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- Herausgeber: DigiCat
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
"Ships in the Bay!" by D. K. Broster presents a compelling narrative that weaves together themes of maritime adventure and the complexities of human relationships. Through an evocative prose style rich in sensory detail, Broster immerses the reader in the coastal milieu of early 20th-century Britain. The novella captures both the beauty and peril of life at sea, set against the backdrop of historical events that shaped the era, all while showcasing the author's adeptness at character development and emotional resonance. D. K. Broster was often inspired by her own experiences and interests in the maritime world, drawn from her upbringing in the coastal regions of Scotland. Her deep appreciation for nature and her acute observation of human behavior profoundly influenced her storytelling. Broster's literary output, marked by its strong sense of place and time, reflects her unique perspective on the intricacies of social dynamics, making her work both engaging and insightful, particularly in the context of early 20th-century societal change. This book is highly recommended for readers who cherish richly layered narratives and are intrigued by the interplay between human resilience and the unpredictable forces of nature. "Ships in the Bay!" not only transports readers to a world of adventure but also compels them to reflect on the deeper currents of human connection and the enduring spirit of exploration. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A comprehensive Introduction outlines these selected works' unifying features, themes, or stylistic evolutions. - A Historical Context section situates the works in their broader era—social currents, cultural trends, and key events that underpin their creation. - A concise Synopsis (Selection) offers an accessible overview of the included texts, helping readers navigate plotlines and main ideas without revealing critical twists. - A unified Analysis examines recurring motifs and stylistic hallmarks across the collection, tying the stories together while spotlighting the different work's strengths. - Reflection questions inspire deeper contemplation of the author's overarching message, inviting readers to draw connections among different texts and relate them to modern contexts. - Lastly, our hand‐picked Memorable Quotes distill pivotal lines and turning points, serving as touchstones for the collection's central themes.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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Ships in the Bay!
Table of Contents
Introduction
Ships in the Bay! presents a single-author gathering of D. K. Broster’s maritime and coastal narratives, offering a concentrated introduction to a writer best known for her historically grounded fiction. Rather than a comprehensive edition, this collection assembles nine stories and short novels that can be read individually or as a loosely linked sequence. The emphasis falls on episodes in which the shoreline is a frontier—between private and public duty, between safety and exposure, and between what can be declared and what must be concealed. It is a showcase of Broster’s craft in settings where wind, tide, and rumor shape human resolve.
The volume’s scope spans fiction in shorter forms: tales, novellas, and compact adventures. Readers will not find plays, poems, or essays here, but narratives attentive to event, character, and atmosphere. The Dutch Prize, Odyssey of Mr. Martin Tyrrell, Sanctuary, The Kingdom by the Sea, “Came the Blind Fury——”, The End of the Masquerade, “Danger’s Troubled Night”, Up Anchor!, and The Clear Horizon together map a diverse set of situations. Some unfold close to the waterline; others trace inland consequences of coastal crises. All privilege story over spectacle, placing moral choice at the heart of action.
Broster’s historical sensibility underpins these pieces without encumbering them with apparatus. Readers familiar with her eighteenth-century romances will recognize the same measured pacing, alertness to social codes, and disciplined economy of incident. The maritime element widens her canvas rather than altering her principles: ships carry news and peril; bays shelter survivors and secrets. Characters confront the claims of loyalty and law, the meanings of courage and retreat, and the pull of home against the summons of duty. Even when battles remain offstage, the weather of conflict changes everything—contracts, friendships, and the very language people use to speak of loss and hope.
A clear set of themes binds the collection. Sanctuary examines refuge and its obligations; The End of the Masquerade weighs truth against protective concealment; “Danger’s Troubled Night” and “Came the Blind Fury——” consider hazard that descends without warning but not without precedent. The Dutch Prize raises questions of gain, risk, and rightful possession, while Up Anchor! and The Clear Horizon suggest movement, release, and the redefinition of purpose. The Kingdom by the Sea and Odyssey of Mr. Martin Tyrrell follow travelers whose routes are drawn by wind and circumstance, reminding us that paths ashore can be as uncertain as any passage across water.
Stylistically, Broster’s signatures are evident: lucid prose, an ear for period-inflected speech without pastiche, and structurally tight chapters that balance momentum with poise. She privileges implication over ornament, allowing settings to emerge through action rather than catalogue. Maritime detail, where present, is integrated for clarity rather than display, and the drama rises from character rather than machinery. Her restraint amplifies tension; her intelligence about social nuance turns small exchanges into turning points. The result is fiction that reads swiftly yet lingers, drawing strength from exact observation and the steady pressure of consequence.
The continuing significance of these works lies in their precise depiction of individuals meeting history at close quarters. Broster’s achievement is to make courage recognizable without sentimentality and fear intelligible without apology. In these pages, the sea is not only a backdrop but a moral and imaginative space in which identities are tested and remade. For readers who know her for Highland campaigns and Jacobite loyalties, Ships in the Bay! demonstrates an allied range—coastal rather than inland, but animated by the same ethical clarity and narrative tact that have secured her reputation.
This collection is designed for flexible reading. The sequence—from The Dutch Prize to The Clear Horizon—suggests an arc from contested acquisition to clarified outlook, but each narrative stands complete in tone and intention. The aim is not to pre-empt discovery but to frame it: to mark the recurrence of thresholds, disguises dropped, nights endured, and horizons regained. Taken together, these works affirm Broster’s standing as a storyteller of intelligence and restraint, for whom history provides pressure and possibility, and for whom a ship in a bay is never merely a vessel at anchor but a catalyst for human choice.
Historical Context
Ships in the Bay! gathers narratives rooted in Britain’s long littoral history, where the Channel and western approaches formed both moat and highway. From the Anglo‑Dutch contests of the seventeenth century to the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815), and onward to the world wars, coastal towns such as Plymouth, Portsmouth, Falmouth, and Dover lived by the movements of fleets and traders. Maritime conflict, blockade, and storm shaped livelihoods, loyalties, and hazards. These pressures furnish recurring backdrops of convoy, wreck, and rescue, and they explain the prominence of harbors and roadsteads—those uneasy thresholds between safety and pursuit—in multiple works across the collection.
