Baring-Gould Sabine
In the Roar of the Sea
“Dearly beloved, we are gathered,” he began again, and he was now able to proceed.
“Cruel,” said he in loud and emphatic tones, “wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her so long as ye both shall live?”
The response of Coppinger went through the heart of Judith like a knife. Then the rector addressed her. For answer she looked up at him and moved her lips. He took her hand and placed it in that of Coppinger. It was cold as ice and quivering like an aspen leaf. As Captain Coppinger held it, it seemed to drag and become heavy in his hand, whilst he pronounced the words after the rector, making oath to take Judith as his own. Then the same words were recited to her, for her to repeat in order after the priest. She began, she moved her lips, looked him pleadingly in the face, her head swam, the fog filled the whole church and settled between her and the rector. She felt nothing save the grip of Coppinger’s hand, and sank unconscious to the ground.
“Go forward,” said Cruel. Mr. Menaida and Aunt Dionysia caught Judith and held her up. She could neither speak nor stir. Her lips were unclosed, she seemed to be gasping for breath like one drowning.
“Go on,” persisted Cruel, and holding her left hand he thrust the ring on her fourth finger, repeating the words of the formula.
“I cannot proceed,” said the Reverend Desiderius.
“Then you will have to come again to-morrow.”
“She is unconscious,” objected the rector.
“It is momentary only,” said Aunt Dionysia; “be quick and finish.”
Mr. Mules hesitated a moment. He had no wish to return in like weather on another day; no wish again to be kept waiting five and twenty minutes. He rushed at the remainder of the office and concluded it at a hand gallop.
“Now,” said he, “the registers are at the rectory. Come there.”
Coppinger looked at Judith.
“Not to-day. It is not possible. She is ill – faint. To-morrow. Neither she nor I nor the witnesses will run away. We will come to you to-morrow.”
Uncle Zachie offered to assist Judith from the church.
“No,” said Cruel, peremptorily, “she is mine now.”
She was able with assistance to walk, she seemed to recover for a moment in the air outside, but again lapsed into faintness on being placed in the chaise.
“To Pentyre Glaze,” ordered Coppinger; “our home.”
CHAPTER XXXIV
A BREAKFAST
“She has been over-exerted, over-excited,” said Miss Trevisa. “Leave her to recover; in a few days she will be herself again. Remember, her father died of heart complaint, and though Judith resembles her mother rather than a Trevisa, she may have inherited from my brother just that one thing she had better have let him carry to his grave with him.”
So Judith was given the little room that adjoined her aunt’s, and Miss Trevisa postponed for a week her migration to Othello Cottage.
Aunt Dionysia was uneasy about her niece; perhaps her conscience did suffer from some qualms when she saw how Judith shrank from the union she had driven her into for her own selfish convenience. She treated her in the wisest manner, now she had brought her to the Glaze, for she placed her in her old room next her own, and left her there to herself. Judith could hear her aunt walking about and muttering in the adjoining chamber, and was content to be left alone to recover her composure and strength.
Uncle Zachie and Jump were, however, in sore distress; they had made the trim cottage ready, had prepared a wedding breakfast, engaged a helping hand or two, and no one had come to partake. Nor was Mr. Desiderius Mules in a cheerful mood. He had been invited to the breakfast, and was hungry and cold. He had to wait while Mr. Menaida ran up to Pentyre to know whether any one was going to honor his board. While he was away the rector stamped about the parlor, growling that he believed he was about to be “choused out of his breakfast. There was really no knowing what these people in this out-of-the-world corner might do.” Then he pulled off his boots and shook the sand out, rang for Jump, and asked at what hour precisely the breakfast was to be eaten, and whether it was put on table to be looked at only.
From Pentyre Glaze Mr. Menaida was not greatly successful in obtaining guests. He found some wild-looking men there in converse with Coppinger, men whom he knew by rumor to belong to a class that had no ostensible profession and means of living.
Mr. Menaida had ordered in clotted cream, which would not keep sweet many days. It ought to be eaten at once. He wanted to know whether Coppinger, the bride, Miss Trevisa, anyone was coming to his house to consume the clotted cream. As Jamie was drifting about purposeless, and he alone seemed disposed to accompany Uncle Zachie, the old gentleman carried him off.
“I s’pose I can’t on the spur of the moment go in and ask over St. Minver parson?” asked Menaida, dubiously, of the St. Enodoc parson. “You see I daresay he’s hurt not to have had the coupling of ’em himself.”
