XI.

The next morning I was down late to breakfast. It was glorious weather,

and the blue sparkle of the sea came through the open window, bringing

with it a limitless inspiration of hope and wholesomeness. It was

difficult to believe that there had ever been any sorrow or wrong in the

world.

"Ye're not looking right hearty," said Mr. Poyntz, with bluff geniality,

while his good wife set before me a huge plate of daintily fried bacon

and eggs, and a smoking cup of coffee. "Maybe ye walked a bit too far

last night? 'Twas powerful late afore ye got home, anyhow."

"Yes," said I, glancing at Agatha, who was knitting a pair of stockings

for Peter in the eastern window, the morning sun glistening on the broad

plaits of her yellow hair. "Yes, Mr. Poyntz, I think I must have made a

very long journey last evening. By-the-way, is not to-day Sunday?"

"Ay, surely!" exclaimed husband and wife in a breath; and then the

former added, "Ye'll be wanting to go to church, I suppose?"

"No, not this Sunday; though I hope to go before long, if Miss Agatha is

willing to show me the way." I glanced at her again as I said this, but

she would not look up, and I could not even be sure whether she were

listening. "What I want," I continued, "is for you, Mr. Poyntz, since

you'll be at leisure, to take a stroll with me a little way up the

stream. It will be a novelty, perhaps almost as much so to you as to

me."

"Up the stream, is it?" returned he, pausing in the operation of cutting

up a piece of tobacco, and turning his blue eyes on me; "why, truly,

sir, that's a trip I've not made for a number of years. Howsoever, none

knows the road better than I do, and if so be as naught else 'll do ye,

why, I'm your man!"

Accordingly, so soon as I had done breakfast, the sturdy old mariner

mounted a wonderful glazed hat and a new pea-jacket of blue pilot

cloth, took a fresh clay pipe from the mantelpiece, with a sigh and a

shake of the head over the destruction of his beloved meerschaum, and

professed himself ready.

"Good-bye, Agatha," I said, passing the window. "Is there anything you

would like me to bring you when we come back?"

"Oh, a great many!" answered she, looking up gravely; "but nothing, I'm

afraid, that you can get for me. Though--you'll bring yourself back to

dinner, I suppose, won't you?"

She bent over her knitting as she said it, and her mouth and downcast

eyelids were very demure. Nevertheless, I was encouraged to fancy that

my former remark about church-going had not fallen so entirely unheeded

as it had appeared to do. Before I could hammer out a fitting answer (my

brain always seemed to work with really abnormal sluggishness when I

most wanted to do myself credit with Agatha), Poyntz rolled out in his

deep, jovial voice, "Back to Sunday dinner? Well, I should hope so.

Why, the old woman is baking a pie as I'd sail round the Horn to get a

snack of! Come on, Mr. Firemount; it'll go hard but we fetches back an

appetite as 'll warm the women's hearts to look at."

We trudged off at a tolerably round pace, and soon struck into a narrow

grass-grown lane which led towards the east; and had proceeded some

distance along it before I said:

"Do you know, Mr. Poyntz, that your daughter is one of the loveliest

women in the world?"

"Ye mean Agatha? Ay, surely, that she is, heaven bless her! She was

always that. A tiny bit of a lass, I remember her, not so long as my

arm; as pretty a baby she was then as she's a woman now."

"Has she any thought of getting married soon? Such a face and character

must have suitors enough."

"Well, as touching that, sir," said Poyntz, taking his pipe out of his

mouth and looking at it carefully, "ye mustn't think of Agatha just the

same as of the fishermen's girls you meet round about. Good, honest

girls they all are, I'm saying naught against that; but Agatha, d'ye

see, is a bit different. Ye'll maybe think it queer I should say it,

sir; but say it I will that Agatha is a lady. She may live in our house,

and put up with our ways--nay, and love us too, which sure I am she

does; but all the same, if ye notice, she don't speak the same as me and

the old woman do, nor she don't think the same neither. She's built on

other lines, as I may say--a clipper yacht, while we're but fishing

smacks, or trading schooners at best. And that being so as it is, the

young fellows of our neighbourhood don't find they've got much show

alongside of her somehow. They're afraid of her, that's the long and

short of it. Not but she treats 'em kind enough, ye understand, as a

lady should; but 'tis the kindness of a lady, and not of an equal, and

there's not one of 'em staunch enough to hold out against it. And how be

they're fine lads, many of them, I can't truly say as I'm sorry for it,

if so as Agatha is content."

"Nor can I," I echoed to myself, with devout earnestness. "She does seem

of a different stock from most I see here," I said aloud. "I have seen

women somewhat like her at Copenhagen; though I don't know whether I

should have thought of that if I hadn't happened to say something in

Danish, yesterday, and she answered me in the same language."

"Did she now!" said Poyntz, tipping forward his hat and scratching the

back of his head. "And if I might ask it, sir, how came ye to speak

Danish your own self?"

"My family was Danish before I was born; and I was taught the language

almost before I knew English. Our name used to be Feuerberg; but we've

translated it since we've emigrated, you see."

"Ay, surely--Feuerberg," said Poyntz, puffing his pipe preoccupiedly.

We walked on for awhile in silence. So great was my desire that the

evidence I had been arranging in my mind should be borne out by the

facts, that I was almost afraid to put the matter definitely to the

proof; while Poyntz, on the other hand, was evidently taken by surprise,

and had not got his ideas quite settled. At length, however, I thought

I would hazard one hint more.

"I've been thinking of that yarn you were spinning yesterday

afternoon--in fact, I believe I dreamt of it last night; and I should

imagine that the little yellow-haired girl, if she grew up, would have

looked enough like Agatha to be her sister--or her mother, at any rate."

