f the rick
and into full view.

Nuncey drew back with a cry.

"Hester Marvin!"

Hester's eyes travelled past her and rested on Archelaus. He, rigid at
attention, caught and held there spellbound, merely rolled a pair of
agonized eyes.

"Nuncey! Archelaus! What on earth are you two doing?"

"Learnin' him to be a Volunteer, be sure!" answered Nuncey, her face the
colour of a peony. After an instant she dropped her eyes, her cheeks
confessing the truth.

"But--but why?" Hester stared from one to the other.

"If he'd only be like other men!" protested Nuncey.

Hester ran to her with a happy laugh. "But you wouldn't wish him like
other men!"

"I do, and I don't." Nuncey eluded her embrace, having caught the sound
of ribald laughter on the other side of the rick. Darting around, she was
in time to catch Master Calvin two cuffs, right and left, upon the ears.
He broke for the gate and she pursued, but presently returned breathless.

"'Tis wonderful to me," she said, eyeing Archelaus critically and sternly,
"how ever I come to listen to him. But he softened me by talking about
_you_. He's a deal more clever than he seems, and I believe at this
moment he likes you best."

"I don't!" said Archelaus firmly; "begging your pardon, Miss Marvin."

"I am sure you don't," laughed Hester.

"Well, anyway, I'll have to tell father now," said Nuncey; "for that imp
of a boy will be putting it all round the parish."

But here Archelaus asserted himself. "That's my business," he said
quietly. "It isn't any man's 'yes' or 'no' I'm afraid of, Miss Marvin,
having stood up to _her_."

CHAPTER XXVI.

MESSENGERS.

In Cornwall, they say, the cuckoo brings a gale of wind with him; and of
all gales in the year this is the one most dreaded by gardeners and
cidermen, for it catches the fruit trees in the height of their blossoming
season, and in its short rage wrecks a whole year's promise.

Such a gale overtook the _Virtuous Lady_, homeward bound, in mid-Atlantic.
For two days and a night she ran before it; but this of course is a
seaman's phrase, and actually, fast as the wind hurled her forward, she
lagged back against it until she wallowed in its wake, and her crew gave
thanks and crept below to their bunks, too dog-weary to put off their
sodden clothes.

The gale passed on and struck our south-western coast, devastating the
orchards of Cornwall and Devon and carpeting them with unborn fruit--
_dulcis vitae