CHAPTER

I. THE RAY

II. THE RHYN

III. THE SEVEN WHISTLERS

IV. RED HALL

V. THE DECOY

VI. BLACK OR GOLD

VII. LIKE A BAD PENNY

VIII. WHERE IS HE?

IX. IN MOURNING

X. STRUCK COLOURS

XI. A DUTCH AUCTION

XII. A GILDED BALCONY

XIII. THE FLAG FLIES

XIV. ON THE BURNT HILL

XV. NEW YEAR'S EVE

XVI. IN NEW QUARTERS

XVII. FACE TO FACE

XVIII. IN A COBWEB

XIX. DE PROFUNDIS

XX. IN PROFUNDUM

XXI. IN VAIN!

XXII. THE LAST STRAW

XXIII. BEFORE THE ALTAR

XXIV. THE VIAL OF WRATH

XXV. IN THE DARKNESS

XXVI. THE FORGING OF THE RING

XXVII. THE RETURN OF THE LOST

XXVIII. TIMOTHY'S TIDINGS

XXIX. TEMPTATION

XXX. TO WEDDING BELLS

*MEHALAH:*

_*A STORY OF THE SALT MARSHES.*_

*CHAPTER I.*

*THE RAY.*

Between the mouths of the Blackwater and the Colne, on the east coast of

Essex, lies an extensive marshy tract veined and freckled in every part

with water. It is a wide waste of debatable ground contested by sea and

land, subject to incessant incursions from the former, but stubbornly

maintained by the latter. At high tide the appearance is that of a vast

surface of moss or Sargasso weed floating on the sea, with rents and

patches of shining water traversing and dappling it in all directions.

The creeks, some of considerable length and breadth, extend many miles

inland, and are arteries whence branches out a fibrous tissue of smaller

channels, flushed with water twice in the twenty-four hours. At

noon-tides, and especially at the equinoxes, the sea asserts its royalty

over this vast region, and overflows the whole, leaving standing out of

the flood only the long island of Mersea, and the lesser islet, called

the Ray. This latter is a hill of gravel rising from the heart of the

Marshes, crowned with ancient thorntrees, and possessing, what is denied

the mainland, an unfailing spring of purest water. At ebb, the Ray can

only be reached from the old Roman causeway, called the Strood, over

which runs the road from Colchester to Mersea Isle, connecting formerly

the city of the Trinobantes with the station of the count of the Saxon

shore. But even at ebb, the Ray is not approachable by land unless the

sun or east wind has parched the ooze into brick; and then the way is

long, tedious and tortuous, among bitter pools and over shining creeks.

It was perhaps because this ridge of high ground was so inaccessible, so

well protected by nature, that the ancient inhabitants had erected on it

a _rath_, or fortified camp of wooden logs, which left its name to the

place long after the timber defences had rotted away.

A more desolate region can scarce be conceived, and yet it is not

without beauty. In summer, the thrift mantles the marshes with shot

satin, passing through all gradations of tint from maiden's blush to

lily white. Thereafter a purple glow steals over the waste, as the sea

lavender bursts into flower, and simultaneously every creek and pool is

royally fringed with sea aster. A little later the glass-wort, that shot

up green and transparent as emerald glass in the early spring, turns to

every tinge of carmine.

When all vegetation ceases to live, and goes to sleep, the marshes are

alive and wakeful with countless wild fowl. At all times they are

haunted with sea mews and roysten crows, in winter they teem with wild

duck and grey geese. The stately heron loves to wade in the pools,

occasionally the whooper swan sounds his loud trumpet, and flashes a

white reflection in the still blue waters of the fleets. The plaintive

pipe of the curlew is familiar to those who frequent these marshes, and

the barking of the brent geese as they return from their northern

breeding places is heard in November.

At the close of last century there stood on the Ray a small farmhouse

built of tarred wreckage timber, and roofed with red pan-tiles. The

twisted thorntrees about it afforded some, but slight, shelter. Under

the little cliff of gravel was a good beach, termed a 'hard.'

On an evening towards the close of September, a man stood in this

farmhouse by the hearth, on which burnt a piece of wreckwood, opposite

an old woman, who crouched shivering with ague in a chair on the other

side. He was a strongly built man of about thirty-five, wearing

fisherman's boots, a brown coat and a red plush waistcoat. His hair was

black, raked over his brow. His cheekbones were high; his eyes dark,

eager, intelligent, but fierce in expression. His nose was aquiline,

and would have given a certain nobility to his countenance, had not his

huge jaws and heavy chin contributed an animal cast to his face.

He leaned on his duck-gun, and glared from under his pent-house brows

and thatch of black hair over the head of the old woman at a girl who

stood behind, leaning on the back of her mother's chair, and who

returned his stare with a look of defiance from her brown eyes.

The girl might have been taken for a sailor boy, as she leaned over the

chairback, but for the profusion of her black hair. She wore a blue

knitted guernsey covering body and arms, and across the breast, woven in

red wool, was the name of the vessel, 'Gloriana.' The guernsey had been

knitted for one of the crew of a ship of this name, but had come into

the girl's possession. On her head she wore the scarlet woven cap of a

boatman.

The one-pane window at the side of the fireplace faced the west, and the

evening sun lit her brown gipsy face, burnt in her large eyes, and made

coppery lights in her dark hair.

The old woman was shivering with the ague, and shook the chair on which

her daughter leaned; a cold sweat ran off her brow, and every now and

then she raised a white faltering hand to wipe the drops away that hung

on her eyebrows like rain on thatching.

'I did not catch the chill here,' she said. 'I ketched it more than

thirty years ago when I was on Mersea Isle, and it has stuck in my

marrow ever since. But there is no ague on the Ray. This is the

healthiest place in the world, Mehalah has never caught the ague on it.

I do not wish ever to leave it, and to lay my bones elsewhere.'

'Then you will have to pay your rent punctually,' said the man in a dry

tone, not looking at her, but at her daughter.

'Please the Lord so we shall, as we ever have done,' answered the woman;

'but when the chill comes on me----'

'Oh, curse the chill,' interrupted the man; 'who cares for that except

perhaps Glory yonder, who has to work for both of you. Is it so,

Glory?'

The girl thus addressed did not answer, but folded her arms on the

chairback, and leaned her chin upon them. She seemed at that moment

like a wary cat watching a threatening dog, and ready at a moment to

show her claws and show desperate battle, not out of malice, but in

self-defence.

'Why, but for you sitting there, sweating and jabbering, Glory would not

be bound to this lone islet, but would go out and see the world, and

taste life. She grows here like a mushroom, she does not live. Is it

not so, Glory?'

The girl's face was no longer lit by the declining sun, which had glided

further north-west, but the flames of the driftwood flickered in her

large eyes that met those of the man, and the cap was still illumined by

the evening glow, a scarlet blaze against the indigo gloom.

