leased his companion mightily, so the boat
was allowed to wheel lazily, and curtsey to the slight waves as they set
to the shore. Then the young people chatted softly, and forgot the time.

Now those who have watched the humours of autumn weather by the coast
will have noticed that very often after a warm breeze has been blowing
for hours, there will suddenly come a chill easterly waft. This will be
followed by a steady cold wind. The trees are blown white, the grass is
black with shadows, and the sea springs up like magic into a short nasty
"lipper." Within half-an-hour the lipper has gathered size, and in a
terribly short time there are ugly, medium-sized waves bowling fiercely
and regularly westward. The change mostly comes just about an hour after
the tide has turned. Ellington and his companion were talking on
heedlessly, when the girl, interrupting him in the middle of a speech,
said, shivering, "How cold it has turned!"

"Yes," returned Ellington, "it often comes like that. Do you see how
she's beginning to caper? So, there! Softly, softly!" he cried, as
though he were talking to a horse. A spirt of water had jerked over the
boat's side.

He ran up his sail, and as the little craft swung on her light heels,
and drew away to the west, he said, "I wish I hadn't got you into this
mess. But never mind, I don't think it's more than a wetting and a fuss
when we get home, at the worst of it."

Mr. Casely was sitting by his fire in the sanded kitchen. Excepting two
very old fellows, he was the only man left in the village that
afternoon, for all the other men and lads had gone north on the morning
tide. His noble face had got the beginnings of a few new lines since we
first saw him; his mouth was sorrowful, and his brows fell heavier than
ever.

A woman came in rather hurriedly, and said, "Thou'd better come out a
minute, honey. The sea's come on very coarse, and the young Squire's
boat's gettin' badly used out there, about a mile to the east'ard."

"Who's in her?"

"The young Squire and his lass."

"I'll be out directly. Has he ever made the landin' before?"

"Yes, but Tom's Harry was always with him."

When Casely stepped to the cliff edge, he saw that matters were a little
awkward. The boat was as yet in no very great danger, but the real pinch
would not come till Ellington tried to land. For two miles along the
coast there was not a single yard of shore where you dared beach a boat,
excepting just opposit