whispers again, 'Little girl, I don't want to die. Death is a cold
end. But I reckon you shall save me an' your name as well. Take the
rope, coil it as you run, and hang it back in the linhay, quick! Then
run you to the hen-house an' bring me all the eggs you can find. Be
quick and ax no questions, for it's little longer I can hold up. It's
above my waist,' he says.

"I didn' know what he meant, but ran for my life to the linhay, and
hung up the rope, an' then to the hen-house. I could tell prety well
where to find a dozen eggs or more in the dark, an' in three minutes
I'd groped about an' gathered 'em in the lap o' my dress. Then back I
ran. I could just spy 'en--a dark spot out there in the mud.

"'How many?' he axed, an' his voice was like a rook's.

"'A dozen, or near.'

"'Toss 'em here. Don't come too nigh, an' shy careful, so's I can
catch.'

"I stepped down pretty nigh to the brim o' the mud an' tossed 'em out
to him. Three fell short in my hurry, but the rest he got hold of
somehow.

"'That's right,' he calls, hoarse and low, 'they'll think
egg-stealin' nateral to a low family like our'n. Now back to your
room--undress--an' cry out, sayin', there's a man shoutin' for help
down 'pon the mud; and, dear, be quick! When you wave your candle
twice at the window, I'll shout like a Trojan.'

"An' I did it, Job; for the cruelty in a fearful woman passes
knowledge. An' you rescued 'en an' he went to gaol. For he said 'twas
the only way. An' his mother took it as quite reasonable that her
husband's son should take to the bad--'twas the way of all them
Trudgeons. Father to son, they was of no account. Egg-stealin' was
just the little hole-an'-corner wickedness that 'd come nateral to
'em."

"I rec'lect now," said Job Lear very slowly, "that the wain-rope was
wet i' my hands when I unhitched 'en that night from the hook, an' I
wondered, it bein' the end of a week's dryth. But in the dark an' the
confusion o' savin' the wastrel's life it slipped my thoughts, else--"

"Else you'd ha' wetted it wi' the blood o' my back, Job. But the
rope's been frayed to powder this many year. An' you needn't look at
me like that. I'm past sixty, an' I've done my share of repentin'. He
didn't say if he was married, did he?"




SEVEN-AN'-SIX.


The old fish-market at Troy was just a sagged lean-to roof on the
northern side of the Town Quay, resting against the dead wall of the
harbour-master's house, and propped in front by four squat granite
columns. This roof often let in rain enough to fill the pits worn in
the paving-stones by the feet of gossiping generations; and the whole
was wisely demolished a few years back to make place for a Working
Men's Institute--a red building, where they take in all the chief
London newspapers. Nevertheless I have, in some moods, caught myself
hankering after the old shelter, where the talk was unchartered
always, and where no notices were suspended against smoking; and I
know it used to be worth visiting on dirty evenings about the time of
the Equinox, when the town-folk assembled to watch the high tide and
the chances of its flooding the streets about the quay.

Early one September afternoon, about two years before its destruction,
a small group of watermen, a woman or two, and a fringe of small
children were gathered in the fish-market around a painter and his
easel. The painter--locally known as Seven-an'-Six--was a white-haired
little man, with a clean-shaven face, a complexion of cream and
roses, a high unwrinkled brow, and blue eyes that beamed an engaging
trustfulness on his fellow-creatures, of whom he stood ready to paint
any number at seven shillings and sixpence a head. As this method
of earning a livelihood did not allow him to sojourn long in one
place--which, indeed, was far from his desire--he spent a great part
of his time upon the cheaper seats of obscure country vehicles. He
delighted in this life of perennial transience, and enjoyed painting
the portraits which justified it; and was, on the whole, one of the
happiest of men.

Just now he was enjoying himself amazingly, being keenly alive not
merely to the crowd's admiration, but to the rare charm of that which
he was trying to paint. Some six paces before him there leant against
one of the granite pillars a woman of exceeding beauty: her figure
tall, supple, full of strength, in every line, her face brown and
broad-browed, with a heavy chin that gave character to the rest of her
features, and large eyes, black as sloes, that regarded the artist and
the group at his elbow with a sombre disdain. The afternoon sunshine
slanted down the pillar, was broken by the mass of dark hair she
rested against it, and ran down again along her firm and rounded arm
to the sun-bonnet she dangled by its strings. Behind her, the quay's
edge shone bright against the green water of the harbour, where, half
a cable's length from shore, a small three-masted schooner lay at
anchor, with her Blue Peter fluttering at the fore.