'Have you lost your tongue, Glory?' asked the man, impatiently striking

the bricks with the butt end of his gun.

'Why do you not speak, Mehalah?' said the mother, turning her wan wet

face aside, to catch a glimpse of her daughter.

'I've answered him fifty times,' said the girl.

'No,' protested the old woman feebly, 'you have not spoken a word to

Master Rebow.'

'By God, she is right,' broke in the man. 'The little devil has a

tongue in each eye, and she has been telling me with each a thousand

times that she hates me. Eh, Glory?'

The girl rose erect, set her teeth, and turned her face aside, and

looked out at the little window on the decaying light.

Rebow laughed aloud.

'She hated me before, and now she hates me worse, because I have become

her landlord. I have bought the Ray for eight hundred pounds. The Ray

is mine, I tell you. Mistress Sharland, you will henceforth have to pay

me the rent, to me and to none other. I am your landlord, and

Michaelmas is next week.'

'The rent shall be paid, Elijah!' said the widow.

'The Ray is mine,' pursued Rebow, swelling with pride. 'I have bought

it with my own money--eight hundred pounds. I could stubb up the trees

if I would. I could cart muck into the well and choke it if I would. I

could pull down the stables and break them up for firewood if I chose.

All here is mine, the Ray, the marshes, and the saltings,[1] the creeks,

the fleets, the farm. That is mine,' said he, striking the wall with

his gun, 'and that is mine,' dashing the butt end against the hearth;

'and you are mine, and Glory is mine.'

[1] A salting is land occasionally flooded, otherwise serving as

pasturage. A marsh is a reclaimed salting, enclosed within a sea-wall.

'That never,' said the girl stepping forward, and confronting him with

dauntless eye and firm lips and folded arms.

'Eh! Gloriana! have I roused you?' exclaimed Elijah Rebow, with a flash

of exultation in his fierce eyes. 'I said that the house and the

marshes, and the saltings are mine, I have bought them. And your mother

and you are mine.'

'Never,' repeated the girl.

'But I say yes.'

'We are your tenants, Elijah,' observed the widow nervously interposing.

'Do not let Mehalah anger you. She has been reared here in solitude, and

she does not know the ways of men. She means nothing by her manner.'

'I do,' said the girl, 'and he knows it.'

'She is a headlong child,' pursued the old woman, 'and when she fares to

say or do a thing, there is no staying tongue or hand. Do not mind her,

master.'

The man paid no heed to the woman's words, but fixed his attention on

the girl. Neither spoke. It was as though a war of wills was

proclaimed and begun. He sought to beat down her defences with the force

of his resolve flung at her from his dark eyes, and she parried it

dauntlessly with her pride.

'By God!' he said at last, 'I have never seen anywhere else a girl of

your sort. There is none elsewhere. I like you.'

'I knew it,' said the mother with feeble triumph in her palsied voice.

'She is a right good girl at heart, true as steel, and as tough in

fibre.'

'I have bought the house and the pasture, and the marshes and the

saltings,' said Elijah sulkily, 'and all that thereon is. You are mine,

Glory! You cannot escape me. Give me your hand.'

She remained motionless, with folded arms. He laid his heavy palm on

her shoulder.

'Give me your hand, and mine is light; I will help you. Let me lay it

on you and it will crush you. Escape it you cannot. This way or that.

My hand will clasp or crush.'

She did not stir.

'The wild fowl that fly here are mine, the fish that swim in the fleets

are mine,' he went on; 'I can shoot and net them.'

'So can I, and so can anyone,' said the girl haughtily.

'Let them try it on,' said Elijah; 'I am not one to be trifled with, as

the world well knows. I will bear no poaching here. I have bought the

Ray, and the fish are mine, and the fowl are mine, and you are mine

also. Let him touch who dares.'

'The wild fowl are free for any man to shoot, the fish are free for any

man to net,' said the girl scornfully.

'That is not my doctrine,' answered Elijah. 'What is on my soil and in

my waters is mine, I may do with them what I will, and so also all that

lives on my estate is mine.' Returning with doggedness to his point,

'As you live in my house and on my land, you are mine.'

'Mother,' said the girl, 'give him notice, and quit the Ray.'

'I could not do it, Mehalah, I could not do it,' answered the woman.

'I've lived all my life on the marshes, and I cannot quit them. But

this is a healthy spot, and not like the marshes of Dairy House where

once we were, and where I ketched the chill.'

'You cannot go till you have paid me the rent,' said Rebow.

'That,' answered Mehalah, 'we will do assuredly.'

'So you promise, Glory!' said Rebow. 'But should you fail to do it, I

could take every stick here:--That chair in which your mother shivers,

those dishes yonder, the bed you sleep in, the sprucehutch[2] in which

you keep your clothes. I could pluck the clock, the heart of the house,

out of it. I could tear that defiant red cap off your head. I could

drive you both out without a cover into the whistling east wind and

biting frost.'

[2] Cypress-chest.

'I tell you, we can and we will pay.'

'But should you not be able at any time, I warn you what to expect.

I've a fancy for that jersey you wear with "Gloriana" right across the

breast. I'll pull it off and draw it on myself.' He ground his teeth.

'I will have it, if only to wrap me in, in my grave. I will cross my

arms over it, as you do now, and set my teeth, and not a devil in hell

shall tear it off me.'

'I tell you we will pay.'

'Let me alone, let me talk. This is better than money. I will rip the

tiling off the roof and fling it down between the rafters, if you refuse

to stir; I will cast it at your mother and you, Glory. The red cap will

not protect your skull from a tile, will it? And yet you say, I am not

your master. You do not belong to me, as do the marshes and the

saltings, and the wild duck.'

'I tell you we will pay,' repeated the girl passionately, as she

wrenched her shoulder from his iron grip.

'You don't belong to me!' jeered Elijah. Then slapping the arm of the

widow's chair, and pointing over his shoulder at Mehalah, he said

scornfully: 'She says she does not belong to me, as though she believed

it. But she does, and you do, and so does that chair, and the log that

smoulders on the hearth, and the very hearth itself, with its heat, the

hungry ever-devouring belly of the house. I've bought the Ray and all

that is on it for eight hundred pounds. I saw it on the paper, it

stands in writing and may not be broke through. Lawyers' scripture binds

and looses as Bible scripture. I will stick to my rights, to every

thread and breath of them. She is mine.'

'But, Elijah, be reasonable,' said the widow, lifting her hand

appealingly. The fit of ague was passing away. 'We are in a Christian

land. We are not slaves to be bought and sold like cattle.'

'If you cannot pay the rent, I can take everything from you. I can

throw you out of this chair down on those bricks. I can take the crock

and all the meat in it. I can take the bed on which you sleep. I can

take the clothes off your back.' Turning suddenly round on the girl he

glared, 'I will rip the jersey off her, and wear it till I rot. I will

pull the red cap off her head and lay it on my heart to keep it warm.

