Part 30 (1/2)

Barebone

But in tacking so frequently he was liable to er boat was not so likely to miss stays He passed so close to her that he could read the figures cut on her stern-post indicating her draught of water

There was another chance The ”Petite Jeanne” was drawing six feet; the dinghy could sail across a shoal covered by eighteen inches of water But such a shoal would be clearly visible on the surface of the water

Besides, there was no shallow like that nearer than the Goodwins

Barebone pressed out seaward He knew every channel and every bank between the Tha out to sea by short tacks All the while he was peeping over the gunwale out of the corner of his eye He was near, he must be near, a bank covered by five feet of water at low tide A shoal of five feet is rarely visible on the surface

Suddenly he rose frounwale, and stood with the tiller in one hand and the sheet in the other, half turning back to look at ”Petite Jeanne” towering almost over him And as he looked, her bluff black bows rose upith an odd cli up a bank With a rattle of ropes and blocks she stood still

Barebone went about again and sailed past her

”_Sans rancune_!” he shouted But no one heeded hihy sailed into the veil of the mist toward the land

CHAPTER XXVI

RETURNED EMPTY

The breeze freshened, and, as was to be expected, blew the fog-bank away before sunset

Sep Marvin had been an unwilling student all day Like eneration, Parson Marvin pinned all his faith on education ”Give a boy a good education,” he said, a hundred tientleman of hientlelad to feed and clothe hiht in his mind, as it was in the mind of nearly all his contemporaries The wildest dreae of one brief generation, social advancenorant rather than for the scholar; that it would be better for a e of the world than the wisdoht find a kinder welcome in a palace than the scholar; that the s and speak to them, without aspirates, between the courses

Parson Marvin knew none of these things, however; nor suspected that the advance of civilisation is not always progressive, but that she arity and dance down-hill, as she does to-day His one scheme of life for Sep was that he should be sent to the ancient school where field-sports are cultivated to-day and English gentleentleo to that College hich his father's life had been so closely allied And if it please God to call hiiven his father a living, and do the same by him--for that reason and no other--then, of course, Sep would be a ress during the winter day that a fog-bank ca tenaciously to the low, surfless coast In the afternoon the sun broke through at last, wintry and pale Sep, who, by so anieneration that should cultivate ignorance out of doors, rather than learning by the fireside, threw aside his books and cried out that he could no longer breathe in his father's study

So Parson Marvin went off, alone, to visit a distant parishi+oner--one as dying by hie cut off froet that it is high tide at five o'clock, and that there is no moon, and that the dykes will be full You will never find your way across the marsh after dark,” said Sep--the learned in tides and those practical affairs of nature, which were as a closed book to the scholar

Parson Marvin vaguely acknowledged the warning and went away, leaving Sep to accompany Miriaford, which would awake to life and business now that the sea-fog was gone For the ford, like nearly all seafarers, are ti its passage, while they treat stor up the river,Miriae street, and he walked on, without further comment, spade on shoulder, toward the church-yard, where he spent a portion of his day, without apparent effect

So, when Miria, it was only natural that they should turn their footsteps toward the quay and the river-wall Or was it fate? So often is the natural nothing but the inevitable in holiday garb

”That is no Farlingford boat,” said Sep, versed in riverside knowledge, so soon as he saw the balance-lugthe line of the river-wall, half aFew coasters were at sea in theseon the quay The rown slip-here ”The Last Hope” had been drawn up for repair, stood gaunt and eford er, and farther north, in Lowestoft boats In winter, Farlingford--thrust out into the North Sea, surrounded by otten by the world

The solitary boat came round the corner into the wider sheet of water, locally known as Quay Reach

”A foreigner!” cried Sep, ju, as was his wont, from one foot to the other with exciteht up by the tide, with a dead ian boat”

Miriahtness in her eyes, a rush of colour to her cheeks, which were round and healthy and of that soft clear pink which marks a face swept constantly by mist and a salty air In flat countries, where e or tree or hillock, across a space measured only by miles, the eye is soon trained--like the sailor's eye--to see and recognise at a great distance