se; but very conformable, considerin'—very conformable. You bain't sorry us let Kit's House, eh, Tamsin? Not hankerin'—"

"No, no."

"I doubt, my dear, we'm poor hands to take care of 'ee, Paul an' me. Us talks et over togither at times, an' agrees 'twas wrong not to ha' sent 'ee away to school. Us got a whack o' handbills down, wan time, from different places. You wudn' believe et, my dear," he went on, with something like a laugh, "but Paul an' me a'most came to words over they handbills. 'Tes a curious fac', but at the places where they allowed most holidays, they was most partic'lar about takin' your own spoon and fork, an' Paul was a stickler agen that. Et grew to be a matter o' prenciple wi' Paul that wheriver you went you shudn' take your own spoon and fork. So us niver came to no understandin'. I doubt 'twas selfish an' us can't understand maidens an' their ways; but say, my dear, ef there's anything can be set right, an' us'll try—"

"No, no. Let me sit here beside you, and I shall be better presently."

She drew a low stool to his side, and sat with her head against his knee, and her dark eyes watching the fire. Peter laid one hand gently on her hair, and wound the brown locks around his fingers.

"All right now?" he asked, after several minutes had passed with no sound but the ticking of the clock.

"All right beside you, brother. It is always all right beside you."



CHAPTER XV.

HOW A LADY AND A YOUTH, BEING SEPARATED FROM THEIR COMPANY, VISITED A SHIP THAT HELD NOTHING BUT WATER.

Mr. Fogo and Paul performed the journey back to Kit's House in silence; for Paul was yet wondering at his sister's behaviour, and Mr. Fogo busy with thoughts he could hardly have interpreted. As they drew near the little quay, they discerned through the darkness, now fast creeping over the river, a boat pushed off by a solitary figure that jumped aboard and began to pull towards them.

"Ahoy, there!" It was Caleb's voice.

"Ahoy, Caleb!" shouted Paul in answer; "anything wrong?"

"Have 'ee seen maaster?"

"Iss, an' got un safe an' sound."

Caleb peered through the gloom and descried Mr. Fogo. Whatever relief this may have been to his feelings, it called forth no expression beyond a grunt. He turned his boat and pulled back in time to help his master ashore. Paul was dismissed with some words of thanks which he declared unnecessary. He would row back in Mr. Fogo's boat, he said, if he might be allowed, and would bring her down in the early morning. With this and a hearty "Good-night" he left the pair to walk up to the house together.

Caleb was unusually silent during supper, and when his master grew cheery and related the adventures of the day, offered no comment beyond a series of mysterious sounds expressing mental discontent rather than sympathy. Finally, when Mr. Fogo had finished he looked up and began abruptly—

"Ef you plaise, sir, I wants to gie warnin'."

"Give warning?"

"Iss, sir; notiss to go." And Caleb stared fiercely at his master.

"But, my dear Caleb, you surely don't mean—?"

"I do, tho'."

"Are you dissatisfied with the place or the wages?"

"That's et, sir—the wages."

"If they are too low—"

"They bain't; they be a darned sight too high."

Mr. Fogo leant back in his chair.

"Too high!" he gasped.

"Look 'ee here, sir: here be I, so lazy as La'rence, an' eatin' my head off 'pon a pund a week an' my small-clothes, on condishun I looks arter 'ee. Very well; what happens? 'Tes Dearlove, Dearlove, Dearlove all the time. Fust Tamsin brings 'ee back, and then Paul, an' nex' time I reckon 'twill be Peter's turn. Where-fore, sir, seein' I can't offer to share wages wi' the Twins, much less wi' Tamsin, I wants to go."

Caleb knocked the ashes out of his pipe, and, rising, stared at his master for some seconds and with much determination.

Mr. Fogo argued the case for some time without effect. But so sincerely did he paint his helplessness, and nervous aversion to new faces, that at length, after many pros and cons, Caleb consented to give him one more chance. "But mind, sir," he added, "the nex' time you'm brought home by a Dearlove, 'go' 's the word." On this understanding they retired to rest, but it was long before Mr. Fogo could shut his memory upon the panorama of the day's experiences.

Let us return to the picnickers. After what had passed between Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys and Mr. Moggridge on the river's bank, it may seem strange that the lady should have chosen Sam Buzza to row her home, for the two youths were now declared rivals for her goodwill. But I think we may credit her with a purpose.

At any rate, when the lengthening shadows and retreating tide hinted return, Sam, who had arrived late in a designedly small dingey, asked Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys to accompany him, and she, with little demur, complied. It did not matter greatly, as propriety would be saved by their nearness to the larger boats; and so the party started together.

But this arrangement, though excellent, did not last long; for, curiously enough, the dingey soon began to take a formidable lead of the next boat, in which the traitorous Moggridge was pulling stroke, and gazing, with what courage he could summon, into Sophia's eyes. Indeed, so quickly was the lead increased, that at the end of two miles the larger boats had shrunk to mere spots in the distance.