None shall say me nay. Tell me, mistress, what are you, what is she,

without house and bed and clothing? I will take her gun, I will swamp

her boat. I will trample down your garden. I will drive you both down

with my dogs upon the saltings at the spring tide, at the full of moon.

You shall not shelter here, on my island, if you will not pay. I tell

you, I have bought the Ray. I gave for it eight hundred pounds.'

'But Elijah,' protested the old woman, 'do not be so angry. We are sure

to pay.'

'We will pay him, mother, and then he cannot open his mouth against us.'

At that moment the door flew open, and two men entered, one young, the

other old.

'There is the money,' said the girl, as the latter laid a canvas bag on

the table.

'We've sold the sheep--at least Abraham has,' said the young man

joyously, as he held out his hand. 'Sold them well, too, Glory!'

The girl's entire face was transformed. The cloud that had hung over it

cleared, the hard eyes softened, and a kindly light beamed from them.

The set lips became flexible and smiled. Elijah saw and noted the

change, and his brow grew darker, his eye more threatening.

Mehalah strode forward, and held out her hand to clasp that offered her.

Elijah swung his musket suddenly about, and unless she had hastily

recoiled, the barrel would have struck, perhaps broken, her wrist.

'You refused my hand,' he said, 'although you are mine. I bought the

Ray for eight hundred pounds.' Then turning to the young man with

sullenness, he asked, 'George De Witt, what brings you here?'

'Why, cousin, I've a right to be here as well as you.'

'No, you have not. I have bought the Ray, and no man sets foot on this

island against my will.'

The young man laughed good-humouredly.

'You won't keep me off your property then, Elijah, so long as Glory is

here?'

Elijah made a motion as though he would speak angrily, but restrained

himself with an effort. He said nothing, but his eyes followed every

movement of Mehalah Sharland. She turned to him with an exultant

splendour in her face, and pointing to the canvas bag on the table,

said, 'There is the money. Will you take the rent at once, or wait till

it is due?'

'It is not due till next Thursday.'

'We do not pay for a few weeks. Three weeks' grace we have been

hitherto allowed.'

'I give no grace.'

'Then take your money at once.'

'I will not touch it till it is due. I will take it next Thursday. You

will bring it me then to Red Hall.'

'Is the boat all right where I left her?' asked the young man.

'Yes, George!' answered the girl, 'she is on the hard where you anchored

her this morning. What have you been getting in Colchester to-day?'

'I have bought some groceries for mother,' he said, 'and there is a

present with me for you. But that I will not give up till by-and-bye.

You will help me to thrust the boat off, will you not, Glory?'

'She is afloat now. However, I will come presently, I must give Abraham

first his supper.'

'Thank ye,' said the old man. 'George de Witt and me stopped at the

Rose and had a bite. I must go at once after the cows. You'll excuse

me.' He went out.

'Will you stay and sup with us, George?' asked the widow. 'There is

something in the pot will be ready directly.'

'Thank you all the same,' he replied, 'I want to be back as soon as I

can, the night will be dark; besides, you and Glory have company.' Then

turning to Rebow he added:

'So you have bought the Ray.'

'I have.'

'Then Glory and her mother are your tenants.'

'They are mine.'

'I hope they will find you an easy landlord.'

'I reckon they will not,' said Elijah shortly.

'Come along, Glory!' he called, abandoning the topic and the uncongenial

speaker, and turning to the girl. 'Help me with my boat.'

'Don't be gone for long, Mehalah!' said her mother.

'I shall be back directly.'

Elijah Rebow kept his mouth closed. His face was as though cast in

iron, but a living fire smouldered within and broke out through the

eye-sockets, as lava will lie hard and cold, a rocky crust with a fiery

fluid core within that at intervals glares out at fissures. He did not

utter a word, but he watched Glory go out with De Witt, and then a grim

smile curdled his rugged cheeks. He seated himself opposite the widow,

and spread his great hands over the fire. He was pondering. The shadow

of his strongly featured face and expanded hands was cast on the

opposite wall; as the flame flickered, the shadow hands seemed to open

and shut, to stretch and grasp.

The gold had died out of the sky and only a pearly twilight crept in at

the window, the evening heaven seen through the pane was soft and cool

in tone as the tints of the Glaucus gull. The old woman remained

silent. She was afraid of the new landlord. She had long known him,

longer known of him, she had never liked him, and she liked less to have

him now in a place of power over her.

Presently Rebow rose, slowly, from his seat, and laying aside his gun

said, 'I too have brought a present, but not for Glory. She must know

nothing of this, it is for you. I put the keg outside the door under

the whitethorn. I knew a drop of spirits was good for the ague. We get

spirits cheap, or I would not give you any.' He was unable to do a

gracious act without marring its merit by an ungracious word. 'I will

fetch it in. May it comfort you in the chills.'

He went out of the house and returned with a little keg under his arm.

'Where is it to go?' he asked.

'Oh, Master Rebow! this is good of you, and I am thankful. My ague does

pull me down sorely.'

'Damn your ague, who cares about it!' he said surlily. 'Where is the

keg to go?'

'Let me roll it in,' said the old woman, jumping up. 'There are better

cellars and storeplaces here than anywhere between this and Tiptree

Heath.'

'Saving mine at Red Hall, and those at Salcot Rising Sun,' interjected

the man.

'You see, Rebow, in times gone by, a great many smuggled goods were

stowed away here; but much does not come this way now,' with a sigh.

'It goes to Red Hall instead,' said Rebow. 'Ah! if you were there, your

life would be a merry one. There! take the keg. I have had trouble

enough bringing it here. You stow it away where you like, yourself; and

draw me a glass, I am dry.'

He flung himself in the chair again, and let the old woman take up and

hug the keg, and carry it off to some secure hiding-place where in days

gone by many much larger barrels of brandy and wine had been stored

away. She soon returned.

'I have not tapped this,' she said. 'The liquor will be muddy. I have

drawn a little from the other that you gave me.'

Elijah took the glass from her hand and tossed it off. He was chuckling

to himself.

'You will say a word for me to Glory.'

'Rely on me, Elijah. None has been so good to me as you. None has

given me anything for my chill but you. But Mehalah will find it out, I

reckon; she suspects already.'

He paid no heed to her words.

'So she is not mine, nor the house, nor the marshes, nor the saltings,

nor the fish and fowl!' he muttered derisively to himself.

'I paid eight hundred pounds for the Ray and all that therein is,' he

continued, 'let alone what I paid the lawyer.' He rubbed his hands.

Then he rose again, and took his gun.

'I'm off,' he said, and strode to the door.

At the same moment Mehalah appeared at it, her face clear and smiling.