“Most certainly not,” said Mr. Mules; “an appetite is likely to go into faintness unless attended to at once. I know that the coats of my stomach are honeycombed with gastric juice. Shall I say grace? Another half-hour of delay will finish me.”
Consequently but three persons sat down to a plentiful meal; but some goose, cold, had hardly been served, when in came Mr. Scantlebray, the agent, with a cheery salutation of “Hulloa, Menaida, old man! What, eating and drinking? I’ll handle a knife and fork with you, unasked. Beg pardon, Mr. Mules. I’m a rough man, and an old acquaintance of our good friend here. Hope I see you in the enjoyment of robust health, sir. Oh, Menaida, old man! I didn’t expect such a thing as this. Now I begin to see daylight, and understand why I was turned out of the valuership, and why my brother lost this promising young pupil. Ah, ha! my man, you have been deprived of fun, such fun, roaring fun, by not being with my brother Scanty. Well, sir,” to Mr. Mules, “what was the figure of the valuation? You had a queer man on your side. I pity you. A man I wouldn’t trust myself. I name no names. Now tell me, what did you get?”
“A hundred and twenty-seven pounds four and ninepence farthing. Monstrous – a chouse.”
“As you say, monstrous. Why that chancel, show me the builder who will contract to do that alone at a hundred and twenty-seven pounds? And the repairs of the vestry – are they to be reckoned at four and ninepence farthing? It is a swindle. I’d appeal. I’d refuse. You made a mistake, sir, let me tell you, in falling into certain hands. Yes – I’ll have some goose, thank you.”
Mr. Scantlebray ate heartily, so did the Reverend Desiderius, who had the honeycomb cells of his stomach coats to fill.
Both, moreover, did justice to Mr. Menaida’s wine, they did not spare it; why should they? Those for whom the board was spread had not troubled to come to it, and they must make amends for their neglect.
“Horrible weather,” said the rector. “I suppose this detestable sort of stuff of which the atmosphere is composed is the prevailing abomination one has to inhale throughout three-quarters of the year. One cannot see three yards before one.”
“It’s bad for some and good for others,” answered Scantlebray. “There’ll be wrecks, certainly, after this, especially if we get, as we are pretty sure to get, a wind ashore.”
“Wrecks!” exclaimed the Rector, “and pray who pays the fees for drowned men I may be expected to bury?”
“The parish,” answered Uncle Zachie.
“Oh, half-a-crown a head,” said Mr. Mules, contemptuously.
“There are other things to be had besides burial fees out of a wreck,” said Scantlebray; “but you must be down early before the coast-guard are there. Have you donkeys?”
“Donkeys! What for?”
“I have one, a gray beauty,” exclaimed Jamie; “Captain Coppinger gave her to me.”
“Well, young man, then you pick up what you can, when you have the chance, and lade her with your findings. You’ll pick up something better than corpses, and make something more than burial half-crowns.”
“But why do you suppose there will be wrecks?” inquired the rector of St. Enodoc. “There is no storm.”
“No storm, certainly, but there is fog, and in the fog vessels coming up the Channel to Bristol get lost as to their bearings, get near our cliffs without knowing it, and then – if a wind from the west spring up and blows rough – they are done for, they can’t escape to the open. That’s it, old man. I beg your Reverence’s pardon, I mean, sir. When I said that such weather was bad for some and good for others you can understand me now – bad for the wrecked, good for the wreckers.”
“But surely you have no wreckers here?”
Mr. Scantlebray laughed. “Go and tell the bridegroom that you think so. I’ll let you into the knowledge of one thing” – he winked over his glass – “there’s a fine merchantman on her way to Bristol.”
“How do you know?”
“Know! Because she was sighted off St. Ives, and the tidings has run up the coast like fire among heather. I don’t doubt it that it has reached Hartland by this; and with a thick fog like to-day there are a thousand hearts beating with expectation. Who can say? She may be laden with gold-dust from Africa, or with tin from Barca, or with port from Oporto.”
“My boy Oliver is coming home,” said Mr. Menaida.
“Then let’s hope he is not in this vessel, for, old man, she stands a bad chance in such weather as this. There is Porth-quin, and there is Hayle Bay ready to receive her, or Doom Bar on which she may run, all handy for our people. Are you anything of a sportsman, sir?”
“A little – but I don’t fancy there is much in this precious country – no cover.”