Anglo‑Dutch rivalry left legacies felt centuries later in maritime law and custom. During the Fourth Anglo‑Dutch War (1780–1784) and after the Batavian Republic aligned with France in 1795, British cruisers and privateers hunted Dutch shipping. Letters of marque, prize crews, and adjudication in the High Court of Admiralty governed captured 'prizes,' while insurers at Lloyd’s tracked risks. Actions such as Saldanha Bay (1796), Camperdown under Admiral Adam Duncan (1797), and the Vlieter surrender (1799) reinforced a culture of blockade and seizure. The legal ambiguities, temptations, and perils of prize‑taking inform several conflicts here, complicating honor, profit, and allegiance along crowded sea‑lanes.
Smuggling and 'free trade' formed an enduring coastal economy from the mid‑eighteenth century into the 1820s, particularly in Cornwall, Devon, and the Channel Islands. High duties on tea, spirits, and tobacco fostered clandestine networks supplied from Roscoff, Guernsey, or Flushing, using fast luggers and hidden coves. The Commutation Act (1784) cut tea duties, yet the Hovering Acts and an expanding Preventive Waterguard pressed harder after 1809; revenue cutters from Falmouth, Deal, and Newhaven strained to stem the tide. These contests drew whole communities—farmers, clergy, customs men—into moral gray zones, shaping plots of concealment, collusion, and sudden violence along tide‑swept headlands.
The Napoleonic invasion scares reshaped the south‑coast landscape and rhythms. After alarms at Fishguard (1797) and renewed war in 1803, Britain raised volunteer corps, fortified harbors, and built Martello towers from Kent to Sussex. The Admiralty’s shutter telegraph (1796–1816) linked Portsmouth and Plymouth with London, while Sir Home Popham’s signal code organized fleet communications offshore. Lighthouses—Smeaton’s Eddystone (1759) and Stevenson’s Bell Rock (1811)—became both beacons and tactical markers. These systems of warning, guidance, and misdirection supply narrative momentum: false lights, intercepted flags, and hurried musters provide plausible mechanisms for pursuit, escape, and mistaken identity amid crowded roadsteads and storm‑bound bays.
Wartime manpower needs brought coercion and unrest to seafaring lives. Impressment, backed by quotas on coastal counties, swept up experienced hands and landsmen alike, fueling resistance and periodic riots. In 1797 the Spithead and Nore mutinies exposed grievances over pay, victuals, and harsh discipline; reforms followed, but suspicion lingered. Naval hospitals such as Haslar at Gosport tended wounded sailors, while courts transported convicted smugglers or deserters to penal colonies. These pressures sharpen questions of duty, consent, and compassion across the collection, as characters weigh loyalty against survival and confront the state’s reach from the open sea to the parish quay.
Coasts also offered refuge and secrecy. Successive waves of displaced people—Huguenots earlier, French émigrés in the 1790s, and Belgians in 1914—found landing places at Dover, Rye, or Falmouth, while the Alien Acts (1793–1794) formalized surveillance and permits. The very routes that served exiles nourished espionage: William Wickham coordinated anti‑Jacobin intelligence from Switzerland and London; coastal packet services carried couriers and codebooks. Later, Admiralty cryptanalysts of Room 40 (1914–1919) made the sea a web of intercepted signals. Such frameworks underpin plots of sanctuary and masquerade, where hospitality, betrayal, and coded exchange intersect under the watch of beacons and patrols.
The twentieth century reframed older seafaring perils. In 1917 Britain adopted escorted convoys against U‑boats, while Q‑ships stalked attackers in the Western Approaches; the Zeebrugge Raid (23 April 1918) symbolized coastal audacity. Between wars, port towns weathered slumps and technological change. In 1940 the Dunkirk evacuation drew small craft from Ramsgate and beyond, and the long Battle of the Atlantic strained merchantmen and escorts alike. Blackouts, decoys, and the Chain Home radar network (operational by 1938) turned night into a strategic theater. These experiences conditioned readers to tales of 'danger’s troubled night,' resilient communities, and margins where civilian and naval duty blur.
D. K. Broster’s historical imagination—formed in an era that venerated Trafalgar (1805) while enduring two global wars—favored precision of milieu and ethical ambiguity over mere pageant. Interwar and wartime readers, steeped in commemorations, Admiralty histories, and popular naval fiction from Marryat to Forester, received such tales as both escape and recognition. Research into local archives, seafaring vocabularies, and legal frameworks lends the collection its exactitude; yet its abiding concern is with thresholds: disguise and revelation, harbor and offing, oath and expedience. In that tension, 'ships in the bay' become emblems of Britain’s recurring predicament—proximate safety amid watching storms.
Synopsis (Selection)
Seafaring Peril (The Dutch Prize; Up Anchor!; Danger’s Troubled Night)
Three maritime episodes chart crews facing capture, departure under pressure, and a perilous night watch, where seamanship collides with chance and human guile.
Broster’s brisk pacing and tactile nautical detail frame themes of duty, improvisation, and the sea as a testing ground for courage.
Journeys and Horizons (Odyssey of Mr. Martin Tyrrell; The Clear Horizon)
A prolonged journey and its quiet aftermath trace how travel redraws a life, nudging an unassuming traveler from routine into hard-won perspective.
Reflective and lightly ironic, these pieces emphasize resilience, conscience, and the tentative optimism of new vistas.
Refuge and Boundaries (Sanctuary; The Kingdom by the Sea)
Both stories pivot on places reputed to protect—sacred or coastal—testing the obligations owed to strangers against the strictures of law and loyalty.
With subdued tension and vivid settings, Broster explores hospitality, belonging, and the costs of drawing or crossing a line.
Masks and Reckonings (The End of the Masquerade; Came the Blind Fury——)
Disguise and sudden retribution drive these darker tales, as personas falter and buried drives surface at critical moments.
The tone is taut and inexorable, favoring moral ambiguity and precise staging over overt sensationalism.
Ships in the Bay!
“That mortal breathes not, and never will be born, who shall come with war to the land of the Phæacians, for they are very dear to the gods. Far apart we live in the wash of the waves, the outermost of men.”
Odyssey VI. 201-205
“You gwyne to have considable trouble en yo’ life, en considable joy. Sometimes yo’ gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes yo’ gwyne to git sick, but every time yo’ gwyne to git well again. Dey’s two gals flyin’ about in yo’ life. One uv ’em’s light en t’other is dark. . . . You want to keep away fum de water as much as you kin en don’t run no risks, ’kase it’s down in de bills dat you’s gwyne to git hung.”
Huckleberry Finn, Chap. iv
TO
C. S. EVANS
whose unvarying kindness demands a better tribute, but whose name seems to make appropriate the dedication of this tale of the Principality.
I THE DUTCH PRIZE
“We sail the ocean blue, And our saucy ship’s a beauty We’re sober men and true, And attentive to our duty.”
