away, and put the poor body on the
bed; as he did so he noticed that the face of the dead man was
strangely bruised and battered, as though it had been stamped upon by
the hoofs of some beast. Then Father Thomas knelt, and prayed until
the light came filtering in through the shutters; and the cocks crowed
in the village, and presently it was day. But that night the Father
learnt strange secrets, and something of the dark purposes of God was
revealed to him.

In the morning there came one to find the priest, and told him that
another body had been thrown up on the shore, which was strangely
smeared with sand, as though it had been rolled over and over in it;
and the Father took order for its burial.

Then the priest had long talk with Bridget and Henry. He found them
sitting together, and she held her son's hand and smoothed his hair,
as though he had been a little child; and Henry sobbed and wept, but
Bridget was very calm. "He hath told me all," she said, "and we have
decided that he shall do whatever you bid him; must he be given to
justice?" and she looked at the priest very pitifully. "Nay, nay,"
said the priest. "I hold not Henry to account for the death of the
man; it was his father's sin, who hath made heavy atonement--the
secret shall be buried in our hearts."

Then Bridget told him how she had waked suddenly out of her sleep, and
heard her husband cry out; and that then followed a dreadful kind of
struggling, with the scent of the sea over all; and then he had all at
once fallen to the ground and she had gone to him--and that then the
priest had come.

Then Father Thomas said with tears that God had shown them deep things
and visited them very strangely; and they would henceforth live humbly
in His sight, showing mercy.

Then lastly he went with Henry to the store-room; and there, in the
box that had dripped with water, lay the coat of the dead man, full of
money, and the bag of money too; and Henry would have cast it back
into the sea, but the priest said that this might not be, but that it
should be bestowed plentifully upon shipwrecked mariners unless the
heirs should be found. But the ship appeared to be a foreign ship, and
no search ever revealed whence the money had come, save that it seemed
to have been violently come by.

Master Grimston was found to have left much wealth. But Bridget would
sell the house and the land, and it mostly went to rebuild the church
to God's glory. Then Bridget and Hen