Eli's Daughter

Front matter

popular 3s. 6&. 1Rov>els. Inconsequent Lives. By J. H. Pearce. Oapt'n Davy's Honeymoon. By Hall Caine. A Marked Man. By Ada Cambridge. The Three Miss Kings. By Ada Cambridge. A Little Minx. By Ada Cambridge. Not All in Vain. By Ada Cambridge. A Knight of the White Feather. By Tasma. Uncle Piper of Piper's Hill. By Tasma. The Penance of Portia James. By Tasma. Her Own Folk. By Hector Malot. The Copperhead. By Harold Frederic The Return of the O'Mahony. By Harold Frederic Illustrated. In the Valley. By Harold Frederic Illustrated. The Surrender of Margaret Bellarmine. By Adeline Sergeant. The Story of a Penitent Soul. By Adeline Sergeant. Nor Wife, nor Maid. By Mrs. Hungerford. The Hoyden. By Mrs. Hungerford. Mammon. A Novel. By Mrs. Alexander. Daughters of Men. By Hannah Lynch. A Romance of the Cape Frontier.

By Bertram Mitford 'Tween Snow and Fire. By Bertram Mitford. Oriole s Daughter. By Jessie Fothergill. The Master of the Magicians By Elizabeth Stuart Phelps and Herbert D. Ward. The Head of the Firm. By Mrs. Riddeli.. A Conspiracy of Silence. By G. Colmore. A Daughter of Music. By G. Colmore. According to St. John. By Amelie Rives. Kitty's Father. By Frank Barrett. A Question of Taste. By Maarten Maartens. Come Live with Me and Be my Love. Ey Robert Buchanan. London: WM. HEINEMANN, 21, Bedford St., W.C. BY J. H. PEARCE AUTHOR OF 'jACO TKELOAR,' ' INCONSEQUENT LIVES,' ETC. LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1896 [All rights reserved] CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. ' ACCIDENT UP WHEAL 'GERRAS !' - - I II. DEWENCE'S NIGHT-WATCH - 2 1 III. ABE AND DEWENCE - - - "33 IV. THE VISIT TO THE ' SKUA ' - - 43 V. A STORM AND ITS CONSEQUENCES - 56 VI.

THE MEETING ON THE GREEN - 72 VII. THE NEW STORE-POT - - - 83 VIII. FRIENDS AND NEIGHBOURS - - 93 IX. EATING HONEYCOMB - - IOO X. WOMAN THE MAGNET - - - I07 XI. THE JOY OF LIFE - - - 117 XII. SIDELIGHTS ON SENTIMENT - - " I25 XIII. THE KALEIDOSCOPE OF CIRCUMSTANCE - 1 30 XIV. GOING A-MARKETING FOR MEMORIES - - 136 XV. DEWENCE HAS HER TROUBLES - - 141 XVI. HAL SEES LIFE - 147 XVII. A PARAGRAPH IN THE PAPERS - 1 54 XVIII. IN PRISON - - - - " 163 XIX. CHRISTMAS JOYS - CONTENTS VI CHAPTER PAGE XX. hal's silence - - - - 176 XXI. HAL IN LONDON - - - - 1 83 XXII. A COUNTRY COURTING - - - I90 XXIII. A TURN OF THE WHEEL - - - 193 XXIV. NEWS OF HAL - 201 XXV. DEWENCE IS MARRIED - - - 207 XXVI. THE PRANKS OF CHANCE - - - 212 XXVII. A FRIVOLOUS WIFE - - 222 XXVIII. THE PRICE OF A SAFE EXISTENCE - - 229 XXIX.

Chapter I

'accident up wheal 'gerras !' As Inasmuch Dawe, Abe Tregarthen's house keeper, entered the field where the mowers were at work, her little blinking eyes were bright with excitement, and her parched red lips mumbled restlessly, though inaudibly. Indeed, her every movement showed the heightened pitch of her sensibilities, which were usually so sluggish that she was called ' Aant Hurry,' by way of a hint. The gate, swinging behind her, had scarcely cleared her heels before Aant Hurry began to bawl to the woman in easiest hail of her : ' Heerd the news, Bitha ? Bitha Sem metis, heerd the news ?' ' What news ?' bawled Bitha Semmens, turning her head, and disclosing a face as red and almost as characterless as a poppy, withdrawn within the depths of a flapping white sun-bonnet. ' Accident up Wheal 'Gerras !' screamed Aant Hurry.

