a-folk seem to possess, and
perceived an orange-sailed fishing boat just rounding the headland and
making for the open sea. The face that appeared under the bonnet, as she
looked up, had the colourless and haggard look frequently seen among
fisher-women, and which is perhaps due to too much sea-air, added to
hard living. But one was prevented from noticing the rest of the face by
the expression of the two grey eyes, peering out from under the shade of
the bonnet-peak; they were eyes that seemed always expecting: they
seemed to have nothing to do with the pallid face, and the sea-weed, and
the hut: they belonged to a different life. As she looked out over the
sea, their glance was almost stern, as though demanding something which
the sea did not give. But she only remarked to herself, in the island
patois:--"I suppose the fish have gone over to the south-west again, and
he'll make a night of it. Mackerel is such an aggravating fish, one day
here, t'other there--you never know where you'll find them."

Presently, as it grew dark, she warmed up some herb-broth for her
supper, and when she had finished it, and had fastened up the dog and
the donkey, knowing that her husband would not return till the morning,
she put out the glimmering oil-lamp, and was just going to bed, when a
sound struck her ear. For two miles round the cabin not another
human-being lived, and it was the rarest thing for any one to come in
that direction after dark, as the rocks were slippery and dangerous, and
a solitary bit of open country had to be crossed between the cabin and
the nearest houses inland. Yet this sound was distinctly that of a human
footstep, which halted in its gait.

The woman started up and listened: there was silence for a minute: then
the limping step was heard again: again it ceased. The woman went to the
door and looked out. Over the sandy, wind-swept common to the left the
darkness brooded, the outlines of a broken bit of sea-wall, and of some
giant boulders, said to be remains of a dolmen, emerging dimly therefrom
like threatening phantoms; to the right moaned the long, grey sea, and
in front was the waste of salt marshes and rocks, with the windlass of a
ship once wrecked in the bay, projecting its huge outline among the
uncertain shadows. Not a living thing was visible. She stood for several
minutes peering out into the darkness and listening; no sound was to be
heard but the lapping of the waves, and the sigh of the wind t