Chapter 4

CHAPTER VII.LIKE A BAD PENNY.'For shame, Glory!' exclaimed De Witt when he had recovered from his surprise but not from his dismay. 'How could you do such a wicked and unwomanly act?''For shame, George!' answered Mehalah, gasping for breath. 'You stood by all the while, and listened whilst that jay snapped and screamed at me, and tormented me to madness, without interposing a word.''I am angry. Your behaviour has been that of a savage!' pursued George, thoroughly roused. 'I love you, Glory, you know I do. But this is beyond endurance.''If you are not prepared, or willing to right me, I must defend myself,' said Mehalah; 'and I will do it. I bore as long as I could bear, expecting every moment that you would silence her, and speak out, and say, "Glory is mine, and I will not allow her to be affronted." But not a step did you take, not a finger did you lift; and then, at last, the fire in my heart burst forth and sent up a smoke that darkened my eyes and bewildered my brain. I could not see, I could not think. I did not know, till all was over, what I had done. George! I know I am rough and violent, when these rages come over me, I am not to be trifled with.''I hope they never may come over you when you have to do with me,' said De Witt sulkily.'I hope not, George. Do not trifle with me, do not provoke me. I have the gipsy in me, but under control. All at once the old nature bursts loose, and then I do I know not what. I cannot waste my energy in words like some, and I cannot contend with such a girl as that with the tongue.''What will folks say of this?''I do not care. They may talk. But now, George, let me warn you. That girl has been trifling with you, and you have been too blind and foolish to see her game and keep her at arm's length.''You are jealous because I speak to another girl besides you.''No, I am not. I am not one to harbour jealousy. Whom I trust I trust with my whole heart. Whom I believe I believe with my entire soul. I know you too well to be jealous. I know as well that you could not be false to me in thought or in act as I know my truth to you. I cannot doubt you, for had I thought it possible that you would give me occasion to doubt, I could not have loved you.''Sheer off!' exclaimed George, looking over his shoulder. 'Here comes the old woman.'The old woman appeared, scrambling on deck, her cap-frills bristling about her ears, like the feathers of an angry white cockatoo.'What is all this? By jaggers! where is Phoebe Musset? What have you done with her? Where have you put her? What were those screams about?''Sheer off while you may,' whispered De Witt; 'the old woman is not to be faced when wexed no more than a hurricane. Strike sail, and run before the wind.''What have you done with the young woman? Where is she? Produce the corpse. I heard her as she shruck out.''She insulted me,' said Mehalah, still agitated by passion, 'and I flung her overboard.'Mrs. De Witt rushed to the bulwarks, and saw the dripping damsel being carried—she could not walk—from the Strand to her father's house.'You chucked her overboard!' exclaimed the old woman, and she caught up a swabbing-mop. 'How dare you? She was my visitor; she came to sip my grog and eat my natives at my hospitable board, and you chucked her into the sea as though she were a picked cockleshell!''She insulted me,' said Mehalah angrily.'I will teach you to play the dog-fish among my herrings, to turn this blessed peaceful "Pandora" into a cage of bears!' cried Mrs. De Witt, charging with her mop.Mehalah struck the weapon down, and put her foot on it.'Take care!' she exclaimed, her voice trembling with passion. 'In another moment you will have raised the devil in me again.''He don't take much raising,' vociferated Mrs. De Witt. 'I will teach you to assault a genteel young female who comes a wisiting of me and my son in our own wessel. Do you think you are already mistress here? Does the "Pandora" belong to you? Am I to be chucked overboard along with every lass that wexes you? Am I of no account any more in the eyes of my son, that I suckled from my maternal bottle, and fed with egg and pap out of my own spoon?''For heaven's sake,' interrupted George, 'sheer off, Mehalah. Mother is the dearest old lady in the world when she is sober. She is a Pacific Ocean when not vexed with storms. She will pacify presently.''I will go, George,' said Mehalah, panting with anger, her veins swollen, her eye sparkling, and her lip quivering; 'I will go, and I will never set foot in this boat again, till you and your mother have asked my pardon for this conduct; she for this outrage, you for having allowed me to receive insult, white-livered coward that you are.'She flung herself down the ladder, and waded ashore.Mrs. De Witt's temper abated as speedily as it rose. She retired to her grog. She set feet downwards on the scene; the last of her stalwart form to disappear was the glowing countenance set in white rays.George was left to his own reflections. He saw Mehalah get into her boat and row away. He waved his cap to her, but she did not return the salute. She was offended grievously. George was placed in a difficult situation. The girl to whom he was betrothed was angry, and had declared her determination not to tread the planks of the 'Pandora' again, and the girl who had made advances to him, and whom his mother would have favoured, had been ejected unceremoniously from it, and perhaps injured, at all events irretrievably offended.It was incumbent on him to go to the house of the Mussets and enquire for Phoebe. He could do no less; so he descended the ladder and took his way thither.Phoebe was not hurt, she was only frightened. She had been wet through, and was at once put to bed. She cried a great deal, and old Musset vowed he would take out a summons against the aggressor. Mrs. Musset wept in sympathy with her daughter, and then fell on De Witt for having permitted the assault to take place unopposed.'How could I interfere?' he asked, desperate with his difficulties. 'It was up and over with her before I was aware.''My girl is not accustomed to associate with cannibals,' said Mrs. Musset, drawing herself out like a telescope.As George returned much crestfallen to the beach, now deserted, for the night had come on, he was accosted by Elijah Rebow.'George!' said the owner of Red Hall, laying a hand on his cousin's shoulder, 'you ought not to be here.''Where ought I to be, Elijah? It seems to me that I have been everywhere to-day where I ought not to be. I am left in a hopeless muddle.''You ought not to allow Glory to part from you in anger.''How can I help it? I am sorry enough for the quarrel, but you must allow her conduct was trying to the temper.''She had great provocation. I wonder she did not kill that girl. She has a temper, has Mehalah, that does not stick at trifles; but she is generous and forgiving.''She is so angry with me that I doubt I shall not be able to bring her back to good humour.''I doubt so, too, unless you go the right way to work with her; and that is not what you are doing now.''Why, what ought I to do, Elijah?''Do you want to break with her, George? Do you want to be off with Glory and on with milk-face?''No, I do not.''You are set on Glory still? You will cleave to her till naught but death shall you part, eh?''Naught else.''George! That other girl has good looks and money. Give up Mehalah, and hitch on to Phoebe. I know your mother will be best pleased if you do, and it will suit your interests well. Glory has not a penny, Phoebe has her pockets lined. Take my word for it you can have milk-face for the asking, and now is your opportunity for breaking with Glory if you have a mind to do so.''But I have not, Elijah.''What can Glory be to you, or you to Glory? She with her great heart, her stubborn will, her strong soul, and you—you—bah!''Elijah, say what you like, but I will hold to Glory till death us do part.''Your hand on it. You swear that.''Yes, I do. I want a wife who can row a boat, a splendid girl, the sight of whom lights up the whole heart.''I tell you Glory is not one for you. See how passionate she is, she blazes up in a moment, and then she is one to shiver you if you offend her. No, she needs a man of other stamp than you to manage her.''She shall be mine,' said George: 'I want no other.''This is your fixed resolve?''My fixed resolve.''For better for worse?''For better for worse, till death us do part.''Till death you do part,' Elijah jerked out a laugh. 'George, if you are not the biggest fool I have set eyes on for many a day, I am much mistaken.''Why so?''Because you are acting contrary to your interests. You are unfit for Glory, you do not now, you never will, understand her.''What do you mean?''You let the girl row away, offended, angry, eating out her heart, and you show no sign that you desire reconciliation.''I have though. I waved my hat to her, but she took no notice.''Waved your hat!' repeated Rebow, with suppressed scorn. 'You never will read that girl's heart, and understand her moods. Oh, you fool! you fool! straining your arms after the unapproachable, unattainable, star! If she were mine——' he stamped and clenched his fists.'But she is not going to be yours, Elijah,' said George with a careless laugh.'No, of course not,' said Elijah, joining in the laugh. 'She is yours till death you do part.''Tell me, what have I done wrong?' asked De Witt.'There—you come to me, after all, to interpret the writing for you. It is there, written in letters of fire, Mene, mene, tekel, Upharsin! Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting, and this night shall thy kingdom be taken from thee and given to——''Elijah, I do not understand this language. What ought I to do to regain Mehalah's favour?''You must go after her. Do you not feel it in every fibre, that you must, you mud-blood? Go after her at once. She is now at home, sitting alone, brooding over the offence, sore at your suffering her to be insulted without making remonstrance. Her wrong will grow into a mountain in her heart unless it be rooted up to-night. Her pride will flame up as her passion dies away, and she will not let you speak to her another tender word. She will hate and despise you. The little crack will split into a wide chasm. I heard her call you a white-livered coward.''She did; you need not repeat it. She will be sorry when she is cool.''That is just it, George. As soon as passion abates, her generous heart will turn to self-reproach, and she will be angry with herself for what she has done. She will accuse herself with having been violent, with having acted unworthily of her dignity, with having grown in too great a heat about a worthless doll. She will be vexed with herself, ashamed of herself, unable in the twilight of her temper to excuse herself. Perhaps she is now in tears. But this mood will not last. To-morrow her pride will have returned in strength, she will think over her wrongs and harden herself in stubbornness; she will know that the world condemns her, and she will retire into herself in defiance of the world. Look up at the sky. Do you see, there is Charles' Wain, and there is Cassiopæa's Chair. There the Serpent and there the Swan. I can see every figure plain, but your landsman rarely can. So I can see every constellation in the dark heaven of Mehalah's soul, but you cannot. You would be wrecked if you were to sail by it. Now, George, take Glory while she is between two moods, or lose her for ever. Go after her at once, George, ask her forgiveness, blame yourself and your mother, blame that figure-head miss, and she will forgive you frankly, at once. She will fall on your neck and ask your pardon for what she has done.''I believe you are right,' said De Witt, musing.'I know I am. As I have been working in my forge, I have watched the flame on the hearth dance and waver to the clinking of the hammer. There was something in the flame, I know not what, which made it wince or flare, as the blows fell hard or soft. So there are things in Nature respond to each other without your knowing why it is, and in what their sympathy consists. So I know all that passes in Mehalah's mind. I feel my own soul dance and taper to her pulses. If you had not been a fool, George, you would already have been after her. What are you staying for now?''My mother; what will she say?''Do you care for her more than for Glory? If you think of her now, you lose Glory for ever. Once more I ask you, do you waver? Are you inclined to forsake Mehalah for milk-face?''I am not,' said De Witt impatiently; 'why do you go on with this? I have said already that Glory is mine.''Unlessdeath you do part.''Tilldeath us do part, is what I said.''Then make haste. An hour hence the Ray house will be closed, and the girl and her mother in bed.''I will get my boat and row thither at once.''You need not do that. I have my boat here, jump in. We will each take an oar, and I will land you on the Ray.''You take a great interest in my affairs.''I take a very great interest in them,' said Rebow dryly.'Lead the way, then.''Follow me.'Rebow walked forward, over the shingle towards his boat, then suddenly turned, and asked in a suppressed voice, 'Do you know whither you are going?''To the Ray.''To the Ray, of course. Is there anyone on the Hard?''Not a soul. Had I not better go to my mother before I start and say that I am going with you?''On no account. She will not allow you to go to the Ray. You know she will not.'De Witt was not disposed to dispute this.'You are sure,' asked Rebow again, 'that there is no one on the Hard. No one sees you enter my boat. No one sees you push off with me. No one sees whither we go.''Not a soul.''Then here goes!' Elijah Rebow thrust the boat out till she floated, sprang in and took his oar. De Witt was already oar in hand on his seat.'The red curtain is over the window at the Leather Bottle,' said George. 'No signalling to-night, the schooner is in the offing.''A red signal. It may mean more than you understand.'They rowed on.'Is there a hand on that crimson pane,' asked Rebow in a low tone, 'with the fingers dipped in fire, writing?''Not that I can see.''Nor do you see the writing, Mene, mene, tekel, Upharsin.''You jest, Elijah!''A strange jest. Perhaps the writing is in the vulgar tongue, thou art weighed and found wanting, feeble fool, and thy kingdom is taken from thee, and given to ME.'Mehalah sat by the hearth, on the floor, in the farmhouse at the Ray. Her mother was abed and asleep. The girl had cast aside the cap and thrown off her jersey. Her bare arms were folded on her lap; and the last flicker of the red embers fell on her exposed and heaving bosom.Elijah Rebow on the Hard at Mersea had read accurately the workings and transitions in the girl's heart. Precisely that was taking place which he had described. The tempest of passion had roared by, and now a tide of self-reproach rose and overflowed her soul. She was aware that she had acted wrongly, that without adequate cause she had given way to an outburst of blind fury. Phoebe was altogether too worthless a creature for her jealousy, too weak to have been subjected to such treatment. Her anger against George had expired. He did well to be indignant with her. It was true he had not rebuked Phoebe nor restrained his mother, but the reason was clear. He was too forbearing with women to offend them, however frivolous and intemperate they might be. He had relied on the greatness of his Glory's heart to stand above and disregard these petty storms.She had thrown off her boots and stockings, and sat with her bare feet on the hearth. The feet moved nervously in rhythm to her thoughts. She could not keep them still. Her trouble was great. Tears were not on her cheeks; in this alone was Elijah mistaken. Her dark eyes were fixed dreamily on the dying fire—they were like the marsh-pools with the will-o'-the-wisp in each. They did not see the embers, they looked through the iron fireback, and the brick wall, over the saltings, over the water, into infinity.She loved George. Her love for him was the one absorbing passion of her life. She loved her mother, but no one else—only her and George. She had no one else to love. She was without relations. She had been brought up without playfellows on that almost inaccessible islet, only occasionally visiting Mersea, and then only for an hour. She had seen and known nothing of the world save the world of morass. She had mixed with no life, save the life of the flocks on the Ray, of the fishes and the seabirds. Her mind hungered for something more than the little space of the Ray could supply. Her soul had wings and sought to spread them and soar away, whither, however, she did not know. She had a dim prevision of something better than the sordid round of common cares which made up the life she knew.With a heart large and full of generous impulses, she had spent her girlhood without a recognition of its powers. She felt that there was a voice within which talked in a tongue other from that which struck her ears each day, but what that language was, and what the meaning of that voice, she did not know. She had met with De Witt. Indeed they had known each other, so far as meeting at rare intervals went, for many years; she had not seen enough of him to know him as he really was, she therefore loved him as she idealised him. The great cretaceous sea was full of dissolved silex penetrating the waters, seeking to condense and solidify. But there was nothing in the ocean then save twigs of weed and chips of shells, and about them that hardest of all elements drew together and grew to adamant. The soul of Mehalah was some such vague sea full of ununderstood, unestimated elements, seeking their several centres for precipitation, and for want of better, condensing about straws. To her, George De Witt was the ideal of all that was true and manly. She was noble herself, and her ideal was the perfection of nobility. She was rude indeed, and the image of her worship was rough hewn, but still with the outline and carriage of a hero. She could not, she would not, suppose that George De Witt was less great than her fancy pictured.The thought of life with him filled her with exultation. She could leap up, like the whooper swan, spread her silver wings, and shout her song of rapture and of defiance, like a trumpet. He would open to her the gates into that mysterious world into which she now only peeped, he would solve for her the perplexities of her troubled soul, he would lead her to the light which would illumine her eager mind.Nevertheless she was ready to wait patiently the realisation of her dream. She was in no hurry. She knew that she could not live in the same house or boat with George's mother. She could not leave her own ailing mother, wholly dependent on herself. Mehalah contentedly tarried for what the future would unfold, with that steady confidence in the future that youth so generally enjoys.The last embers went out, and all was dark within. No sound was audible, save the ticking of the clock, and the sigh of the wind about the eaves and in the thorntrees. Mehalah did not stir. She dreamed on with her eyes open, still gazing into space, but now with no marsh fires in the dark orbs. The grey night sky and the stars looked in at the window at her.Suddenly, as she thus sat, an inexpressible distress came over her, a feeling as though George were in danger, and were crying to her for help. She raised herself on the floor, and drew her feet under her, and leaning her chin on her fingers listened. The wind moaned under the door; everything else was hushed.Her fear came over her like an ague fit. She wiped, her forehead, there were cold drops beading it. She turned faint at heart; her pulse stood still. Her soul seemed straining, drawn as by invisible attraction, and agonised because the gross body restrained it. She felt assured that she was wanted. She must not remain there. She sprang to her feet and sped to the door, unbolted it and went forth. The sky was cloudless, thick strewn with stars. Jupiter glowed over Mersea Isle. A red gleam was visible, far away at the 'City.' It shone from the tavern window, a coloured star set in ebony. She went within again. The fire was out. Perhaps this was the vulgar cause of the strange sensation. She must shake it off. She went to her room and threw herself on the bed. Again, as though an icy wave washed over her, lying on a frozen shore, came that awful fear, and then, again, that tension of her soul to be free, to fly somewhere, away from the Ray, but whither she could not tell.Where was George? Was he at home? Was he safe? She tried in vain to comfort herself with the thought that he ran no danger, that he was protected by her talisman. She felt that without an answer to these questions she could not rest, that her night would be a fever dream.She hastily drew on her jersey and boots; she slipped out of the house, unloosed her punt, and shot over the water to Mersea. The fleet was silent, but as she flew into the open channel she could hear the distant throb of oars on rowlocks, away in the dark, out seaward. She heard the screech of an owl about the stacks of a farm near the waterside. She caught as she sped past the Leather Bottle muffled catches of the nautical songs trolled by the topers within.She met no boat, she saw no one. She ran her punt on the beach and walked to the 'Pandora,' now far above the water. The ladder was still down; therefore George was not within. 'Who goes there?' asked the voice of Mrs. De Witt. 