Pinafore Act I
“But who is this, whose godlike grace Proclaims he comes of noble race? And who is this whose manly face Bears sorrow’s interesting trace?”
Patience Act I
I THE DUTCH PRIZE
(1)
The summer day had dawned very clear, and the wind, blowing light but steady from the north, promised not only fine, but brilliantly fine weather, most congenial, since hay harvest was upon them, to all the farmers of Western Pembrokeshire in this year of grace and war 1796. It swept over the wide, airy, almost treeless expanses of Dewisland[1q], studded with innumerable white-washed farms, ruffling the young barley and wheat; the tall pink valerian on the ruins of the Bishop’s Palace, down in the Vale of Roses, swayed to its passing; the little blue scabious in their thousands on the cliff saluted it, and the now fading thrift which the scabious had replaced: while the sea itself, on either side of the out-thrust fist of St. David’s, from Skomer Island off the one coast to Strumble Head on the other, was the livelier and the more azure for its passing.
Nor was the breeze displeasing to Miss Nest Meredith, driving her father, the Precentor, and an antiquarian visitor in a low pony-chaise towards the western shore, in order that the latter might inspect the ruins of the old chapel erected there to St. Justinian, the teacher of St. David himself. For the breeze not only tempered the heat in the high-banked and flower-bedecked channel which was the road thither, but to some extent kept away the flies from Patch, the fat, slowly-trotting old pony, who need hardly have been taken from his stable for so short an excursion but that Mr. Thistleton, lame from birth was dependent upon some means of transport.
The dust rose behind and drifted slowly on to the banks on either side—on to the troops of ferns, the hundreds of foxgloves, the recurrent patches of pink campion which harmonised so well with them and the yellow snapdragon which made so vivid a contrast, and on to the spires of the majestic, woolly-leaved mulleins planted at regular intervals, apparently by some celestial under-gardener, which were just beginning to twinkle into bloom. The distance from the Precentory to Porthstinian was less than two miles, yet Nest, as she drove, had time to feel sleepy with the heat and the dust-muffled clop-clop of Patch’s advance. Papa, she could hear, was talking to Mr. Thistleton about the restoration of the Cathedral’s west front, now in progress, but she did not listen. Soon, as she knew from past experience with visitors, they would be discussing with equal zest the curious chimney, alleged to be “Flemish,” of the farmhouse at Rhosson, which they would shortly reach and wish to stop at; indeed but a couple of minutes had elapsed before she caught the word “Flemings” already passing between the two gentlemen.
They were out of the lane now, and on their left Trefeiddan Pool, small and shallow, glittered in the stretch of moorland between them and the craggy eminence of Clegyr Boia, where the chieftain who made himself so objectionable to St. David was reputed to have had his fastness. Now a farmhouse sat beneath its slopes, just as Rhosson beneath another sudden hillock. Pool, moor and crag were all upon a small scale. A little further and they were at Rhosson; Nest pulled up Patch almost mechanically, Dr. Meredith and his guest alighted; the former pointed, they viewed; finally they entered the farmhouse.
Nest Meredith untied the ribbon of her big shady hat and fanned herself awhile with it, the sun glinting on her golden-brown ringlets. Patch stood with drooping head, only his long tail busy. The scent of hay was in the air, for one or two fields near Rhosson were already cut, though none was yet carried. In front, the rough road, rising slightly, cut off the view, but away to her right a strip of intensely blue water showed up the brown, seared promontory of St. David’s Head itself, shaped at that distance like an outstretched crocodile—not that Nest had ever seen a crocodile. She had only to turn round to see the great tower of the Cathedral emerging, with no sign of the building to which it was attached, from the hollow which held the shrine of Dewi Sant.
It had never occurred to Nest Meredith, the daughter of the Cathedral’s chief dignitary—for here at St. David’s, where there had never been a Dean, the Precentor or Chanter held that position—to criticise the unprecedented site which the Cathedral itself occupied, down in the valley of the river Alan, while the little town was grouped along the ridge above. She was too much accustomed to its unique position; indeed, rather proud of it. But her married sister Jane, when she came from her present home in Lincolnshire to visit them, would often speak in disparaging terms of old Peter de Leia, the builder of this, the third church to rise over St. David’s bones. But of course she did this out of her father’s hearing; yet when Nest reminded her that Bishop Peter did not choose the site, Jane would reply impatiently: “My dear Nest, if we all went on slavishly copying our forefathers, what would become of progress?” Jane would never have talked thus about “progress” before her marriage, and Nest feared that the development must have some connection with the alarming fact that her husband, if not she herself, read Tom Paine and Rousseau, even though it were mere intellectual curiosity and not real sympathy which led Mr. Stalybridge to investigate the subversive ideas of these writers, which all true-hearted Englishmen must so abhor.
It was certain on the other hand that no such literature was ever perused by Nest’s naval brother William, he who in these days of possible French invasion was contributing towards keeping the shores of Britain inviolate. Yet even William had once declared, à propos of the Cathedral, that he did think those old fellows might have chosen the quarterdeck instead of the hold while they were about it; and that it was, from a sailor’s point of view, almost a crime to have wasted such a good daymark as the great tower would probably have made, by erecting it in a rabbit run. In such unsuitable terms had he referred to the charming green valley of the Alan, yellow a month ago with flags, and now all white and fragrant with the meadow-sweet.
Ah, here were Papa and Mr. Thistleton coming out of the farmhouse, Mrs. Lloyd curtseying behind them. Into the pony-chaise they got again, the vehicle swaying to the Precentor’s weight, for he was a large man and of slightly full habit—not more so, however, than was consonant with and indeed conducive to dignity. Nest flicked her whip, and Patch slowly put himself once more into motion.
The pony-chaise topped the slight rise, and as they began to descend again Ramsey Sound came into view, a wide blue floor streaked with silver currents, cutting off the high ground ahead which, to the visitor’s surprise, revealed itself as an island of some extent. Further out to the right swam Careg Rhosson and other islets. Mr. Thistleton gave exclamations of surprise and appreciation.
“Yes,” said Dr. Meredith, “that is Ynys Dewi, or Ynis-yr-hyrddod, as it is sometimes called. As with Bardsey Island, twenty thousand saints are said by tradition to have been buried there, which, as Ramsey is only a couple of miles long, must have necessitated somewhat crowded sepulture. It was there that St. Justinian, who appears to have been a severe disciplinarian, is said to have been slain by his servants; but his body, according to legend, walked over the Sound, carrying its head under its arm, and was originally buried in the spot we are approaching. His chapel, which you can now see, in consequence, I suppose, of this holy feat, used to be resorted to by those crossing to and from Ramsey Island, either to pray for a safe passage or to give thanks for one. We must get out here, I am afraid; this is too steep for Patch.” And leaving that steed, never known to stir unbidden, the three of them went down the rough track towards the little roofless shrine.