The declining sun shone in Sam's eyes as he rowed, and his companion, with her sunshade so disposed as to throw her face into shadow, observed him in calm silence. The sunshade was of scarlet silk, and in the softened light stealing through it her cheek gained all the freshness of maidenhood. Her white gown, gathered about the waist with a band of scarlet, not only fitted her figure to perfection, but threw up the colour of her skin into glowing relief. To Sam she appeared a miracle of coolness and warmth; and as yet no word was spoken.

At length, and not until they had passed the Dearloves' cottage, she asked—

"Why were you late?"

"Was I missed?"

"Of course. You younger men of Troy seem strangely blind to your duties—and your chances."

The last three words came as if by after-thought; Sam looked up quickly.

"Chances? You said 'chances,' I believe?"

"I did. Was there not Miss Saunders, for instance?"

Sam's lip curled.

"Miss Saunders is not a chance; she is a certainty. Did she, for instance, announce that the beauty of the day made her sad—that even amid the wealth of summer something inside her whispered 'Autumn'?"

"She did."

"She always does; I have never picnicked with Miss Saunders but something inside her whispered 'Autumn'!"

"A small bore," suggested Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys, "that never misses fire."

Sam tittered and resumed—

"If it comes to duties, your husband sets the example; he hasn't moved from the club window to-day."

"Oh!" she exclaimed shortly, "I never asked you to imitate my husband."

Sam ceased rowing and looked up; he was familiar with the tone, but had never heard it so emphasised before.

"Look here," he said; "something's wrong, that's plain. It's a rude question, but—does he neglect you?"

She laughed with some bitterness, and perhaps with a touch of self-contempt.

"You are right; it is a rude question: but—he does not."

There was a moment's silence, and then she added—

"So it's useless, is it not, to wish that he would?"

The blood about Sam's heart stood still. Were the words a confession or a sneer. Did they refer to her or to him? He would have given worlds to know, but her tone disclosed nothing.

"You mean—?"

She gave him no answer, but turned her head to look back. In the distant boats they had fallen to singing glees. In this they obeyed tradition: for there is one accomplishment which all Trojans possess—of fitting impromptu harmonies to the most difficult air. And still in the pauses of the music Miss Limpenny would exclaim—

"Did you ever see anything more lovely?"

And the Admiral would reply—

"Really, I never did."

Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys could not, of course, hear this. But the voices of the singers stole down the river and touched her, it may be, with some sense of remorse for the part she was playing in this Arcadia.

"We are leaving the others a long way behind," she said irresolutely.

"Do you wish to wait for them?"

For a moment she seemed about to answer, but did not. Sam pulled a dozen vigorous strokes, and the boat shot into the reach opposite Kit's House.

"That," she said, resting her eyes on the weather-stained front of Mr. Fogo's dwelling, "is where the hermit lives, is it not? I should like to meet this man that hates all women."

Sam essayed a gallant speech, but she paid no heed to it.

"What a charming creek that is, beyond the house! Let us row up there and wait for the others."

The creek was wrapped in the first quiet of evening. There was still enough tide to mirror the tall trees that bent towards it, and reflect with a grey gleam one gable of the house behind. Two or three boats lay quietly here by their moorings; beside them rested a huge red buoy, and an anchor protruding one rusty tooth above the water. Where the sad-looking shingle ended, a few long timbers rotted in the ooze. Nothing in this haunted corner spoke of life, unless it were the midges that danced and wheeled over the waveless tide.

"Yonder lies the lepers' burial-ground," said Sam, and pointed.

"I have heard of them" (she shivered); "and that?"

She nodded towards the saddest ruin in this sad spot, the hull of what was once a queenly schooner, now slowly rotting to annihilation beside the further shore. She lay helplessly canted to starboard, her head pointing up the creek. Her timbers had started, her sides were coated with green weed; her rudder, wrenched from its pintle, lay hopelessly askew. On her stern could still be read, in blistered paint, her name, "The Seven Sisters of Troy." There she lay dismantled, with a tangle of useless rigging, not fit for saving, left to dangle from her bulwarks; and a quick fancy might liken her, as the tide left her, and the water in her hold gushed out through a dozen gaping seams, to some noble animal that had crept to this corner to bleed to death.

Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys looked towards the wreck with curious interest.

"I should like to examine it more closely," she said.

For answer Sam pulled round the schooner, and let the boat drift under her overhanging side.

"You can climb aboard if you like," he said, as he shipped the sculls and, standing up, grasped the schooner's bulwarks. "Stop, let me make the painter fast."

He took up the rope, swung himself aboard, and looped it round the stump of a broken davit; then bent down and gave a hand to his companion. She was agile, and the step was of no great height; but Sam had to take both her hands before she stood beside him, and ah! but his heart beat cruelly quick.