"He's gettin' her to-rights," observed one of the crowd.

A woman said, "I wish I'd a-been took in my young days, when I was
comely."

"Then, whyever wasn't 'ee, Mrs. Slade?"

"Well-a-well, my dear, I'm sure I dunno. Three ha'af-crowns is a
lot o' money to see piled in your palm, an' say 'Fare thee well;
increase!' Store 's no sore, as my old mother used to say."

"But," argued a man, "when once you've made up your mind to the
gallant speckilation, you never regret it--danged if you do!"

"Then why hasn't 'ee been took, Thomas, in all these years?"

"Because that little emmet o' doubt gets the better o' me every time.
'Tis like holdin' back from the Fifteen Balls: you feel sure in your
own mind you'll be better wi'out the drink, but for your life you
durstn't risk the disapp'intment. Over this matter I'll grant ye
that I preaches what I can't practise. But my preachin' is sound.
Therefore, I bid ye all follow the example o' Cap'n Hosken here,
who, bein' possessed wi' true love for 'Liza Saunders, is havin' her
portrait took for to hang up in his narrow cabin out to sea, an'
remind hissel' o' the charms that bide at home a-languishin'."

"That's not my reason, though," said Captain Hosken, a sunburnt and
serious man, at the painter's elbow.

"Then what may it be, makin' so bold?"

"I'll tell ye when the painting's done."

"A couple of strokes, and it's finished," said the artist, cocking his
head on one side and screwing up his blue eyes. "There, I'll tell you
plainly, friend, that my skill is but a seven-and-sixpenny matter, or
a trifle beyond. It does well enough what it pretends to do; but this
is a subject I never ought to have touched. I know my limits. You'll
see, sir," he went on, in a more business-like tone, "I've indicated
your ship here in the middle distance. I thought it would give the
portrait just that touch of sentiment you would desire."

The faces gathered closer to stare. 'Liza left the pillar, stretched
herself to her full height, and came forward, tying the strings of her
sun-bonnet.

"'Tis the very daps of her!" was Captain Hosken's comment as he pulled
out his three half-crowns. "As for the _Rare Plant_, what you've put
in might be took for a vessel; and if a man took it for a vessel, he
might go on to take it for a schooner; but I'd be tolerable sorry if
he took it for a schooner o' which I was master. Hows'ever, you've put
in all 'Liza's good looks an' enticingness. 'Tis a picture I'm glad to
own, an' be dashed to the sentiment you talked about!"

He took the portrait carefully from the easel, and held it before him,
between his open palms.

"Neighbours all," he began, his rather stupid face overspread with an
expression of satisfied cunning, "I promised to tell 'ee my reasons
for havin' 'Liza's portrait took. They're rather out o' the common,
an' 'Liza hersel' don't guess what they be, no more than the biggest
fool here present amongst us."

He looked from the man Thomas, from whose countenance this last
innuendo glanced off as from a stone wall, to 'Liza, who answered
him with a puzzled scowl. Her foot began to tap the paving-stone
impatiently.

"When I gazes 'pon 'Liza," he pursued, "my eyes be fairly dazzled wi'
the looks o' her. I allow that. She's got that build, an' them lines
about the neck an' waist, an' them red-ripe lips, that I feels no
care to look 'pon any other woman. That's why I took up wi' her, an'
offered her my true heart. But strike me if I'd counted 'pon her
temper; an' she's got the temper of Old Nick! Why, only last
evenin'--the very evenin' before I sailed, mark ye--she slapped my
ear. She did, though! Says I, down under my breath, 'Right you are my
lady! we'll be quits for that.' But, you see, I couldn' bear to break
it off wi' her, because I didn' want to miss her beautiful looks."

The women began to titter, and 'Liza's face to flame, but her lover
proceeded with great complacency:

"Well, I was beset in my mind till an hour agone, when--as I walked
down here with 'Liza, half mad to take leave of her, and sail for Rio
Grande, and likewise sick of her temper--I sees this gentleman a-doin'
pictures at seven-an'-six; and thinks I, 'If I can get 'en to make a
copy of 'Liza's good looks, then I shall take off to sea as much as I
want of her, an' the rest, temper included, can bide at home till I
calls for it. That's all I've got to say. 'Liza's a beauty beyond
compare, an' her beauty I worships, an' means to worship. But if any
young man wants to take her, I tell him he's welcome. So long t' ye
all!"