But Nest did not go in with the two gentlemen; she wished to see, rather, what was occupying the attention of the small group of men on the grassy point just beyond, overlooking the minute landing-place which gave the spot its name of Porth. One of the men had a telescope to his eye. Perhaps he was looking at a seal or two come over from their breeding place in the caves on the other side of the island, and Nest dearly loved to watch seals. Now she could see the whole expanse of the Sound and Pont-y-Geist, the terrible line of jagged teeth running right out from Ramsey into the narrowest part of the channel, past which the tide raced and foamed always; but it was something under the lee of the mainland which caught her attention. Round to the left, close inshore, but at some distance from Porthstinian, a ship was anchored[2q].
Miss Meredith’s heart gave an unpleasant jump. When one lives on a seacoast in time of war, still more, as in her case, between two seacoasts, even a strange sail in the offing may raise alarm. And here was an unknown and rather curious-looking vessel moored in the Sound, while a boat which had evidently come from her was already well on its way to the little landing-place.
The group of men, all known to Nest, had turned at her approach and saluted her.
“I hope that is not a French ship, Mr. Watkins!” said the girl, trying to keep the apprehension out of her voice.
“No, no, Miss Nest bach,” said the man with the telescope reassuringly. “Though indeed you might well be thinking that she should be a foreigner, for foreigner she was once, for sure. But now she will be a prize; look you, she do fly the British flag!” He held out his telescope. “If you was to look through this, miss, you ’ould see the way her mainmast has been shot about; and indeed to goodness the boat on the davits there have a great hole in it!”
Nest took the telescope and, since it was not the first time she had used such an instrument, she was able quickly to eschew the succession of bobbing circles, blank save for the blue heaving which filled them, in favour of a small section of the captured vessel. Lighting, however, upon the figure of a man in the ship who, having evidently just washed his only shirt, was hanging it over the side to dry, she hastily lowered the telescope with a blush; but, unwilling so soon to relinquish it, sought instead for the oncoming boat and, after several false casts, was successful in hitting it off. There first appeared in her field of vision the back of a grizzled and rather bald head, swaying to the oar at which its owner was tugging; then, as she slightly shifted the telescope, she came upon the stem of the advancing boat itself, with the water shearing up like crystal on either side of it; after which there swung into view the shoulder of the rower in the bow and the back of his head. He was evidently a young man, for, though he wore a blue, tasselled woollen cap, she could see how thick was his dark brown hair. His neck was tanned, but not wrinkled like the other man’s. She gave back the telescope with a word of thanks.
“Good morning, Watkins; good morning, John Llewelyn!” said her father’s voice behind her. “I see, miss, that you prefer science to art, the new to the old!”
“Yes; for, Papa, see!” explained Nest in excitement, “there’s a ship in the Sound—a prize—and a boat is coming ashore from her. ’Twill soon be in!”
And soon, indeed, the boat with its crew of four was gliding into the recess in the cliffs (for it was not much more) which formed the landing-place. The party from the Precentory watched from above while Watkins shouted down to ascertain what it had come for. One of the rowers scrambled ashore, an individual in a blue frieze waistcoat and wide canvas trousers, and shouted up in a hoarse voice:
“Prize crew from the Fair Penitent, letter of marque of Liverpool, taking back a Dutch prize, and bein’ short of water and the wind contrary we’ve put in for a cask or so. Will ’ee show us where to get it?”
“I incline to wonder,” murmured Mr. Thistleton above, in Dr. Meredith’s ear, “that they don’t ask for something stronger than water!”
Mr. Watkins went down, and was seen to be informing the privateersman of the nearest source of supply, while Nest from her eminence inspected the crew of the boat. They did indeed look somewhat ruffianly: all bearded and middle-aged, save the young bow oar with the blue cap who, though unshaven, was not hirsute to anything like the same extent. From where she was, Nest could not distinguish his features, but she noticed that though at first he had sat with his head bent over his oar, he was now gazing about him with every appearance of interest.
Presently he with the two others shipped their oars, got out of the boat, each with a couple of water-kegs, mounted the steps cut in the cliff and passed within a few yards of the spectators, subsequently disappearing up the sloping road.
“Brave and worthy fellows, no doubt, in spite of their somewhat unprepossessing appearance,” commented Dr. Meredith. “We must remember the risks they run, the hard life they lead. Did their leader say that it was a Liverpool privateer which captured the vessel there in the Sound?”
“Yes,” replied his guest. “A privateer with a very odd name—the Fair Penitent, if I heard aright.”
“Very odd,” agreed the Precentor. “It is, I think, the title of an old play.”
“Perhaps her owner has literary leanings,” suggested Mr. Thistleton, as they started back towards the pony-chaise. “Or, more probably, an admiration for Mrs. Siddons. I believe, now I come to think of it, that the Fair Penitent was one of the tragedies in which she used to enact the heroine when she was playing in Liverpool and Manchester twenty years ago, before she came to London. Liverpool possesses many privateers, does it not?”
“Scores, my dear sir, scores. As many, or more than Bristol. We see them sometimes passing the Bishop and Clerks out there. And slave ships also; the port has a great trade to the Guinea coast. But I cannot remember either a privateer or a prize ever putting in here before.”
Patch being roused from his meditations, they now drove slowly home again. Of the privateersmen there was no further sign, and conversation, abandoning present day affairs, flowed once more round the relics of the past.
(2)
Nest Meredith’s home, the Precentory, was one of the many buildings which had adorned the precincts of the Cathedral of St. David’s in the days of the former greatness of the see, when its Bishop had been little less than a prince, and the shrine of the Saint a very great and famous place of pilgrimage. In those ages an embattled wall, with four gateways, had encircled the whole close, a veritable ecclesiastical city-state. Fuit Ilium; now in places that wall had crumbled, and but one gate remained; part of the Cathedral itself had long been roofless, the beautiful Bishop’s Palace was in ruins, and St. Mary’s College, John of Gaunt’s foundation, also; while of the various prebendal dwellings and archdeaconries some were mere skeletons, of some no traces were left. But among those which had survived was the Precentory, and this had moreover been added to and improved, and presented an appearance at once pleasant and dignified. It stood, not like the Cathedral on the floor of the green hollow, but some way up the lip, looking at the great church as it were sideways, and more directly across the Vale of Roses, the “Merry Vale,” meadow-like, shallow and open, where the little river Alan, once perhaps a large stream, wound unobtrusively along to the tiny harbour of Porthclais, its meeting place with the sea. Below the house was a terraced garden, the supporting wall of which abutted on a little road which crossed the Alan on an ancient bridge and separated the Precentory from the “Chanter’s Orchard,” a field stretching to the river.
