bare sea-bleached
feet. He munched the rest of the pasty, talking between mouthfuls. To
his discourse Dicky paid no heed, but slipped away for a scamper on the
sands.

As he came running back he saw the old man, in the act of wiping his
mouth with the back of his hand, suddenly shoot out an arm and point.
Just beyond the breakers a solitary bird--an osprey--rose with a fish
shining in the grip of its claws. It flew northward, away for the
headland, for a hundred yards or so; and then by some mischance let slip
his prey, which fell back into the sea. The boy saw the splash.
To his surprise the bird made no effort to recover the fish--neither
stooped nor paused--but went winging sullenly on its way.

"That's the way o' them," commented the old wreck-picker. "Good food,
an' to let it go. I could teach him better."

But the boy, years after, read it as another and different parable.

Chapter II.

PORT NASSAU.

They left the beach, climbed a road across the neck of the promontory,
and rattled downhill into Port Nassau. Dusk had fallen before they
reached the head of its cobbled street; and here one of the postillions
drew out a horn from his holster and began to blow loud blasts on it.
This at once drew the townsfolk into the road and warned them to get out
of the way.

To the child, drowsed by the strong salt air and the rocking of the
coach, the glimmering whitewashed houses on either hand went by like a
procession in a dream. The figures and groups of men and women on the
side-walks, too, had a ghostly, furtive air. They seemed to the boy to
be whispering together and muttering. Now this was absurd; for what
with the blare of the postillion's horn, the clatter of hoofs, the
jolting and rumbling of wheels, the rattle of glass, our travellers had
all the noise to themselves--or all but the voice of the gale now rising
again for an afterclap and snoring at the street corners. Yet his
instinct was right. Many of the crowd _were_ muttering. These New
Englanders had no love to spare for a Collector of Customs, a fine
gentlemen from Old England and (rumour said) an atheist to boot. They
resented this ostent of entry; the men more sullenly than the women,
some of whom in their hearts could not help admiring its high-and-mighty
insolence.

The Collector, at any rate, had a crowd to receive him, for it was
Saturday evening. On Saturdays by custom the fishing-fleet of Port
Nassau made harbour before