Still holding the canvas carefully a foot from his waistcoat, to avoid
smearing it, he sauntered off to the quay-steps, and hailed his boat
to carry him aboard the _Rare Plant_. As he passed the girl he had
thus publicly jilted, her fingers contracted for a second like a
hawk's talons; but she stood still, and watched him from under
her brows as he descended the steps. Then with a look that, as it
travelled in a semi-circle, obliterated the sympathy which most of the
men put into their faces, and the sneaking delight which all the women
wore on theirs, she strode out of the fish-market and up the street.

Seven-an'-Six squeezed the paint out of his brushes, packed up his
easel and japanned box, wished the company good-day, and strolled back
to his inn. He was sincerely distressed, and regretted a hundred times
in the course of that evening that he had parted with the portrait
and received its price before Captain Hosken had made that speech. He
would (he told himself) have run his knife through the canvas, and
gladly forfeited the money. As it was, he lingered long over the
supper it procured, and ate heartily.

A mile beyond the town, next morning, Boutigo's van, in which he was
the only passenger, pulled up in front of a roadside cottage. A bundle
and a tin box were hoisted up by Boutigo, and a girl climbed in. It
was 'Liza.

"Oh, good morning!" stammered the little painter.

"I'm going to stay with my aunt in Truro, and seek service," the girl
announced, keeping her eye upon him, and her colour down with an
effort. "Where are you bound?"

"I? Oh, I travel about, now in one place, next day in another--always
moving. It's the breath of life to me, moving around."

"That must be nice! I often wonder why men tie themselves up to a wife
when they might be free to move about like you, and see the world.
What does a man want to tack a wife on to him when he can always carry
her image about?" She laughed, without much bitterness.

"But--" began the amiable painter, and checked himself. He had been
about to confess that he himself owned a wife and four healthy
children. He saw this family about once in two months, and it existed
by letting out lodgings in a small unpaintable town. He was sincerely
fond of his wife, who made every allowance for his mercurial nature;
but it suddenly struck him that her portrait hung in the parlour at
home, and had never accompanied him on his travels.

He was silent for a minute or two, and then began to converse on
ordinary topics.




THE REGENT'S WAGER.


Boutigo's van--officially styled _The Vivid_--had just issued from
the Packhorse Yard, Tregarrick, a leisurely three-quarters of an hour
behind its advertised time, and was scaling the acclivity of St.
Fimbar's Street in a series of short tacks. Now and then it halted
to take up a passenger or a parcel; and on these occasions Boutigo
produced a couple of big stones from his hip-pockets and slipped them
under the hind-wheels, while we, his patrons within the van, tilted
at an angle of 15° upon cushions of American cloth, sought for new
centres of gravity, and earnestly desired the summit.

It was on the summit, where the considerate Boutigo gave us a minute's
pause to rearrange ourselves and our belongings, that we slipped into
easy and general talk. An old countryman, with an empty poultry-basket
on his knees, and a battered top-hat on the back of his head, gave us
the cue.

"When Boutigo's father had the accident--that was back in 'fifty-six,'
and it broke his leg an' two ribs--the van started from close 'pon the
knap o' the hill here, and scat itself to bits against the bridge at
the foot just two and a half minutes after."

I suggested that this was not very fast for a runaway horse.

"I dessay not," he answered; "but 'twas pretty spry for a van slippin'
_backwards_, and the old mare diggin' her toes in all the way to hold
it up."

One or two of the passengers grinned at my expense, and the old man
pursued--

"But if you want to know how fast a hoss _can_ get down St. Fimbar's
hill, I reckon you've lost your chance by not axin' Dan'l Best, that
died up to the 'Sylum twelve years since; though, poor soul, he'd but
one answer for every question from his seven-an'-twentieth year to his
end, an' that was 'One, two, three, four, five, sis, seven."

"Ah, the poor body! his was a wisht case," a woman observed from the
corner furthest from the door.