'Is that you, George? Are you coming home at last? Where have you been all this while?'Mehalah drew back. George was not only not there, but his mother knew not where he was.The cool air and the exercise had in the mean time dissipated Mehalah's fear. She argued with herself that George was in the tavern, behind the red curtain, remaining away from his mother's abusive tongue as long as he might. His boat lay on the Hard. She saw it, with the oars in it. He was therefore not on the water; he was on land, and on land he was safe. He wore the medal about his neck, against his heart.How glad and thankful she was that she had given him the precious charm that guarded from all danger save drowning.She rowed back to the Ray, more easy in her mind, and anchored her punt. She returned cautiously over the saltings, picking her way by the starlight, leaping or avoiding the runnels and pools, now devoid of water, but deep in mud most adhesive and unfathomable.She felt a little uneasy lest her mother should have awoke during her absence, and missed her daughter. She entered the house softly; the door was without a lock, and merely hasped, and stole to her mother's room. The old woman was wrapt in sleep, and breathing peacefully.Mehalah drew off her boots, and seated herself again by the hearth. She was not sleepy. She would reason with herself, and account for the sensation that had affected her.Hark! she heard some one speak. She listened attentively with a flutter at her heart. It was her mother. She stole back on tiptoe to her. The old woman was dreaming, and talking in her sleep. She had her hands out of bed together and parted them, and waved them, 'No, Mehalah, no! Not George! not George!' she gave emphasis with her hand, then suddenly grasped her daughter's wrist, 'But Elijah!' Next moment her grasp relaxed, and she slept calmly, apparently dreamlessly again.Mehalah went back.It was strange. No sooner was she in her place by the hearth again than the same distress came over her. It was as though a black cloud had swept over her sky and blotted out every light, so that neither sun, nor moon, nor star appeared, as though she were left drifting without a rudder and without a compass in an unknown sea, under murky night with only the phosphorescent flash of the waves about, not illumining the way but intensifying its horror. It was as though she found herself suddenly in some vault, in utter, rayless blackness, knowing neither how she came there nor whether there was a way out.Oppressed by this horror, she lifted her eyes to the window, to see a star, to see a little light of any sort. What she there saw turned her to stone.At the window, obscuring the star's rays, was the black figure of a man. She could not see the face, she saw only the shape of the head, and arms, and hands spread out against the panes. The figure stood looking in and at her.Her eyes filmed over, and her head swam.She heard the casement struck, and the tear of the lead and tinkle of broken glass on the brick floor, and then something fell at her feet with a metallic click.When she recovered herself, the figure was gone, but the wind piped and blew chill through the rent lattice.How many minutes passed before she recovered herself sufficiently to rise and light a candle she never knew, nor did it matter. When she had obtained a light she stooped with it, and groped upon the floor.*      *      *      *      *      *Mrs. Sharland was awakened by a piercing scream.She sprang from her bed and rushed into the adjoining room. There stood Mehalah, in the light of the broken candle lying melting and flaring on the floor, her hair fallen about her shoulders, her face the hue of death, her lips bloodless, her eyes distended with terror, gazing on the medal of Paracelsus, which she held in her hand, the sea-water dripping from the wet riband wound about her fingers.'Mother! Mother! He is drowned. I have seen him. He came and returned me this.'Then she fell senseless on the floor, with the medal held to her heart.CHAPTER VIII.WHERE IS HE?If there had been excitement on the Hard at Mersea on the preceding day when the schooner anchored off it, there was more this morning. The war-vessel had departed no one knew whither, and nobody cared. The bay was full of whiting; the waters were alive with them, and the gulls were flickering over the surface watching, seeing, plunging. The fishermen were getting their boats afloat, and all appliances ready for making harvest of that fish which is most delicious when fresh from the water, most flat when out of it a few hours.Down the side of the 'Pandora' tumbled Mrs. De Witt, her nose sharper than usual, but her cap more flabby. She wore a soldier's jacket, bought second-hand at Colchester. Her face was of a warm complexion, tinctured with rum and wrath. She charged into the midst of the fishermen, asking in a loud imperative tone for her son.To think that after the lesson delivered him last week, the boy should have played truant again! The world was coming to a pretty pass. The last trumpet might sound for aught Mrs. De Witt cared, and involve mankind in ruin, for mankind was past 'worriting' about.George had defied her, and the nautical population of the 'City' had aided and abetted him in his revolt.'This is what comes of galiwanting,' said Mrs. De Witt; 'first he galiwants Mehalah, and then Phoebe. No good ever came of it. I'd pass a law, were I king, against it, but that smuggling in love would go on as free under it as smuggling in spirits. Young folks now-a-days is grown that wexing and wicious—— Where is my George?' suddenly laying hold of Jim Morell.The old sailor jumped as if he had been caught by a revenue officer.'Bless my life, Mistress! You did give me a turn. What is it you want? A pinch of snuff?''I want my George,' said the excited mother. 'Where is he skulking to?''How should I know?' asked Morell, 'he is big enough to look after himself.''He is among you,' said Mrs. De Witt; 'I know you have had him along with a party of you at the Leather Bottle yonder. You men get together, and goad the young on into rebellion against their parents.''I know nothing about George. I have not even seen him.''I've knitted his guernseys and patched his breeches these twenty years, and now he turns about and deserts me.''Tom!' shouted Morell to a young fisherman, 'have you seen George De Witt this morning?''No, I have not, Jim.''Oh, you young fellows!' exclaimed the old lady, loosing her hold on the elder sailor, and charging among and scattering the young boatmen. 'Where is my boy? What have you done with him that he did not come home last night, and is nowhere wisible?''He went to the Mussets' last evening, Mistress. We have not set eyes on him since.''Oh! he went there, did he? Galiwanting again!' She turned about and rushed over the shingle towards the grocery, hardware, drapery, and general store.Before entering that realm of respectability, Mrs. De Witt assumed an air of consequence and gravity.She reduced her temper under control, and with an effort called up an urbane smile on her hard features when saluting Mrs. Musset, who stood behind the counter.'Can I serve you with anything, ma'am?' asked the mother of Phoebe, with cold self-possession.'I want my George.''We don't keep him in stock.''He was here last night.''Do you suppose we kept him here the night? Are you determined to insult us, madam? You have been drinking, and have forgot yourself and where you are. We wish to see no more of your son. My Phoebe is not accustomed to demean herself by association with cannibals. It is unfortunate that she should have stepped beyond her sphere yesterday, but she has learned a lesson by it which will be invaluable for the future. I do not know, I do not care, whether the misconduct was that of your son or of your daughter-in-law. Birds of a feather flock together, and lambs don't consort with wolves. I beg, madam, that it be an understood matter between the families that, except in the way of business, as tobacco, sugar, currants, or calico, intimacy must cease.''Oh indeed!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt, the colour mottling her cheek. 'You mean to insinuate that our social grades are so wery different.''Providence, madam, has made distinctions in human beings as in currants. Some are all fruit, and some half gravel.''You forget,' said Mrs. De Witt, 'that I was a Rebow—a Rebow of Red Hall. It was thence I inherit the blood in my weins and the bridge of my nose.''And that was pretty much all you did inherit from them,' observed Mrs. Musset. 'Much value they must be to you, as you have nothing else to boast of.''Oh, indeed, Mistress Musset!''Indeed, Mistress De Witt!' with a profound curtsey.Mrs. De Witt attempted an imitation, but having been uninstructed in deportment as a child, and inexperienced in riper years, she got her limbs entangled, and when she had arrived at a sitting posture was unable to extricate herself with ease.In attempting to recover her erect position she precipitated herself against a treacle barrel and upset it. A gush of black saccharine matter spread over the floor.'Where is my son?' shouted Mrs. De Witt, her temper having broken control.'You shall pay for the golden syrup,' said Mrs. Musset.'Golden syrup!' jeered Mrs. De Witt, 'common treacle, the cleanings of the niggers' feet that tread out the sugar-cane.''It shall be put down to you!' cried the mistress of the store, defying her customer across the black river. 'I will have a summons out against you for the syrup.''And I will have a search-warrant for my son.''I have not got him. I should be ashamed to keep him under my respectable roof.''What is this disturbance about?' asked Mr. Musset, coming into the shop with his pipe.'I want my son,' cried the incensed mother. 'He has not been seen since he came here last night. What have you done to him?''He is not here, Mistress. He only remained a few minutes to enquire after Phoebe, and then he left. We have not seen him since. Go to the Leather Bottle; you will probably find him there.'The advice was reasonable; and having discharged a parting shot at Mrs. Musset, the bereaved mother departed and took her way to the quaint old inn by the waterside, entitled the Leather Bottle.Mrs. De Witt pushed the door open and strode in. No one was there save the host, Isaac Mead. He knew nothing of George's whereabouts. He had not seen him or heard him spoken of. Mrs. De Witt having entered, felt it incumbent on her to take something for the good of the house.The host sat opposite her at the table.'Where can he be?' asked Mrs. De Witt. 'The boy cannot be lost.''Have you searched everywhere?''I have asked the lads; they either know nothing, or won't tell. I have been to the Musset's. They pretend they have not seen him since last night.''Perhaps he rowed off somewhere.''His boat is on the Hard.''Do not bother your head about him,' said the host with confidence, 'he will turn up. Mark my words. I say he will certainly turn up, perhaps not when you want him, or where you expect him, but he assuredly will reappear. I have had seven sons, and they got scattered all over the world, but they have all turned up one after another, and,' he added sententiously, 'the world is bigger than Mersea. It is nothing to be away for twelve or fourteen hours. Lads take no account of time, they do not walue it any more than they walue good looks. We older folks do; we hold to that which is slipping from us. When we was children, we thought we could deal with time as with the sprats. We draw in all and throw what we can't consume away. At last we find we have spoiled our fishing, and we must use larger meshes in our net. I will tell you another thing, Mistress,' continued the host, who delighted to moralise, 'time is like a clock, when young it goes slow, and when old it gallops. When you and I was little, we thought a day as long as now we find a year. As we grew older years went faster; and the older we wax the greater the speed with which time spins by; till at last it passes with a whisk and a flash, and that is eternity.''He cannot be drowned,' said Mrs. De Witt. 