It was to this sloping garden, and to the shade of a mulberry tree, that Nest brought out some sewing this afternoon. Under the same tree sat already her Aunt Pennefather, the Precentor’s widowed sister, who kept his house for him, mild, almost visionary, learned and poetical. The dignified cap which crowned her brow was a trifle askew, yet the stitches which she was putting into a much smaller cap were as microscopic as those of the least intellectual of sempstresses.
But Nest, though she sewed for a while, was really longing to go for a walk, being unusually active in that respect for a young lady of her generation. It was all very well to be drawn along at a snail’s pace behind Patch! ... And suddenly some deity—Hygeia perhaps—provided an excuse for satisfying this desire, by bringing to her ears a scrap of a conversation between her father and Mr. Thistleton, who had just come out into the garden, and were standing not far away.
“It was most careless of me, Precentor! The leaf upon which I made the notes of the proportions of that chimney must have been loose, and I greatly fear that I let it slip out while in St. Justinian’s chapel!”
“But to the best of my belief,” replied Dr. Meredith, “you never took out your notebook there. No, depend upon it, you dropped the page in Rhosson farmhouse itself, and the Lloyds, who are good, careful people, will have picked it up and kept it. I will send someone over there to make inquiries. No, my dear Thistleton, you cannot go yourself, even in the pony-chaise, for I am to take you in half an hour’s time to drink tea with Mr. Salt the antiquary up at Bowen’s Folly. If you will excuse me I will give orders about sending to Rhosson at once.”
Throwing down her work Nest sprang up and ran after her father into the house. “Papa, you will be wanting Richards to drive you up to Mr. Salt’s, and John Parry is so stupid that he will not be able to explain anything to Mrs. Lloyd. I will go to Rhosson and ask them if they have found the leaf of notes. It is only a mile and a half, and Bran needs a run.”
The Precentor hesitated, then yielded. “Very well, my dear, since I know that walking gives you pleasure, and that John Parry is not very intelligent. I could however send him with a letter—yet, now that I come to think of it, I am not sure that Mrs. Lloyd can read. Go then, child, if you do not fear the heat. I shall not tell Mr. Thistleton, however, until after you have started.”
It was not really very hot now, but Nest took her new parasol with her. She was proud of this adjunct, of which there was not yet another in St. David’s. And beneath its shade she walked slowly along the route already traversed behind Patch this morning, accompanied by Bran, her mongrel brown dog, who had the formation of a lurcher but the pelt (possibly) of a retriever. Nest, however, deprecated criticism of his appearance, but exalted his intelligence and warm heart.
The lane was really like two long garden beds! Never, even in Devonshire, which she had once visited, had Nest Meredith met honeysuckle growing so thickly as here at home; never elsewhere, surely, were foxgloves so determined to go on blooming up to the very last infant buds of their spires. Further inland, it was true, the lanes had fewer flowers, but myriads of ferns. And yet the lanes were not overshaded like some of those in Devon, for they had no hedges on top of their banks; and the air of Dewisland was not soft and damp, but tingling with the wine of its twin seas, and magical always with the scent of flowers—even when no flowers were to be seen. Yes, Dewisland was Dewisland, and like no other place in the world!
Miss Meredith’s quest was crowned with success. Bidden into the closely shut, never used parlour in all its stiff array, where there hung a picture much admired by her in childhood, of the wreck of a full-rigged barque, entirely carried out in coloured wools and enclosed in a black frame with a large natural whelk shell adhering to each corner, Nest received (in Welsh) the lost sheet of notes, dropped, by good fortune, inside the house itself. Looking affectionately at the woolly disaster on the wall, she asked if the Dutch prize were still in the Sound, and was told, No, that she had sailed some three quarters of an hour ago, of which Mrs. Lloyd was glad, for she did not like the look of the men whatever, and once when they came past they were swearing most horribly, she was sure, though she could not understand what they said. After which, with mingled triumph and respect, she asked leave to show Miss Meredith her daughter’s new baby.
(3)
Calling off Bran, who was barking, from a safe distance, at the enormous sow in the yard, Nest started back. The sight of Mrs. Lloyd’s infant grandchild had set her thinking of her own nephew, aged six months, whose presence, with that of his mother, was shortly to enliven the Precentory. It was strange to know oneself an Aunt. Undoubtedly it made one feel very old. On any count, indeed, twenty was a considerable age. One should, said Aunt Pennefather, begin to have serious thoughts at twenty. Yet Nest feared that her thoughts were no more serious than at eighteen, save that with riper years had inevitably come reflections—nay, more, conclusions—on the transitory nature of human affections, both male and female. For certainly last winter she had believed herself deeply in love with a gentleman, a stranger to the neighbourhood, whom she had met at a ball in Haverfordwest, and had even begun to picture herself going into a decline upon his account. There had not, however, been time for this process to take effect, since this infatuation, nourished on air, had lasted but a month, its demise, too, being materially assisted by the fact that young Mr. Perrot of Camrose had then begun to pay her somewhat marked attentions, continually finding, for instance, that business required him to ride eleven miles or so into St. David’s instead of four into Haverfordwest. These attentions Nest enjoyed without in the least making up her mind about their author; then, suddenly, they ceased. So she had good reason, she told herself, to feel that she knew something of life and its impermanence. In her less cheerful moods she sometimes felt also that one so disillusioned should prepare for old age and spinsterhood by learning Latin, or following some intellectual pursuit equally sustaining to the mind. The cultured Aunt Pennefather, although she had married, knew Greek as well.
Reflecting on the advent of Jane and her infant, Nest, before she had gone very far, paused to look over the gate of a hayfield and, tempted by the thought of a short rest upon her homeward way, opened it and went in. The swathes of dried grass and daisies had been roughly piled into haycocks, but these were too high to sit upon without partial demolition, while the grass stubble, as she knew from experience, was apt to prove a prickly seat. However, as she penetrated further, her gaze lit upon a haycock on the further side of the field which seemed to have overbalanced in some way, and towards this pile she bent her steps. “I can leave the field by that further gate,” she told herself, “so that I am not going much out of my way. How sweet the hay smells!”