“What is fox-hunting when you come to consider – or going after a snipe or a partridge? A fox! it’s naught, the brush stinks, and a snipe is but a mouthful. My dear sir, if you come to live among us, you must seek your sport not on the land but at sea. You’ll find the sport worth something when you get a haul of a barrel of first-rate sherry, or a load of silver ingots. Why, that’s how Penwarden bought his farm. He got the money after a storm – found it on the shore out of the pocket of a dead man. Do you know why the bells of St. Enodoc are so sweet? Because, so folks say, melted into them are ingots of Peruvian silver from a ship wrecked on Doom Bar.”
“I should like to get some silver or gold,” said Jamie.
“I daresay you would, and so perhaps you may if you look out for it. Go to your good friend, Captain Coppinger, and tell him what you want. He has made his pickings before now on shore and off wrecks, and has not given up the practice.”
“But,” said Mr. Mules, “do you mean to tell me that you people in this benighted corner of the world live like sharks, upon whatever is cast overboard?”
“No, I do not,” answered Scantlebray. “We have too much energy and intelligence for that. We don’t always wait till it is cast overboard, we go aboard and take what we want.”
“What, steal!”
“I don’t call that stealing when Providence and a southwest wind throws a ship into our laps, when we put in our fingers and pick out the articles we want. What are Porth-quin and Hayle Bay but our laps, in which lie the wrecks heaven sends us? And Doom Bar, what is that but a counter on which the good things are spread, and those first there get the first share?”
“And pray,” said Mr. Desiderius Mules, “have the owners of the vessels, the passengers, the captains, no objections to make?”
“They are not there. Don’t wait for our people. If they do – so much the worse for them.” Then Scantlebray laughed. “There’s a good story told of the Zenobia, lost four years ago. There was a lady on board. When she knew the vessel was on Doom Bar she put on all her jewelry, to escape with it. But some of our people got to the wreck before she got off it, and one lobe of her ears got torn off.”
“Torn off?”
“Yes – in pulling the earrings off her.”
“But who pulled the earrings off her?”
“Our people.”
“Gracious heavens! Were they not brought to justice?”
“Who did it? no one knew. What became of the jewelry? no one knew. All that was known was that Lady Knighton – that was her name – lost her diamonds and the lobe of her right ear as well.”
“And it was never recovered?”
“What! the lobe of her ear?”
“No, the jewelry.”
“Never.”
“Upon my word I have got among a parcel of scoundrels. It is high time that I should come and reform them. I’ll set to work at once. I’ll have St. Enodoc dug out and restored, and I’ll soon put an end to this sort of thing.”
“You think so?”
“You don’t know me. I’ll have a bazaar. I’ll have a ball in the Assembly Rooms at Wadebridge. The church shall be excavated. I’m not going in there again with the bats, to have my boots filled with sand, I can tell you – everything shall be renovated and put to rights. I’ll see to it at once. I’ll have a pigeon shooting for the sake of my chancel – I daresay I shall raise twenty pounds by that alone – and a raffle for the font, and an Aunt Sally for the pulpit. But the ball will be the main thing, I’ll send and get the county people to patronize. I’ll do it, and you barbarians in this benighted corner of the world shall see there is a man of energy among you.”
“You’d best try your hand on a wreck. You’ll get more off that.”
“And I’ll have a bran pie for an altar-table.”
“You won’t get the parishioners to do anything for the restoration of the church. They don’t want to have it restored.”
“The Decalogue is rotten. I ran my umbrella through the Ten Commandments this morning. I’ll have a gypsy camp and fortune-telling to furnish me with new Commandments.”
“I’ve heard tell,” said Scantlebray, “that at Ponghill, near Stratton, is a four-post bed of pure gold came off a wreck in Bude Bay.”3
“When I was in the North,” said the rector of St. Enodoc, “we had a savage who bit off the heads of rats, snap, skinned them and ate them raw, and charged sixpence entrance; but that was for the missionaries. I should hardly advocate that for the restoration of a church; besides, where is the savage to be got? We made twenty-seven pounds by that man, but expenses were heavy and swallowed up twenty-five; we sent two pounds to the missionaries.”
Mr. Menaida stood up and went to the window.
“I believe the wind has shifted to the north, and we shall have a lightening of the fog after sunset.”
“Shall we not have a wreck! I hope there’ll be one,” said Jamie.
“What is the law about wreckage, Menaida, old man?” asked Scantlebray, also coming to the window.