"Ay, Selina, and fast forgotten, like all the doin's and sufferin's of
the men of old time." He reached a hand round his basket, and touching
me on the knee, pointed back on Tregarrick. "There's a wall," he said,
and I saw by the direction of his finger that he meant the wall of the
county prison, "and beneath that wall's a road, and across that road's
a dismal pool, and beyond that pool's a green hillside, with a road
athurt it that comes down and crosses by the pool's head. Standin'
'pon that hillside you can see a door in the wall, twenty feet above
the ground, an' openin' on nothing. Leastways, you could see it once;
an' even now, if ye've good eyesight, ye can see where they've bricked
it up."

I could, in fact, even at our distance, detect the patch of recent
stone-work; and knew something of its history.

"Now," the old man continued, "turn your looks to the right and mark
the face of Tregarrick town-clock. You see it, hey?"--and I had time
to read the hour on its dial before Boutigo jolted us over the ridge
and out of sight of it--"Well, carry them two things in your mind: for
they mazed Dan'l Best an' murdered his brother Hughie."

And, much as I shall repeat it, he told me this tale, pausing now and
again to be corroborated by the woman in the corner. The history, my
dear reader, is accurate enough--for Boutigo's van.

There lived a young man in Tregarrick in the time of the French War.
His name was Dan'l Best, and he had an only brother Hughie, just three
years younger than himself. Their father and mother had died of the
small-pox and left them, when quite young children, upon the parish:
but old Walters of the Packhorse--he was great-grandfather of the
Walters that keeps it now--took a liking to them and employed them,
first about his stables and in course of time as post-boys. Very good
post-boys they were, too, till Hughie took to drinking and wenching
and cards and other devil's tricks. Dan'l was always a steady sort:
walked with a nice young woman that was under-housemaid up to the old
Lord Bellarmine's at Castle Cannick, and was saving up to be married,
when Hughie robbed the mail.

Hughie robbed the mail out of doubt. He did it up by Tippet's Barrow,
just beyond the cross-roads where the scarlet gig used to meet the
coach and take the mails for Castle Cannick and beyond to Tolquite.
Billy Phillips, that drove the gig, was found in the ditch with his
mouth gagged, and swore to Hughie's being the man. The Lord Chief
Justice, too, summed up dead against him, and the jury didn't even
leave the box. And the moral was, "Hughie Best, you're to be taken to
the place whence you come from, ancetera, and may the Lord have mercy
upon your soul!"

You may fancy what a blow this was to Dan'l; for though fine and vexed
with Hughie's evil courses, he'd never guessed the worst, nor anything
like it. Not a doubt had he, nor could have, that Hughie was guilty;
but he went straight from the court to his young woman and said, "I've
saved money for us to be married on. There's little chance that I can
win Hughie a reprieve; and, whether or no, it will eat up all, or
nearly all, my savings. Only he's my one brother. Shall I go?" And she
said, "Go, my dear, if I wait ten years for you." So he borrowed a
horse for a stage or two, and then hired, and so got to London, on a
fool's chase, as it seemed.

The fellow's purpose, of course, was to see King George. But King
George, as it happened, was daft just then; and George his son reigned
in his stead, being called the Prince Regent. Weary days did Dan'l air
his heels with one Minister of the Crown after another before he could
get to see this same Regent, and 'tis to be supposed that the great
city, being new to him, weighed heavy on his spirits. And all the
time he had but one plea, that his brother was no more than a boy and
hadn't an ounce of vice in his nature--which was well enough beknown
to all in Tregarrick, but didn't go down with His Majesty's advisers:
while as for the Prince Regent, Dan'l couldn't get to see him till the
Wednesday evening that Hughie was to be hanged on the Friday, and then
his Royal Highness spoke him neither soft nor hopeful.

"The case was clear as God's daylight," said he: "the Lord Chief
Justice tells me that the jury didn't even quit the box."

"Your Royal Highness must excuse me," said Dan'l, "but I never shall
be able to respect that judge. My opinion of a judge is, he should
be like a stickler and see fair play; but this here chap took sides
against Hughie from the first. If I was you," he said, "I wouldn't
trust him with a Petty Sessions."

"Well, you may think how likely this kind of speech was to please the
Prince Regent. And I've heard that Dan'l; was in the very article of
being pitched out, neck and crop, when he heard a regular caprouse
start up in the antechamber behind him, and a lord-in-waiting, or
whatever he's called, comes in and speaks a word very low to the
Prince.