'That would be too ridiculous.''It would, just about.' After a moment's consideration Isaac added, 'I heard that Elijah Rebow was on the Hard last night, maybe your George is gone off with him.''Not likely, Isaac. I and Elijah are not on good terms. My father left me nothing. Elijah took all after his parents, and I did not get a penny.''You know we have war with foreigners,' observed the publican. 'Now I observe that everything in this world goes by contraries. When there's peace abroad, there is strife at home, andvice versâ. There was a man-of-war in the bay yesterday. I should not wonder if that put it into George's head to be a man-of-peace on land. When you want to estimate a person's opinions, first ask what other folks are saying round him, and take the clean contrary, and you hit the bull's-eye. If you see anything like to draw a man in one direction, look the opposite way, and you will find him. There was pretty strong intimation of war yesterday with the foreigners, then you may be dead certain he took a peaceful turn in his perwerse vein, and went to patch up old quarrels with Elijah.''It is possible,' said Mrs. De Witt. 'I will row to Red Hall and find out.''Have another glass before you go,' said the landlord. 'Never hurry about anything. If George be at his cousin's he will turn up in time. There is more got by waiting than by worrying.''But perhaps he is not there.''Then he is elsewhere.''He may be drowned.''He will turn up. Drowned or not, he will turn up. I never knew boys to fail. If he were a girl it would be different. You see it is so when they drown. A boy floats face upwards, and a girl with her face down. It is so also in life. If a girl strays from home, she goes to the bottom like a plummet, but a boy on the contrary goes up like a cork.'Mrs. De Witt so far took Isaac Mead's advice that she waited at her home till afternoon. But as George did not return, she became seriously uneasy, not so much for him as for herself. She did not for a moment allow that any harm had befallen him, but she imagined this absence to be a formal defiance of her authority. Such a revolt was not to be overlooked. In Mrs. De Witt's opinion no man was able to stand alone, he must fall under female government or go to the dogs. Deliberate bachelors were, in her estimation, God-forsaken beings, always in scrapes, past redemption. She had ruled her husband, and he had submitted with a meekness that ought to have inherited the earth. George had been always docile. She had bored docility into him with her tongue, and hammered it into him with her fist.The idea came suddenly on her,—What if he had gone to the war schooner and enlisted? but was dismissed as speedily as impossible. Tales of ill-treatment in the Navy were rife among the shoremen. The pay was too small to entice a youth who owned a vessel, a billyboy, and oyster pans. He might do well in his trade, he must fare miserably in the Navy. Captain MacPherson had indeed invited George and others to follow him, but not one had volunteered.She determined at last, in her impatience, to visit Red Hall, and for that purpose she got into the boat. Mrs. De Witt was able to row as well as a man. She did not start for Red Hall without reluctance. She had not been there since her marriage, kept away by her resentment. Elijah had made no overtures to her for reconciliation, had never invited her to revisit her native place, and her pride prevented her from making first advances. She had been cut off by her father, the family had kept aloof from her, and this had rankled in her heart. True, Elijah's father and mother were dead, and he was not mixed up in the first contentions; but he had inherited money which she considered ought to have fallen to her.She was, however, anxious to see the old place again. Her young life there had not been happy; quite the reverse, for her father had been brutal, and her mother Calvinistic and sour. Yet Red Hall was, after all, her old home; its marshes were the first landscape on which her eyes had opened, its daisies had made her first necklaces, its bulrushes her first whips, its sea-wall the boundary of her childish world. It was a yearning for a wider, less level world, which had driven her in a rash moment into the arms of Moses De Witt.The tide was out, so Mrs. De Witt was obliged to land at the point near the windmill. She walked thence on the sea-wall. She knew that wall well, fragrant with sovereign wood in summer, and rank with sea spinach. The aster blooming time was past, and the violet petals had fallen off, leaving only the yellow centres.There, before her, like a stranded ark, was the old red house, unaltered, lonely, without a bush or tree to screen it.The cattle stood browsing in the pasture as of old. In the marsh was a pond, a flight of wild fowl was wheeling round it, as in the autumns long ago. There was the little creek where her punt had lain, the punt in which she had been sometimes sent to Mersea to buy groceries for her mother.The hard crust about the heart of Mrs. De Witt began to break, and the warm feeling within to ooze through. Gentler sentiments began to prevail. She would not take her son by the ears and bang his head, if she should find him at Red Hall. She would forgive him in a Christian spirit, and grant his dismissal with an innocuous curse.She walked straight into the house. Elijah was crouched in his leather chair, with his head on one side, asleep. She stood over him and contemplated his unattractive face in silence, till he suddenly started, and exclaimed, 'Who is here? Who is this?'Next moment he had recognised his visitor.'So you are come, Aunt. You have not honoured me before. Will you have some whisky?''Thank you, Elijah, thank you. I am dry with rowing. But how come you to be asleep at this time of day? Were you out after ducks last night?''No, I was not out. I lay abed. I went to bed early.''Elijah, where is my son?'He started, and looked at her suspiciously.'How am I to know?''I cannot find him anywhere,' said the mother. 'I fear the boy has levanted. I may have been a little rough with him, but it was for his good. You cannot clean a deck with whiting, you must take holystone to the boards, and it is so with children. If you are not hard, you get off no edges, if you want to polish them, you must be gritty yourself. I doubt the boy is off.''What makes you think so?''I have not seen him. Nobody at Mersea has seen him. Have you?''Not since last night.''You saw him then?''Yes, he was on the beach going to Mehalah.''Galiwanting!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt. 'Oh, what wickedness comes of galiwanting!' Then, recovering herself, 'But how could he get there? His boat was left on the Hard!''I suppose he went by land. He said something to that effect. You see the tide would have been out if he purposed to stay some time.''But what should make him go to the Ray? He had seen Mehalah on his boat.''He said there had been a quarrel, and he was bent on making it up. Go and look for him on the Ray. If he is not back on your boat already, you will find him, or hear of him, there.''Oh, the worries to parents that come of galiwanting!' moaned Mrs. De Witt, 'none who have not experienced can tell. Do not stay me, Elijah. Dear sackalive; I must go home. I dare say the boy is now on the "Pandora," trying to look innocent.' She rubbed her hands, and her eyes glistened. 'By cock!' she exclaimed, 'I would not be he.' She was out of the room, without a farewell to her nephew, down the steps, away over the flat to the sea-wall and her boat, her heart palpitating with anger.It was late in the afternoon before Mrs. De Witt got back to Mersea. She ascended her ladder and unlocked the hatches. She looked about her. No George was on deck. She returned to the shore and renewed her enquiries. He had not been seen. No doubt he was still galivanting at the Ray. The uncertainty became unendurable. She jumped into her boat once more, and rowed to the island inhabited by Glory and her mother.With her nose high in the air, her cap-frills quivering, she stepped out of the skiff. She had donned her military coat, to add to her imposing and threatening aspect.The door of the house was open. She stood still and listened. She did not hear George's voice. She waited; she saw Mehalah moving in the room. Once the girl looked at her, but there was neither recognition nor lustre in her eyes. Mrs. De Witt made a motion towards her, but Glory did not move to meet her in return.As she stepped over the threshold, Mrs. Sharland, who was seated by the fire, turned and observed her. The widow rose at once with a look of distress in her face, and advanced towards her, holding out her hand.'Where is George?' asked Mrs. De Witt, ignoring the outstretched palm, in a hard, impatient tone.'George!' echoed Mehalah, standing still, 'George is dead.''What nonsense!' said Mrs. De Witt, catching the girl by the shoulder and shaking her.'I saw him. He is dead.' She quivered like an aspen.The blood had ebbed behind her brown skin. Her eyes looked in Mrs. De Witt's face with a flash of agony in them.'He came and looked in at the window at me, and cast me back the keepsake I had given him, and which he swore not to part with while life lasted.''Dear sackalive!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt; 'the girl is dreaming or demented. What is the meaning of all this, Mistress Sharland?''Last night,' explained the widow, 'as Mehalah was sitting here in the dark, some one came to the window, stove it in—look how the lead is torn, and the glass fallen out—and cast at the feet of Mehalah a medal she had given George on Thursday. She thinks,' added the old woman in a subdued tone, 'that what she saw was his spirit.'Mrs. De Witt was awed. She was not a woman without superstition, but she was not one to allow a supernatural intervention till all possible prosaic explanations had been exhausted.'Is this Gospel truth?' she asked.'It is true,' answered the widow.'Did you see the face, Glory? Are you sure that what you saw was George?''I did not see the face. I saw only the figure. But it was George. It could have been no other. He alone had the medal, and he brought it back to me.''You see,' explained the widow Sharland, 'the coin was an heirloom; it might not go out of the family.''I see it all,' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt. 'Galiwanting again! He came to return the keepsake to Mehalah, because he wanted to break with her and take on with another.''No, never!' exclaimed Mehalah vehemently. 'He could not do it. He was as true to me as I am to him. He could not do it. He came to tell me that all was over.''Dear sackalive!' said Mrs. De Witt, 'you don't know men as I do. You have had no more experience of them than you have of kangaroos. I will not believe he is dead.''He is dead,' Mehalah burst forth with fierce vehemence. 'He is drowned, he is not false. He is dead, he is dead.''I know better,' said Mrs. De Witt in a low tone to herself as she bit her thumb. 'That boy is galiwanting somewhere; the only question to me is Where. By cock! I'd give a penny to know.'

