scanty leaves dripping with rain, he found a little face stained with tears, blue-white as death and with halfclosed eyes. Watchman licked her face; but his master, wrapping his eloak about her wet rags, carried her back to the church, the dog close to heel.

Here, however, they were met by a woman whose person was gigantic in contrast with the small clergyman and his church. She wore a black beaver shepherd's hat, a tan-red calico body with a very short and heavily pleated grey woollen skirt, and silver-buckled square shoes. She was breathless with running up hill from Mullinstow Haven through the coombe, and she could hardly speak. Pointing to the cresset on the tower:

"Parson," she said excitedly, "Dout it-and quick! The Swalla's men is after my Lukey. But ye must look alive or ye'll be too late. An' then do 'ee come and look at Luke's broken head; they did lerrup un ter❜ble' fore they took un. But he got ashore in the larker.1 If the King's men run on the rocks, 'tis only proper they'll be sarved, sez I!"

But Mr. Trevenna looked again at the child in his arms and said in some indignation :

He came to save children and King's men alike, Aunt Temperance."

'More like to bring a sword than peace for they rats an' cormorants! An' if that ain't Scripture right an' tight, I ax 'ee to tell me what 'tis, Parson! You'm fine an' anxious about varmints! But us an' Providence'll do without 'ee, I'll wager; for your beacon's doubtin' of unself!"

Then she added scornfully:

"We'm much obligated all the same, Parson, for givin' with one hand an' takin' away with t'other. 'Tis Providence'll rip up thicky Swalla's dam ribs for 'un!"

1 Three sizes of boat are used in the pilchard fishing: the seine boat, the follyer, and the larker. Vide Appendix B.

Then, as if repenting her anger, she exclaimed with a hoarse laugh:

"But, mussy on us, Parson, what have 'ee got there? Is un a baaby-merry-maid or what?"

But on looking closely at the child she exclaimed:

Why, 'tis my cheel'-vean1 Genny, so 'tis! Here, give the li'l gadabout to me, Parson. We'm been thinkin' the innocent wer' lost for good an' all! Her's growin' away fine now!"

She took the now sleeping child, who, having looked far too big for the man to hold, was immediately changed to a puny infant in the huge arms of the woman. When she heard the story of the flock:

"Tis one more of that Hoblyn's devil-tricks with the poor-house child'en," she exclaimed; "but I'll kill un 'fore he takes my Genefer-an' her so innocent a love-cheeld as ever was!"

Mr. Trevenna promised to see Luke as soon as the children were provided for. As the woman strode away with the child, he thought she might have been the church tower itself asserting a right to wider spheres of activity than the builders of five hundred years before had ever thought of.

1 Little darling.

B

THE

CHAPTER II

MARTHA HORNBUCKLE

HE parvise over the south transept was Mr. Trevenna's study. A hearth lay in its southwest corner, an altar of rough-hewn oak with crucifix on its east, a round-arch, leaded window on its south, and the low door of the stair on the north-west corner. Its north-east angle was occupied by a round arch giving full view of the sanctuary. Mr. Trevenna found the children fast asleep. He kindled the faggot on the hearth, and not even the blaze or crackling of the wood awakened them. Laying his cloak over two of the coldest, he took paper and wrote on it in capitals certain instructions. Then he sanded and folded the paper, twisted it into Watchman's collar, who had been waiting for orders, gave one word, "Aunt Martha!" and the dog raced into the coombe, from which, halfway down its zigzag path, a side track led to the shore and, incidentally, to the vicar's cottage and its sheltered bit of land.

No door of Mr. Trevenna's had any lock or bar to keep him from his neighbour. The dog set fore-paws on the door, seized the latch and thong in his teeth, bounded up to Martha, who sat asleep in the oak settle, her face swathed in red flannel. He yelped, sat down to wait and yelped again.

The woman found her feet and roused the fire with a faggot. She looked for the missive, read it with some difficulty, and then tightening the shawl about her shoulders, exclaimed:

"God a' massy on us! He'll be the death of me one day! Ain't he got no compassion for flesh and blood, without it's smugglers or child'un !"

But while she grumbled, she hastened. In a few minutes milk was simmering in a pipkin, and she laying on the deal table slices of bread, thick spread with yellow clotted cream. Then her master came, wet and shivering. Warming his hands at the fire, he turned to his housekeeper and began laughing silently:

"Martha, you play the angel and only pretend to complain!" said he.

Angel, indeed!" she retorted with a grunt. For Martha was a Methodist and looked upon angels as Popish images.

Mr. Trevenna then ran upstairs and returned with blankets from his own bed, and any odd items of clothing he could lay hands on. But Martha, grey-haired, lean, large and harsh by contrast with her master's small stature and gentle voice, never ceased in her complainings.

"'Tis my belief," she muttered, piling the food in a wide basket," the clergy ain't got no consciences-not like ourn."

Had she not been fifteen year, last Michaelmas, in her master's service, and he no more fit to look after himself with his going up ag'in the law to help the smugglers and his refusing of the Almighty's gifts when one did come along our way-which wasn't too often; and then with his tramps and his starving squirrels and birds to dinner any day you please; and now a pack of tramping piskies or brownies-a likely story! Ah! if he'd larned grace from Mr. Wesley. . . .

In her grumblings to Mr. Trevenna, she always referred to his shortcomings as though they belonged to a third person.

"But when did I refuse one of God's gifts?" he asked, tying a leather thong round the blankets.

"An' then he forgets that anker of rum the boys left

at our door a sennight gone," she continued, “and he hurled it over an' it bursted unself-same as Judasand now for a judgment, here's me with toothache fit for St. Piran!"

But the master must fetch the donkey and her foal from the stable; when, having laden the panniers with the clothing and food, he led them up the coombe, Watchman ahead.

Aunt Martha Hornbuckle-and all folk past middle life were honoured with the prefix Aunt or Uncle had been in Mr. Trevenna's service for many years. He had lifted a weight from her soul, and for this she owed him all her devotion for as long as he could bear with it. That her services were something afflicting was in a measure understood even by herself, though this in no way lessened her need to stand between his unfitness for minding himself and the devouring world. Although she was Wesleyan and seldom attended what she considered the Popish services at St. Neot's, her master's protection was necessary. She knew very well that even among her fellow-worshippers in her brother Farmer Hornbuckle's barn, where the Society met on a Sunday, and in spite of their professing to reject such superstitions as Romish, she was said to be tainted with witchcraft. And as sure as pilchards is fish," Aunt Temperance would say, "facts is facts." But then this mighty woman was always on the defence of the parson against the Wesleyans, who, she angrily said, were washed so dam clean they couldn' b'lieve in merrymaids-nor even in saints so plain as flagstaffs!"

66

Martha's story was tragic, not only from the spiritual standpoint, but also in fact. She had loved a fisher-lad, and, in spite of her father's opposition, he being a prosperous farmer and bailiff to Sir Nicholas Beckensawe, father of the present Sir Nick, the banns had been published for the first time. Before the second Sunday, her Jack, one of four in his father's boat, was drowned. 1 Pronounced Un and Oonkle.