"Show him in at once," says he, dropping poor Dan'l's petition upon
the table beside him; and in there walks a young officer with his
boots soiled with riding and the sea-salt in his hair, like as if he'd
just come off a ship; and hands the Prince a big letter. The Prince
hardly cast his eye over what was written before he outs with a lusty
hurrah, as well he might, for this was the first news of the taking of
St. Sebastian.

"Here's news," said he, "to fill the country with bonfires this
night."

"Begging your Royal Highness's pardon," answers the officer,
pulling out his watch; "but the mail coaches have left St. Martin's
Lane"--that's where they started from, as I've heard tell--"these
twenty minutes."

"Damn it!" says Dan'l Best and the Prince Regent, both in one breath.

"Hulloa! Be you here still?" says the Prince, turning sharp round at
the sound of Dan'l's voice. "And what be you waiting for?"

"For my brother Hughie's reprieve," says Dan'l.

"Well, but 'tis too late now, anyway," says the Prince.

"I'll bet 'tis not," says Dan'l, "if you'll look slippy and make out
the paper."

"You can't do it. 'Tis over two hundred and fifty miles, and you can't
travel ten miles an hour all the way like the coach."

"It'll reach Tregarrick to-morrow night," says Dan'l, "an' they won't
hang Hughie till seven in the morning. So I've an hour or two to
spare, and being a post-boy myself, I know the ropes."

"Well," says his Royal Highness, "I'm in a very good temper because
of this here glorious storming of St. Sebastian. So I'll wager your
brother's life you don't get there in time to stop the execution."

"Done with you, O King!" says Dan'l, and the reprieve was made out,
quick as lightning.

Well, sir, Dan'l knew the ropes, as he said; and moreover, I reckon
there was a kind of freemasonry among post-boys; and the two together,
taken with his knowledge o' horseflesh, helped him down the road as
never a man was helped before or since. 'Twas striking nine at night
when he started out of London with the reprieve in his pocket, and by
half-past five in the morning he spied Salisbury spire lifting out of
the morning light. There was some hitch here--the first he met--in
getting a relay; but by six he was off again, and passed through
Exeter early in the afternoon. Down came a heavy rain as the evening
drew in, and before he reached Okehampton the roads were like a bog.
Here it was that the anguish began, and of course to Dan'l, who found
himself for the first time in his life sitting in the chaise instead
of in the saddle, 'twas the deuce's own torment to hold himself still,
feel the time slipping away, and not be riding and getting every ounce
out of the beasts: though, even to _his_ eye, the rider in front
was no fool. But at Launceston soon after daybreak he met with a
misfortune indeed. A lot of folks had driven down overnight to
Tregarrick to witness the day's sad doings, and there wasn't a chaise
to be had in the town for love or money.

"What do I want with a chaise?" said Dan'l, for of course he was in
his own country now, and everybody knew him. "For the love of God,
give me a horse that'll take me into Tregarrick before seven and save
Hughie's life! Man, I've got a reprieve!"

"Dear lad, is that so?" said the landlord, who had come down, and was
standing by the hotel door in nightcap and bedgown. "I thought, maybe,
you was hurrying to see the last of your brother. Well, there's but
one horse left in stable, and that's the grey your master sold me two
months back; and he's a screw, as you must know. But here's the stable
key. Run and take him out yourself, and God go with 'ee!"

None knew better than Dan'l that the grey was a screw. But he ran down
to the stable, fetched the beast out, and didn't even wait to shift
his halter for a bridle, but caught up the half of a broken mop-handle
that lay by the stable door, and with no better riding whip galloped
off bare-back towards Tregarrick.

Aye, sir, and he almost won his race in spite of all. The hands o' the
town clock were close upon seven as he came galloping over the knap
of the hill and saw the booths below him and sweet-stalls and
standings--for on such days 'twas as good as a fair in Tregarrick--and
the crowd under the prison wall. And there, above them, he could see
the little open doorway in the wall, and one or two black figures
there, and the beam. Just as he saw this the clock struck its first
note, and Dan'l, still riding like a madman, let out a scream, and
waved the paper over his head; but the distance was too great. Seven
times the clapper struck, and with each stroke Dan'l screamed, still
riding and keeping his eyes upon that little doorway. But a second or
two after the last stroke he dropped his arm suddenly as if a bullet
had gone through it, and screamed no more. Less than a minute after,
sir, he pulled up by the bridge on the skirt of the crowd, and looked
round him with a silly smile.