“The law is plain enough. No one has a right to goods come to land; he who finds may claim salvage – naught else; and any persons taking goods cast ashore, which are not legal wreck, may be punished.”
“And,” said Scantlebray, “what if certain persons give occasion to a ship being wrecked, and then plundering the wreck?”
“There the law is also plain. The invading and robbing of a vessel, either in distress or wrecked, and the putting forth of false lights in order to bring a vessel into danger, are capital felonies.”
Scantlebray went to the table, took up a napkin, twisted it and then flung it round his neck, and hung his head on one side.
“What – this, Menaida, old man?”
Uncle Zachie nodded.
“Come here, Jim, my boy, a word with you outside.” Scantlebray led Jamie into the road. “There’s been a shilling owing you for some time. We had roaring fun about it once. Here it is. Now listen to me. Go to Pentyre, you want to find gold-dust on the shore, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Or bars of silver?”
“Yes.”
“Well, beg Captain Coppinger, if he is going to have a Jack o’ Lantern to-night, to let you be the Jack. Do you understand? and mind – not a word about me. Then gold-dust and bars of silver and purses of shillings. Mind you ask to be Jack o’ Lantern. It is fun. Such fun. Roaring fun.”
CHAPTER XXXV
JACK O’ LANTERN
Evening closed in; Judith had been left entirely to herself. She sat in the window, looking out into the mist and watching the failing of the light. Sometimes she opened the casement and allowed the vapor to blow in like cold steam, then became chilled, shivered, and closed it again. The wind was rising and piped about the house, piped at her window. Judith, sitting there, tried with her hand to find the crevice through which the blast drove, and then amused herself with playing with her finger-tops on the openings and regulating the whistle so as to form a tune. She heard frequently Coppinger’s voice in conversation, sometimes in the hall, sometimes in the court-yard, but could not catch what was spoken. She listened, with childish curiosity, to the voice that was now that of her lord and husband, and endeavored to riddle out of it some answer to her questions as to what sort of a master he would prove. She could not comprehend him. She had heard stories told of him that made her deem him the worst of men, remorseless and regardless of others, yet toward her he had proved gentle and considerate. What, for instance, could be more delicate and thoughtful than his behavior to her at this very time! Feeling that she had married him with reluctance, he had kept away from her and suffered her to recover her composure without affording her additional struggle. A reaction after the strain on her nerves set in; the step she had dreaded had been taken, and she was the wife of the man she feared and did not love. The suspense of expectation was exchanged for the calmer grief of retrospect.
The fog all day had been white as wool, and she had noticed how parcels of vapor had been caught and entangled in the thorn bushes as the fog swept by, very much as sheep left flocks of their fleece in the bushes when they broke out of a field. Now that the day set, the vapor lost its whiteness and became ash gray, but it was not as dense as it had been, or rather it was compacted in places into thick masses with clear tracts between. The sea was not visible, nor the cliffs, but she could distinguish out-buildings, tufts of furze and hedges. The wind blew much stronger, and she could hear the boom of the waves against the rocks, like the throbbing of the unseen heart of the world. It was louder than it had been. The sound did not come upon the wind, for the fog that muffled all objects from sight, muffled also all sounds to the ear, but the boom came from the vibration of the land. The sea flung against the coast-line shook the rocks, and they quivered for a long distance inland, making every wall and tree quiver also, and the sound of the sea was heard not through the ears but through the soles of the feet.
Miss Trevisa came in.
“Shall I light you a pair of candles, Judith?”
“I thank you, hardly yet.”
“And will you not eat?”
“Yes, presently, when supper is served.”
“You will come down-stairs?”
“Yes.”
“I am glad to hear that.”
“Aunt, I thought you were going to Othello Cottage the day I came here.”
“Captain Coppinger will not suffer me to leave at once till you have settled down to your duties as mistress of the house.”
“Oh, auntie! I shall never be able to manage this large establishment.”
“Why not! You managed that at the rectory.”
“Yes, but it was so different.”
“How so?”
“My dear papa’s requirements were so simple, and so few, and there were no men about except old Balhachet, and he was a dear, good old humbug. Here, I don’t know how many men there are, and who belong to the house, and who do not. They are in one day and out the next – and then Captain Coppinger is not like my own darling papa.”
“No, indeed, he is not. Shall I light the candles? I have something to show you.”
“As you will, aunt.”
Miss Trevisa went into her room and fetched a light, and kindled the two candles that stood on Judith’s dressing-table.
“Oh, aunt! not three candles.”
“Why not? We shall need light.”