CHAPTER VII.

LIKE A BAD PENNY.

'For shame, Glory!' exclaimed De Witt when he had recovered from his surprise but not from his dismay. 'How could you do such a wicked and unwomanly act?'

'For shame, George!' answered Mehalah, gasping for breath. 'You stood by all the while, and listened whilst that jay snapped and screamed at me, and tormented me to madness, without interposing a word.'

'I am angry. Your behaviour has been that of a savage!' pursued George, thoroughly roused. 'I love you, Glory, you know I do. But this is beyond endurance.'

'If you are not prepared, or willing to right me, I must defend myself,' said Mehalah; 'and I will do it. I bore as long as I could bear, expecting every moment that you would silence her, and speak out, and say, "Glory is mine, and I will not allow her to be affronted." But not a step did you take, not a finger did you lift; and then, at last, the fire in my heart burst forth and sent up a smoke that darkened my eyes and bewildered my brain. I could not see, I could not think. I did not know, till all was over, what I had done. George! I know I am rough and violent, when these rages come over me, I am not to be trifled with.'

'I hope they never may come over you when you have to do with me,' said De Witt sulkily.

'I hope not, George. Do not trifle with me, do not provoke me. I have the gipsy in me, but under control. All at once the old nature bursts loose, and then I do I know not what. I cannot waste my energy in words like some, and I cannot contend with such a girl as that with the tongue.'

'What will folks say of this?'

'I do not care. They may talk. But now, George, let me warn you. That girl has been trifling with you, and you have been too blind and foolish to see her game and keep her at arm's length.'

'You are jealous because I speak to another girl besides you.'

'No, I am not. I am not one to harbour jealousy. Whom I trust I trust with my whole heart. Whom I believe I believe with my entire soul. I know you too well to be jealous. I know as well that you could not be false to me in thought or in act as I know my truth to you. I cannot doubt you, for had I thought it possible that you would give me occasion to doubt, I could not have loved you.'

'Sheer off!' exclaimed George, looking over his shoulder. 'Here comes the old woman.'

The old woman appeared, scrambling on deck, her cap-frills bristling about her ears, like the feathers of an angry white cockatoo.

'What is all this? By jaggers! where is Phoebe Musset? What have you done with her? Where have you put her? What were those screams about?'

'Sheer off while you may,' whispered De Witt; 'the old woman is not to be faced when wexed no more than a hurricane. Strike sail, and run before the wind.'

'What have you done with the young woman? Where is she? Produce the corpse. I heard her as she shruck out.'

'She insulted me,' said Mehalah, still agitated by passion, 'and I flung her overboard.'

Mrs. De Witt rushed to the bulwarks, and saw the dripping damsel being carried—she could not walk—from the Strand to her father's house.

'You chucked her overboard!' exclaimed the old woman, and she caught up a swabbing-mop. 'How dare you? She was my visitor; she came to sip my grog and eat my natives at my hospitable board, and you chucked her into the sea as though she were a picked cockleshell!'

'She insulted me,' said Mehalah angrily.

'I will teach you to play the dog-fish among my herrings, to turn this blessed peaceful "Pandora" into a cage of bears!' cried Mrs. De Witt, charging with her mop.

Mehalah struck the weapon down, and put her foot on it.

'Take care!' she exclaimed, her voice trembling with passion. 'In another moment you will have raised the devil in me again.'

'He don't take much raising,' vociferated Mrs. De Witt. 'I will teach you to assault a genteel young female who comes a wisiting of me and my son in our own wessel. Do you think you are already mistress here? Does the "Pandora" belong to you? Am I to be chucked overboard along with every lass that wexes you? Am I of no account any more in the eyes of my son, that I suckled from my maternal bottle, and fed with egg and pap out of my own spoon?'

'For heaven's sake,' interrupted George, 'sheer off, Mehalah. Mother is the dearest old lady in the world when she is sober. She is a Pacific Ocean when not vexed with storms. She will pacify presently.'

'I will go, George,' said Mehalah, panting with anger, her veins swollen, her eye sparkling, and her lip quivering; 'I will go, and I will never set foot in this boat again, till you and your mother have asked my pardon for this conduct; she for this outrage, you for having allowed me to receive insult, white-livered coward that you are.'

She flung herself down the ladder, and waded ashore.

Mrs. De Witt's temper abated as speedily as it rose. She retired to her grog. She set feet downwards on the scene; the last of her stalwart form to disappear was the glowing countenance set in white rays.

George was left to his own reflections. He saw Mehalah get into her boat and row away. He waved his cap to her, but she did not return the salute. She was offended grievously. George was placed in a difficult situation. The girl to whom he was betrothed was angry, and had declared her determination not to tread the planks of the 'Pandora' again, and the girl who had made advances to him, and whom his mother would have favoured, had been ejected unceremoniously from it, and perhaps injured, at all events irretrievably offended.

It was incumbent on him to go to the house of the Mussets and enquire for Phoebe. He could do no less; so he descended the ladder and took his way thither.

Phoebe was not hurt, she was only frightened. She had been wet through, and was at once put to bed. She cried a great deal, and old Musset vowed he would take out a summons against the aggressor. Mrs. Musset wept in sympathy with her daughter, and then fell on De Witt for having permitted the assault to take place unopposed.

'How could I interfere?' he asked, desperate with his difficulties. 'It was up and over with her before I was aware.'

'My girl is not accustomed to associate with cannibals,' said Mrs. Musset, drawing herself out like a telescope.

As George returned much crestfallen to the beach, now deserted, for the night had come on, he was accosted by Elijah Rebow.

'George!' said the owner of Red Hall, laying a hand on his cousin's shoulder, 'you ought not to be here.'

'Where ought I to be, Elijah? It seems to me that I have been everywhere to-day where I ought not to be. I am left in a hopeless muddle.'

'You ought not to allow Glory to part from you in anger.'

'How can I help it? I am sorry enough for the quarrel, but you must allow her conduct was trying to the temper.'

'She had great provocation. I wonder she did not kill that girl. She has a temper, has Mehalah, that does not stick at trifles; but she is generous and forgiving.'

'She is so angry with me that I doubt I shall not be able to bring her back to good humour.'

'I doubt so, too, unless you go the right way to work with her; and that is not what you are doing now.'

'Why, what ought I to do, Elijah?'

'Do you want to break with her, George? Do you want to be off with Glory and on with milk-face?'

'No, I do not.'

'You are set on Glory still? You will cleave to her till naught but death shall you part, eh?'

'Naught else.'

'George! That other girl has good looks and money. Give up Mehalah, and hitch on to Phoebe. I know your mother will be best pleased if you do, and it will suit your interests well. Glory has not a penny, Phoebe has her pockets lined. Take my word for it you can have milk-face for the asking, and now is your opportunity for breaking with Glory if you have a mind to do so.'

'But I have not, Elijah.'

'What can Glory be to you, or you to Glory? She with her great heart, her stubborn will, her strong soul, and you—you—bah!'

'Elijah, say what you like, but I will hold to Glory till death us do part.'

'Your hand on it. You swear that.'

'Yes, I do. I want a wife who can row a boat, a splendid girl, the sight of whom lights up the whole heart.'

'I tell you Glory is not one for you. See how passionate she is, she blazes up in a moment, and then she is one to shiver you if you offend her. No, she needs a man of other stamp than you to manage her.'

'She shall be mine,' said George: 'I want no other.'

'This is your fixed resolve?'

'My fixed resolve.'

'For better for worse?'

'For better for worse, till death us do part.'

'Till death you do part,' Elijah jerked out a laugh. 'George, if you are not the biggest fool I have set eyes on for many a day, I am much mistaken.'

'Why so?'

'Because you are acting contrary to your interests. You are unfit for Glory, you do not now, you never will, understand her.'

'What do you mean?'

'You let the girl row away, offended, angry, eating out her heart, and you show no sign that you desire reconciliation.'

'I have though. I waved my hat to her, but she took no notice.'

'Waved your hat!' repeated Rebow, with suppressed scorn. 'You never will read that girl's heart, and understand her moods. Oh, you fool! you fool! straining your arms after the unapproachable, unattainable, star! If she were mine——' he stamped and clenched his fists.

'But she is not going to be yours, Elijah,' said George with a careless laugh.

'No, of course not,' said Elijah, joining in the laugh. 'She is yours till death you do part.'

'Tell me, what have I done wrong?' asked De Witt.

'There—you come to me, after all, to interpret the writing for you. It is there, written in letters of fire, Mene, mene, tekel, Upharsin! Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting, and this night shall thy kingdom be taken from thee and given to——'

'Elijah, I do not understand this language. What ought I to do to regain Mehalah's favour?'

'You must go after her. Do you not feel it in every fibre, that you must, you mud-blood? Go after her at once. She is now at home, sitting alone, brooding over the offence, sore at your suffering her to be insulted without making remonstrance. Her wrong will grow into a mountain in her heart unless it be rooted up to-night. Her pride will flame up as her passion dies away, and she will not let you speak to her another tender word. She will hate and despise you. The little crack will split into a wide chasm. I heard her call you a white-livered coward.'

'She did; you need not repeat it. She will be sorry when she is cool.'

'That is just it, George. As soon as passion abates, her generous heart will turn to self-reproach, and she will be angry with herself for what she has done. She will accuse herself with having been violent, with having acted unworthily of her dignity, with having grown in too great a heat about a worthless doll. She will be vexed with herself, ashamed of herself, unable in the twilight of her temper to excuse herself. Perhaps she is now in tears. But this mood will not last. To-morrow her pride will have returned in strength, she will think over her wrongs and harden herself in stubbornness; she will know that the world condemns her, and she will retire into herself in defiance of the world. Look up at the sky. Do you see, there is Charles' Wain, and there is Cassiopæa's Chair. There the Serpent and there the Swan. I can see every figure plain, but your landsman rarely can. So I can see every constellation in the dark heaven of Mehalah's soul, but you cannot. You would be wrecked if you were to sail by it. Now, George, take Glory while she is between two moods, or lose her for ever. Go after her at once, George, ask her forgiveness, blame yourself and your mother, blame that figure-head miss, and she will forgive you frankly, at once. She will fall on your neck and ask your pardon for what she has done.'