She reached the haycock in question about the same time as Bran, who had loitered behind for some purpose of his own, and now rushed up panting.
“Lie down, good dog!” adjured his mistress. “It makes me hot to look at you!”
But the good dog did not lie down; far from it. Pricking his ears, he took a good sniff at Nest’s chosen seat and began to bark at it.
Nest involuntarily took a step backwards and clutched her muslin skirts to her. Undoubtedly there was a mouse in the pile of hay. But she was brave; she did not flee, since it could only be a fieldmouse after all, which she did not dread nearly as much as the domestic variety; moreover, there was no other haycock so convenient. But how tiresome of the creature to have chosen this haycock, of all others! “Oh, Bran, pray stop!” she cried, for the animal’s barking was now of an unmitigated frenzy and he was in addition beginning to dance about and to scratch at the pile. “See, I’ll drive the mouse out for you!” And, with great daring, but with due precaution also, still holding her skirts very tightly and keeping as far away as possible, she stretched out her arm and poked the point of her new parasol into the yielding hay.
Yet even as one eating cherry jam from which the stones are thought to have been removed and are not, Miss Meredith received a jarring surprise. The interior of the hay possessed quite different qualities from its exterior; it was by no means yielding; yet whatever lay within had not the stark solidity of stone or wood. She had poked something living ... something, too, from the feeling of it, much larger than a rabbit or hare—creatures which would moreover have leapt out at a touch, if not before.... This, whatever it was, gave no sign, uttered no sound. But the whole neighbourhood resounded with Bran’s passionate barking. And at his mistress’s exclamation and backward movement he, doubtless from an instinct of protection, was stirred to something bolder than mere vociferation, and, making a spring at one end of the pile, he seized a bunch of hay in his mouth and shook it as if it were alive. Then, dropping it, he made a second fierce dash at the same spot as though he had found something better worth attack.
And, in a sense, he had, for, to Nest’s equal amazement and terror, a human hand and wrist darted forth from the hay and, catching Bran by the collar, succeeded in holding him off, while at the same instant a violent earthquake movement convulsed the whole heap. Next moment the hay was falling back on all sides from about the figure of a disreputable young man who, wrestling with the infuriated dog, was endeavouring to get from his semi-supine position to his feet.
“Bran! Bran!” cried his distracted mistress. “Bran, come a way! Oh dear, oh dear, what shall I do?” For whether the individual emerging from the hay after the manner of Venus Anadyomene from another element were a haymaker of retiring tastes, or a bad character of some kind, she did not desire the growling and writhing Bran to rouse him to complete wrath by taking a piece out of his person.
“Bran!” Desperate, Nest advanced, and with difficulty seizing the dog by his collar, tugged hard. Thus, her effort coinciding by luck with a vigorous thrust on the man’s part, she did succeed in pulling Bran away; and, more from fright than from any other motive, began to belabour him with the treasured sunshade, while the man, leaping to his feet the moment he was free of his assailant, disappeared like a flash round the nearest haycock.
“You naughty dog!” exclaimed Nest, trembling all over. She beat him again, her tepid blows awakening no protest. “How dare you—when I was calling you off!” Bran, panting, rolled over on to his back and gave an exhibition of the most abject and foolish contrition. With shaking fingers Nest fastened to his collar the leash which she had fortunately brought with her, stood a moment to recover some of her composure, and then started to walk quickly over the stubble towards the gate which she had already observed and which she knew must give on to a little lane leading back to the road. All thoughts of sitting awhile in the hayfield had now left her; her one desire was to get out of an enclosure where every haycock might, for aught she knew, be instinct with—what? Of what sort was the apparition with hay in his hair who had struggled with Bran and vanished so quickly? She could not imagine; all that she had had time to receive was an impression of youth, dark-haired, dark-chinned, of odd, shabby clothes with hay adhering to them, and of hurry. But the man could not merely have gone to sleep there and the haycock then have collapsed on top of him; he had been too thoroughly concealed for that. And people did not conceal themselves, especially in such an unusual way, unless there was a reason for it ... and the reason was always a disgraceful one. Besides, he had been alarmed at discovery ... or perhaps alarmed at Bran ... or both. Thank Heaven, indeed, that he had run off as he had! But what an adventure! What would Papa say? And Aunt Pennefather, who alternated very inconsistently between disapproving of her niece’s freedom of movement and denouncing in her mild, poetical way, the shackles imposed through immemorial ages upon the female sex?
Nest came through the little gate, from the scent of the hayfield to that of the lady’s bedstraw and honeysuckle of the narrow lane, and she had closed the gate behind her before she became aware of a masculine figure. It was he, the man from the haycock, standing a little to her left on the opposite side of the lane, against the high bank of flowers, looking at her!
The young lady’s heart thumped sickeningly; she backed by instinct against the gate behind her. Bran growled and tugged at the leash; but its loop was round his mistress’s wrist. Afterwards Nest wondered exceedingly why she had neither screamed nor run down the lane, which, since this alarming figure was on the further side of her, she could at least have tried to do.
The man, however, seemed to realise that she was frightened, for he remained motionless, save that he pulled his forelock as a gesture of respect, while Nest stared with alarmed eyes at him and his attire—at his coarse check shirt, open at the throat, his white flannel waistcoat bound with black tape—he appeared to have no coat—his wide, short trousers of faded blue fustian, with six inches or so of bare ankle between them and his shabby brass-buckled shoes; and most of all she noticed the menacing-looking sheath knife which hung from his worn leather belt.
“I ... I won’t touch you miss!” he said rather hoarsely. “I only wanted to thank you for calling your dog off me.”
“I thought ...” began Nest, but her breath fluttered so much that she did not complete the sentence; nor indeed was she quite sure what she had meant the end of it to be. If anything, it was the expression of a hope that he had gone completely. Certainly she would have infinitely preferred that to his lingering to thank her!
“I wasn’t doing any harm, miss,” went on the young man humbly. “I be come to these parts hoping to find work—on a farm, maybe.”
“But surely,” began Nest, a little reassured by his still remaining at a distance, and also by a certain gentleness in his voice, which, though it held some kind of a country accent that she did not recognise, yet did not sound entirely uneducated, “surely you are not likely to find work——” (“by hiding under a haycock” was on her lips, but she dared not quite bring out the words. After all, if she angered him he might still attack her.)
