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CHAPTER XVIII
SHE'S ALL THE WORLD TO ME

When the crew of the "Ben-my-Chree" had recovered from their first consternation on seeing the body of Kisseck rise to the surface and shoot away like a spectre boat, they hoisted sail and stood once more out to sea. The gentle breeze filled the canvas, and for half an hour the jib lay over the side, while the fishing-boat scudded along like a startled bird.

The sun rose over the land, a thin gauze obscuring it. The red light flashed and died away as if the wind were the sunshine. The haggard faces of the men caught at moments a lurid glow from it. In the west a mass of bluish cloud rested a little while on the horizon, and then passed into a nimbus of gray rain-cloud that floated above it. Such was the dawn and sunrise of a fateful day.

They were sailing north; they had no haven in their view. But Peel was behind them. Think what home is to the fisherman who goes down into the great deep. Then know that to them home could be all this no longer. The silvery voices of girls, the innocent prattle of little children, the welcome of wife, the glowing hearth – these were theirs no more. Then belly out, brave sail, and back off with a noise like thunder; let the blocks creak, and the ropes strain. Anywhere, anywhere, away from the withering reproach of the crime of one and the guilt of all.

But they were standing only two miles off Jurby Point when once more the wind fell to a dead calm. The men looked into each other's faces. Here was the work of fate. There was to be no flying away; God meant them to die on these waters. The sail flapped idly; they furled it, and the boat drifted south.

Then one after one sat down on the deck, helpless and hopeless. Hours went by. The day wore on. A passing breath sometimes stirred the waters, and again all around was dumb, dead, pulseless peace. Hearing only the faint flap of the rippling tide, they drifted, drifted, drifted.

Then they thought of home once more, and now with other feelings. Death was before them – slow, sure, relentless death. There was to be no jugglery. Let it be death at home rather than death on this desert sea. Anything, anything but this blind end – this dumb end; this dying bit by bit on still waters. To see the darkness come again and the sun rise afresh, and once more the sun sink and the darkness deepen, and still to lie there with nothing around but the changeless sea, and nothing above but the empty sky, and only the eye of God upon them, while the winds and the waters lay in His avenging hand. Let it rather be death – swift death, just death – there where their crime was attempted, and one black deed was done.

Thus despair took hold of them and drove all fear away. Each hard man, with despair seated on his rugged face, longed, like a sick child, to lay his head in the lap of home.

"What's it saying?" muttered the old man Quilleash, "'A green hill when far away; bare, bare when it is near.'"

It was some vague sense of their hopelessness that was floating through the old man's mind as he recalled the pathetic Manx proverb. The others looked down at the deck with a stony stare.

Danny still lay forward. When the speck that had glided along the waters could be seen no more, he had turned and gazed in silence toward the eastern light and the distant shores of morning. If madness be the symbol on earth of the tortures of the damned, Danny had then a few hours' blessed respite. He saw calmly what he had done and why he had done it. "Surely, God is just," he thought: "surely He will not condemn me; surely, surely not." Then, amid surging inward tears, which his eyes refused to shed, the simple lad tried to recall the good words that he had heard in the course of his poor, neglected, battered life. One after one they came back to him, most of them from some far-away and hazy dream-world, strangely bright with the vision of a face that looked fondly upon him, and even kissed him tenderly. "Gentle Jesus!" and "Now I lay me down to sleep" – he could remember them both pretty well, and their simple words went up with the supplicatory ardor of his great grown heart to the sky on which his longing eyes were bent.

The thought of Mona intertwined itself with the yearning hope of pardon and peace. It sustained him now to think of her. She became part of his scheme of penitence. His love for her was to redeem him in the Father's eye. He was to take it to the foot of God's white throne, and when his guilt came up for judgment he was to lay it meekly there and look up into the good Father's face. God had sent him his great love, and it was not for his harm that he had sent it.

Then a film overspread his sight, and when he awoke he knew that he had slept. He had seen Mona in a dream. There was a happy thought in her face. She loved and was beloved. Everything about her spoke of peace. All her troubles were gone forever. No, not that either. In her eyes was the reflection of his own face, and sometimes it made them sad. At the memory of this the dried-up well of Danny's own eyes moistened at last to tears.