Once on board Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys displayed the most eager inquisitiveness, almost endangering her beautiful neck as she peered down into the hole where the water lay, black and gloomy. She turned and walked aft with her feet in the scuppers, and her right hand pressed against the deck, so great was the cant on the vessel. It was uphill walking too, for the schooner was sagged in the waist, and the stern tilted up to a considerable height. Nevertheless she reached the poop at last. Sam followed.

"I want to see the captain's cabin," she explained.

Sam wondered, but led the way. It was no easy matter to descend the crazy ladder, and in the cabin itself the light was so dim that he struck a match. Its flare revealed a broken table, a horsehair couch, and a row of cupboards along the walls. On the port side these had mostly fallen open, and the doors in some cases hung by a single hinge. There was a terrible smell in the place. Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys looked around.

"Does the water ever come up here?" she asked.

Sam lit another match.

"No," he said, stooping and examining the floor.

"You are quite sure?"

Her tone was so eager that he looked up.

"Yes, I am quite sure; but why do you ask?"

She did not answer: nor, in the faint light, could he see her face. After a moment's silence she said, as if to herself—

"This is just the place."

"For what?"

"For—for an Irish jig," she laughed with sudden merriment. "Come, try a step upon these old timbers."

"For heaven's sake take care!" cried Sam. "There may be a trap-hatch where you stand, and these boards are rotten through and through. Ten minutes ago you were mournful," he added, in wonder at her change of mood.

"Was I?" She broke out suddenly into elfish song—

"'Och! Pathrick O'Hea, but I'm sad, Bedad! Och! darlint, 'tis bad to be sad.' 'Hwat's this?' says he. 'Why, a kiss,' says she. ''Tis a cure,' says he. 'An' that's sure,' says she. 'Och! Pat, you're a sinsible lad, Bedad! Troth, Pat, you're a joole uv a lad!'"

She broke off suddenly and shivered.

"Come, let us go; this place suffocates me."

She turned and ran up the crazy ladder. At the top she turned and peered down upon the dumbfounded Sam.

"Nobody comes here, I suppose?"

"I should think not."

"I mean, the owner never comes to—"

"To visit his cargo?" laughed Sam. "No, the owner is dead. He was a wicked old miser, and I guess in the place where he is now he'd give a deal for the water in this ship; but I never heard he was allowed to come back for it."

She leant her hands on the taffrail, and looked over the stern.

"Hark! There are the other boats. Don't you hear the voices? They have passed us by, and we must make haste after them."

She turned upon him with a smile. Without well knowing what he did he laid his hand softly on her arm.

"Stop, I want a word before you go."

"Well?"

Her large eyes, gleaming on him through the dusk, compelled and yet frightened him. He trembled and stammered vaguely—

"You said just now—you hinted, I mean—that you were unhappy with Mr.—with your husband. Is that so?"

It was the second time she had been asked the question to-day. A faint smile crossed her face.

"Well?" she said again.

"I mean," he answered with a nervous laugh, "I don't like to see it— and—I meant, if I could help you—"

"To run away? Will you help me to run away?" Her eyes suddenly blazed upon him, and as she bent forward, and almost hissed the words, he involuntarily drew back a step.

"Well," he stammered, "he's a good fellow, really, is your husband— he's been very good to me and all that—"

"Ah!" she exclaimed, turning away, "I thought so. Come, we are wasting time."

"Stop!" cried Sam.

But she had passed swiftly down the sloping deck and dropped into the boat without his assistance. He followed unsteadily, untied the painter, and jumped down after her. They rowed for some time in silence after the retreating picnickers. Before they came abreast of the hindmost boat, however, Sam spoke—

"Look here. I can't help myself, and that's the truth. If you want to run away I'll help you." He groaned inwardly as he said it.

She made no reply, but kept her eyes fixed on his face, as if weighing his words. Nor, beyond a cool "Good-night" at parting on the quay, did another word pass between them.

"What luck?" asked the Honourable Frederic as his wife entered the drawing-room of "The Bower." He was stretched in an arm-chair before the fire, and turned with a glance of some anxiety at her entrance.

She looked about her wearily, took off her hat, tossed it across to a table, and, sinking into the armchair opposite, began to draw off her gloves.

"I'm sick to death of all this, me dear—of 'the Cause,' of Brady, of these people, of meself."

Her face wore a grey look that made her seem a full ten years older.

"Won't you include me in the list, my love?" asked her husband amiably.

"I would," she replied, "only I've already said as much twice this very afternoon."

She laughed a fatigued little laugh, and looked around her again. The drawing-room had greatly changed since first we visited it with Admiral Buzza, and the local tradesmen regarded Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys' account with some complacency as they thought of payment after Midsummer. For the strangers were not of the class that goes to the Metropolis or to the Co-operative Stores; from the outset they had announced a warm desire to benefit the town of Troy. This pretty drawing-room was one of the results, and it only wanted a certain number of cheques from the Honourable Frederic to make the excellence of the arrangement complete.

Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys took a leisurely survey of the room while her husband awaited information.

"The pote is hooked," she said at last, "an' so's Master Sam."

"The poet is our first card," replied her husband, searching his pocket and producing a letter. "The Maryland should be here to-morrow or next day. Upon my word, Nellie, I don't want to ask questions, but you've done exceedingly well."

"Better than well, me dear. I've found a place—an illigant hidin' in an owld schooner up the river."

"Safe?"

"As a church. I'll take yez to't to-morra. Master Sam tells me sorra a sowl goes nigh ut. He tuk me to see ut. I say, me darlint, I'd be lettin' that young fool down aisier than the pote. He's a poor little snob, but he's more like a man than Moggridge."

"He's a bad ass, is Moggridge," assented the Honourable Frederic. "Come, Nellie, we've a day's work before us, remember."

A friend of mine, the son of steady-going Nihilist parents, and therefore an authority, assures me that the Honourable Frederic cannot have been a conspirator for the simple reason that he shaved his chin regularly. Be this as it may, to-night he smiled mysteriously as he rose, and winked at his wife in a most plebeian way. I regret to say that both smile and wink were returned.



CHAPTER XVI.

OF STRATAGEMS AND SPOILS; AND THAT THE NOMINALISTS ERR WHO HOLD A THING TO BE WHAT IT IS CALLED.

At two o'clock next morning Mr. Moggridge closed the door of his lodgings behind him, and stepping out into the street stood for some moments to ponder.

A smile sat upon his lips, witness to pleasure that underlies poetic pains. The Collector of Customs was in humour this morning, and had written thirty lines of Act IV. of Love's Dilemma: a Comedy, before breakfast, for it was his custom to rise early and drink regularly of the waters of Helicon before seeking his office. It is curious that the Civil Service should so often divide its claims with the Service of the Muse. I remember that the Honourable Frederic once drew my attention to this, and supplied me with several instances:—"There was What's-his-name, you know, and t'other Johnny up in the Lakes, and a heap I can't remember at the moment—fancy it must come from the stamps—licked off with the gum, perhaps."

Be that as it may, Mr. Moggridge had written thirty lines this morning, and was even now, as he stood in the street and stared at the opposite house, repeating to himself a song he had just composed for his hero. It is worth quoting, for, with slight alteration, I know no better clue to the poet's mood at the time. The play has since been destroyed, for reasons of which some hint may be found in the next few chapters; but the unfinished song is still preserved among the author's notes, where it is headed—

A HYMN OF LOVE.

"Toiling lover, loose your pack, All your sighs and tears unbind; Care's a ware may break a back, May not bend a maiden's mind.

"Loose, and follow to a land Where the tyrant's only fee Is the kissing of a hand And the bending of a knee.

"In that State a man shall need Neither priest nor lawgiver: Those same slips that are his creed Shall confess their worshipper.

"All the laws he must obey, Now in force and now repealed, Shift in eyes that shift as they—

"'Shift as they,' 'shift as they,'" mused Mr. Moggridge. "Let me see—"

'Till alike with kisses sealed.'

"That was it. With another verse, and a little polishing, I will take it to Geraldine and ask her—"

At this point the poet glanced down the street, and, to his surprise, beheld Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys advancing towards him.

"Good-morning," she nodded with a charming smile, "I was coming to look for you. I have a favour to ask."

"A favour? Is it the—?"

"Well, it's rather prosaic for the—" she laughed. "In fact, it's tea."

"Tea?"

"Yes. It's rather a long story; but it comes to this. You see, Fred is very particular about the tea he drinks."

"Indeed?"

"It's a fact, I assure you. Well, when we were travelling in the states, Fred happened to come across some tea he liked particularly, at Chicago. And the funny thing about this tea is that it is compressed. It is called 'Wapshotts' Patent Compressed Tea;' now I daresay," added Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys demurely, "that you wouldn't think it possible for compressed tea to be good."

"To tell you the truth," said Mr. Moggridge, "I have never given the subject a thought."

"No, of course; being a poet, you wouldn't. But it's very good, all the same: you buy it in cakes, and have to be very particular that 'Wapshott and Sons' is written on each cake: of course it isn't really written—"

"Of course not; but you'll excuse me if I don't yet see—"

"To be sure you don't until I have explained. Well, you see, men are so particular about what they eat and drink, and are always thinking about it—I don't mean poets, of course. I suppose you, for instance, only think about gossamer and things."

"I don't know that I think much about gossamer," said Mr. Moggridge.

"Well, moonbeams, then. But Fred is different. Ever since he left Chicago he has been talking about that tea. I wonder you never heard him."

"I have not, to my knowledge."

"No? Well, at last, finding it couldn't be bought in England, he sent across for a chest. We had the invoice a few days ago, and here it is."

Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys produced a scrap of paper, and went on—

"You see, it's coming in a ship called the Maryland, and ought to be here about this time. Well, Fred was looking through his telescope before breakfast this morning—he's always looking through a telescope now, and knows, I believe, every rig of every vessel in the world—when he calls out, 'Hullo! American barque!' in his short way. Of course, I didn't know at first what he meant, and mixed it up with that stuff—Peruvian bark, isn't it?—that you give to your child, if you have one, and do not let it untimely die, or something of the sort. But afterwards he shouted, 'I shouldn't wonder if she's the Maryland;' and then I understood, and it struck me that it would be so nice to come to you and pay the 'duty,' or whatever you call it, on the tea, and at the same time, if you were very good, you would take me over the ship with you, and show me how you did your work. It's very complicated, I daresay: but I'll be quiet as a mouse, and won't interrupt you at all."

She paused for breath. The Collector smiled, and handed back the invoice.

"It seems all right," he said. "Let us hurry to the Custom House. An hour in your company, Geraldine, will transfigure even the dull round of duty."

Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys smiled back divinely. She thought it extremely probable.

A few minutes later the poet sat by Geraldine's side—sweet proximity!—in the stern of one of Her Majesty's boats, while two "minions," as he was wont in verse to term his subordinates, rowed them towards a shapely barque that had just dropped anchor not far from the Bower Slip.

She flew a yellow flag in sign that she hailed from a foreign port, and as the Customs' boat dropped under her quarter Mr. Moggridge shouted—

"Maryland, ahoy!"

"Ahoy!" answered a gruff voice, and a red face looked over the side.

"Captain?" inquired Mr. Moggridge.

"That's me—Uriah T. Potter, Cap'n. Customs, I guess," said the red-faced man, with a slow look at Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys.

"Clean bill of health?"

"Waal, two fo'c's'le hands down with whoopin'-cough: take it you won't keep us in quarantine for that."

The Collector helped Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys up the ship's side. As she alighted on deck a swift glance passed between her and the red-faced man. Quite casually she laid two fingers on her chin. Uriah T. Potter did the same; but Mr. Moggridge was giving some instructions to his minions at the moment, and did not notice it.

"Anything to declare?" he asked.

"Mainly corn aboard, an' tinned fruits for Port o' London. Reas'nable deal o' tea an' 'baccy, though, for you to seal—shipped for same place. By the way, chest o' tea for party living hereabouts—Goodwyn-Sandys, friend of owner—guess that's the reason for putting in at this one-hoss place," wound up Uriah T. Potter, with a depreciatory glance at the beauties of Troy.

"This is Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys," said the Collector.

"Proud to make your 'cquaintance, marm." The Captain held out his hand to the lady, who shook it affably.

"Let's see the cargo," said Mr. Moggridge.

The Captain led the way and they descended; Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys full of pretty wonder at the arrangements of the ship, and slipping her fingers timidly into the Collector's hand on the dark companion stairs. He seized and raised them to his lips.

"Oh, you poets!" expostulated she.

"Where the tyrant's only fee," murmured Mr. Moggridge.

"Is the kissing of a hand."

"What, more verses? You shall repeat them to me."

I am afraid that in the obscurity below, Mr. Moggridge inspected the weighing of ship's stores and sealing of excisable goods in a very perfunctory manner. There were so many dim corners and passages where Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys needed guidance; and, after all, the minions were sufficient for the work. They rummaged here and there among casks and chests, weighing, counting, and sealing, whilst the red-faced Uriah stood over them and occasionally looked from the Collector to the lady with a slow grin of growing intelligence.

They were seated together on a cask, and Mr. Moggridge had possessed himself, for the twentieth time, of his companion's hand.

"You think the verses obscure?" he was whispering. "Ah! Geraldine, if I could only speak out from the heart! As it is, 'Euphelia serves to grace my measure!'"

"Who's she?" asked Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys, whose slight acquaintance with other poets was, perhaps, the reason why she rated her companion's verse so highly.

"'The merchant, to conceal his treasure, Conveys it in a borrowed name,'"

Mr. Moggridge began to quote.—"Why, Geraldine, what is the matter? Are you faint?"

"No; it is nothing."

"I thought you seemed pale. As I was saying—"

'The merchant, to conceal his treasure—'

"Yes, yes, I know," said she, rising abruptly. "It is very hot and close down here."

"Then you were faint?"

"Here's your chest, marm," called the voice of Uriah T. Potter.

She turned and walked towards it. It was a large, square packing-case, and bore the legends—

"WAPSHOTT AND SONS', CHICAGO, PATENT COMPRESSED TEA, TEN PRIZE MEDALS"—

stamped here and there about it. "I suppose," she said, turning to Mr. Moggridge, "I can have it weighed here, and pay you the duty, and then Captain Potter can send it straight to 'The Bower'?"

"Certainly," said Mr. Moggridge; "we won't be long opening it, and then—"

"Opening it!"

"Why, yes; as a matter of form, you know. It won't take a minute."

"But how foolish," said Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys, "when you know very well by the invoice that it's tea!"