Something like a smile came round the mouth which was left revealed by the four days’ or so of dark growth on the upper lip and chin. “I can guess what you was goin’ to say, miss! I do—does—want work none the less. ’Tis hay harvest, and there be farms about here, and the hay scarce cut as yet.”
“Some of the farmers here might indeed be glad of an extra labourer,” said Miss Meredith, considering the prospective applicant. He was undoubtedly young, and probably strong, though there was a gaunt look about his ill-shaven face.
“Thank you, miss. I will go and try my luck, then ... I suppose you couldn’t oblige me with the names of one or two likely farms?”
“But ... I don’t know anything about you,” answered Nest doubtfully. It took some courage to say it. However, she always had Bran.
But the shabby young man did not seem to resent the statement of this undeniable truth. “No, miss, you don’t,” he agreed and, bending his head a little, started to finger a flaunting yellow toadflax in the bank beside him. “But some farmer, belike, would take me on for a time without a recommendation.”
“But where do you come from—you are not of these parts, surely?” asked Nest in a puzzled and still more dubious tone.
He did not answer, but began to rip off the laughing mouths of the toadflax, and it was something about his attitude, with head bent ... Why, the boat this morning at Porthstinian ... the bow oar ... yes, even that white flannel waistcoat! It came back to her; and as if to confirm her recognition she now saw, tucked into his belt, a blue cap with a tassel.
“Why, I know where you come from!” she exclaimed, before she could weigh the advisability of her words, “—from the Dutch prize! You are one of the men who came ashore for water this morning!”
At that the privateersman raised his head and looked sharply at her and then up and down the little lane. Nest’s heart jumped again with a recrudescence of alarm. “But I can always make Bran bark at him,” she thought. Indeed it was obvious that Bran was ready at any moment to renew this exercise, not having ceased for a moment to strain at the leash and to keep a lowering eye upon the stranger.
The latter however made no movement in the least threatening. “You’ll not tell anyone that, will you, miss?” he asked, and his tone was imploring, not a doubt of it. “ ’Tis true; you did see me in the boat this morning—but I can trust you, can’t I, you being a lady? And, miss, can you tell me, has she sailed, the Vrijheid?”
“Is that the Dutch prize? Yes, she left some time ago, so they told me at Rhosson farmhouse.”
“Thank God for that!” said the young man under his breath.
“Then you have run away from her?” asked Nest with more of disapproval than of interest in her voice.
“Yes, miss. That is to say, from the privateer as took her.”
“But why?”
“I ...” He looked down and hesitated. “I could not stand the life on board; ’twas too hard.”
“Then why did you join a privateer?” inquired Miss Meredith a little scornfully. Never having experienced hardships herself, she yet considered that the other sex should look upon them, at least in time of war, as a privilege. Moreover, the Liverpool privateers shed a kind of vicarious glory upon the Welsh coast.
“I did not join one, miss,” replied the runaway to this, “I was pressed—kidnapped, you might say.”
“Perhaps then you are not really a sailor at all?”
“No more I am, miss.”
“But, even if you are not a sailor by profession,” remonstrated the (for once) warlike young lady, “you must surely feel how glorious it is to fight our enemies the French ... and now the Dutch too ... and to keep the seas clear for British commerce? Or perhaps you did not have to fight, but only to ... to work the pumps or sails or something of the sort,” she concluded rather vaguely.
This time the ex-privateersman’s teeth, white and even, showed in a grin, and advancing for the first time (while Bran growled) he pulled up the loose check sleeve from his left arm, and drew Nest’s attention to a puckered red mark, nearly a foot long, on the outside of the forearm—the scar of a recently healed wound. “I had that from a French cutlass when we fought the French brig, of heavier guns than ours, off Ushant in May,” he said, and went off into a description of this action of which Nest could understand but few details, partly because she was so much surprised to see how the narrator’s eyes were sparkling, how the humility had evaporated from his manner, and—though she did not realise this till afterwards—almost every trace of country accent from his voice. This deserter must positively have enjoyed the admittedly bloody fight in which he had been wounded! Why then had he run away from the—what was it called—the Fair Penitent?
“But will not the captain of the privateer be very angry when he finds that you never returned to the prize?” she asked.
“He won’t know till he gets back to Liverpool. But I had to risk ... what would happen to me if the rest of the boat’s crew found me ... and what will still happen if anyone ... splits on me,” he added in no cheerful tone.
“And what will that be?”
He did not reply.
“That was why you hid in the hay, then! ... Did they look for you, the others?”
“Yes. I think they came into the field. If they had had a dog with them, as you had ...” He shrugged his shoulders. “That was soon after I had given them the slip. Thank God that they have sailed ... unless you mean to give me up to a magistrate, miss? If you don’t no one else will. Only those men who were at the landing-place this morning could know me again, and I shall keep away from there.” He looked at her with unconcealed anxiety in his grey eyes. Underneath everything he was, as Nest had by now recognised, not really rough of aspect, and even good-looking; the eyes in question, for instance, had lashes as long as her own.
But the phrase “a good-looking scamp” had come prickling into her mind. He was doubtless hoping to work upon her because of his looks and because she was a woman! Nest felt very experienced and disillusioned as she came to this conclusion. She gave a jerk at Bran’s leash, that warrior now showing after all a tendency to relax his vigilance and go to sleep.
“I see no real reason why I should not inform the authorities,” she said, with all the decision of a matron; but before she had had time to add, as she meant to do, “I do not say that I shall,” the deserter, with a short, sardonic laugh, had broken in.
“Will you undertake to come to Liverpool, then, and see me flogged or keelhauled, or both?” His tone was suddenly and curiously that of one speaking to a man, and to an equal, not to a superior. “I don’t suppose you have ever seen either process. I have; and I assure you that you would not enjoy witnessing them!”
Brutal, brutal words! Nest turned pale and shrank back once more against her gate.
“I am sorry,” said the young man curtly. “But you see, madam, that you do not like the notion. I suggest, then, that you do not take upon yourself the responsibility of procuring me five hundred lashes or so. However, if you really intend going to a justice of the peace about me, at least I need not wait for the consequences. I must look for work in some other district; and I will therefore bid you good day before you can lay your information.”
