E 122

10. THE DEATH SPANCEL 136

11. A SOLITARY 148

12. THE MAN WHO WAS HANGED 168

13. A PRODIGAL SON 184

14. CHANGING THE NURSERIES 201

15. THE FIELDS OF MY CHILDHOOD 209

I

THE FIRST WIFE

The dead woman had lain six years in her grave, and the new wife had
reigned five of them in her stead. Her triumph over her dead rival was
well-nigh complete. She had nearly ousted her memory from her
husband's heart. She had given him an heir for his name and estate,
and, lest the bonny boy should fail, there was a little brother
creeping on the nursery floor, and another child stirring beneath her
heart. The twisted yew before the door, which was heavily buttressed
because the legend ran that when it died the family should die out
with it, had taken another lease of life, and sent out one spring
green shoots on boughs long barren. The old servants had well-nigh
forgotten the pale mistress who reigned one short year; and in the
fishing village the lavish benefactions of the reigning lady had quite
extinguished the memory of the tender voice and gentle words of the
woman whose place she filled. A new era of prosperity had come to the
Island and the race that long had ruled it.

Under a high, stately window of the ruined Abbey was the dead wife's
grave. In the year of his bereavement, before the beautiful brilliant
cousin of his dead Alison came and seized on his life, the widower had
spent days and nights of stony despair standing by her grave. She had
died to give him an heir to his name, and her sacrifice had been vain,
for the boy came into the world dead, and lay on her breast in the
coffin. Now for years he had not visited the place: the last wreaths
of his mourning for her had been washed into earth and dust long ago,
and the grave was neglected. The fisherwives whispered that a
despairing widower is soonest comforted; and in that haunted Island of
ghosts and omens there were those who said that they had met the dead
woman gliding at night along the quay under the Abbey walls, with the
shape of a child gathered within her shadowy arms. People avoided the
quay at night therefore, and no tal