Bitha Semmens stood leaning on the handle of her rake with her eyes rounding slowly : ' Dussent say so !' she ejaculated. And she turned to glance, with awakened interest, at the gray stone engine-house and tall brick chimney that stood out against the sky on the hilltop overhead. The aroma of the newly-cut grasses filled the air ; butterflies were fluttering about in every direction, and around the long-sprayed hedges the bees hummed incessantly ; while high overhead about a dozen skylarks showered their thin, clear strains across the hills. In the field, which was about five or six acres in extent, there were three men working — the farmer and two assistants — and three women engaged in raking out the swathes. The men were coatless, and had their shirt-sleeves turned up and their collars thrown open, that the faint wafts of air might reach them wherever it was possible ; and the women had their dresses pinned up to clear their ankles, and wore large white sun-bonnets that entirely hid their faces — the whole scene producing a most picturesque impression with its sunshine and moving figures, and its lush, deep grass.

As Inasmuch advanced she kept bawling across the field : ' Iss, you, bra' bad accident 'tes ! Wan o' the wust in my time, b'leeve !' ' Wha's up now?' shouted a deep, bass voice, coming from the front of the bare-armed mowers, who were plying their scythes in the middle of the field. ' Accident up Wheal 'Gerras !' screeched Aant Hurry. ' Come's here, bussa-brains, wust a' !' shouted Abe ; and he emptied his scythe - blade and straightened his back slowly, wiping his brow with his hairy arm. Up came Inasmuch, red and panting. ' There's a' accident up Wheal 'Gerras, they do say. Eli Trewavas an' 'es pare* are smothered up down there somewhere.' ' Aw dear ! whishtf for Dewence !' ejaculated Bitha. ' Es her faather killed, do'ee knaw?' asked Abe. ' Caant say, sure. Nowan doan't knaw. There ben a run o' ground down in the three hunderd,| an' Eli an' 'es pare are buried up in it.

So they're tellin', anyhow, up 'pon the floors.§ I heerd it from Joe Penberthy, out at the whem, there.' And * Party. \ Melancholy. t The three hundred fathom level or gallery. § The surface-workings. she nodded towards the curious wooden structure that was visible among the heaps ot refuse in the distance — a matter of three or four fields from where the mowers were at work. As all eyes instinctively turned towards Joe, who could be seen superintending his horse at the whim* Abe slowly unrolled his turned up shirt sleeves : ' I'll go up an' see Joe, b'leeve,' he suddenly remarked. ' Shaan't be long ; stick to it 'tell I come back !' And, slipping on his coat, he hurried up to the mine. The field where Abe was working this morning was on a sloping hillside overlooking Mount's Bay. Immediately beneath the meadow the land broke away into low brown cliffs ; the cartway that passed the entrance to the field leading down to a small sheltered cove, of which only a fragment was visible from here.

From the fields the land climbed rapidly to the hilltop, where the engine-house and stacks of Wheal Tregerras rose boldly. Where the low hill dipped on the other side of the mine the slope was longer and more gradual, and at the foot of the slope, and at the mouth of a tiny porth, lay the gray, old-world village of Trevaylor ; the farmhouse inhabited by Abe Tregarthen being situated on the slope be tween the mine and the village — in fact, so near to * A capstan, here worked by a horse. Wheal Tregerras that Abe could almost count its windows from the floors of the mine. All around the shaft, as Abe approached it, the scene this morning was full of animation. About thirty women and boys were employed on the floors, and these, with the stamps men* and other workers at the surface, formed a crowd more noisy and uncontrollably agitated than Abe Tregarthen had ever come in contact with before.

The shuffling of feet and the clamour of tongues — in which the shrill, high notes of the females predominated — combined with the thud of the pumping-gear and the incessant clatter of the stamps, the endless moving to and fro and the agitation of everyone, had on the farmer a more unsettling effect than he had anticipated. Try to control himself as he would, the unrest was contagious, and the incessant appeals to the feelings began to tell on him subtly. The white, frightened faces of the men as well as the women, the endless and uncanny emotional display — some of the folks in their excitement growing uncontrollably garrulous, and others wandering about as aimlessly as children — all this bustle and agitation seemed to fever the air, and, in spite of his heavy and somewhat sluggish temperament, Abe began to feel the blood beat quicker in his veins. * The stamps are the machines that pound the ore to powder.