Bewildered as well as outraged—because he had so completely changed since the beginning of the interview—Nest would have let him pass without further parley, glad indeed to be relieved from the strain of this extraordinary encounter. But not so Bran, the intelligent and warmhearted. For some time he had been sitting quite quietly (until, just now, his mistress had jerked the leash), though with his eyes fixed upon the stranger; but his opinion of him was not really changed. Individuals unlawfully concealed in haycocks, who caused his mistress (and himself) alarm, and were the occasion of his being chastised for doing his plain duty, were not going to slink away like that, as long as there was a tooth in a faithful dog’s jaws, and the chance that that mistress, who had just reminded him of his duty, now had the end of his tether in her hand and not round her wrist.... Yes, better late than never! As the objectionable man passed, Bran launched himself like a knight in the lists, his leash flying loose behind him, got in a soul-satisfying bite through the fustian trousers somewhere in the region of the knee; was flung off; came on again, filled with the wine of battle; was caught by the throat by hands a great deal stronger than Miss Meredith’s; was choked ... choked more ... was down on his back in the dust, struggling, suffocating....
“Don’t kill him, O, don’t kill him!” cried the terrified Nest, the tears running down her face, for every moment she expected to see the sheath knife come out. “I’ll do anything ... help you in every way ... give money ... only don’t kill him! I did not set him on, indeed I did not!”
Kneeling on one knee, pinning down his now feebly writhing assailant, the assailed lifted an angry face with set teeth and dark brows drawn together. He was going to strangle Bran! ... Next moment, with a half-contemptuous exclamation, he had loosed him and got to his feet.
Bran too got up, very shakily, and going, with his tail tucked in, to the bank on his mistress’s side of the lane, was sick; after which he shivered violently and lay down, all the knight-errantry squeezed out of him. The distracted Nest bent over him, half scolding, half petting, till, bethinking herself of Bran’s victim, she turned round and saw that he was engaged in tying a not over-clean red cotton handkerchief round his right trouser leg, just below the knee.
She drew a long breath. “Has he bitten you badly?”
“It feels like it,” responded the young man grimly. “I will take a look at it presently and wash the place. I hope I haven’t hurt the dog overmuch; I don’t blame him, on the whole.”
This magnanimity nearly reduced Miss Meredith to tears again. “Oh, I cannot tell you how sorry I am! And you must have the bite attended to at once! It might be dangerous ... though of course my dog is not in the least mad. Will you ... will you come to the Precentory—I am Miss Meredith, the Precentor’s daughter—and——”
“To the Precentory—I?” he interrupted with a laugh half scornful and half amused. “A runaway sailor at a Precentory! No, I’ll go to some farm——”
“There’s Rhosson, just back there; and Mrs. Lloyd is very kind.”
He shook his head. “No, too near the landing-place. But I will find another farm, never fear, miss; and get taken on for the hay harvest, too, with luck.”
Nest began to fumble in the little reticule at her waist. “You must allow me, please ...” For “Miss” had come back into the conversation, and the country accent; and the young man must be poor, she thought, since he had been pressed for a common sailor. It was merely imagination which seemed, just now, to have given her a glimpse of something different.
But if it was embarrassing to intend bestowing money upon him, it was much more so to find that the intention must go unfulfilled, for she had not a penny with her. Very flushed, she desisted from the search, and said awkwardly instead: “Will you not tell me your name ...” and stopped because he looked amused; then added quickly, “You may be quite easy; I am not going to a magistrate, after—this.”
The runaway at that smiled fully; and when he smiled he was good-looking, scamp or no. “Mark Thompson, that’s my name.” Then he glanced at Bran, still lying dejectedly close to the bank. “I’ll let you be going on first this time, miss, I reckon—not that I bear your dog any grudge; he’s a good-plucked one for sure.”
Nest murmured appreciation of this generous attitude. “And you will go to a farm, and have the wound washed as soon as possible,” she adjured. “Perhaps indeed it ought to be cauterised.”
“Thank you, miss. Perhaps it ought.”
She pulled Bran to his feet. “And I hope that you will succeed in finding work.”
“Thank you kindly, miss.” Once more the forelock was touched; and next moment the Leghorn hat and the high-waisted pink muslin dress were going away down the narrow lane and disappearing into the wider one which met it. Their owner did not look back. The ex-privateersman waited another moment, then, compressing his lips, he leant up against the flowery bank, untied the red handkerchief, rolled up the leg of his loose trousers, and looked at the blood running down his calf from the blue and lacerated wound which was the memento of his meeting with Miss Nest Meredith, the Precentor’s daughter.
(4)
Nest Meredith walked home rather fast, followed by a very different Bran from the bounding dog who had set out with her. Both their thoughts were occupied with the same person, yet they could not share them with each other. The immediate question for Nest was, how much she should tell her Papa, and she had not made up her mind upon this point even when she entered his study to see if he were back.
He was, and Mr. Thistleton, too, of course.
“My dear young lady,” said the latter when, a little shyly, she presented him with his sheet of notes, “had I known that you were going in search of what I lost, I should never have mentioned my carelessness!”
“I think that is what Papa felt,” answered Nest, a dimple showing for a moment. “But you see, sir, the distance is not great, and the gratification of recovering your notes would have repaid me for a much longer walk.”
“For a lady, my daughter is really a prodigious walker,” explained the Precentor. “I have known her compass as much as five miles in a morning! And this walk, I am sure, gave her nothing but pleasure—is that not so, Nest?”
His daughter’s hesitation was so fleeting that it would have needed a very acute perception to notice it. “Oh, yes, indeed, Papa; as you know, I love walking!”
“Yet I expected to find you back before us,” went on Dr. Meredith, “instead of the other way about.”
“I did not hasten back,” said Nest, dropping her gaze. “I ... went into a hayfield on the way home, which delayed me.” That was true; though the delay had not occurred in the hayfield.
Outside in the hall, with its panelled ceiling and old music gallery over the door, she stood rather guiltily reflecting, under the eyes of two prebendaries and a bishop. It was true that she had not yet had the chance of telling her father privately about her encounter, and, owing to Mr. Thistleton’s presence, might not get that chance for a little while, but she was not sure that when it came she intended to take it. Would it not be a little like going to a magistrate with information about the runaway, a thing which she had told this Mark Thompson that she would not do? Besides, Papa might be rather horrified at the episode; might even feel inclined to curtail the freedom which had always been hers, since she grew up, the right of roaming unaccompanied about this countryside where she was so well known and loved. The question of telling Aunt Pennefather she never even debated.
Old Dixon, the English butler, was arranging something in a corner of the hall. Perceiving her standing there, he made an inquiry.
“Have Bran been fighting, miss, this afternoon when he was out with you? Richards say just now that he won’t eat his supper, and have gone into his kennel, all skeery-like. But he didn’t see no marks on him.”