She looked handsomer than ever.

'Well!' snarled Rebow, arresting her, 'what did he give you?'

'That is no concern of yours,' answered the girl, and she tried to pass.

He put his fowling piece across the door and barred the way.

'What did he give you?' he asked in his dogged manner.

'I might refuse to answer,' she said carelessly, 'but I do not mind your

knowing; the whole Ray and Mersea, and the world outside may know.

This!' She produced an Indian red silk kerchief, which she flung over

her shoulders and knotted under her chin. With her rich complexion,

hazel eyes, dark hair and scarlet cap, lit by the red fire flames, she

looked a gipsy, and splendid in her beauty. Rebow dropped his gun,

thrust her aside with a sort of mad fury, and flung himself out of the

door.

'He is gone at last!' said the girl with a gay laugh.

Rebow put his head in again. His lips were drawn back and his white

teeth glistened.

'You will pay the rent next Thursday. I give no grace.'

Then he shut the door and was gone.

*CHAPTER II.*

*THE RHYN.*

'Mother,' said Mehalah, 'are you better now?'

'Yes, the fit is off me, but I am left terribly weak.'

'Mother, will you give me the medal?'

'What? Your grandmother's charm? You cannot want it!'

'It brings luck, and saves from sudden death. I wish to give it to

George.'

'No, Mehalah! This will not do. You must keep it yourself.'

'It is mine, is it not?'

'No, child; it is promised you, but it is not yours yet. You shall have

it some future day.'

'I want it at once, that I may give it to George. He has made me a

present of this red kerchief for my neck, and he has given me many

another remembrance, but I have made him no return. I have nothing that

I can give him save that medal. Let me have it.'

'It must not go out of the family, Mehalah.'

'It will not. You know what is between George and me.'

The old woman hesitated and excused herself, but was so much in the

habit of yielding to her daughter, that she was unable in this matter to

maintain her opposition. She submitted reluctantly, and crept out of

the room to fetch the article demanded of her.

When she returned, she found Mehalah standing before the fire with her

back to the embers, and her hands knitted behind her, looking at the

floor, lost in thought.

'There it is,' grumbled the old woman. 'But I don't like to part with

it; and it must not go out of the family. Keep it yourself, Mehalah,

and give it away to none.'

The girl took the coin. It was a large silver token, the size of a

crown, bearing on the face a figure of Mars in armour, with shield and

brandished sword, between the zodiacal signs of the Ram and the

Scorpion.

The reverse was gilt, and represented a square divided into

five-and-twenty smaller squares, each containing a number, so that the

sum in each row, taken either vertically or horizontally, was

sixty-five. The medal was undoubtedly foreign. Theophrastus

Paracelsus, in his 'Archidoxa,' published in the year 1572, describes

some such talisman, gives instructions for its casting, and says: 'This

seal or token gives him who carries it about him strength and security

and victory in all battles, protection in all perils. It enables him to

overcome his enemies and counteract their plots.'

The medal held by the girl belonged to the sixteenth century. Neither

she nor her mother had ever heard of Paracelsus, and knew nothing of his

'Archidoxa.' The figures on the face passed their comprehension. The

mystery of the square on the reverse had never been discovered by them.

They knew only that the token was a charm, and that family tradition

held it to secure the wearer against sudden death by violence.

A hole was drilled through the piece, and a strong silver ring inserted.

A broad silk riband of faded blue passed through the ring, so that the

medal might be worn about the neck. For a few moments Mehalah studied

the mysterious figures by the fire-light, then flung the riband round

her neck, and hid the coin and its perplexing symbols in her bosom.

'I must light a candle,' she said; then she stopped by the table on her

way across the room, and took up the glass upon it.

'Mother,' she said sharply; 'who has been drinking here?'

The old woman pretended not to hear the question, and began to poke the

fire.

'Mother, has Elijah Rebow been drinking spirits out of this glass?'

'To be sure, Mehalah, he did just take a drop.'

'Whence did he get it?'

'Don't you think it probable that such a man as he, out much on the

marshes, should carry a bottle about with him? Most men go provided

against the chill who can afford to do so.'

'Mother,' said the girl impatiently, 'you are deceiving me. I know he

got the spirits here, and that you have had them here for some time. I

insist on being told how you came by them.'

The old woman made feeble and futile attempts to evade answering her

daughter directly; but was at last forced to confess that on two

occasions, of which this evening was one, Elijah Rebow had brought her a

small keg of rum.

'You do not grudge it me, Mehalah, do you? It does me good when I am

low after my fits.'

'I do not grudge it you,' answered the girl; 'but I do not choose you

should receive favours from that man. He has to-day been threatening

us, and yet secretly he is making you presents. Why does he come here?'

She looked full in her mother's face. 'Why does he give you these

spirits? He, a man who never did a good action but asked a return in

fourfold measure. I promise you, mother, if he brings here any more,

that I will stave in the cask and let the liquor you so value waste

away.'

The widow made piteous protest, but her daughter remained firm.

'Now,' said the girl, 'this point is settled between us. Be sure I will

not go back from my word. I will in nothing be behoven to the man I

abhor. Now let me count the money.' She caught up the bag, then put it

down again. She lit a candle at the hearth, drew her chair to the

table, seated herself at it, untied the string knotted about the neck of

the pouch, and poured the contents upon the board.

She sprang to her feet with a cry; she stood as though petrified, with

one hand to her head, the other holding the bag. Her eyes, wide open

with dismay, were fixed on the little heap she had emptied on the

table--a heap of shot, great and small, some penny-pieces, and a few

bullets.

'What is the matter with you, Mehalah? What has happened?'

The girl was speechless. The old woman moved to the table and looked.

'What is this, Mehalah?'

'Look here! Lead, not gold.'

'There has been a mistake,' said the widow, nervously, 'call Abraham; he

has given you the wrong sack.'

'There has been no mistake. This is the right bag. He had no other. We

have been robbed.'

The old woman was about to put her hand on the heap, but Mehalah

arrested it.

'Do not touch anything here,' she said, 'let all remain as it is till I

bring Abraham. I must ascertain who has robbed us.'

She leaned her elbows on the table; she platted her fingers over her

brow, and sat thinking. What could have become of the money? Where

could it have been withdrawn? Who could have been the thief?

Abraham Dowsing, the shepherd, was a simple surly old man, honest but

not intelligent, selfish but trustworthy. He was a fair specimen of the

East Saxon peasant, a man of small reasoning power, moving like a

machine, very slow, muddy in mind, only slightly advanced in the scale

of beings above the dumb beasts; with instinct just awaking into

intelligence, but not sufficiently awake to know its powers; more

unhappy and helpless than the brute, for instinct is exhausted in the

transformation process; not happy as a man, for he is encumbered with

the new gift, not illumined and assisted by it. He is distrustful of

its power, inapt to appreciate it, detesting the exercise of it.