"Neighbours," says he, "I've a-got great news for ye. We've a-taken
St. Sebastian, and by all acounts the Frenchies'll be drove out of
Spain in less'n a week."

There was silence in Boutigo's van for a full minute; and then the old
woman spoke from the corner:

"Well, go on, Sam, and tell the finish to the company."

"Is there more to tell?" I asked.

"Yes, sir," said Sam, leaning forward again, and tapping my knee very
gently, "there were _two men_ condemned at Tregarrick, that Assize;
and two men put to death that morning. The first to go was a
sheep-stealer. Ten minutes after, Dan'l saw Hughie his brother led
forth; and stood there and watched, with the reprieve in his hand.
His wits were gone, and he chit-chattered all the time about St.
Sebastian."




LOVE OF NAOMI.


I.

The house known as Vellan's Rents stands in the Chy-pons over the
waterside, a stone's throw beyond the ferry and the archway where
the toll-keeper used to live. You may know it by its exceeding
dilapidation and by the clouds of steam that issue on the street from
one of its windows. The sill of this window stands a bare foot above
the causeway, and glancing down into the room as you pass, you will
see the shoulders of a woman stooping over a wash-tub. When first I
used to pass this window the woman was called Naomi Bricknell; later
it was Sarah Ann Polgrain; and now it is (euphemistically) Pretty
Alice. One goes and makes way for another, but the wash-tub is always
there and the rheumatic fever; and while these remain they will never
lack, as they have never lacked yet, for a woman to do battle for dear
life between them.

But my story concerns the first of these only, Naomi Bricknell. She
and her mother occupied two rooms in Vellan's Rents as far back as I
can remember, and were twisted with the fever about once in every six
months. For this they paid one shilling a week rent. If you lift the
latch and push the front door open, you seem at first to be looking
down a well; for a flight of thirty-two steps plunges straight from
the threshold to the quay door and a square of green water there. And
when the sun is on the water at the bottom of this funnel, the effect
is pretty. But taking note of the cold wind that rushes up this
stairway and into the steaming room where the wash-tub stands, you
will understand how it comes that each new tenant takes over the
rheumatic fever as one of the fixtures.

In a room to the right of the stairway, and facing Naomi's, lived a
middle-aged man who was always known as Long Oliver. This man was a
native of the port, and it was understood that he and Naomi had been
well acquainted, years ago, before he started on his first voyage and
some time before Naomi married. Tiring of the sea in time, he had
found work on the jetties and rented this room for sixpence a week. In
these days he and Naomi rarely spoke to each other beyond exchanging
a "Good-morning" when they met on the stairway, nor did he show any
friendliness beyond tapping at her mother's door and inquiring about
her once a day whenever she happened to be down with the fever. I have
made researches and find that the rest of the house was tenanted at
that time by a working block-maker, with his wife and four children;
a widow and her son just returned from sea with an injured spine; a
young couple without children. But these do not come into the tale.

Now the history of Naomi was this. She was married at three-and-twenty
to Abe Bricknell, a young sailor of the port, and as steady as a woman
could wish. In the third year of their married life, and a week
after obtaining his certificate, he sailed out of Troy as mate of a
fruit-ship, a barque, that never came back, nor was sighted again
after passing the Lizard lights.

Naomi--a tall up-standing woman with deep, gentle eyes, like a cow's,
and a firm mouth that seldom spoke--took her affliction oddly. She
neither wailed nor put on mourning. She looked upon it as a matter
between herself and her Maker, and said:

"God has done this thing to me; therefore I have finished with Him. I
am no man to go and revenge myself by breaking all the Commandments.
But I am a woman and can suffer. Let Him do His worst: I defy Him."

So she never set foot inside church again, nor offered any worship.
The week long she worked as a laundress, and sat through the Sundays
with her arms folded, gloomily fighting her duel. When the fever
wrenched her arms and lips as she stood by the wash-tub, she set her
teeth and said, "I can stand it. I can match all this with contempt.
He can kill, but that's not beating me."