The cold, thick winter day was far worn toward sunset. Not a breath of wind was stirring. Gilded by the sun's rays, the waters to the west made a floor of bleared red. The fishing-boat had drifted nearly ten miles to the south. If she should drift two miles more she must float into the southeasterly current that flows under Contrary Head. The crew lay half-frozen on the deck. No one cared to go below. All was still around them, and silence was in their midst. At last a man lifted his head, and asked if any one could say what had become of Christian. No one knew. Old Quilleash thought he must have come by some mischief, and perhaps be captured or even dead. It was only the general hopelessness of their hearts that gave a ready consent to this view of the possibilities. Then they talked of Christian as if he were no longer a living man.

"He didn't want to be in it, didn't the young masther," said one.

"Did you see how he was for cris-crossin' and putting up obstacles at every turn?" said another.

"That was nothin' to the way he was glad when we saw the lad's fire over the Lockjaw, and had to make a slant for it and leave the thing not done."

"Aw, well, well," said Quilleash, "it was poor Bill that's gone, God help him, that led the young masther into the shoal water. What's it sayin' – 'Black as is the raven, he'll get a partner;' but Bill, poor chap, he must be for makin' a raven out of a dove."

"God won't be hard on the masther. No, no, God'll never be hard on a good heart because it keeps company with a bad head."

"It'll be Bill, poor chap, that'll have to stand for it when the big days comes," said Davy Cain.

"No, not that anyway. Still, for sure, it's every herring must hang by his own gill. Aw, yes, man," said Tommy Tear.

"Poor Masther Christian," said Quilleash, "I remember him since he was a baby in his mother's arms – and a fine lady, too. And when he grew up it was, 'How are you, Billy Quilleash?' And when he came straight from Oxford College, and all the larning at him, and the fine English tongue, and all to that, it was, 'And how are you to-day, Billy?' 'I'm middlin' to-day, Masther Christian.' Aw, yes, yes, a tender heart at him anyhow, and no pride at all, at all."

The old man's memories were not thrilling to narrate, but they brought the tears to his eyes, and he brushed them away with his sleeve.

They were now drifting past Peel, two miles from the coast. It was Christmas Eve. Old Quilleash thought of this, and they talked of Christmas Eves gone by, and of what happy days there had been. This was too tender a chord, and they were soon silent once more. Then, while the waters lay cold and clear and still, and the sun was sinking in the west, there came floating to them from the land through the breathless air the sound of church-bells. It was the last drop in their cup. The rude men could bear up no longer. More than one dropped his head on to his knees and sobbed aloud. Then Quilleash, in a husky voice, and coarsely, as if ashamed of the impulse, said, "Some one pray, will you?" "Ay," said another. "Ay," said a third. But no one prayed.

"You, Billy," said one. The old man had never known a prayer.

"You, Davy." Davy shook his head. None could pray.

All lay quiet as death around them. Only the faint sound of the bells was borne to them as a mellow whisper.

Then Danny rose silently to his feet. No one had thought of asking him. With that longing look in his big eyes, he turned to the land and began to sing. He was thinking of Mona. All his soul was going out to her. She was his anchor, his hope, his prayer. The lad's voice, laden with tears, floated away over the great waters. This was what he sang:

 
  "Her brow is like the snaw-drift,
Her neck is like the swan,
Her face it is the fairest
That e'er the sun shone on;
That e'er the sun shone on.
 

* * * * * *

 
"And she's a' the world to me;
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay me doon and dee."
 

The boy's eyes were bright with a radiant brightness, and glistening tears ran down his face in gracious drops like dew. The men hung their heads and were mute.

All at once there came a breath of wind. At first it was as soft as an angel's whisper. Then it grew stronger and ruffled the sea. Every man lifted his eyes and looked at his mates. Each was struggling with a painful idea that perhaps he was the victim of a delusion of the sense. But the chill breath of the wind was indeed among them. "Isn't it beginning to puff up from the sou'-west?" asked one, in a hoarse whisper.

At that Davy Cain jumped to his feet. The idea of the supernatural had already gone from him, at least. "Now for the sheets, and to make sail," he cried.

As mate formerly, Davy constituted himself skipper now.

One after one the men got up and bustled about. Their limbs were wellnigh frozen stiff.

"Heave hearty, men; heave and away."

All was stir and animation in an instant. Pulling at the ropes, the men had begun to laugh – yes, with their husky, grating, tear-drowned voices even to laugh.

"Bear a hand, men. We're drifting fast into the down-stream to Contrary," cried Davy.