On the fidelity of Abraham Dowsing, Mehalah felt assured she might rely.

He was guiltless of the abstraction. She relied on him to sell the

sheep to the best advantage, for, like everyone of low mental

organisation, he was grasping and keen to drive a bargain. But when he

had the money she knew that less confidence could be reposed on him. He

could think of but one thing at a time, and if he fell into company, his

mind would be occupied by his jug of beer, his bread and cheese, or his

companion. He would not have attention at command for anything beside.

The rustic brain has neither agility nor flexibility. It cannot shift

its focus nor change its point of sight. The educated mind will peer

through a needlehole in a sheet of paper, and see through it the entire

horizon and all the sky. The uncultured mind perceives nothing but a

hole, a hole everywhere without bottom, to be recoiled from, not

sounded. When the oyster spat falls on mud in a tidal estuary, it gets

buried in mud deeper with every tide, two films each twenty-four hours,

and becomes a fossil if it becomes anything. Mind in the rustic is like

oyster spat, unformed, the protoplasm of mind but not mind itself,

daily, annually deeper buried in the mud of coarse routine. It never

thinks, it scarce lives, and dies in unconsciousness that it ever

possessed life.

Mehalah sat considering, her mother by her, with anxious eyes fastened

on her daughter's face.

The money must have been abstracted either in Colchester or on the way

home. The old man had said that he stopped and tarried at the Rose inn

on the way. Had the theft been there committed? Who had been his

associates in that tavern?

'Mother,' said Mehalah suddenly, 'has the canvas bag been on the table

untouched since Abraham brought it here?'

'To be sure it has.'

'You have been in the room, in your seat all the while?'

'Of course I have. There was no one here but Rebow. You do not suspect

him, do you?'

Mehalah shook her head.

'No, I have no reason to do so. You were here all the while?'

'Yes.'

Mehalah dropped her brow again on her hands. What was to be done? It

was in vain to question Abraham. His thick and addled brain would

baffle enquiry. Like a savage, the peasant when questioned will

equivocate, and rather than speak the truth invent a lie from a dim fear

lest the truth should hurt him. The lie is to him what his shell is to

the snail, his place of natural refuge; he retreats to it not only from

danger, but from observation.

He does not desire to mislead the querist, but to baffle observation.

He accumulates deception, equivocation, falsehood about him just as he

allows dirt to clot his person, for his own warmth and comfort, not to

offend others.

The girl stood up.

'Mother, I must go after George De Witt at once. He was with Abraham on

the road home, and he will tell us the truth. It is of no use

questioning the old man, he will grow suspicious, and think we are

accusing him. The tide is at flood, I shall be able to catch George on

the Mersea hard.'

'Take the lanthorn with you.'

'I will. The evening is becoming dark, and there will be ebb as I come

back. I must land in the saltings.'

Mehalah unhung a lanthorn from the ceiling and kindled a candle end in

it, at the light upon the table. She opened the drawer of the table and

took out a pistol. She looked at the priming, and then thrust it

through a leather belt she wore under her guernsey.

On that coast, haunted by smugglers and other lawless characters, a girl

might well go armed. By the roadside to Colchester where cross ways

met, was growing an oak that had been planted as an acorn in the mouth

of a pirate of Rowhedge, not many years before, who had there been hung

in chains for men murdered and maids carried off. Nearly every man

carried a gun in hopes of bringing home wild fowl, and when Mehalah was

in her boat, she usually took her gun with her for the same purpose.

But men bore firearms not only for the sake of bringing home game;

self-protection demanded it.

At this period, the mouth of the Blackwater was a great centre of the

smuggling trade; the number and intricacy of the channels made it a safe

harbour for those who lived on contraband traffic. It was easy for

those who knew the creeks to elude the revenue boats, and every farm and

tavern was ready to give cellarage to run goods and harbour to

smugglers.

Between Mersea and the Blackwater were several flat holms or islands,

some under water at high-tides, others only just standing above it, and

between these the winding waterways formed a labyrinth in which it was

easy to evade pursuit and entangle the pursuers. The traffic was

therefore here carried on with an audacity and openness scarce

paralleled elsewhere. Although there was a coastguard station at the

mouth of the estuary, on Mersea 'Hard,' yet goods were run even in open

day under the very eyes of the revenue men. Each public-house on the

island and on the mainland near a creek obtained its entire supply of

wine and spirits from contraband vessels. Whether the coastguard were

bought to shut their eyes or were baffled by the adroitness of the

smugglers, cannot be said, but certain it was, that the taverns found no

difficulty in obtaining their supplies as often and as abundant as they

desired.

The villages of Virley and Salcot were the chief landing-places, and

there horses and donkeys were kept in large numbers for the conveyance

of the spirits, wine, tobacco and silk to Tiptree Heath, the scene of

Boadicaea's great battle with the legions of Suetonius, which was the

emporium of the trade. There a constant fair or auction of contraband

articles went on, and thence they were distributed to Maldon,

Colchester, Chelmsford, and even London. Tiptree Heath was a permanent

camping ground of gipsies, and squatters ran up there rude hovels; these

were all engaged in the distribution of the goods brought from the sea.

But though the taverns were able to supply themselves with illicit

spirits, unchecked, the coastguard were ready to arrest and detain run

goods not destined for their cellars. Deeds of violence were not rare,

and many a revenue officer fell a victim to his zeal. On Sunken Island

off Mersea, the story went, that a whole boat's crew were found with

their throats cut; they were transported thence to the churchyard, there

buried, and their boat turned keel upwards over them.

The gipsies were thought to pursue over-conscientious and successful

officers on the mainland, and remove them with a bullet should they

escape the smugglers on the water.

The whole population of this region was more or less mixed up with, and

interested in, this illicit traffic, and with defiance of the officers

of the law, from the parson who allowed his nag and cart to be taken

from his stable at night, left unbolted for the purpose, and received a

keg now and then as repayment, to the vagabonds who dealt at the door

far inland in silks and tobacco obtained free of duty on the coast.

What was rare elsewhere was by no means uncommon here, gipsies

intermarried with the people, and settled on the coast. The life of

adventure, danger, and impermanence was sufficiently attractive to them

to induce them to abandon for it their roving habits; perhaps the

difference of life was not so marked as to make the change distasteful.

Thus a strain of wild, restless, law-defying gipsy blood entered the

veins of the Essex marshland populations, and galvanised into new life

the sluggish and slimy liquid that trickled through the East Saxon

arteries. Adventurers from the Low Countries, from France, even from

Italy and Spain--originally smugglers, settled on the coast, generally

as publicans, in league with the owners of the contraband vessels,

married and left issue. There were neither landed gentry nor resident

incumbents in this district, to civilise and restrain. The land was

held by yeomen farmers, and by squatters who had seized on and enclosed

waste land, no man saying them nay. At the revocation of the Edict of

Nantes a large number of Huguenot French families had settled in the

'Hundreds' and the marshes, and for full a century in several of the

churches divine service was performed alternately in French and English.

