ly,
and within him rose the whole charm and glamour of oceans and isles.
Swimming in the briny deeps that washed the rocks, he felt in that
solitude so sufficient, so much in harmony with the spirit of the place,
its rumination, its content, its free and happy birds, as if he were
Ellar in the fairy tale. The tide caressed; it put its arms round him;
it laughed in the sunshine and kissed him shyly at the lips. Into
the swooping concourse of the birds he would send, thus swimming, his
brotherly halloo. They called back; they were not afraid, they need not
be--he loved them.

To-day he had come down to the Waterfoot almost unknowing where he
walked. Though the woods were bare there was the look of warmth in their
brown and purple depths; only on the upper hills did the snow lie in
patches. Great piles of trunks, the trunks of old fir and oak, lay above
high-water mark. He turned instinctively to look for the ship they were
waiting for, and behind him, labouring at a slant against the wind,
was the _Jean_ coming from the town to pick her cargo from this narrow
estuary.

He was plucked at the heart by a violent wish to stay. At the poop he
could see Black Duncan, and the seaman's histories, the seaman's fables
all came into his mind again, and the sea was the very highway of
content. The ship was all alone upon the water, not even the tan of a
fisher's lug-sail broke the blue. A bracing heartening air blew from
French Foreland And as he was looking spellbound upon the little vessel
coming into the mouth of the river, he was startled by a strain of
music. It floated, a rumour angelic, upon the air, coming whence he
could not guess--surely not from the vessel where Black Duncan and two
others held the deck alone?

It was for a time but a charm of broken melody in the veering wind,
distinct a moment, then gone, then back a faint echo of its first
clearness. It was not till the vessel came fairly opposite him that the
singer revealed herself in Nan sitting on a water-breaker in the lee of
the companion hatch.

For the life of him he could not turn to go away. He rebelled against
the Paymaster's service, and remained till the ship was in the river
mouth beside him.

"Ho '_ille 'ille!_" Black Duncan cried upon him, leaning upon his tarry
gunnle, and smiling to the shore like a man far-travelled come upon a
friendly face in some foreign port. The wooded rock gave back the call
with interest. Round about turned the seaman an