Her mother, a large and pale-faced woman of sixty, with an apparently
thoughtful contraction of the lips, in reality due to a habit of
carrying pins in her mouth, watched Naomi anxiously during this period
of her life. And Long Oliver watched her too, though secretly, with
eyes screwed up after the fashion of men who have followed the sea.

One day he stopped her on the stairs and asked, abruptly:

"When be you thinkin' to marry again?"

"Never," she answered, straight and at once, halting with a hand on
her hip and eyeing him.

"Dear me; but you will, I hope."

"Not to you, anyway."

"Laws me, no! I don't want 'ee; haven't wanted 'ee these ten years.
But I'd a reason for askin'."

"Then I'm sure I don't know what it can be."

"True--true. Look'ee here, my dear; 'tis ordained for you to marry
agen."

"Aw? Who by?"

"Providence."

Naomi had treated Long Oliver badly in days gone by, but could still
talk to him with more freedom than to other men. Still standing with
a hand on her hip, she let fall a horrible sentence about the
Almighty--all the more horrible in that it came deliberately, without
emphasis, and from quiet lips.

"Woman!" cried a voice above them.

They turned, looked up, and saw the bent figure of a man framed in the
street doorway. This was William Geake, who walked in from Gantick
every Saturday to collect the sixpences and shillings of Vellan's
Rents for its landlord, a well-to-do wine and spirit merchant at
Tregarrick. As a man of indisputable probity and an unwearying walker,
Geake was entrusted with many odd jobs of this kind in the country
round, filling in with them such idle corners as his trade of
carpenter and undertaker to Gantick village might leave in the six
working days. On Sundays he put on a long black coat, and became a
Rounder, or Methodist local-preacher, walking sometimes twenty miles
there and back to terrify the inhabitants of outlying hamlets about
their future state.

"Woman!" cried William Geake, "Down 'pon your knees an' pray God the
roof don't fall on 'ee for your vile words."

"I reckon," retorted Naomi quietly, with a glance up at the
worm-riddled rafters, "you'd do more good by speakin' to the
landlord."

William Geake had a high brow and bright, nervous eyes, betokening
enthusiasm; but he had also a long and square jaw that meant
stubbornness. This jaw now began to protrude and his lips to
straighten.

"Down 'pon your knees!" he repeated.

Naomi turned her eyes from him to Long Oliver, who leant against the
staircase wall with his arms crossed and a veiled amusement in his
face. With a slightly heightened colour, but no flutter of the voice,
she repeated her blasphemy; and then, pulling a shilling from her worn
purse, tendered it to Geake. This, of course, meant "Mind your own
business"; but he waved her hand aside.

"Down 'pon your knees, woman!" he shouted thunderously. Then, as she
showed no disposition to obey, he added, grimly, "Eh? but somebody
shall intercede for thee afore thou'rt a minute older."

And pulling off his hat there and then, he knelt down on the doorstep,
with the soles of his hob-nailed boots showing to the street.

"Get up, an' don't make yoursel' a may-game," said Naomi hurriedly, as
one or two children stopped their play, and drew around to stare.

"Father in heaven," began William Geake, in a voice that fetched the
women-folk, all up and down the Chy-pons, to their doors, "Thou, whose
property is ever to have mercy, forgive this blaspheming woman! Suffer
one who is Thy servant, though a grievous sinner, to intercede for her
afore she commits the sin that cannot be forgiven; to pluck her as a
brand from the burning--"

By this, the women and a loafing man or two had clustered round, and
Colliver's coal-cart had rattled up and come to a standstill. The
Chy-pons is the narrowest street in Troy, and Colliver's driver could
hardly pass now, except over William Geake's legs.

"Draw in your feet, brother Geake," he called out, "or else pray
short."

One or two women giggled at this. But Geake did not seem to hear.
For five good minutes he prayed vociferously, as was his custom in
meeting-house; then rose, replaced his hat, dusted his knees, held out
his hand for Naomi's shilling, and wrote her the customary voucher in
his most business-like manner, and without another word. But there was
a triumphant look in his eyes that dared Naomi to repeat her offence,
and she very nearly wept as she felt that the words would not come.
This and the shame of publicity drove her back into her room as Geake
passed down the stairs to collect the other rents. A few women still
hung about the doorway as he emerged, some twenty minutes later. But
he marched down Chy-pons with head erect and eyes fixed straight
ahead.