'I believe you are right,' said De Witt, musing.

'I know I am. As I have been working in my forge, I have watched the flame on the hearth dance and waver to the clinking of the hammer. There was something in the flame, I know not what, which made it wince or flare, as the blows fell hard or soft. So there are things in Nature respond to each other without your knowing why it is, and in what their sympathy consists. So I know all that passes in Mehalah's mind. I feel my own soul dance and taper to her pulses. If you had not been a fool, George, you would already have been after her. What are you staying for now?'

'My mother; what will she say?'

'Do you care for her more than for Glory? If you think of her now, you lose Glory for ever. Once more I ask you, do you waver? Are you inclined to forsake Mehalah for milk-face?'

'I am not,' said De Witt impatiently; 'why do you go on with this? I have said already that Glory is mine.'

'Unlessdeath you do part.'

'Tilldeath us do part, is what I said.'

'Then make haste. An hour hence the Ray house will be closed, and the girl and her mother in bed.'

'I will get my boat and row thither at once.'

'You need not do that. I have my boat here, jump in. We will each take an oar, and I will land you on the Ray.'

'You take a great interest in my affairs.'

'I take a very great interest in them,' said Rebow dryly.

'Lead the way, then.'

'Follow me.'

Rebow walked forward, over the shingle towards his boat, then suddenly turned, and asked in a suppressed voice, 'Do you know whither you are going?'

'To the Ray.'

'To the Ray, of course. Is there anyone on the Hard?'

'Not a soul. Had I not better go to my mother before I start and say that I am going with you?'

'On no account. She will not allow you to go to the Ray. You know she will not.'

De Witt was not disposed to dispute this.

'You are sure,' asked Rebow again, 'that there is no one on the Hard. No one sees you enter my boat. No one sees you push off with me. No one sees whither we go.'

'Not a soul.'

'Then here goes!' Elijah Rebow thrust the boat out till she floated, sprang in and took his oar. De Witt was already oar in hand on his seat.

'The red curtain is over the window at the Leather Bottle,' said George. 'No signalling to-night, the schooner is in the offing.'

'A red signal. It may mean more than you understand.'

They rowed on.

'Is there a hand on that crimson pane,' asked Rebow in a low tone, 'with the fingers dipped in fire, writing?'

'Not that I can see.'

'Nor do you see the writing, Mene, mene, tekel, Upharsin.'

'You jest, Elijah!'

'A strange jest. Perhaps the writing is in the vulgar tongue, thou art weighed and found wanting, feeble fool, and thy kingdom is taken from thee, and given to ME.'

Mehalah sat by the hearth, on the floor, in the farmhouse at the Ray. Her mother was abed and asleep. The girl had cast aside the cap and thrown off her jersey. Her bare arms were folded on her lap; and the last flicker of the red embers fell on her exposed and heaving bosom.

Elijah Rebow on the Hard at Mersea had read accurately the workings and transitions in the girl's heart. Precisely that was taking place which he had described. The tempest of passion had roared by, and now a tide of self-reproach rose and overflowed her soul. She was aware that she had acted wrongly, that without adequate cause she had given way to an outburst of blind fury. Phoebe was altogether too worthless a creature for her jealousy, too weak to have been subjected to such treatment. Her anger against George had expired. He did well to be indignant with her. It was true he had not rebuked Phoebe nor restrained his mother, but the reason was clear. He was too forbearing with women to offend them, however frivolous and intemperate they might be. He had relied on the greatness of his Glory's heart to stand above and disregard these petty storms.

She had thrown off her boots and stockings, and sat with her bare feet on the hearth. The feet moved nervously in rhythm to her thoughts. She could not keep them still. Her trouble was great. Tears were not on her cheeks; in this alone was Elijah mistaken. Her dark eyes were fixed dreamily on the dying fire—they were like the marsh-pools with the will-o'-the-wisp in each. They did not see the embers, they looked through the iron fireback, and the brick wall, over the saltings, over the water, into infinity.

She loved George. Her love for him was the one absorbing passion of her life. She loved her mother, but no one else—only her and George. She had no one else to love. She was without relations. She had been brought up without playfellows on that almost inaccessible islet, only occasionally visiting Mersea, and then only for an hour. She had seen and known nothing of the world save the world of morass. She had mixed with no life, save the life of the flocks on the Ray, of the fishes and the seabirds. Her mind hungered for something more than the little space of the Ray could supply. Her soul had wings and sought to spread them and soar away, whither, however, she did not know. She had a dim prevision of something better than the sordid round of common cares which made up the life she knew.

With a heart large and full of generous impulses, she had spent her girlhood without a recognition of its powers. She felt that there was a voice within which talked in a tongue other from that which struck her ears each day, but what that language was, and what the meaning of that voice, she did not know. She had met with De Witt. Indeed they had known each other, so far as meeting at rare intervals went, for many years; she had not seen enough of him to know him as he really was, she therefore loved him as she idealised him. The great cretaceous sea was full of dissolved silex penetrating the waters, seeking to condense and solidify. But there was nothing in the ocean then save twigs of weed and chips of shells, and about them that hardest of all elements drew together and grew to adamant. The soul of Mehalah was some such vague sea full of ununderstood, unestimated elements, seeking their several centres for precipitation, and for want of better, condensing about straws. To her, George De Witt was the ideal of all that was true and manly. She was noble herself, and her ideal was the perfection of nobility. She was rude indeed, and the image of her worship was rough hewn, but still with the outline and carriage of a hero. She could not, she would not, suppose that George De Witt was less great than her fancy pictured.

The thought of life with him filled her with exultation. She could leap up, like the whooper swan, spread her silver wings, and shout her song of rapture and of defiance, like a trumpet. He would open to her the gates into that mysterious world into which she now only peeped, he would solve for her the perplexities of her troubled soul, he would lead her to the light which would illumine her eager mind.

Nevertheless she was ready to wait patiently the realisation of her dream. She was in no hurry. She knew that she could not live in the same house or boat with George's mother. She could not leave her own ailing mother, wholly dependent on herself. Mehalah contentedly tarried for what the future would unfold, with that steady confidence in the future that youth so generally enjoys.

The last embers went out, and all was dark within. No sound was audible, save the ticking of the clock, and the sigh of the wind about the eaves and in the thorntrees. Mehalah did not stir. She dreamed on with her eyes open, still gazing into space, but now with no marsh fires in the dark orbs. The grey night sky and the stars looked in at the window at her.

Suddenly, as she thus sat, an inexpressible distress came over her, a feeling as though George were in danger, and were crying to her for help. She raised herself on the floor, and drew her feet under her, and leaning her chin on her fingers listened. The wind moaned under the door; everything else was hushed.

Her fear came over her like an ague fit. She wiped, her forehead, there were cold drops beading it. She turned faint at heart; her pulse stood still. Her soul seemed straining, drawn as by invisible attraction, and agonised because the gross body restrained it. She felt assured that she was wanted. She must not remain there. She sprang to her feet and sped to the door, unbolted it and went forth. The sky was cloudless, thick strewn with stars. Jupiter glowed over Mersea Isle. A red gleam was visible, far away at the 'City.' It shone from the tavern window, a coloured star set in ebony. She went within again. The fire was out. Perhaps this was the vulgar cause of the strange sensation. She must shake it off. She went to her room and threw herself on the bed. Again, as though an icy wave washed over her, lying on a frozen shore, came that awful fear, and then, again, that tension of her soul to be free, to fly somewhere, away from the Ray, but whither she could not tell.

Where was George? Was he at home? Was he safe? She tried in vain to comfort herself with the thought that he ran no danger, that he was protected by her talisman. She felt that without an answer to these questions she could not rest, that her night would be a fever dream.

She hastily drew on her jersey and boots; she slipped out of the house, unloosed her punt, and shot over the water to Mersea. The fleet was silent, but as she flew into the open channel she could hear the distant throb of oars on rowlocks, away in the dark, out seaward. She heard the screech of an owl about the stacks of a farm near the waterside. She caught as she sped past the Leather Bottle muffled catches of the nautical songs trolled by the topers within.

She met no boat, she saw no one. She ran her punt on the beach and walked to the 'Pandora,' now far above the water. The ladder was still down; therefore George was not within. 'Who goes there?' asked the voice of Mrs. De Witt. 'Is that you, George? Are you coming home at last? Where have you been all this while?'

Mehalah drew back. George was not only not there, but his mother knew not where he was.

The cool air and the exercise had in the mean time dissipated Mehalah's fear. She argued with herself that George was in the tavern, behind the red curtain, remaining away from his mother's abusive tongue as long as he might. His boat lay on the Hard. She saw it, with the oars in it. He was therefore not on the water; he was on land, and on land he was safe. He wore the medal about his neck, against his heart.

How glad and thankful she was that she had given him the precious charm that guarded from all danger save drowning.

She rowed back to the Ray, more easy in her mind, and anchored her punt. She returned cautiously over the saltings, picking her way by the starlight, leaping or avoiding the runnels and pools, now devoid of water, but deep in mud most adhesive and unfathomable.

She felt a little uneasy lest her mother should have awoke during her absence, and missed her daughter. She entered the house softly; the door was without a lock, and merely hasped, and stole to her mother's room. The old woman was wrapt in sleep, and breathing peacefully.

Mehalah drew off her boots, and seated herself again by the hearth. She was not sleepy. She would reason with herself, and account for the sensation that had affected her.