The relief party, composed of volunteers, had already gone down to the scene of the accident, and though the work of the mine, of course, had to go on, still many were congregated on the floors chattering garrulously, even the buddlers and the stamps men occasionally joining in. ' I towld them there was pot ground* there,' said one. ' There ben no end o' whisht owld sounds 'bout here lately ; I thought there was somethin' goin' to happen,' added a second. ' Iss,' quoth his neighbour, ' the shafts ben full o' them — creak, whine, groan, an' never no end ! It gov' me a shevver to hear them, you.' ' Wonder what are the poor sauls doin' ?' queried a woman. ' Poor sauls ! poor sauls !' sighed a sympathetic bal-girl,-fwiping her nose in her apron in her absent-mindedness. ' Poor sauls !' echoed the women, rocking wail ingly to and fro. ' The dear Lord help them — poor dear sauls !' ' Whishtest thing, b'leeve, I ever remember !' ' Aw, whisht, whisht ! 'Tes whishter than whisht !' And in the babel the men grew white around the nostrils, and set their teeth firmly to hide the quivering of their lips. * Rotten ground. t Bal = mine.

By this time groups had begun to arrive from the village — most of the women with their bonnets thrust on hastily, their aprons on, and their sleeves turned up, and all with a restless agitation in their faces ; the men, though perhaps in less picturesque dishabille, revealing their anxiety quite as noticeably as the women. Among the new-comers was a niece of Eli Trewavas — a fine, well-developed girl, with dark hazel eyes, and with hair as black and glossy as the wings of a crow. Abe's eye picked her out of the throng in an instant, as the sun picks out a wheat-field on a hill. She was the kind of girl men usually like to stand and talk to, and Abe two or three times tried to engage her in conver sation. But, for some reason or other, Kitty Minnie this morning conversationally slipped through the farmer's fingers, and he soon ceased to follow her, seeing how useless it was.

The influx of women from the village, with their children at their heels, led to an indescribable babel of questioning and cross-questioning, the crowd breaking up into shifting groups, that formed and reformed and drifted hither and thither, apparently with no other motive-impulse than to glean information and to disseminate it afresh. Everyone seemed to be moving and talk ing at once, and the hubbub, the stir, the excite ment, were unbelievable. In the swaying tangle of human beings, and amid the shrill, incessant garrulousness that pre vailed, Abe began to feel his self-control steadily relaxing. His big, florid face began to lose a little of its colour, and unconsciously to assimilate its expression to that of its neighbours. The Celt imprisoned within his tissues was taking him by the throat.

But the bovine sluggishness of his temperament still restrained him subtly. He thrust his hands in his pockets and walked restlessly to and fro, gathering scraps of gossip eagerly, and growing more excited every moment, but without showing any very noticeable sign of it except in the shifty glitter in his eyes. Presently one woman remarked to another, ' It all'ys ben said that the Trewavases are onlucky. Ever sence " the curse " they ben dwindlin' an' dyin' off". Men are fools to work weth a man weth a thing like that hangin' ower un.' ' I've heerd 'bout their bein' ill-wished, or somethin'. Wha's the rights o' the tale, do'ee knaw ?' asked her companion, who had married into Trevaylor from another parish. ' 'Tes no ill-wishin' ; they cud go to the conjuror* ef 'a was. Eli's graanfer 'a was Enoch Trewavas was 'es name. ..." * In Cornwall conjuror and witch are often used as synonymous. ' He that hanged hisself in the dry* an' was buried up Cross Lanes ?' ' Iss, 'a had a whisht end, come to the laast.

Well, as I was sayin', 'a tobbedf John Wesley hisself wan day out to R'udgeon. The dear owld saint was praichin' out 'pon the downs, an' Enoch up an' tobbed un, an' wedn take no warnin'. So John Wesley he said to un that in less than a hundred years there wedn be a Trewavas left in the parr-rish. An', sure 'nuff, Eli es the laast o' the name. 'Ceptin' Dewence, o' coose, an' she doan't count, seein' ef ever she do marr-ry she'll ha' to change her name.' ' Aw, dear, dear ! 'tes whisht on un, too.' ' What I do say es, 'a oughtn't to be 'lowed in the mine. 'Tes temptin' Providence, to my way o' thinkin'.' ' So 'tes, too,' her neighbour assented. As they moved off, earnestly discussing the matter, Abe followed them staringly and with mouth agape. His own family had its legend — and a rather gruesome one — and he could sym pathize with a family haunted by a curse.