"Oh, of course it's foolish: only it's the rule, you understand, before allowing goods to be landed."

"But I don't understand. It is tea, and I am ready to pay the duty. I never thought you would be so unreasonable."

"Geraldine!"

At the utterance of Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys' Christian name the two minions turned aside to conceal their smiles. The red-faced man's appreciation even led him to dive behind the packing-case. The Collector pulled himself up and looked confused.

"It was so small a thing I asked," said she, almost to herself, and with a heart-rending break in her voice, "so small a test!" And with a sigh she half-turned to go.

The Collector's hand arrested her.

"Do you mean—?"

She looked at him with reproach in her eyes. "Let me pass," said she, and seeing the conflict between love and duty on his face, "So small a test!"

"Damn the tea!" said Mr. Moggridge.

"I am feeling so faint," said Mrs. Goodwyn-Sandys.

"Let me lead you up to the fresh air."

"No; go and open the tea."

"I am not going to open it."

"Do!"

"I won't. Here, Sam," he called to one of the minions, "put down that chisel and weigh the chest at once. You needn't open it. Come, don't stand staring, but look alive. I know what's inside. Are you satisfied?" he added, bending over her.

"It frightened me so," she answered, looking up with swimming eyes. "And I thought—I was planning it so nicely. Take me up on deck, please."

"Come, be careful o' that chest," said Captain Uriah T. Potter to the minions, as they moved it up to be weighed.

"Heaviest tea that iver I handled," groaned the first minion.

"All the more duty for you sharks. O' course it's heavy, being compressed: an' strong, too. Guess you don't oft'n get tea o' this strength in your country, anyway. Give a man two pinches o' Wapshott's best, properly cooked, an' I reckon it'll last him. You won't find him coming to complain."

"No?"

"No. But I ain't sayin' nuthin'," added Captain Potter, "about his widder."

And his smile, as he regarded his hearers, was both engaging and expansive.



CHAPTER XVII.

HOW ONE THAT WAS DISSATISFIED WITH HIS PAST SAW A VISION, BUT DOUBTED.

Caleb Trotter watched his master's behaviour during the next few days with a growing impatience.

"I reckon," he said, "'tes wi' love, as Sally Bennett said when her old man got cotched i' the dreshin'-machine,' you'm in, my dear, an' you may so well go dro'.'"

Nevertheless, he would look up from his work at times with anxiety.

"Forty-sax. That's the forty-saxth time he've a-trotted up that blessed beach an' back; an' five times he've a-pulled up to stare at the watter. I've a-kep' count wi' these bits o' chip. An' at night 'tes all round the house, like Aaron's dresser, wi' a face, too, like as ef he'd a-lost a shillin' an' found a thruppeny-bit. This 'ere pussivantin' [1] may be relievin' to the mind, but I'm darned ef et can be good for shoe-leather. 'Tes the wear an' tear, that's what 'tes, as Aunt Lovey said arter killin' her boy wi' whackin'."

The fact is that Mr. Fogo was solving his problem, though the process was painful enough. He was concerned, too, for Caleb, whose rest was often broken by his master's restlessness. In consequence he determined to fit up a room for his own use. Caleb opposed the scheme at first; but, finding that the business of changing diverted Mr. Fogo's melancholy, gave way at last, on a promise that "no May-games" should be indulged in—a festival term which was found to include somnambulism, suicide, and smoking in bed.

The room chosen lay on the upper storey at the extreme east of the house, and looked out, between two tall elms, upon the creek and the lepers' burial-ground. It was chosen as being directly over the room occupied by Caleb, so that, by stamping his foot, Mr. Fogo could summon his servant at any time. The floor was bare of carpet, and the chamber of decoration. But Mr. Fogo hated decoration, and, after slinging his hammock and pushing the window open for air, gazed around on the blistered ceiling and tattered wall-paper, rubbed his hands, and announced that he should be very comfortable.

"Well, sir," said Caleb, as he turned to leave him for the night, "arter all, comfort's a matter o' comparison, as St. La'rence said when he turned round 'pon the gridiron. But the room's clane as watter an' scourin' 'll make et—reminds me," he continued, with a glance round, "o' what the contented clerk said by hes office-stool: 'Chairs es good,' said he, 'and sofies es better; but 'tes a great thing to harbour no dust.' Any orders, sir?"

"No, I fancy—stop! Is my writing-case here?"

Caleb's anxiety took alarm.

"You bain't a-goin' to do et in writin' sir, surely!"

Mr. Fogo stared.

"Don't 'ee, sir—don't 'ee!"

"Really, Caleb, your behaviour is most extraordinary. What is it that I am not to do?"

"Why, put et in writin', sir: they don't like et. Go up an' ax her like a man—'Will 'ee ha' me? Iss or no?' That was ould Dick Jago's way, an' I reckon he knowed, havin' married sax wifes, wan time an' another. But as for pen and ink—"

"You mistake me," interrupted Mr. Fogo, with a painful flush. He paused irresolutely, and then added, in a softer tone, "Would you mind taking a seat in the window here, Caleb? I have something to say to you."