“But three candles together bring ill-luck; and we have had enough already.”
“Pshaw! Don’t be a fool. I want light, for I have something to show you.”
She opened a small box and drew forth a brooch and earrings that flashed in the rays of the candle.
“Look, child! they are yours. Captain Coppinger has given them to you. They are diamonds. See – a butterfly for the breast, and two little butterflies for the ears.”
“Oh, auntie! not for me. I do not want them.”
“This is ungracious. I daresay they cost many hundreds of pounds. They are diamonds.”
Judith took the brooch and earrings in her hand; they sparkled. The diamonds were far from being brilliants, they were of good size and purest water.
“I really do not want to have them. Persuade Captain Coppinger to return them to the jeweller, it is far too costly a gift for me, far – far – I should be happier without them.” Then, suddenly – “I do not know that they have been bought? Oh, Aunt Dunes, tell me truly. Have they been bought? I think jewellers always send out their goods in leather cases, and there is none such for these. And see – this earring – the gold is bent, as if pulled out of shape. I am sure they have not been bought. Take them back again, I pray you.”
“You little fool!” said Miss Trevisa, angrily. “I will do nothing of the kind. If you refuse them – then take them back yourself. Captain Coppinger performs a generous and kind act that costs him much money, and you throw his gift in his face, you insult him. Insult him yourself with your suspicions and refusals – you have already behaved to him outrageously. I will do nothing for you that you ask. Your father put on me a task that is hateful, and I wish I were clear of it.”
Then she bounced out of the room, leaving her candle burning along with the other two.
A moment later she came back hastily and closed Judith’s shutters.
“Oh, leave them open,” pleaded Judith. “I shall like to see how the night goes – if the fog clears away.”
“No – I will not,” answered Miss Trevisa, roughly. “And mind you. These shutters remain shut, or your candles go out. Your window commands the sea, and the light of your window must not show.”
“Why not?”
“Because should the fog lift, it would be seen by vessels.”
“Why should they not see it?”
“You are a fool. Obey, and ask no questions.”
Miss Trevisa put up the bar and then retired with her candle, leaving Judith to her own thoughts, with the diamonds on the table before her.
And her thoughts were reproachful of herself. She was ungracious and perhaps unjust. Her husband had sent her a present of rare value, and she was disposed to reject it, and charge him with not having come by the diamonds honestly. They were not new from a jeweller, but what of that? Could he afford to buy her a set at the price of some hundreds of pounds? And because he had not obtained them from a jeweller, did it follow that he had taken them unlawfully? He might have picked them up on the shore, or have bought them from a man who had. He might have obtained them at a sale in the neighborhood. They might be family jewels, that had belonged to his mother, and he was showing her the highest honor a man could show a woman in asking her to wear the ornaments that had belonged to his mother.
He had exhibited to her a store-room full of beautiful things, but these might be legitimately his, brought from foreign countries by his ship the Black Prince. It was possible that they were not contraband articles.
Judith opened her door and went down-stairs. In the hall she found Coppinger with two or three men, but the moment he saw her he started up, came to meet her, and drew her aside into a parlor, then went back into the hall and fetched candles. A fire was burning in this room, ready for her, should she condescend to use it.
“I hope I have not interrupted you,” she said, timidly.
“An agreeable interruption. At any time you have only to show yourself and I will at once come to you, and never ask to be dismissed.”
She knew that this was no empty compliment, that he meant it from the depth of his heart, and was sorry that she could not respond to an affection so deep and so sincere.
“You have been very good to me – more good than I deserve,” she said, standing by the fire with lowered eyes, “I must thank you now for a splendid and beautiful present, and I really do not know how to find words in which fittingly to acknowledge it.”
“You cannot thank and gratify me better than by wearing what I have given you.”
“But when? Surely not on an ordinary evening?”
“No – certainly. The Rector has been up this afternoon and desired to see you, he is hot on a scheme for a public ball to be given at Wadebridge for the restoration of his church, and he has asked that you will be a patroness.”
“I – oh – I! – after my father’s death?”
“That was in the late spring, and now it is the early winter, besides, now you are a married lady – and was not the digging out and restoring of the church your father’s strong desire?”
“Yes – but he would never have had a ball for such a purpose.”
“The money must be raised somehow. So I promised for you. You could not well refuse – he was impatient to be off to Wadebridge and secure the assembly rooms.”
“But – Captain Coppinger – ”
“Captain Coppinger?”