He fell to thinking of Dewence with fascinated curiosity ; and in his own narrow dreamland all the shadows became alive. * The shed where the miners change their clothes before going underground, or when returning from the levels. f Pelted with turfs. Meanwhile Dewence had landed in the cove beneath the hayfield, and, having moored her boat there — the porth at Trevaylor being unsafe — she had filled her basket with the fish she had secured while seeking bait, and was now unconcernedly making her way home. With an attractive shapeliness and easy gait, due largely to her life in the open air and to her moving about constantly on the seashore and the hills, Dewence was in every way as pleasant a young woman to look at as one would be likely to find in half a dozen villages. Moreover, she seemed the perfect flower of her environment, this brown-haired, blue-eyed miner's daughter, with her sunburned cheeks and her soft, sweet voice.

There was not a touch of the town-bred girl about Dewence. She wore a blue serge dress that could scarcely have been plainer, yet that hung about her gracefully, moulding itself on her form ; her boots were heavy enough and stout enough for a man ; and her shallow straw hat, though still in decent condition, was so rusty and weather beaten that it was almost as brown as her cheeks. But her shoulders were strong and well-shaped, the curves of her bust were such as a town-girl would have envied, and her white teeth heightened even the winsomeness of her smile, which, freely though it came, was never without its charm. As she mounted the rugged hillside this morning — moving with a slightly accelerated pace that she might be in time to prepare her father's dinner, Eli being due from the mine at about half past two — Dewence was thinking how pleased her father would be at hearing that the catch in the crab-pots had been so good, and at finding that, besides getting plenty of bait, she had also secured some pollack, which she knew he was very fond of. ~* Her thoughts were moving smilingly in this rather narrow groove, and her lips and eyes were smiling faintly in response, when suddenly she began to stare wildly towards the hilltop, and her mouth fell open with a gasp of alarm. ' My ! what's the matter?

Is it a' accident?' she ejaculated. She had caught sight of the unusual throng of people on the floors, and the significance of their appearance there she had instantly divined. To reach the floors was the work of only a few minutes. So impatient was she to learn what had happened, that she could not wait to arrive at the ordinary entrance to the mine. Tucking up her skirts, she clambered over the hedges and made a bee-line recklessly across the scattered heaps of deads,* emerging on the floors hot and panting, but with enough breath left to start questioning at once. * Rock and other refuse from a mine. 'What's happened? Anyone killed? Who is it ?' she asked pantingly, elbowing her way through the throng with her basket on her arm. Everyone felt a delicacy in breaking the news to her ; and there was an appreciable pause as those who heard her questions glanced from one to another in uncomfortable silence. ' Their tongue-tied awkwardness was sufficiently significant.

Her face paled visibly beneath its wind-and-sun tan, and she asked urgently, but less impetuously now : ' Is it a' accident ? What is it? Nothing happened to father?' And they could see her bosom heaving violently beneath her bodice as she watched them. There were the same questioning glances, and then old 'Miah Thomas, Eli's class-leader,* hesi tatingly began to explain how matters stood. ' I'm sorry to say, me dear, there ben a run o' ground ' ' Not in the three hundred !' interjected Dewence, her eyes fixed hungrily and appealingly on his. ' Iss ; so 'tes, me dear, sorry to say ; but nawthin' disp'rate as yet,' he hastened to add. And 'Miah laid his knotted hand gently on her arm. ' He's wan o' the Lord's awn sarvants, * The leader of a 'class' of converts and communicants in the Wesleyan Methodist Society. anyway ; howld fast to that, me dear ! cling on to that !' Dewence's mouth worked painfully, and her eyes began to dim. 'Miah stroked her arm tenderly as if she were his daughter. ' Lev' it in God's haands, me dear!' he whispered. ' Thee can trust our Faather ! — lean upon that !' 'Is he hurt?' she gasped hoarsely; and then : ' Is he killed?' her tremulous tones scarcely rising above a whisper. ' No, no, me dear ; not so fur as we knaw of.

