ish into his well; yea, even when judgment, too
long provoked, made bare her red right hand, and the lieutenant vowed
by his commission that he would send half-a-dozen of them to the
treadmill, they would send up a deputation to "beg Captain Willis to
beg the schoolmistress to beg them off." For between Willis and
that fair young creature a friendship had grown up, easily to be
understood. Willis was one of those rare natures upon whose purity no
mire can cling; who pass through the furnace, and yet not even the
smell of fire has passed upon them. Bred, almost born, on board a
smuggling cutter, in the old war-times; then hunting, in the old
coast-blockade service, the smugglers among whom he had been trained;
watching the slow horrors of the Walcheren; fighting under Collingwood
and Nelson, and many another valiant Captain; lounging away years
of temptation on the West-Indian station, as sailing-master of a
ship-of-the-line; pensioned comfortably now for many a year in his
native town, he had been always the same gentle, valiant, righteous
man; sober in life, strict in duty, and simple in word; a soul as
transparent as crystal, and as pure. He was the oracle of
Aberalva now; and even Lieutenant Brown would ask his
opinion,--non-commissioned officer though he was,--in a tone which was
all the more patronising, because he stood a little in awe of the old
man.

But why, when the boys wanted to be begged off, was the schoolmistress
to be their advocate? Because Grace Harvey exercised, without
intending anything of the kind, an almost mesmeric influence on every
one in the little town. Goodness rather than talent had given her
wisdom, and goodness rather than courage a power of using that wisdom,
which, to those simple, superstitious folk, seemed altogether an
inspiration. There was a mystery about her, too, which worked strongly
on the hearts of the West-country people. She was supposed to be at
times "not right;" and wandering intellect is with them, as with
many primitive peoples, an object more of awe than of pity. Her deep
melancholy alternated with bursts of wild eloquence, with fantastic
fables, with entreaties and warnings against sin, full of such pity
and pathos that they melted, at times, the hardest hearts. A whole
world of strange tales, half false, half true, had grown up around
her as she grew. She was believed to spend whole nights in prayer; to
speak with visitors from the other world; even to have the powe