Then a gruesome sense of the ludicrous took hold of him. It was the swift reaction from solemn thoughts.

"Lay on, Quilleash, my man. Why, you're going about like a brewing-pan. What are your arms for, eh?"

The old fellow's eyes, that had been dim with tears a moment ago, glistened with grisly mischief.

"Who hasn't heard that a Manxman's arms are three legs?" he said, with a hungry smile.

How the men laughed! What humor there was now in the haggard old saw!

"Where are you for, Davy?" cried one.

"Scotland – Shetlands," answered Davy, indefinitely.

"Hooraa! Bold fellow. Ha, ha, ha, he."

"I've been there before to-day, Davy," said Quilleash; "they're all poor men there; but it's right kind they are. Aw, yes, it's safe and well we'll be when we're there. What's it sayin'? – 'When one poor man helps another poor man, God laughs.'"

How they worked! In two minutes mainsail and mizzen were up, and they filled away and stood out. But they had drifted into the down-stream, though they knew it not as yet.

From the shores of death they had sailed somehow into the waters of life. Hope was theirs once more.

They began to talk of what had caused the wind. "It was the blessed St. Patrick," said Killip. St. Patrick was the patron saint of that sea, and Killip was a Catholic and more than half an Irishman.

"St. Patrick be – " cried Davy Cain, with a scornful laugh. They got to high words, and at length almost to blows.

Old Quilleash had been at the tiller. His grisly face had grown ghastly again. "Drop it, men," he cried, in a voice of fear. "Look yander! D'ye see what's coming?"

The men looked toward the west. The long, thin cloud which Danny knew as the cat's-tail was scudding fast in the line of their Starboard quarter.

"Make all snug," cried Davy.

A storm was coming. It was very near; in ten minutes it was upon them. It was a terrific tempest, and they knew now that they were in the down-stream.

The men stared once more into each others' faces. Their quips were gone; their hopeful spirits had broken down.

"God, it's running a ten knots' tide," shouted Quilleash.

"And we're driving before it – dead on for Peel," answered Davy, with an appalling look of fear toward the west, where the wind was seen to be churning the long waves into foam.

Danny saw it all, but there was no agony in his face and no cry of dread on his lips. "I think at whiles I'd like to die in a big sea like that." His despair was courage now.

CHAPTER XIX
THE WORLD'S WANT IS MEN

In the old house at Balladhoo, three hearts nearly made glad had still one painful passage to experience. It was dusk. By the fire stood Mylrea Balladhoo, with Mona Cregeen seated beside him. Christian had stepped to the door, and now returning to the room with the stranger previously seen in his company, he said, with averted face, "This is the man, father."

Balladhoo neither lifted his eyes to the new-comer nor shifted their gaze from the fire. His frame trembled perceptibly as he said, "I know your business, sir, and it shall have my attention." The stranger glanced from father to son. They stood apart, each unable to meet the other's face. Perhaps there is no more touching sight in nature, rightly regarded, than an old man, and to the pathos incident to age Balladhoo added the sorrow of a wretched and shattered hope.

"May I ask if this deed was drawn by your authority?" said the stranger. He stepped up to the old man, and put the document into his listless hand. Balladhoo glanced down at it, but his poor blurred eyes saw nothing.

"Yes," he answered, promptly enough, but in a husky voice. Christian's face quivered, and his head dropped on his breast. The stranger looked incredulous. "It is quite right if you say so," he answered, with a cold smile.

Balladhoo lifted his face. It was seamed with lines of pain, and told of a terrible struggle. "I do say so," he replied.

His fingers crumpled the deed as he spoke; but his head was erect, and truth seemed to sit on his lips. Christian sat down and buried his eyes in his hand.

The stranger smiled again the some cold smile. "The mortgagor wishes to withdraw the mortgage," he said.

"He may do so – in fifteen days," answered Balladhoo.

"That will suffice. It would be cruel to prolong a painful interview."

Then, with a glance toward Christian, as he sat convulsed with distress that he was unable to conceal, the stranger added, in a hard tone:

"Only, the mortgagor came to have reasons to think that perhaps the deed had been drawn without your knowledge."

Balladhoo handed back the document with a nerveless hand. He looked again through dim eyes at the stranger, and said quietly, but with an awful inward effort, "You have my answer – I knew of it."

The recording angel set down the words in the Book of Life to the old man's credit in heaven. They were not true.

The stranger bowed low and retired.

