ent up the cliff, and then, with a promise that
he would run in to see mother later in the day, trotted after the
rest. They passed out of sight through the archway of Dead Man's
Rock.

For a minute or so we plodded across the sand in silence. Joe
Roscorla was Uncle Loveday's "man," a word in our parts connoting
ability to look after a horse, a garden, a pig or two, or, indeed,
anything that came in the way of being looked after. At the present
moment I came in that way; consequently, after some time spent in
reflective silence, Joe began to speak.

"You'm looking wisht."

"Am I, Joe?"

"Mortal."

There was a pause: then Joe continued--

"I don't hold by furriners: let alone they be so hard to get
along with in the way of convarsing, they be but a heathen lot.
But, Jasper, warn't it beautiful?"

"What, Joe?"

"Why, to see the doctor tackle the lingo. Beautiful, I culls it; but
there, he's a scholard, and no mistake, and 'tain't no good for to
say he ain't. Not as ever I've heerd it said."

"But, Joe, the man didn't seem to understand him."

"Durn all furriners, say I; they be so cursed pigheaded. Understand?
I'll go bail he understood fast enough."

Joe's opinions coincided so fatally with my certainty that I held my
tongue.

"A dweller in--what did he call the spot, Jasper?"

"Mesopotamia."

"Well, I can't azacly say as I've seen any from them parts, but they
be all of a piece. Thicky chap warn't in the way when prettiness was
sarved out, anyhow. Of all the cut-throat chaps as ever I see--Mark
my words, 'tain't no music as he's come after."

This seemed so indisputable that I did not venture to contradict it.

"I bain't clear about thicky wreck. Likely as not 'twas the one I
seed all yesterday tacking about: and if so be as I be right, a
pretty lot of lubbers she must have had aboard. Jonathan, the
coast-guard, came down to Lizard Town this morning, and said he seed
a big vessel nigh under the cliffs toward midnight, or fancied he
seed her: but fustly Jonathan's a buffle-head, and secondly 'twas
pitch-dark; so if as he swears there weren't no blue light, 'tain't
likely any man could see, let alone a daft fule like Jonathan.
But, there, 'tain't no good for to blame he; durn Government! say I,
for settin' one man, and him a born fule, to mind seven mile o' coast
on a night when an airey mouse cou'dn' see his hand afore his face."

"What was the vessel like, Joe, that you saw?"

"East I