Hark! she heard some one speak. She listened attentively with a flutter at her heart. It was her mother. She stole back on tiptoe to her. The old woman was dreaming, and talking in her sleep. She had her hands out of bed together and parted them, and waved them, 'No, Mehalah, no! Not George! not George!' she gave emphasis with her hand, then suddenly grasped her daughter's wrist, 'But Elijah!' Next moment her grasp relaxed, and she slept calmly, apparently dreamlessly again.

Mehalah went back.

It was strange. No sooner was she in her place by the hearth again than the same distress came over her. It was as though a black cloud had swept over her sky and blotted out every light, so that neither sun, nor moon, nor star appeared, as though she were left drifting without a rudder and without a compass in an unknown sea, under murky night with only the phosphorescent flash of the waves about, not illumining the way but intensifying its horror. It was as though she found herself suddenly in some vault, in utter, rayless blackness, knowing neither how she came there nor whether there was a way out.

Oppressed by this horror, she lifted her eyes to the window, to see a star, to see a little light of any sort. What she there saw turned her to stone.

At the window, obscuring the star's rays, was the black figure of a man. She could not see the face, she saw only the shape of the head, and arms, and hands spread out against the panes. The figure stood looking in and at her.

Her eyes filmed over, and her head swam.

She heard the casement struck, and the tear of the lead and tinkle of broken glass on the brick floor, and then something fell at her feet with a metallic click.

When she recovered herself, the figure was gone, but the wind piped and blew chill through the rent lattice.

How many minutes passed before she recovered herself sufficiently to rise and light a candle she never knew, nor did it matter. When she had obtained a light she stooped with it, and groped upon the floor.

*      *      *      *      *      *

Mrs. Sharland was awakened by a piercing scream.

She sprang from her bed and rushed into the adjoining room. There stood Mehalah, in the light of the broken candle lying melting and flaring on the floor, her hair fallen about her shoulders, her face the hue of death, her lips bloodless, her eyes distended with terror, gazing on the medal of Paracelsus, which she held in her hand, the sea-water dripping from the wet riband wound about her fingers.

'Mother! Mother! He is drowned. I have seen him. He came and returned me this.'

Then she fell senseless on the floor, with the medal held to her heart.

CHAPTER VIII.

WHERE IS HE?

If there had been excitement on the Hard at Mersea on the preceding day when the schooner anchored off it, there was more this morning. The war-vessel had departed no one knew whither, and nobody cared. The bay was full of whiting; the waters were alive with them, and the gulls were flickering over the surface watching, seeing, plunging. The fishermen were getting their boats afloat, and all appliances ready for making harvest of that fish which is most delicious when fresh from the water, most flat when out of it a few hours.

Down the side of the 'Pandora' tumbled Mrs. De Witt, her nose sharper than usual, but her cap more flabby. She wore a soldier's jacket, bought second-hand at Colchester. Her face was of a warm complexion, tinctured with rum and wrath. She charged into the midst of the fishermen, asking in a loud imperative tone for her son.

To think that after the lesson delivered him last week, the boy should have played truant again! The world was coming to a pretty pass. The last trumpet might sound for aught Mrs. De Witt cared, and involve mankind in ruin, for mankind was past 'worriting' about.

George had defied her, and the nautical population of the 'City' had aided and abetted him in his revolt.

'This is what comes of galiwanting,' said Mrs. De Witt; 'first he galiwants Mehalah, and then Phoebe. No good ever came of it. I'd pass a law, were I king, against it, but that smuggling in love would go on as free under it as smuggling in spirits. Young folks now-a-days is grown that wexing and wicious—— Where is my George?' suddenly laying hold of Jim Morell.

The old sailor jumped as if he had been caught by a revenue officer.

'Bless my life, Mistress! You did give me a turn. What is it you want? A pinch of snuff?'

'I want my George,' said the excited mother. 'Where is he skulking to?'

'How should I know?' asked Morell, 'he is big enough to look after himself.'

'He is among you,' said Mrs. De Witt; 'I know you have had him along with a party of you at the Leather Bottle yonder. You men get together, and goad the young on into rebellion against their parents.'

'I know nothing about George. I have not even seen him.'

'I've knitted his guernseys and patched his breeches these twenty years, and now he turns about and deserts me.'

'Tom!' shouted Morell to a young fisherman, 'have you seen George De Witt this morning?'

'No, I have not, Jim.'

'Oh, you young fellows!' exclaimed the old lady, loosing her hold on the elder sailor, and charging among and scattering the young boatmen. 'Where is my boy? What have you done with him that he did not come home last night, and is nowhere wisible?'

'He went to the Mussets' last evening, Mistress. We have not set eyes on him since.'

'Oh! he went there, did he? Galiwanting again!' She turned about and rushed over the shingle towards the grocery, hardware, drapery, and general store.

Before entering that realm of respectability, Mrs. De Witt assumed an air of consequence and gravity.

She reduced her temper under control, and with an effort called up an urbane smile on her hard features when saluting Mrs. Musset, who stood behind the counter.

'Can I serve you with anything, ma'am?' asked the mother of Phoebe, with cold self-possession.

'I want my George.'

'We don't keep him in stock.'

'He was here last night.'

'Do you suppose we kept him here the night? Are you determined to insult us, madam? You have been drinking, and have forgot yourself and where you are. We wish to see no more of your son. My Phoebe is not accustomed to demean herself by association with cannibals. It is unfortunate that she should have stepped beyond her sphere yesterday, but she has learned a lesson by it which will be invaluable for the future. I do not know, I do not care, whether the misconduct was that of your son or of your daughter-in-law. Birds of a feather flock together, and lambs don't consort with wolves. I beg, madam, that it be an understood matter between the families that, except in the way of business, as tobacco, sugar, currants, or calico, intimacy must cease.'

'Oh indeed!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt, the colour mottling her cheek. 'You mean to insinuate that our social grades are so wery different.'

'Providence, madam, has made distinctions in human beings as in currants. Some are all fruit, and some half gravel.'

'You forget,' said Mrs. De Witt, 'that I was a Rebow—a Rebow of Red Hall. It was thence I inherit the blood in my weins and the bridge of my nose.'

'And that was pretty much all you did inherit from them,' observed Mrs. Musset. 'Much value they must be to you, as you have nothing else to boast of.'

'Oh, indeed, Mistress Musset!'

'Indeed, Mistress De Witt!' with a profound curtsey.

Mrs. De Witt attempted an imitation, but having been uninstructed in deportment as a child, and inexperienced in riper years, she got her limbs entangled, and when she had arrived at a sitting posture was unable to extricate herself with ease.

In attempting to recover her erect position she precipitated herself against a treacle barrel and upset it. A gush of black saccharine matter spread over the floor.

'Where is my son?' shouted Mrs. De Witt, her temper having broken control.

'You shall pay for the golden syrup,' said Mrs. Musset.

'Golden syrup!' jeered Mrs. De Witt, 'common treacle, the cleanings of the niggers' feet that tread out the sugar-cane.'

'It shall be put down to you!' cried the mistress of the store, defying her customer across the black river. 'I will have a summons out against you for the syrup.'

'And I will have a search-warrant for my son.'

'I have not got him. I should be ashamed to keep him under my respectable roof.'

'What is this disturbance about?' asked Mr. Musset, coming into the shop with his pipe.

'I want my son,' cried the incensed mother. 'He has not been seen since he came here last night. What have you done to him?'

'He is not here, Mistress. He only remained a few minutes to enquire after Phoebe, and then he left. We have not seen him since. Go to the Leather Bottle; you will probably find him there.'

The advice was reasonable; and having discharged a parting shot at Mrs. Musset, the bereaved mother departed and took her way to the quaint old inn by the waterside, entitled the Leather Bottle.

Mrs. De Witt pushed the door open and strode in. No one was there save the host, Isaac Mead. He knew nothing of George's whereabouts. He had not seen him or heard him spoken of. Mrs. De Witt having entered, felt it incumbent on her to take something for the good of the house.

The host sat opposite her at the table.

'Where can he be?' asked Mrs. De Witt. 'The boy cannot be lost.'

'Have you searched everywhere?'

'I have asked the lads; they either know nothing, or won't tell. I have been to the Musset's. They pretend they have not seen him since last night.'

'Perhaps he rowed off somewhere.'

'His boat is on the Hard.'

'Do not bother your head about him,' said the host with confidence, 'he will turn up. Mark my words. I say he will certainly turn up, perhaps not when you want him, or where you expect him, but he assuredly will reappear. I have had seven sons, and they got scattered all over the world, but they have all turned up one after another, and,' he added sententiously, 'the world is bigger than Mersea. It is nothing to be away for twelve or fourteen hours. Lads take no account of time, they do not walue it any more than they walue good looks. We older folks do; we hold to that which is slipping from us. When we was children, we thought we could deal with time as with the sprats. We draw in all and throw what we can't consume away. At last we find we have spoiled our fishing, and we must use larger meshes in our net. I will tell you another thing, Mistress,' continued the host, who delighted to moralise, 'time is like a clock, when young it goes slow, and when old it gallops. When you and I was little, we thought a day as long as now we find a year. As we grew older years went faster; and the older we wax the greater the speed with which time spins by; till at last it passes with a whisk and a flash, and that is eternity.'

'He cannot be drowned,' said Mrs. De Witt. 'That would be too ridiculous.'

'It would, just about.' After a moment's consideration Isaac added, 'I heard that Elijah Rebow was on the Hard last night, maybe your George is gone off with him.'