To the energy of these colonists perhaps are due the long-extended

sea-walls enclosing vast tracts of pasture from the tide.

Those Huguenots not only infused their Gallic blood into the veins of

the people, but also their Puritanic bitterness and Calvinistic

partiality for Old Testament names. Thus the most frequent Christian

names met with are those of patriarchs, prophets and Judaic kings, and

the sire-names are foreign, often greatly corrupted.

Yet, in spite of this infusion of strange ichor from all sides, the

agricultural peasant on the land remains unaltered, stamped out of the

old unleavened dough of Saxon stolidity, forming a class apart from that

of the farmers and that of the seamen, in intelligence, temperament, and

gravitation. All he has derived from the French element which has

washed about him has been a nasal twang in his pronunciation of English.

Yet his dogged adherence to one letter, which was jeopardised by the

Gallic invasion, has reacted, and imposed on the invaders, and the _v_

is universally replaced on the Essex coast by a _w_.

In the plaster and oak cottages away from the sea, by stagnant pools,

the hatching places of clouds of mosquitos, whence rises with the night

the haunting spirit of tertian ague, the hag that rides on, and takes

the life out of the sturdiest men and women, and shakes and wastes the

vital nerves of the children, live the old East Saxon slow moving, never

thinking, day labourers. In the tarred wreck-timber cabins by the sea

just above the reach of the tide, beside the shingle beach, swarms a

yeasty, turbulent, race of mixed-breeds, engaged in the fishery and in

the contraband trade.

Mehalah went to the boat. It was floating. She placed the lanthorn in

the bows, cast loose, and began to row. She would need the light on her

return, perhaps, as with the falling tide she would be unable to reach

the landing-place under the farmhouse, and be forced to anchor at the

end of the island, and walk home across the saltings. To cross these

without a light on a dark night is not safe even to one knowing the lie

of the land.

A little light still lingered in the sky. There was a yellow grey glow

in the west over the Bradwell shore. Its fringe of trees, and old barn

chapel standing across the walls of the buried city Othona, stood sombre

against the light, as though dabbed in pitch on a faded golden ground.

The water was still, as no wind was blowing, and it reflected the sky

and the stars that stole out, with such distinctness that the boat

seemed to be swimming in the sky, among black tatters of clouds, these

being the streaks of land that broke the horizon and the reflection.

Gulls were screaming, and curlew uttered their mournful cry. Mehalah

rowed swiftly down the Rhyn, as the channel was called that divided the

Ray from the mainland, and that led to the 'hard' by the Rose inn, and

formed the highway by which it drew its supplies, and from which every

farm in the parish of Peldon carried its casks of strong liquor. To the

west extended a vast marsh from which the tide was excluded by a dyke

many miles in length. Against the northern horizon rose the hill of

Wigborough crowned by a church and a great tumulus, and some trees that

served as landmarks to the vessels entering the Blackwater. In ancient

days the hill had been a beacon station, and it was reconverted to this

purpose in time of war. A man was placed by order of Government in the

tower, to light a crescet on the summit, in answer to a similar beacon

at Mersea, in the event of a hostile fleet being seen in the offing.

Now and then the boat--it was a flat-bottomed punt--hissed among the

asters, as Mehalah shot over tracts usually dry, but now submerged; she

skirted next a bed of bulrushes. These reeds are only patient of

occasional flushes with salt water, and where they grow it is at the

opening of a land drain, or mark a fresh spring. Suddenly as she was

cutting the flood, the punt was jarred and arrested. She looked round.

A boat was across her bows. It had shot out of the rushes and stopped

her.

'Whither are you going, Glory?'

The voice was that of Elijah Rebow, the last man Mehalah wished to meet

at night, when alone on the water.

'That is my affair, not yours,' she answered. 'I am in haste, let me

pass.'

'I will not. I will not be treated like this, Glory. I have shot you a

couple of curlew, and here they are.'

He flung the birds into her boat. Mehalah threw them back again.

'Let it be an understood thing between us, Elijah, that we will accept

none of your presents. You have brought my mother a keg of rum, and I

have sworn to beat in the head of the next you give her. She will take

nothing from you.'

'There you are mistaken, Glory; she will take as much as I will give

her. You mean that you will not. I understand your pride, Glory! and I

love you for it.'

'I care nothing for your love or your hate. We are naught to each

other.'

'Yes we are, I am your landlord. We shall see how that sentiment of

yours will stand next Thursday.'

'What do you mean?' asked Mehalah hastily.

'What do I mean? Why, I suppose I am intelligible enough in what I say

for you to understand me without explanation. When you come to pay the

rent to me next Thursday, you will not be able to say we are naught to

each other. Why! you will have to pay me for every privilege of life

you enjoy, for the house you occupy, for the marshes that feed your cow

and swell its udder with milk, for the saltings on which your sheep

fatten and grow their wool.'

The brave girl's heart failed for a moment. She had not the money.

What would Elijah say and do when he discovered that she and her mother

were defaulters? However, she put a bold face on the matter now, and

thrusting off the boat with her oar, she said impatiently, 'You are

causing me to waste precious time. I must be back before the water is

out of the fleets.'

'Whither are you going?' again asked Rebow, and again he drove his boat

athwart her bows. 'It is not safe for a young girl like you to be about

on the water after nightfall with ruffians of all sorts poaching on my

saltings and up and down my creeks.'

'I am going to Mersea City,' said Mehalah.

'You are going to George De Witt.'

'What if I am? That is no concern of yours.'

'He is my cousin.'

'I wish he were a cousin very far removed from you.'

'Oh Glory! you are jesting.' He caught the side of the punt with his

hand, for she made an effort to push past him. 'I shall not detain you

long. Take these curlew. They are plump birds; your mother will relish

them. Take them, and be damned to your pride. I shot them for you.'

'I will not have them, Elijah.'

'Then I will not either,' and he flung the dead birds into the water.

She seized the opportunity, and dipping her oars in the tide, strained

at them, and shot away. She heard him curse, for his boat had grounded

and he could not follow.

She laughed in reply.

In twenty minutes Mehalah ran her punt on Mersea beach. Here a little

above high-water mark stood a cluster of wooden houses and an old inn,

pretentiously called the 'City,' a hive of smugglers. On the shore,

somewhat east, and away from the city, lay a dismasted vessel, fastened

upright by chains, the keel sunk in the shingle. She had been carried

to this point at spring flood and stranded, and was touched, not lifted

by the ordinary tides. Mehalah's punt, drawing no draught, floated

under the side of this vessel, and she caught the ladder by which access

was obtained to the deck.