Christian leaped up and took his father by both hands, but his eyes were not raised to the troubled face.

"This is worse than all," he said, "but God knows everything. He will make me answer for it."

"What is the debt?" asked Balladhoo, with an effort to be calm.

"Money squandered in England."

The old man shook his head with an impatient gesture.

"I mean how much?"

"A thousand pounds." There was a pause.

"We can meet it," said Balladhoo; "and now, my son, cheer up; set your face the right way, and His servant shall not be ashamed."

Christian strode up and down the room. His agitation was greater than before. "I feel less than a man," he said. "Oh, but a hidden sin is a mean thing, father – a dwarfing, petrifying, corroding, unmanly thing. And to think that I could descend so low as to try to conceal it – a part of it – by consorting with a gang of lawless fellows – by a vulgar outrage that might have ended in death itself but that the hand of Heaven interposed!"

"You are not the first," answered Balladhoo, "who has descended from deceit to the margin of crime; but it isn't for me to judge you. Read your misfortunes, my lad, as Heaven writes them. Are they not warnings against the want of manliness? No, it's not for me to say it; but if there's one thing truer than another, it is that the world wants men. Clever fellows, good fellows, it has ever had in abundance, but in all ages the world's great want has been men."

Balladhoo glanced down at Mona. Throughout this interview she had sat with eyes bent on her lap. The old man touched the arm of his son and continued:

"As for the hand of Heaven, it has worked through the hand of this dear, brave girl. You owe her your life, Christian, and so do I."

Then the young man, with eyes aflame, walked to Mona and lifted her into his arms. The girl looked very beautiful in her confusion, and while she sobbed on Christian's breast, and Balladhoo looked on with wondering eyes, Christian confessed everything; how, in effect, Mona had been his wife for six years past, and little Ruby was their child.

It was a staggering blow. But when the surprise of it was past, all was forgiven.

"You love my boy?" said Balladhoo, turning to Mona.

The girl could not answer in words. She threw her arms around the old man's neck, and he kissed her. Then through the tears that had gathered in his blurred old eyes there shot a merry gleam as he said above the girl's hidden face, "Oh, so I've got to be happy yet, I find."

There came the noise of people entering the house. In another moment Kerruish Kinvig had burst in with one of the Castle Rushen men behind him.

"Manxman-like, he's a dog after the fair, and away from Peel to-night," bawled Kinvig, indicating the subject of his inconsequent remarks by a contemptuous lurch of his hand over his shoulder.

"We stayed too long in hiding," said the man, with a glance of self-justification.

"Of course," shouted Kinyig, oblivious of the insinuation against his own leadership; "and who hasn't heard that the crab that lies always in its hole is never fat?"

"The fishing-boat is still at sea, sir. It's scarce likely that the men will come back to Peel," said the man, addressing Balladhoo.

"Who dreamed that they would?" cried Kinvig. "What black ever stamped on his own foot?"

"We're trusting you think we've done our best, sir," continued the man, ignoring the interruptions.

"Eaten bread is quick forgotten," shouted Kinvig. "What you've done you've done, and there's an end of it, and it's not much either; and if I were magistrate, I'd have the law on the lot of you for a pack of incompetent loblolly boys. Wouldn't you, Christian?"

"You have done your best," said Balladhoo, and the man left them. "As for you, Kerruish," he added, "if you'd had the ill-luck to succeed, think what a sad dog you must have been by this time; you would have had nothing to growl about."

Christian had walked to the window. "Hark," he said, turning to Mona, "the wind is rising. What of those poor fellows outside?" The melancholy sough of the wind could be heard above the low moan of the distant sea. Mona thought of Danny, and the tears came again into her eyes.

It was time for the girl to return home. Christian put on his hat to accompany her, and when they left the house together he laughed, dejected though he was, at the bewildered look on the face of Kerruish Kinvig as he glanced in stupid silence from Balladhoo to them, and from them back to Balladhoo.

CHAPTER XX
THE FAIRY THAT CAME FOR RUBY

The night was dark, and the wind was chill outside, but light and warmth were in two happy hearts. With arms entwined and clasped hands they walked down the familiar road, transfigured now into strange beauty at every step. When two souls first pour out their flood of love, whatever the present happiness, it is the unconscious sense of a glad future that thrills them. It was the half-conscious sense of a sad past shared together that touched these two to-night.

