Old Fires and Profitable Ghosts Part 33

"Very well. I suppose it's really serious."

"Mortal. I'm glad you'll come," she added simply.

The young man nodded down in a friendly manner, and going back into the room, slipped on his overcoat, picked up his hat, and turned the lamp down carefully. Then he struck a match, found his way to the back-door, and unbarred it. The girl was waiting for him, still in the centre of the gra.s.s-plat.

"I'm glad you've come," she repeated, but this time there was something like constraint in her voice. As he pulled-to the door softly she moved, and led the way down to the water-side.

From the quay-door a long ladder ran down to the water. At low water one had to descend twenty feet and more; but now the high tide left but three of its rungs uncovered. At the young minister's feet a small fishing-boat lay ready, moored by a short painter to the ladder.

The girl stepped lightly down and held up a hand.

"Thank you," said the young man with dignity, "but I do not want help."

She made no answer to this; but as he stepped down, went forward and unmoored the painter. Then she pushed gently away from the ladder, hoisted the small foresail, and, returning to her companion, stood beside him for a moment with her hand on the tiller.

"Better slack the fore-sheet," she said suddenly.

The young man looked helplessly at her. He had not the slightest idea of her meaning, did not in fact know the difference between a fore-sheet and a mainsail. And it was just to find out the depth of his ignorance that she had spoken.

"Never mind," she said, "I'll do it myself." She slackened and made fast the rope, and took hold of the tiller again. The sails shook and filled softly as they glided out from under the wall. The soft breeze blew straight behind them, the tide was just beginning to ebb.

She loosed the main sheet a little, and the water hissed as they spun down under the grey town towards the harbour's mouth.

A dozen vessels lay at anchor below the town quay, their lamps showing a strange orange yellow in the moonlight; between them the minister saw the cottages of Ruan glimmering on the eastern sh.o.r.e, and over it the coast-guard flagstaff, faintly pencilled above the sky-line. It seemed to him that they were not shaping their course for the little town.

"I thought you told me," he said at length, "that Mrs.--the dying woman--lived across there."

The girl shook her head. "Not in Ruan itsel'--Ruan parish. We'll have to go round the point."

She was leaning back and gazing straight before her, towards the harbour's mouth. The boat was one of the cla.s.s that serves along that coast for hook-and-line as well as drift net fishing, clinker-built, about twenty-seven feet in the keel, and nine in beam. It had no deck beyond a small cuddy forward, on top of which a light h.o.a.r-frost was gathering as they moved. The minister stood beside the girl, and withdrew his eyes from this cuddy roof to contemplate her.

"Do you mean to say," he asked, "that you don't take cold, wearing no wrap or bonnet on frosty nights like this?"

She let the tiller go for a moment, took his hand by the wrist, and laid it on her own bare arm. He felt the flesh, but it was firm and warm.

Then he withdrew his hand hastily, without finding anything to say.

His eyes avoided hers. When, after half a minute, he looked at her again, her gaze was fixed straight ahead, upon the misty stretch of sea beyond the harbour's mouth.

In a minute or two they were gliding out between the tall cliff and the reef of rocks that guard this entrance on either side. On the reef stood a wooden cross, painted white, warning vessels to give a wide berth; on the cliff a grey castle, with a battery before it, under the guns of which they spun seaward, still with the wind astern.

Outside, the sea lay as smooth as within the harbour. The wind blew steadily off the sh.o.r.e, so that, close-hauled, one might fetch up or down Channel with equal ease. The girl began to flatten the sails, and asked her companion to bear a hand. Their hands met over a rope, and the man noted with surprise that the girl's was feverishly hot.

Then she brought the boat's nose round to the eastward and, heeling gently over the dark water, they began to skirt the misty coast with the breeze on their left cheeks.

"How much farther?" asked the minister.

She nodded towards the first point in the direction of Plymouth.

He turned his coat-collar up about his ears and wondered if his duty would often take him on such journeys as this. Also he felt thankful that the sea was smooth. He might, or might not, be given to sea-sickness: but somehow he was sincerely glad that he had not to be put to the test for the first time in this girl's presence.

They pa.s.sed the small headland and still the boat held on its way.

"I had no idea you were going to take me this distance. Didn't you promise me the house lay just beyond the point we've just pa.s.sed?"

To his amazement the girl drew herself up, looked him straight in the face and said--

"There's no such place."

"_What?_"

"There's no such place. There's n.o.body ill at all. I told you a lie."

"You told me a lie--then why in the name of common sense am I here?"

"Because, young man--because, sir, I'm sick o' love for you, an' I want'ee to marry me."

"Great heaven!" the young minister muttered, recoiling. "Is the girl mad?"

"Ah, but look at me, sir!" She seemed to grow still taller as she stood there, resting one hand on the tiller and gazing at him with perfectly serious eyes. "Look at me well before you take up with some other o'

the girls. To-morrow they'll be all after 'ee, an' this'll be my only chance; for my father's no better'n a plain fisherman, an' they're all above me in money an' rank. I be but a Ruan girl, an' my family is naught. But look at me well; there's none stronger nor comelier, nor that'll love thee so dear!"

The young man gasped. "Set me ash.o.r.e at once!" he commanded, stamping his foot.

"Nay, that I will not till thou promise, an' that's flat. Dear lad, listen--an' consent, consent--an' I swear to thee thou'll never be sorry for't."

"I never heard such awful impropriety in my life. Turn back; I order you to steer back to the harbour at once!"

She shook her head. "No, lad; I won't. An' what's more, you don't know how to handle a boat, an' couldn't get back by yoursel', not in a month."

"This is stark madness. You--you abandoned woman, how long do you mean to keep me here?"

"Till thou give in to me. We'm goin' straight t'wards Plymouth now, an'

if th' wind holds--as 'twill--we'll be off the Rame in two hours.

If you haven't said me yes by that maybe we'll go on; or perhaps we'll run across to the coast o' France--"

"Girl, do you know that if I'm not back by day-break, I'm ruined!"

"And oh, man, man! Can't 'ee see that I'm ruined, too, if I turn back without your word? How shall I show my face in Troy streets again, tell me?"

At this sudden transference of responsibility the minister was staggered.

"You should have thought of that before," he said, employing the one obvious answer.

"O' course I thought of it. But for love o' you I made up my mind to risk it. An' now there's no goin' back." She paused a moment and then added, as a thought struck her, "Why, lad, doesn' that prove I love 'ee uncommon?"

"I prefer not to consider the question. Once more--will you go back?"

"I can't."

He bit his lips and moved forward to the cuddy, on the roof of which he seated himself sulkily. The girl tossed him an end of rope.

"Dear, better coil that up an' sit 'pon it. The frost'll strike a chill into thee."