Caleb obeyed. For a moment or two there was silence as Mr. Fogo stood up before his servant. The light of the candle on the chest beside him but half revealed his face. When at last he spoke it was in a heavy, mechanical tone.

"You guessed once," he said, "and rightly, that a woman was the cause of my seclusion in this place. In such companionship as ours, it would have been difficult—even had I wished it—to keep up the ordinary relations of master and man; and more than once you have had opportunities of satisfying whatever curiosity you may have felt about my—my past. Believe me, Caleb, I have noted your forbearance, and thank you for it."

Caleb moved uneasily, but was silent.

"But my life has been too lonely for me," pursued his master wearily. "On general grounds one would not imagine the life of a successful hermit to demand any rare qualifications. It is humiliating, but even as a hermit I am a failure: for instance, you see, I want to talk."

His hearer, though puzzled by the words, vaguely understood the smile of self-contempt with which they were closed.

"As a woman-hater, too, my performances are beneath contempt. I did think," said Mr. Fogo with something of testiness in his voice, "I should prove an adequate woman-hater, whereas it happens—"

He broke off suddenly, and took a turn or two up and down the room. Caleb could have finished the sentence for him, but refrained.

"Surely," said Mr. Fogo, pausing suddenly in his walk, "surely the conditions were favourable enough. Listen. It is not so very long ago since I possessed ambitions—hopes; hopes that I hugged to myself as only a silent man may. With them I meant to move the world, so far as a writer can move the world (which I daresay may be quite an inch). These hopes I put in the keeping of the woman I loved. Can you foresee the rest?"

Caleb fumbled in his pocket for his pipe, found it, held it up between finger and thumb, and, looking along the stem, nodded.

"We were engaged to be married. Two days before the day fixed for our wedding she—she came to me (knowing me, I suppose, to be a mild man) and told me she was married—had been married for a week or more, to a man I had never seen—a Mr. Goodwyn-Sandys. Hallo! is it broken?"

For the pipe had dropped from Caleb's fingers and lay in pieces upon the floor.

"Quite so," he went on in answer to the white face confronting him, "I know it. She is at this moment living in Troy with her husband. I had understood they were in America; but the finger of fate is in every pie."

Caleb drew out a large handkerchief, and, mopping his brow, gasped—

"Well, of all—" And then broke off to add feebly, "Here's a coincidence!—as Bill said when he was hanged 'pon his birthday."

"I have not met her yet, and until now have avoided the chance. But now I am curious to see her—"

"Don't 'ee, sir."

"And to-night intended writing."

"Don't 'ee, sir; don't 'ee."

"To ask for an interview, Caleb," pursued Mr. Fogo, drawing himself up suddenly, while his eyes fairly gleamed behind his spectacles. "Here I am, my past wrecked and all its cargo of ambitions scattered on the sands, and yet—and yet I feel tonight that I could thank that woman. Do you understand?"

"I reckon I do," said Caleb, rising heavily and making for the door.

He stopped with his hand on the door, and turning, observed his master for a minute or so without remark. At last he said abruptly—

"Pleasant dreams to 'ee, sir: an' two knacks 'pon the floor ef I be wanted. Good-night, sir." And with this he was gone.

Mr. Fogo stood for some moments listening to his footsteps as they shuffled down the stairs. Then with a sigh he turned to his writing-case, pulled a straw-bottomed chair before the rickety table, and sat for a while, pen in hand, pondering.

Before he had finished, his candle was low in its socket, and the floor around him littered with scraps of torn paper. He sealed the envelope, blew out the candle, and stepped to the window.

"I wonder if she has changed," he said to himself.

Outside, the summer moon had risen above the hill facing him, and the near half of the creek was ablaze with silver. The old schooner still lay in shadow, but the water rushing from her hold kept a perpetual music. Other sounds there were none but the soft rustling of the swallows in the eaves overhead, the sucking of the tide upon the beach below, and the whisper of night among the elms. The air was heavy with the fragrance of climbing roses and all the scents of the garden. In such an hour Nature is half sad and wholly tender.

Mr. Fogo lit a pipe, and, watching its fumes as they curled out upon the laden night, fell into a kingly melancholy. He dwelt on his past, but without resentment; on Tamsin, but with less trouble of heart. After all, what did it matter? Mr. Fogo, leaning forward on the window-seat, came to a conclusion to which others have been led before him—that life is a small thing. Oddly enough, this discovery, though it belittled his fellowmen considerably, did not belittle the thinker at all, or rather affected him with a very sublime humility.

"When one thinks," said he, "that the moon will probably rise ten million times over the hill yonder on such a night as this, it strikes one that woman-hating is petty, not to say a trifle fatuous."