"I feel like another man," said Christian; "to have the weight of these six years of disguise lifted away is a new birth." He seemed to breathe more freely.

"How glad I am it is gone, this haunting secret," said Mona, with a sigh of relief; but suddenly a fresh torment suggested itself. "What will people say?" she asked.

"Don't think of that. Let people say what they will. In these relations of life the world has always covered its nakedness in the musty rags of its old conventions, and dubbed its clothes morality. We'll not heed what people say, Mona."

"But the child?" said the girl, with some tremor of voice.

Christian answered the half-uttered question.

"Ruby is as much my daughter as Rachel was the daughter of Laban, and you are even now as much my wife as she was the wife of Jacob."

Mona glanced up into his face. "Can this be Christian?" she thought.

"Where one man sets himself apart for one woman," he continued, "there is true marriage, whether the mystic symbol of the Church be used or not. No; I've feared the world too long. I mean to face it now."

"I'm afraid I don't understand, Christian," answered Mona. "But surely to defy the world is foolishness, and marriage is a holy thing."

He stopped, and, with a smile, kissed the girl tenderly. "Never fear, darling —that shall be made as the world wants it. I was thinking of the past, not the future. And if ours was a sin, it was one of passion only, and we whispered each other – did we not? – that He who gave the love would forgive its transgression." Then they walked on. In the distance the hill above glowed red through the darkness. Danny's Contrary fire, which had smoldered all day, showed brightly again.

"Oh, how glad I am that all is over," repeated the girl, creeping closer beneath Christian's arm. "You said to-night to your father that a secret sin is a corroding thing. How truly I've felt it so when I've thought of my own poor father. You never knew him. He died before you came to us. He was a good, simple man, and loved us, though perhaps he left us poorer than we might have been, and more troubled than we were in the old days at Glen Rushen."

"No, I never knew him; but the thought of him has stung me to the quick when I've seen his daughter working for daily bread. It has been then that I've felt myself the meanest of men."

"Christian," continued Mona, regardless of the interruption, "have you ever thought that the dead are links that connect us with the living?"

"How?"

"Well, in this way. From our kin in heaven we can have no secrets; and when the living kin guess our hidden thought, our secret act, perhaps it has been our dead kin who have whispered of it."

"That is a strange fancy, Mona, an awful fancy. Few of us would dare to have secrets if we accepted it."

They were approaching the cottage, and could hear a merry child's voice singing. "Listen," said Mona, and they stopped. Then the girl's head dropped. Tears were again in her eyes.

"She's been sorrow as well as happiness to you, my brave Mona," said Christian. And he put her arms about his neck.

The girl lifted her face to his in the darkness. "That's true," she said. "Ah, how often in the early days did I gaze into the face of my fatherless little one, and feel a touch of awe in the presence of the mute soul that lay behind the speechless baby face, and wonder if some power above had told it something that its mother must needs hide from it, and if, when it spoke, it would reproach me with its own shame, or pity me for mine."

Christian smoothed her hand tenderly. "If the child suffered," he said, "before her race of life began, let it be mine henceforth to make it up to her with all that love can yet do."

"And when I heard its cry," said Mona, "its strange, pitiful cry as it awoke from that mystery, a baby's troubled dream, and looked into its red startled eyes and into its little face, all liquid grief, and said, 'It's only a dream, darling,' the thought has sometimes stolen up to my heart that perhaps some evil spirit had whispered to it the story of its shame – for what else had it to cry about so bitterly?"

Christian kissed her again, a great gulp in his throat. "Yes," he said, "in the eyes of men we may have wronged the child, but in the eternal world, when these few painful years are as a span, she will be ours indeed, and God will not ask by right of what symbol we claim her."

They had walked to the gate.

"Wait!" said Mona, and ran toward the door.

Christian thought she had gone to prepare her mother, but returning in an instant, and on tip-toe, with the light of laughter struggling through her tears, she beckoned him to follow her, with stealthy tread. Creeping up to the window, she took his hand and whispered, "Look!"

They were standing in the darkness and cold, but the house within was bright this winter's night, with one little human flower in bloom. Ruby had dressed the kitchen in hibbin and hollen and had scattered wheaten flour over the red berries to resemble snow. She was standing near Mrs. Cregeen's knee, being undressed for bed. Her heart had leaped all day at the thought of a new hat, which she was to wear for the first time next morning. This treasure had been hung on a peg over the plates above the dresser, and at intervals more or less frequent Ruby twisted about and cocked her eye up at it. It took a world of stolen glances to grow familiar with the infinite splendor of its bow and feather. While the threads and the buttons were being undone Ruby sang and gossiped. A well-filled water-crock had been set on the table, and touching this, the little one said:

"Do the fairies bathe in winter?"