"And I've been thinking, sir, of the accident that stopped me from

finishing that there yarn ye speak of, and of the hearty thanks I owe ye

for the stout heart and ready hand that saved my Peter. But thanks is

easily said; and I mean more than words come to. I'd not have ye suppose

as I'd give all trust and confidence to a man just because he's done a

brave act for me and mine. But as I told you once afore, and speaking

out man to man, I like the looks of ye, and ever did; and seeing as how

ye've found out a good bit of our little secret already, and seem like

you'd an interest to know more of it; for that, and likewise because of

another thing, as I've just found out myself, and it may be as important

as any--well, I'll tell ye what about Agatha there is to tell."

At this moment, however, we passed round a clump of oak trees, and found

ourselves right at the entrance of the little gorge where I had had my

adventure the night before. Poyntz halted, and fixed his eyes gravely

upon the scene for several moments. "Ay, the same old harbour," said he;

"it's changed a bit now, but it brings it all back to me the last time I

was here. This is the Laughing Mill, Mr. Feuerberg. And this here is the

Black Oak, and here is poor Gloam's grave, d'ye see? with the bit of

gray stone a-sticking out of the end of it."

"Why was he buried here?"

"Well, 'twas his wish; that's all. He was crazed the last years of his

life, with grieving on the death of the young girl as he'd picked up on

the beach, that I was telling you of. A sad thing it was altogether. She

went wrong, d'ye see, with the fellow David, the Scholar's brother, and

was drowned here along with him; but how that came to pass was never

rightly known. 'Tis thought the Scholar had meant for to marry the girl

himself. And so would David have married her, I doubt, if he'd known

what I know."

"About the family?"

"Ay, sir, that. Ye maybe 'll remember the iron box as I picked up?

Well, I didn't tell anyone about it then, not even the Scholar; and soon

after the night of the storm I shipped for Rio, and was away a matter

of two years. When I came back I heard as how David was thick with the

girl--Swanhilda they called her. Then I opened the box, not having done

it before, and found papers in it telling who she was, and that folks of

hers were living in Germany, having emigrated there from Denmark; and

from what I could make out--for 'twas in a foreign lingo, and I was

forced to borrow a lexicon to it--it seemed likely as how they was well

off. Now, I had my opinion of David, that he was a worthless sort of a

chap, though clever and handsome; so thinks I, I won't tell him of this,

for if so be as I do, he'll wed the girl in the hope of money, and not

for true love of her, who was worthy the love of better than he. But

what I'll do, I'll write to those her folks in Germany, telling them as

how she's here; and when they come, then they can do for her as they

find best, and it'll be out of my hands. And so I did, but had never an

answer, why I don't know. But it never came in my mind, sir, that the

fellow David would ever be so black a scoundrel as to lead the poor

innocent girl wrong. How be, when he had done it, thinks I, I'll tell

him of her folks now, because now the best can happen will be that they

marry, though the best is bad enough; and if I tell him, maybe he'll

make her an honest woman, as the saying is. And tell him I did, with a

piece of my mind touching my thought of him, into the bargain. And he

promised me as he'd go and make it right the next day--this being spoke

in the town above here, whither I'd gone for to see him. And it can't

be said but what he kept his word; only he and she was drowned in the

night, and crushed under that there wheel, as never has turned since,

to this day."

"What became of her baby--she had a baby?"

"Ay, and so she did, sir. Well, 'twas cared for by the housekeeper--she

being grandmother to it and so having first right, the more as the

Scholar was crazed, though not dangerous, but mild and melancholy-like.

But in years the old woman she came to the poor-house, and there died;

and I took the baby, and gave her what best I had to give, and better

schooling than the lasses care for hereabouts. And as luck would have

it, an elderly woman of Danish blood being come by a chance to the

village, I got her to be nurse to the little one, and so grew up to a

knowledge of her native tongue, d'ye see, and the fairy tales and such

like thereto belonging. And--ay, I see you've guessed it long already,

sir--that's Agatha."

I had intended relating my vision to Mr. Poyntz on the spot where it

occurred; but I know not what reluctance prevented me. It was too solemn

and inexplicable an experience to bear discussion so soon. So, instead

of that, I told him, as we trudged homewards together, the history of

the Feuerberg family, and how all tended to ratify my conviction that

Agatha and I were cousins, though far removed. And I may remark here

that he and I between us had afterwards no difficulty (what with his

documents and my knowledge) in establishing the relationship beyond a

doubt. "But," I added, as we stood on the brow of the slope overlooking

the old house, and saw Agatha appear round the corner and kiss her hand

to us, "but she and I are the last of our race, and there is no great

fortune awaiting us, that I know of. Only, Mr. Poyntz, I love her with

my whole heart; if she can love me, will you trust her to me?"

"Nay, ye mustn't ask me," replied the ancient mariner, grasping my hand,

with tears in his old blue eyes. "I doubt she loves you well, already.

And so do we all, for ye're a man, all be a quiet one. 'Twill be hard

parting with her, as has been sunshine to us this many a year; but ye'll

bring her to see the old folks, as time serves; and I'm bold for to

believe ye'll be as happy as the day is long."

It is twenty years since then, and old Jack Poyntz's prophecy has proved

true. My wife is wont to say, with a smile in her dark eyes, that our

prosperity is due to the restored virtue of the pearl-shell necklace,

which still rests upon her bosom. To me, however, the necklace seems but

as the symbol of the true love whose radiance has blessed our lives, and

brought us better luck than any witchcraft can bestow.