'Who is there?' asked George De Witt, looking over the side.

'I am come after you, George,' answered Mehalah.

'Why, Glory! what is the matter?'

'There is something very serious the matter. You must come back with me

at once to the Ray.'

'Is your mother ill?'

'Worse than that.'

'Dead?'

'No, no! nothing of that sort. She is all right. But I cannot explain

the circumstances now. Come at once and with me.'

'I will get the boat out directly.'

'Never mind the boat. Come in the punt with me. You cannot return by

water to-night. The ebb will prevent that. You will be obliged to go

round by the Strood. Tell your mother not to expect you.'

'But what is the matter, Glory?'

'I will tell you when we are afloat.'

'I shall be back directly, but I do not know how the old woman will take

it.' He swung himself down into the cabin, and announced to his mother

that he was going to the Ray, and would return on foot by the Strood.

A gurgle of objurgations rose from the hatchway, and followed the young

man as he made his escape.

'I wouldn't have done it for another,' said he; 'the old lady is put

out, and will not forgive me. It will be bad walking by the Strood,

Glory! Can't you put me across to the Fresh Marsh?'

'If there is water enough I will do so. Be quick now. There is no time

to spare.'

He came down the ladder and stepped into the punt.

'Give me the oars, Glory. You sit in the stern and take the lanthorn.'

'It is in the bows.'

'I know that. But can you not understand, Glory, that when I am rowing,

I like to see you. Hold the lanthorn so that I may get a peep of your

face now and then.'

'Do not be foolish, George,' said Mehalah. However, she did as he

asked, and the yellow dull light fell on her face, red handkerchief and

cap.

'You look like a witch,' laughed De Witt.

'I will steer, row as hard as you can, George,' said the girl; then

abruptly she exclaimed, 'I have something for you. Take it now, and

look at it afterwards.'

She drew the medal from her bosom, and passing the riband over her head,

leaned forward, and tossed the loop across his shoulders.

'Don't upset the boat, Glory! Sit still; a punt is an unsteady vessel,

and won't bear dancing in. What is it that you have given me?'

'A keepsake.'

'I shall always keep it, Glory, for the sake of the girl I love best in

the world. Now tell me; am I to row up Mersea channel or the Rhyn?'

'There is water enough in the Rhyn, though we shall not be able to reach

our hard. You row on, and do not trouble yourself about the direction,

I will steer. We shall land on the Saltings. That is why I have brought

the lanthorn with me.'

'What are you doing with the light?'

'I must put it behind me. With the blaze in my eyes I cannot see where

to steer.' She did as she said.

'Now tell me, Glory, what you have hung round my neck.'

'It is a medal, George.'

'Whatever it be, it comes from you, and is worth more than gold.'

'It is worth a great deal. It is a certain charm.'

'Indeed!'

'It preserves him who wears it from death by violence.'

At the word a flash shot out of the rushes, and a bullet whizzed past

the stern.

George De Witt paused on his oars, startled, confounded.

'The bullet was meant for you or me,' said Mehalah in a low voice. 'Had

the lanthorn been in the bows and not in the stern it would have struck

you.'

Then she sprang up and held the lanthorn aloft, above her head.

'Coward, whoever you are, skulking in the reeds. Show a light, if you

are a man. Show a light as I do. and give me a mark in return.'

'For heaven's sake, Glory, put out the candle,' exclaimed De Witt in

agitation.

'Coward! show a light, that I may have a shot at you,' she cried again,

without noticing what George said. In his alarm for her and for

himself, he raised his oar and dashed the lanthorn out of her hand. It

fell, and went out in the water.

Mehalah drew her pistol from her belt, and cocked it. She was standing,

without trembling, immovable in the punt, her eye fixed unflinching on

the reeds.

'George,' she said, 'dip the oars. Don't let her float away.'

He hesitated.

Presently a slight click was audible, then a feeble flash, as from flint

struck with steel in the pitch blackness of the shore.

Then a small red spark burned steadily.

Not a sound, save the ripple of the retreating tide.

Mehalah's pistol was levelled at the spark. She fired, and the spark

disappeared.

She and George held their breath.

'I have hit,' she said. 'Now run the punt in where the light was

visible.'

'No, Glory; this will not do. I am not going to run you and myself into

fresh danger.' He struck out.

'George, you are rowing away! Give me the oars. I will find out who it

was that fired at us.'

'This is foolhardiness,' he said, but obeyed. A couple of strokes ran

the punt among the reeds. Nothing was to be seen or heard. The night

was dark on the water, it was black as ink among the rushes. Several

times De Witt stayed his hand and listened, but there was not a sound

save the gurgle of the water, and the song of the night wind among the

tassels and harsh leaves of the bulrushes.

'She is aground,' said De Witt.

'We must back into the channel, and push on to the Ray,' said Mehalah.

The young man jumped into the water among the roots of the reeds, and

drew the punt out till she floated; then he stepped in and resumed the

oars.

'Hist!' whispered De Witt.

Both heard the click of a lock.

'Down!' he whispered, and threw himself in the bottom of the punt.

Another flash, report, and a bullet struck and splintered the bulwark.

De Witt rose, resumed the oars, and rowed lustily.

Mehalah had not stirred. She had remained erect in the stern and never

flinched.

'Coward!' she cried in a voice full of wrath and scorn, 'I defy you to

death, be you who you may!'

*CHAPTER III.*

*THE SEVEN WHISTLERS.*

The examination of old Abraham before George De Witt did not lead to any

satisfactory result. The young man was unable to throw light on the

mystery. He had not been with the shepherd all the while since the sale

of the sheep; nor had he seen the money. Abraham had indeed told him the

sum for which he had parted with the flock, and in so doing had chinked

the bag significantly. George thought it was impossible for the shot

and pennypieces that had been found in the pouch to have produced the

metallic sound he had heard. Abraham had informed him of the sale in

Colchester. Then they had separated, and the shepherd had left the town

before De Witt.

The young man had overtaken him at the public-house called the Red Lion

at Abberton, half-way between Colchester and his destination. He was

drinking a mug of beer with some seafaring men; and they proceeded

thence together. But at the Rose, another tavern a few miles further,

they had stopped for a glass and something to eat. But even there De

Witt had not been with the old man all the while, for the landlord had

called him out to look at a contrivance he had in his punt for putting a

false keel on her; with a bar, after a fashion he had seen among the

South Sea Islanders when he was a sailor.

The discussion of this daring innovation had lasted some time, and when

De Witt returned to the tavern, he found Abraham dozing, if not fast

asleep, with his head on the table, and his money bag in his hand.

'It is clear enough,' said the widow, 'that the money was stolen either

at the Lion or at the Rose.'