"So they're saying, my veen," answered Mrs. Cregeen.

"Can I see the fairies if I lie awake all night? I'm not a bit sleepy. Can I see them all in their little velvet jackets – can I?"

"No, no; little girls must go to bed."

There was a pretty pretense at disappointment in the downward curve of the lip. The world had no real sorrow for the owner of that marvelous hat. The next instant the child sang:

 
"I rede ye beware of the Carrasdoo men
As ye come up the wold;
I rede ye beware of the haunted glen – "
 

Ruby interrupted her song to wriggle out of Mrs. Cregeen's hands, pull off her stocking, and hang it on one of the knobs of the dresser. "I hope it will be the Phynnodderee that comes to-night," she said.

"Why that one?" said Mrs. Cregeen, smiling.

"Because Danny says that's the fairy that loves little Manx girls."

"Danny shouldn't tell you such foolish old stories."

"Are they stories?"

"Yes."

"Oh!"

Another sly glance at the wonderful hat on the peg behind. That was a reality at all events.

"But I'm sure a good fairy will come for me to-night," insisted Ruby.

"Why are sure, Ruby veg?"

"Because – because I am."

Christian tightened his grasp of Mona's hand.

At that moment a gust of wind passed round the house. Mona remembered that to-night she was standing with Christian on the spot where last night she had parted with Danny.

"Listen," said Mrs. Cregeen to the child. "Pity the poor sailors at sea."

"Didn't Mona say Danny was at sea?"

"Yes, she was saying so."

Then the little one sang:

 
"In Jorby curragh they dwell alone
By dark peat bogs, where the willows moan,
Down in a gloomy and lonely glen – "
 

"Mammy, had Danny any father?"

"Everybody had a father, my veen."

"Had Ruby a father?"

"Hush, Ruby veg!"

Mona's hand unconsciously pressed the hand of Christian. "Oh," she muttered, and crept closer to his breast. Christian's bowels yearned for the child.

The silvery voice was singing again:

 
"Who has not heard of Adair, the youth?
Who does not know that his soul was truth?
Woe is me! how smoothly they speak,
And Adair was brave, and a man, but weak."
 

"I am quite sure a good fairy is coming," said Ruby, cocking her eye aslant at that peg on the dresser.

Christian could bear it no longer. He flung open the door, and snatched up the darling in his arms.

An hour later he and Mona came out again into the night, leaving the little one with laughing, wondering, wakeful eyes in bed, and Mrs. Cregeen sitting before the fire with something like happiness in her usually mournful face.

They took the road toward the town. They had no errand there, but the restless, tumultuous joy of this night would not leave them a moment's peace.

As they passed through the market-place they saw that the church windows were lit up. The bells were ringing. Numbers of young people were thronging in at the gates. But the parson was coming out of them. There was no pleasant expression on his face as he beheld the throngs that sought admission. It was Oiel Verree, the Eve of Mary. The bells were ringing for the only service in the year at which not the parson but the parishioners presided. It was an old Manx custom, that after prayers on Christmas-eve the church should be given up to the people for the singing of their native carols. Prayers were now over, and on his way through the market-place the parson encountered Tommy-Bill-beg among the others who were walking toward the church. He stopped the harbor-master, and said, "Mind you see that all is done in decency and order, and that you close my church before midnight."

"Aw, but the church is the people's, I'm thinkin'," said Tommy-Bill-beg, with a deprecating shake of his wise head.

"The people are as ignorant as goats," said the parson angrily.

"Aw, well, and you're the shepherd, so just make sheeps of them," answered Tommy, and passed on.

Laughing at the rejoinder, Christian and Mona went by the church, and, reaching the quay, they crossed the bridge at the top of the harbor. Then, hand in hand, they walked under the Horse Hill, and, without thinking what direction they took, they turned up the path that led toward the cottage in the old quarry.

Half the hillside seemed to be ablaze. Danny's fire over the Poolvash had spread north by many hundred yards. The wind was now blowing strongly from the sea, and fanned it into flame. The castle could be seen by its light from the black rocks fringed about with foam to the top of Fennella's Tower.