They're blocked up down there just at present, b'leeve ; but we shall ha' them out soon, plaise God ! thee may be sure. Shudn' be s'prised ef faather's out in time for supper. Better go home an' git round somethin' hot for'n. Some o' they fish in thy basket, now, a man cud smack 'es lips on,' 'Miah went on garrulously, watching her drawn face nervously the while. For Dewence stood as helpless as if smitten with idiocy ; her limbs rigid, and her mouth half open, and a dazed, frightened look in her distended eyes. Her self-control, however, gradually asserted itself, no doubt assisted by the knowledge that everyone was watching her compassionately. ' I shall stay till someone conies up,' she remarked faintly. ' How long will they be, do you think?' addressing 'Miah. ' It'll be a short shift, anyhow, awin' to the air. 'Spect they'll be up about five,' said 'Miah. ' Then I shall stay till then !' said Dewence emphatically, and she seated herself heavily on a balk of timber.

Meanwhile, Abe, who had been watching Dewence at a distance, had been gradually edging his way towards her, and now addressed himself directly to her. ' I'm sorrier than I can say, to think this shud ha' happened,' he remarked, looking down at her where she sat on the balk. ' Goin' to stay 'tell some o' them come up, so I hear ?' ' Yes,' said Dewence. ' I feel I can't go home.' ' No, s'pose not. I quite onderstand. But thee ben out to thy pots all the mornin', haven'ee ? I seed'ee from that there field we're mowin'.' ' Yes,' said Dewence, ' I been out all the morning.' ' Thee must be gittin' fine an' hungry by now, I shud think. Shall I send Aant Hurry up weth some crowst ?'* ' No, thanks. I'm much obliged, but I really couldn't eat.' ' Sure, now ? Thee might try ; there's no sense in goin' hungry.

She'll be passin' here bringin' down crowst to us in the mowin' field.' ' Thank you, I couldn't eat. I couldn't really /' * Luncheon. And she shook her head restlessly to emphasize the words. ' Anything I can do for'ee ? Send home thy basket, or anything?' ' No, thanks, nothing. The basket don't matter.' And, as she turned to reply to someone who had addressed a remark to her, the farmer slid his hands in his pockets and sauntered off. Presently there was an excited cry across the floors that the ' first coor by day ' men were coming up the shaft, and Dewence at once rushed forward to the new-comers, who were climbing up the ladders of the footway-shaft in Indian file and very weariedly, many of them having had to climb up by the ladders from the depth of over half a mile. ' Keerful there, you maid !' came the cry from below. ' What'ee doin', hangin' ower the shaft like that?

Clear out of it to wance — thee'll be down on our heads, else !' Dewence could just discern the tiny flames ot the candles twinkling far below in the blackness of the shaft, and could hear the feeble clink of feet on the iron rungs of the ladder. Her head began to swim as she peered down into the darkness, and a sudden sickness overcame her heart. It was with the men of this coor her father was ' due to grass,'* and the unshed tears seemed to choke her at the thought. * ' Due at the surface.' She grew so dizzy that in another moment she would have fallen ; but suddenly a pair of strong arms tightened around her, and she was lifted away from the shaft as if she had been a child. As she turned to see who it was that was so solicitous for her safety, Dewence perceived, with a twitch of annoyance, that it was Abe Tregarthen.

She slipped from his grasp and moved touchily away from him, her lips thrust out in irrepressible annoyance. But her mood vanished rapidly as her eyes travelled to the figures that were now emerging slowly from the shaft. The men were dressed in loose, duck garments, and were stained all over with the ferruginous soil ; their clayey boots were ' as red as rats,' and each wore a hard, napless hat, ornamented with a lump of wet, red clay, with a half-burned candle stuck in the mass. Many of the men were dripping wet ■ — the lower levels of the mine being knee-deep in water — and all were besmeared with perspiration and the damp exudations of the levels generally. As there were more than thirty miners in the coor, and these had gathered to the shaft from different levels, there were many breaks in the continuity of the file, and the arrivals at the surface seemed dawdlingly delayed.

But presently a first-hand reference to the accident caused every other sense to merge in that of hearing, and Dewence hastily pushed forward to catch what was said. ' Iss, o' coorse I heerd the run. Thought at fust it must be a' earthquake. Seemed to shaake our level as ef 'a'd got the ague. I tell'ee you, it gov' me a turn in me insides. I han't ben fifty* sence,' said the speaker, hitching up his trousers. ' Shaake ! Why, I thought the world was comin' to a' end ! Bill Semmens flopped down on 'es knees and bust out prayin', an' boy Dick B'litho begun to blubber like a cheeld. Never knawed afore Bill cud use 'es tongue so haandy, 'cept in cussin' an' sweerin' — he was all'ys good at that. Lor', how 'a ded pray, you, to be sure ! Caan't say I felt 't all comfortable myself. Pick an' Gad waan't see me to-night, ef I do live through it, was the fust thought I had, sure as you're alife !