He puffed awhile in silence, and then went on—

"The strange part of it is, that the argument does not seem to affect Tamsin as much as I should have fancied."

He paused for a moment, and added:

"Or to prove as conclusively as I should expect that I am a fool. Possibly if I see Geraldine to-morrow, she will prove it more satis—"

He broke off to clutch the lattice, and stare with rigid eyes across the creek.

For the moon was by this time high enough to fling a ray upon the deserted hull: and there—upon the deck—stood a figure—the figure of a woman.

She was motionless, and leant against the bulwarks, with her face towards him, but in black shadow. A dark hood covered her head; but the cloak was flung back, and revealed just a gleam of white where her bosom and shoulders bent forward over the schooner's side.

Mr. Fogo's heart gave a leap, stood still, and then fell to beating with frantic speed. He craned out at the window, straining his eyes. At the same moment the pipe dropped from his lips and tumbled, scattering a shower of sparks, into the rose-bush below.

When he looked up again the woman had disappeared.

Suddenly he remembered Caleb's story of the girl who, ages back, had left her home to live among the lepers in this very house, perhaps in the very room he occupied; and of the ghost that haunted the burial ground below. Mr. Fogo was not without courage; but the recollection brought a feeling of so many spiders creeping up his spine.

And yet the whole tale was so unlikely that, by degrees, as he gazed at the wreck, now completely bathed in moonlight, he began to persuade himself that his eyes had played him a trick.

"I will go to bed," he muttered; "I have been upset lately, and these fits of mine may well pass into hallucination. Once think of these women and—"

He stopped as if shot. From behind the wreck a small boat shot out into the moon's brilliance. Two figures sat in it, a woman and a man; and as the boat dropped swiftly down on the ebb he had time to notice that both were heavily muffled about the face. This was all he could see, for in a moment they had passed into the gloom, and the next the angle of the house hid them from view; but he could still hear the plash of their oars above the sounds of the night.

"The leper and his sweetheart," was Mr. Fogo's first thought. But then followed the reflection—would ghostly oars sound? On the whole, he decided against the supernatural. But the mystery remained. More curious than agitated, but nevertheless with little inclination to resume his communing with the night, Mr. Fogo sought his hammock and fell asleep.

The sun was high when he awoke, and as he descended to breakfast he heard Caleb's mallet already at work on the quay below. Still, anxious to set his doubts at rest, he made a hasty meal, and walked down to take a second opinion on the vision.

Caleb, with his back towards the house, was busily fitting a new thwart into Mr. Fogo's boat, and singing with extreme gaiety—

"Oh, where be the French dogs? Oh! where be they, O? They be down i' their long-boats, All on the salt say, O!"

What with the song and the hammering, he did not hear his master's approach.

"Up flies the kite, An' down flies the lark, O! Wi' hale an' tow, rumbleow—"

"Good-morning, Caleb."

"Aw, mornin' to 'ee, sir. You took me unawares—

"All for to fetch home, The summer an' the May, O! For summer is a-come, An' winter es a-go.'"

"Caleb, I have seen a ghost."

The mallet stopped in mid-descent. Caleb looked up again open-mouthed.

"Tom Twist and Harry Dingle!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Figger o' speech, sir, meanin' 'Who'd ha' thought et?' Whose ghost, sir, ef 'taint a rude question?"

Mr. Fogo told his story.

At its conclusion, Caleb laid down his mallet and whistled.

"'Tes the leppards, sure 'nuff, a-ha'ntin' o' th' ould place. Scriptur' says they will not change their spots, an' I'm blest ef et don't say truth. But deary me, sir, an' axin' your pardon for sayin' so, you'm a game-cock, an' no mistake."

"I?"

"Iss, sir. Two knacks 'pon the floor, an' I'd ha' been up in a jiffey. But niver mind, sir, us'll wait up for mun to-night, an' I'll get the loan o' the Dearlove's blunderbust in case they gets pol-rumptious."

Mr. Fogo deprecated the blunderbuss, but agreed to sit up for the ghost; and so for the time the matter dropped. But Caleb's eyes followed his master admiringly for the rest of the day, and more than once he had to express his feelings in vigorous soliloquy.

"Niver tell me! Looks as ef he'd no more pluck nor a field-mouse; an' I'm darned ef he takes more 'count of a ghost than he wud of a circuit-preacher. Blest ef I don't think ef a sperrit was to knack at the front door, he'd tell 'un to wipe hes feet 'pon the mat, an' make hissel' at home. Well, well, seein's believin', as Tommy said when he spied Noah's Ark i' the peep-show."

Footnote, Chapter XVII [1] I cannot forbear to add a note on this eminently Trojan word. In the fifteenth century, so high was the spirit of the Trojan sea-captains, and so heavy the toll of black-mail they levied on ships of other ports, that King Edward IV sent poursuivant after poursuivant to threaten his displeasure. The messengers had their ears slit for their pains; and "poursuivanting" or "pussivanting" survives as a term for ineffective bustle.