'I brought the money safe here,' said Abraham sullenly. 'It is of no

use your asking questions, and troubling my head about what I did here

and there. I was at the Woolpack at Colchester, at the Lion at

Abberton, and lastly at the Rose. But I tell you I brought the money

here all safe, and laid it there on that table every penny.'

'How can you be sure of that, Abraham?'

'I say I know it.'

'But Abraham, what grounds have you for such assurance? Did you count

the money at the Rose?'

'I don't care what you may ask or say. I brought the money here. If

you have lost it, or it has been bewitched since then, I am not to

blame.'

'Abraham, it must have been stolen on the road. There was no one here to

take the money.'

'That is nothing to me. I say I laid the money all right there!' He

pointed to the table.

'You may go, Abraham,' said Mehalah.

'Do you charge me with taking the money?' the old man asked with moody

temper.

'Of course not,' answered the girl. 'We did not suspect you for one

moment.'

'Then whom do you lay it on?'

'We suspect some one whom you met at one of the taverns.'

'I tell you,' he said with an oath, 'I brought the money here.'

'You cannot prove it,' said De Witt; 'if you have any reasons for saying

this, let us hear them.'

'I have no reasons,' answered the shepherd, 'but I know the truth all

the same. I never have reasons, I do not want to have them, when I know

a fact.'

'Did you shake the bag and make the money chink on the way?'

'I will not answer any more questions. If you suspect me to be the

thief, say so to my face, and don't go ferriting and trapping to ketch

me, and then go and lay it on me before a magistrate.'

'You had better go, Abraham. No one disputes your perfect honesty,'

said Mehalah.

'But I will not go, if anyone suspects me.'

'We do not suspect you.'

'Then why do you ask questions? Who asks questions who don't want to

lay a wickedness on one?'

'Go off to bed, Abraham,' said widow Sharland. 'We have met with a

dreadful loss, and the Almighty knows how we are to come out of it.'

The old man went forth grumbling imprecations on himself if he answered

any more questions.

'Well,' asked Mehalah of De Witt, when the shepherd was gone, 'what do

you think has become of the money?'

'I suppose he was robbed at one of the taverns. I see no other possible

way of accounting for the loss. The bag was not touched on the table

from the moment Abraham set it down till you opened it.'

'No. My mother was here all the time. There was no one else in the

room but Elijah Rebow.'

'He is out of the question,' said De Witt.

'Besides, my mother never left her seat whilst he was here. Did you,

mother?'

The old woman shook her head.

'What are we to do?' she asked; 'we have no money now for the rent; and

that must be paid next Thursday.'

'Have you none at all?'

'None but a trifle which we need for purchases against the winter.

There was more in the bag than was needed for the rent, and how we shall

struggle through the winter without it, heaven alone can tell.'

'You have no more sheep to sell?'

'None but ewes, which cannot be parted with.'

'Nor a cow?'

'It would be impossible for us to spare her.'

'Then I will lend you the money,' said George. 'I have something laid

by, and you shall have what you need for the rent out of it. Mehalah

will repay me some day.'

'I will, George! I will!' said the girl vehemently, and her eyes

filled. She took the two hands of her lover in her own, and looked him

full in the face. Her eyes expressed the depth of her gratitude which

her tongue could not utter.

'Now that is settled,' said De Witt, 'let us talk of something else.'

'Come along, George,' said Mehalah, hastily, interrupting him. 'If you

want to be put across on Fresh Marsh, you must not stay talking here any

longer.'

'All right, Glory! I am ready to go with you, anywhere, to the world's

end.'

As she drew him outside, she whispered, 'I was afraid of your speaking

about the two shots to-night. I do not wish my mother to hear of that;

it would alarm her.'

'But I want to talk to you about them,' said De Witt. 'Have you any

notion who it was that fired at us?'

'Have you?' asked Mehalah, evading an answer.

'I have a sort of a notion.'

'So have I. As I was going down the Rhyn to fetch you, I was stopped by

Elijah Rebow.'

'Well, what did he want?'

'He wanted me to take some curlew he had shot; but that was not all, he

tried to prevent my going on. He said that I ought not to be on the

water at night alone.'

'He was right. He knew a thing or two.'

'He did not like my going to Mersea--to you.'

'I dare say not. He knew what was in the wind.'

'What do you mean, George?'

'He tried to prevent your going on?'

'Yes, he did, more than once.'

'Then he is in it. I don't like Elijah, but I did not think so badly of

him as that.'

'What do you mean, George?'

As they talked they walked down the meadow to the saltings. They were

obliged to go slowly and cautiously. The tide had fallen rapidly, and

left the pools brimming. Every runnel was full of water racing out with

the rush of a mill stream. 'You see, Glory, the new captain of the

coastguard has been giving a deal of trouble lately. He has noticed the

single-flashing from the Leather Bottle at the city, and has guessed or

found out the key; so he has been down there flashing false signals with

a lanthorn. By this means he has brought some of the smugglers very

neatly into traps he has laid for them. They are as mad as devils, they

swear he is taking an unfair advantage of them, and that they will have

his life for it. That is what I have heard whispered; and I hear a

great many things.'

'Oh, George! have you not warned him?'

'I! my dear Glory! what can I do? He knows he is in danger as well as

I. It is a battle between them, and it don't do for a third party to

step between. That is what we have done to-night, and near got knocked

over for doing it. Captain Macpherson is about, night and day. There

never was a fellow more wide awake, at least not on this station. What

do you think he did the other day? A vessel came in, and he overhauled

her, but found nothing; he sought for some barrels drawn along attached

behind her, below water level, but couldn't find them. As he was

leaving, he just looked up at the tackling. "Halloo!" said he to the

captain, "your cordage is begun to untwist, suppose I have your old

ropes and give you new?" He sent a man aloft, and all the ropes were

made of twisted tobacco. Now, as you may suppose, the smugglers don't

much like such a man.'

'But, George, he would hardly go about at night with a lanthorn in his

boat.'

'That is what he does--only it is a dark lanthorn, and with it he

flashes his signals. That is what makes the men so mad. It is not my

doctrine to shoot a man who does his duty. If a man is a smuggler let

him do his duty as one. If he is a coastguard, let him do his duty by

the revenue.'

'But, George! if he were out watching for smugglers, he would not have

carried his light openly.'

'He might have thought all was safe in the Rhyn.'

'Then again,' pursued Mehalah, 'I spoke, and there was a second shot

after that.'

'Whoever was there waiting for the captain may have thought you were a

boy. I do not believe the shot was at you, but at me.'

'But I held the light up. It would have been seen that I was a woman.'

'Not a bit. All seen would be your cap and jersey, which are such as

sailor boys wear.'

Mehalah shook her head thoughtfully and somewhat doubtfully, and paced

by the side of De Witt. She did not speak for some time. She was not

satisfied with his explanation, but she could not state her reasons for

dissatisfaction.