The Pillar of Light. Tracy Louis

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СКАЧАТЬ suffer by the lurch of some heavy package when the boat heeled over.

      "The glass be a-fallin', sure, missy," said the old fellow cheerily, "but wi' the wind backin' round to the norrard it on'y means a drop o' wet."

      "You think we will make the rock in good time?"

      "We'm do our best, Miss Enid."

      She sat up suddenly.

      "Don't you dare tell me, Ben Pollard, that after all our preparations we may have to turn back or run for inglorious shelter into Lamorna."

      Her mock indignation induced a massive grin. "A mahogany table breaking into mirth," was Enid's private description of Ben's face when he smiled.

      "'Ee knaw the coast as well as most," he said. "Further go, stronger blow, 'ee knaw."

      "And not so slow, eh, Ben? Really, you and the Daisy look more tubby every time I see you."

      Thus disparaged, Pollard defended himself and his craft.

      "Me an' Daisy'll sail to Gulf Light quicker'n any other two tubs in Penzance, missy. Her be a long run at this time o' year, but you'm get there all right, I 'xpect. Wi' a norrard breeze we'm be safe enough. If the wind makes 'ee c'n zee et comin', 'ee knaw."

      She laughed quietly. Any reflection on the spanking powers of his pilchard-driver would rouse Ben instantly.

      "As if I didn't know all you could teach me," she cried, "and as if anyone in all Cornwall could teach me better."

      The old fisherman was mollified. He looked along the quay.

      "Time we'm cast off," he said. "Miss Constance be a plaguey long time fetchin' them wraps."

      "Oh, Ben, how can you say that? She had to go all the way to the Cottage. Why, if she ran – "

      "Here she be," he broke in, "an' she b'ain't runnin' neither. Her's got a young man in tow."

      What announcement would straighten the back of any girl of nineteen like unto that? Enid Trevillion turned and stood upright.

      "Why, it's Jack!" she cried, waving a delighted hand.

      "So it be," admitted Pollard, after a surprised stare. "When I look landward my eyes b'ain't so good as they was."

      He stated this fact regretfully. No elderly sea-dog will ever acknowledge to failing vision when he gazes at the level horizon he knows so well. This is no pretence of unwilling age: it is wholly true. The settled chaos of the shore bewilders him. The changeful sea cannot.

      Meanwhile, the dawdlers lining the wharf, following Enid's signals with their eyes, devoted themselves to a covert staring at the young people hurrying along the quay.

      Constance Brand, being a young and pretty woman, secured their instant suffrages. Indeed, she would have won the favorable verdict of a more severe audience. Taller than Enid, she had the brown hair and hazel eyes of her father. To him, too, she owed the frank, self-reliant pose of head and clearly cut, refined features which conveyed to others that all-important first good impression. Blended with Stephen Brand's firm incisiveness, and softening the quiet strength of her marked resemblance to him, was an essential femininity which lifted her wholly apart from the ruck of handsome English girls who find delight in copying the manners and even the dress of their male friends.

      Her costume was an exact replica of that of Enid. She walked well and rapidly, yet her alert carriage had a grace, a subtle elegance, more frequently seen in America than in England. Her lively face, flushed with exercise, and, it may be, with some little excitement, conveyed the same Transatlantic characteristic. One said at seeing her: "Here is a girl who has lived much abroad." It came as a surprise to learn that she had never crossed the Channel.

      The man with her, Lieutenant John Percival Stanhope, R. N., was too familiar a figure in Penzance to evoke muttered comment from the gallery.

      A masterful young gentleman he looked, and one accustomed to having his own way in the world, whether in love or war. True type of the British sailor, he had the physique of a strong man and the adventurously cheerful expression of a boy.

      The skin of his face and hands, olive-tinted with exposure, his dark hair and the curved eyelashes, which drooped over his blue eyes, no less than the artistic proclivities suggested by his well-chiseled features and long, tapering fingers, proclaimed that Stanhope, notwithstanding his Saxon surname and bluff bearing, was a Celt. His mother, in fact, was a Tregarthen of Cornwall, daughter of a peer, and a leading figure in local society.

      One may ask: "Why should a youth of good birth and social position be on such terms of easy familiarity with two girls, one of whom was the daughter of a lighthouse-keeper, and the other her sister by adoption?"

      Indeed, a great many people did ask this pertinent question; among others, Lady Margaret Stanhope put it often and pointedly to her son, without any cogent answer being forthcoming.

      If she were denied enlightenment, although her maternal anxiety was justifiable, the smokers on the pier, as representing the wider gossip of the town, may also be left unsatisfied.

      "This is a nice thing," he cried, when he came within speaking distance of the girl in the boat. "I manage to bamboozle the admiral out of three days' leave and I rush to Penzance to be told that Constance and you are off to the Gulf Rock for the day. It is too bad of you, Enid."

      Eyebrows were raised and silent winks exchanged among the human sparrows lining the rails.

      "So Master Jack came to see Miss Trevillion, eh? What would her ladyship say if she heard that?"

      "Why not come with us?" The audacity of her!

      "By Jove," he agreed, "that would be jolly. Look here. Wait two minutes until I scribble a line to the mater – "

      "Nothing of the sort, Jack," interposed the other girl quietly, taking from his arm the water-proof cloaks he was carrying for her. "You know Lady Margaret would be very angry, and with very good reason. Moreover, dad would be annoyed, too."

      "The old girl is going out this afternoon," he protested.

      "And she expects you to go with her. Now, Jack, don't let us quarrel before we have met for five minutes. We will see you tomorrow."

      He helped her down the stone steps.

      "Enid," he murmured, "Connie and you must promise to drive with me to Morvah in the morning. I will call for you at eleven sharp."

      "What a pity you can't sail out to the rock with us today. Tomorvah is so distant."

      The minx lifted her blue eyes to his with such ingenuous regret in them that Stanhope laughed, and pipes were shifted to permit the listeners above their heads to snigger approval of her quip.

      "Dad will wig us enough as it is, Enid," said the other girl. "We are bringing him a peace-offering of fruits of the earth, Jack."

      "Will you be able to land?"

      "One never can tell. It all depends on the state of the sea near the rock. Anyhow, we can have a chat, and send up the vegetables by the derrick."

      "We'm never get there thiccy tide if we'm stop here much longer," interrupted Ben.

      "Hello, old grampus! How are you? Mind you keep these young ladies СКАЧАТЬ