Judith colored. “I beg your pardon – I forgot. And now – I do not recollect what I was going to say. It matters nothing. If you wish me to go I will go. If you wish me to wear diamond butterflies I will wear them.”
“I thank you.” He held out his hands to her.
She drew back slightly and folded her palms as though praying. “I will do much to please you, but do not press me too greatly. I am strange in this house, strange in my new situation; give me time to breathe and look round and recover my confidence. Besides, we are only half-married so far.”
“How so?”
“I have not signed the register.”
“No, but that shall be done to-morrow.”
“Yes, to-morrow – but that gives me breathing time. You will be patient and forbearing with me.” She put forward her hands folded and he put his outside them and pressed them. The flicker of the fire lent a little color to her cheeks and surrounded her head with an aureole of spun gold.
“Judith, I will do anything you ask. I love you with all my soul, past speaking. I am your slave. But do not hold me too long in chains, do not tread me too ruthlessly under foot.”
“Give me time,” she pleaded.
“I will give you a little time,” he answered.
Then she withdrew her hands from between his and sped up stairs, leaving him looking into the fire with troubled face.
When she returned to her room the candles were still burning, and the diamonds lay on the dressing-table where she had left them. She took the brooch and earrings to return them to their box, and then noticed for the first time that they were wrapped in paper, not in cotton-wool. She tapped at her aunt’s door, and entering asked if she had any cotton-wool that she could spare her.
“No, I have not. What do you want it for?”
“For the jewelry. It cannot have come from a shop, as it was wrapped in paper only.”
“It will take no hurt. Wrap it in paper again.”
“I had rather not, auntie. Besides, I have some cotton-wool in my workbox.”
“Then use it.”
“But my workbox has not been brought here. It is at Mr. Menaida’s.”
“You can fetch it to-morrow.”
“But I am lost without my needles and thread. Besides, I do not like to leave my workbox about. I will go for it. The walk will do me good.”
“Nonsense, it is falling dark.”
“I will get Uncle Zachie to walk back with me. I must have my workbox. Besides, the fresh air will do me good, and the fog has lifted.”
“As you will, then.”
So Judith put on her cloak and drew a hood over her head and went back to Polzeath. She knew the way perfectly, there was no danger, night had not closed in. It would be a pleasure to her to see the old bird-stuffer’s face again, and she wanted to find Jamie. She had not seen him nor heard his voice, and she supposed he must be at Polzeath.
On her arrival at the double cottage, the old fellow was delighted to see her, and to see that she had recovered from the distress and faintness of the morning sufficiently to be able to walk back to his house from her new home. Her first question was after Jamie. Uncle Zachie told her that Jamie had breakfasted at his table, but he had gone away in the afternoon and he had seen no more of him. The fire was lighted, and Uncle Zachie insisted on Judith sitting by it with him and talking over the events of the day, and on telling him that she was content with her position, reconciled to the change of her state.
She sat longer with him than she had intended, listening to his disconnected chatter, and then nothing would suffice him but she must sit at the piano and play through his favorite pieces.
“Remember, Judith, it is the last time I shall have you here to give me this pleasure.”
She could not refuse him his request, especially as he was to walk back to Pentyre with her. Thus time passed, and it was with alarm and self-reproach that she started up on hearing the clock strike the half-past, and learned that it was half-past nine, and not half-past eight, as she supposed.
As she now insisted on departing, Mr. Menaida put on his hat.
“Shall we take a light?” he asked, and then said: “No, we had better not. On such a night as this a moving light is dangerous.”
“How can it be dangerous?” asked Judith.
“Not to us, my dear child, but to ships at sea. A stationary light might serve as a warning, but a moving light misleads. The captain of a vessel, if he has lost his bearings, as is like enough in the fog, as soon as the mist rises, would see a light gliding along and think it was that of a vessel at sea, and so make in the direction of the light in the belief that there was open water, and so run directly on his destruction.”
“Oh, no, no, Uncle, we will not take a light.”
Mr. Menaida and Judith went out together, she with her workbox under her arm, he with his stick, and her hand resting on his arm. The night was dark, very dark, but the way led for the most part over down, and there was just sufficient light in the sky for the road to be distinguishable. It would be in the lane, between the walls and where overhung by thorns, that the darkness would be most profound. The wind was blowing strongly and the sound of the breakers came on it now, for the cloud had lifted off land and sea, though still hanging low. Very dense overhead it could not be, or no light would have pierced the vaporous canopy.