'Not likely, Isaac. I and Elijah are not on good terms. My father left me nothing. Elijah took all after his parents, and I did not get a penny.'

'You know we have war with foreigners,' observed the publican. 'Now I observe that everything in this world goes by contraries. When there's peace abroad, there is strife at home, andvice versâ. There was a man-of-war in the bay yesterday. I should not wonder if that put it into George's head to be a man-of-peace on land. When you want to estimate a person's opinions, first ask what other folks are saying round him, and take the clean contrary, and you hit the bull's-eye. If you see anything like to draw a man in one direction, look the opposite way, and you will find him. There was pretty strong intimation of war yesterday with the foreigners, then you may be dead certain he took a peaceful turn in his perwerse vein, and went to patch up old quarrels with Elijah.'

'It is possible,' said Mrs. De Witt. 'I will row to Red Hall and find out.'

'Have another glass before you go,' said the landlord. 'Never hurry about anything. If George be at his cousin's he will turn up in time. There is more got by waiting than by worrying.'

'But perhaps he is not there.'

'Then he is elsewhere.'

'He may be drowned.'

'He will turn up. Drowned or not, he will turn up. I never knew boys to fail. If he were a girl it would be different. You see it is so when they drown. A boy floats face upwards, and a girl with her face down. It is so also in life. If a girl strays from home, she goes to the bottom like a plummet, but a boy on the contrary goes up like a cork.'

Mrs. De Witt so far took Isaac Mead's advice that she waited at her home till afternoon. But as George did not return, she became seriously uneasy, not so much for him as for herself. She did not for a moment allow that any harm had befallen him, but she imagined this absence to be a formal defiance of her authority. Such a revolt was not to be overlooked. In Mrs. De Witt's opinion no man was able to stand alone, he must fall under female government or go to the dogs. Deliberate bachelors were, in her estimation, God-forsaken beings, always in scrapes, past redemption. She had ruled her husband, and he had submitted with a meekness that ought to have inherited the earth. George had been always docile. She had bored docility into him with her tongue, and hammered it into him with her fist.

The idea came suddenly on her,—What if he had gone to the war schooner and enlisted? but was dismissed as speedily as impossible. Tales of ill-treatment in the Navy were rife among the shoremen. The pay was too small to entice a youth who owned a vessel, a billyboy, and oyster pans. He might do well in his trade, he must fare miserably in the Navy. Captain MacPherson had indeed invited George and others to follow him, but not one had volunteered.

She determined at last, in her impatience, to visit Red Hall, and for that purpose she got into the boat. Mrs. De Witt was able to row as well as a man. She did not start for Red Hall without reluctance. She had not been there since her marriage, kept away by her resentment. Elijah had made no overtures to her for reconciliation, had never invited her to revisit her native place, and her pride prevented her from making first advances. She had been cut off by her father, the family had kept aloof from her, and this had rankled in her heart. True, Elijah's father and mother were dead, and he was not mixed up in the first contentions; but he had inherited money which she considered ought to have fallen to her.

She was, however, anxious to see the old place again. Her young life there had not been happy; quite the reverse, for her father had been brutal, and her mother Calvinistic and sour. Yet Red Hall was, after all, her old home; its marshes were the first landscape on which her eyes had opened, its daisies had made her first necklaces, its bulrushes her first whips, its sea-wall the boundary of her childish world. It was a yearning for a wider, less level world, which had driven her in a rash moment into the arms of Moses De Witt.

The tide was out, so Mrs. De Witt was obliged to land at the point near the windmill. She walked thence on the sea-wall. She knew that wall well, fragrant with sovereign wood in summer, and rank with sea spinach. The aster blooming time was past, and the violet petals had fallen off, leaving only the yellow centres.

There, before her, like a stranded ark, was the old red house, unaltered, lonely, without a bush or tree to screen it.

The cattle stood browsing in the pasture as of old. In the marsh was a pond, a flight of wild fowl was wheeling round it, as in the autumns long ago. There was the little creek where her punt had lain, the punt in which she had been sometimes sent to Mersea to buy groceries for her mother.

The hard crust about the heart of Mrs. De Witt began to break, and the warm feeling within to ooze through. Gentler sentiments began to prevail. She would not take her son by the ears and bang his head, if she should find him at Red Hall. She would forgive him in a Christian spirit, and grant his dismissal with an innocuous curse.

She walked straight into the house. Elijah was crouched in his leather chair, with his head on one side, asleep. She stood over him and contemplated his unattractive face in silence, till he suddenly started, and exclaimed, 'Who is here? Who is this?'

Next moment he had recognised his visitor.

'So you are come, Aunt. You have not honoured me before. Will you have some whisky?'

'Thank you, Elijah, thank you. I am dry with rowing. But how come you to be asleep at this time of day? Were you out after ducks last night?'

'No, I was not out. I lay abed. I went to bed early.'

'Elijah, where is my son?'

He started, and looked at her suspiciously.

'How am I to know?'

'I cannot find him anywhere,' said the mother. 'I fear the boy has levanted. I may have been a little rough with him, but it was for his good. You cannot clean a deck with whiting, you must take holystone to the boards, and it is so with children. If you are not hard, you get off no edges, if you want to polish them, you must be gritty yourself. I doubt the boy is off.'

'What makes you think so?'

'I have not seen him. Nobody at Mersea has seen him. Have you?'

'Not since last night.'

'You saw him then?'

'Yes, he was on the beach going to Mehalah.'

'Galiwanting!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt. 'Oh, what wickedness comes of galiwanting!' Then, recovering herself, 'But how could he get there? His boat was left on the Hard!'

'I suppose he went by land. He said something to that effect. You see the tide would have been out if he purposed to stay some time.'

'But what should make him go to the Ray? He had seen Mehalah on his boat.'

'He said there had been a quarrel, and he was bent on making it up. Go and look for him on the Ray. If he is not back on your boat already, you will find him, or hear of him, there.'

'Oh, the worries to parents that come of galiwanting!' moaned Mrs. De Witt, 'none who have not experienced can tell. Do not stay me, Elijah. Dear sackalive; I must go home. I dare say the boy is now on the "Pandora," trying to look innocent.' She rubbed her hands, and her eyes glistened. 'By cock!' she exclaimed, 'I would not be he.' She was out of the room, without a farewell to her nephew, down the steps, away over the flat to the sea-wall and her boat, her heart palpitating with anger.

It was late in the afternoon before Mrs. De Witt got back to Mersea. She ascended her ladder and unlocked the hatches. She looked about her. No George was on deck. She returned to the shore and renewed her enquiries. He had not been seen. No doubt he was still galivanting at the Ray. The uncertainty became unendurable. She jumped into her boat once more, and rowed to the island inhabited by Glory and her mother.

With her nose high in the air, her cap-frills quivering, she stepped out of the skiff. She had donned her military coat, to add to her imposing and threatening aspect.

The door of the house was open. She stood still and listened. She did not hear George's voice. She waited; she saw Mehalah moving in the room. Once the girl looked at her, but there was neither recognition nor lustre in her eyes. Mrs. De Witt made a motion towards her, but Glory did not move to meet her in return.

As she stepped over the threshold, Mrs. Sharland, who was seated by the fire, turned and observed her. The widow rose at once with a look of distress in her face, and advanced towards her, holding out her hand.

'Where is George?' asked Mrs. De Witt, ignoring the outstretched palm, in a hard, impatient tone.

'George!' echoed Mehalah, standing still, 'George is dead.'

'What nonsense!' said Mrs. De Witt, catching the girl by the shoulder and shaking her.

'I saw him. He is dead.' She quivered like an aspen.

The blood had ebbed behind her brown skin. Her eyes looked in Mrs. De Witt's face with a flash of agony in them.

'He came and looked in at the window at me, and cast me back the keepsake I had given him, and which he swore not to part with while life lasted.'

'Dear sackalive!' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt; 'the girl is dreaming or demented. What is the meaning of all this, Mistress Sharland?'

'Last night,' explained the widow, 'as Mehalah was sitting here in the dark, some one came to the window, stove it in—look how the lead is torn, and the glass fallen out—and cast at the feet of Mehalah a medal she had given George on Thursday. She thinks,' added the old woman in a subdued tone, 'that what she saw was his spirit.'

Mrs. De Witt was awed. She was not a woman without superstition, but she was not one to allow a supernatural intervention till all possible prosaic explanations had been exhausted.

'Is this Gospel truth?' she asked.

'It is true,' answered the widow.

'Did you see the face, Glory? Are you sure that what you saw was George?'

'I did not see the face. I saw only the figure. But it was George. It could have been no other. He alone had the medal, and he brought it back to me.'

'You see,' explained the widow Sharland, 'the coin was an heirloom; it might not go out of the family.'

'I see it all,' exclaimed Mrs. De Witt. 'Galiwanting again! He came to return the keepsake to Mehalah, because he wanted to break with her and take on with another.'

'No, never!' exclaimed Mehalah vehemently. 'He could not do it. He was as true to me as I am to him. He could not do it. He came to tell me that all was over.'

'Dear sackalive!' said Mrs. De Witt, 'you don't know men as I do. You have had no more experience of them than you have of kangaroos. I will not believe he is dead.'

'He is dead,' Mehalah burst forth with fierce vehemence. 'He is drowned, he is not false. He is dead, he is dead.'

'I know better,' said Mrs. De Witt in a low tone to herself as she bit her thumb. 'That boy is galiwanting somewhere; the only question to me is Where. By cock! I'd give a penny to know.'

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