I knawed 't warn't no shuttin'f cud maake a sound like that, an' I warn't 't all sure I shud ever see grass agen,' quoth great Alec Carne, one of the blackguards of the village. ' 'Tes too whisht to talk about,' said his white faced companion. ' I was workin' on the stope,} an' the tembers shevvered as ef they was ropes. I shaan't never forgit it so long as I do live.' And they could see the fright still glimmering in his eyes. f Shooting, here meaning blasting. X An elevated wooden platform. * Proper. ' 'Tes onnly a surge,* b'leeve, not a reg'lar run,' remarked an older miner comfortingly to Dewence. ' I was down in the three-fifty, an' we felt the tremblin' down to our boots, an' heerd the rumble ower us as ef the level was tumblin' in ; but when we rushed off up to the sollar,f we seed 'twarn't nawthin' much more'n a surge.

Ef there esn' anawther surge they'll get through the stuff to night. There's no props givin' way anywhere, yet, an' they're workin' like hosses down there now. They're 'pon the six-hour shift, so some'U be up by five. Shudn' wonder ef they manage to hear some of them by then.' Dewence listened, open-mouthed, to the various reminiscences and opinions, and a strange sight it was to see the excited girl, with her dress tucked up and her basket of fish on her arm, following hither and thither, to the very door of the dry, the uncouth figures that emerged from the shaft. It was not long that the men cared to remain in the open with their underground garments cling ing wetly to them. Presently they had all retired to the dry, leaving on the floors only the surface workers and the villagers, among whom the ex citement was now almost painful.

Abe Tregarthen had kept an eye on Dewence * A slight run of earth. t The sollars are the landing-stages between the different levels. through it all, and he now approached her with the request that she would come to his house to have dinner. He would be in the mowing-field himself, but she could have dinner with Aant Hurry ; and the farmhouse was so near that she could be back in half an hour. But Dewence refused sturdily ' I can t eat !' she persisted. And, finally, in order to escape his importunity, she turned her back on him and sought refuge in the engine house. Abe stood looking after her for perhaps a minute, and then, seeing Kitty Minnie leaving the floors, he followed the innkeeper's daughter until he overtook her, and they walked away together, chatting animatedly as they went. About five o'clock the men of the relief party came up, and Dewence ran out excitedly from the engine-house to question them.

They gave her as cheering an account of their progress as they could : there had been no further run, and they were getting through the stuff 1 fine !' But they advised her to go home and wait there patiently, rather than linger here on the floors. They had little hope of reaching her father before midnight, and possibly might not reach him even by then. ' Is he dead?' she asked piteously. ' Not that we knaw of ' Can you hear them ?' ' No. Too soon to 'spect that. But we han't got no raison to think they ar'n't alife. The air's putty good, an' 'tes rock stuff, most of it.' Dewence drew a deep breath. ' Then there's nothing to tell ?' she queried ' Nawthin' as yet,' said the miner she was questioning. And he took off his hat and wiped his brow with his coat-sleeve, drawing the air thirstily into his lungs. Dewence drooped her head, but kept back the tears bravely, and took her way home without another word.

Chapter II

dewence's night-watch. As Dewence walked heavily down the hill she felt fretted beyond endurance by the sunny happiness of the world. The skylarks were trilling con tinuously overhead, across the hedges the pink wild roses flowered lavishly, and the trumpet shaped blossoms of the trailing honeysuckle were opening widely in every direction. From the tiny coppice in the hollow near the village a cuckoo — or, possibly, it might have been two of them — kept calling, calling, all the while she was walking homeward, and every now and then the saucy whistle of a blackbird struck jauntily on her ear as if in mockery of her thoughts. The sun shone warmly on the roofs of the village — of which many were half-hidden among the spreading fruit-trees that seemed to be grow ing in every available patch of garden — and the wavering columns of smoke from the cottage chimneys drifted meltingly together in thin, sluggish wreaths that made a delicate faint-blue haze above the thorp.