ht from the hook, an' I
wondered, it bein' the end of a week's dryth. But in the dark an' the
confusion o' savin' the wastrel's life it slipped my thoughts, else--"

"Else you'd ha' wetted it wi' the blood o' my back, Job. But the
rope's been frayed to powder this many year. An' you needn't look at
me like that. I'm past sixty, an' I've done my share of repentin'. He
didn't say if he was married, did he?"

SEVEN-AN'-SIX.

The old fish-market at Troy was just a sagged lean-to roof on the
northern side of the Town Quay, resting against the dead wall of the
harbour-master's house, and propped in front by four squat granite
columns. This roof often let in rain enough to fill the pits worn in
the paving-stones by the feet of gossiping generations; and the whole
was wisely demolished a few years back to make place for a Working
Men's Institute--a red building, where they take in all the chief
London newspapers. Nevertheless I have, in some moods, caught myself
hankering after the old shelter, where the talk was unchartered
always, and where no notices were suspended against smoking; and I
know it used to be worth visiting on dirty evenings about the time of
the Equinox, when the town-folk assembled to watch the high tide and
the chances of its flooding the streets about the quay.

Early one September afternoon, about two years before its destruction,
a small group of watermen, a woman or two, and a fringe of small
children were gathered in the fish-market around a painter and his
easel. The painter--locally known as Seven-an'-Six--was a white-haired
little man, with a clean-shaven face, a complexion of cream and
roses, a high unwrinkled brow, and blue eyes that beamed an engaging
trustfulness on his fellow-creatures, of whom he stood ready to paint
any number at seven shillings and sixpence a head. As this method
of earning a livelihood did not allow him to sojourn long in one
place--which, indeed, was far from his desire--he spent a great part
of his time upon the cheaper seats of obscure country vehicles. He
delighted in this life of perennial transience, and enjoyed painting
the portraits which justified it; and was, on the whole, one of the
happiest of men.

Just now he was enjoying himself amazingly, being keenly alive not
merely to the crowd's admiration, but to the rare charm of that which
he was trying to paint. Some six paces before him there leant against
one of the granite pillars a woman of exceeding