The greensward ran smoothly away to a shingle bank that rose, long- backed and brown, some three hundred yards away. The bank crossed the horizon like a low breast-work, sweeping away eastward in long roan curve. On the right it ran into a little blunt hill, green-brown and bare. Beyond the bank the sea leapt to the eye.
The Parson was walking reverently.
There was about him something of the subdued air of the schoolboy going to interview a respected master.
"Step quietly," he murmured. "We are going into the presence of a saint."
In front of the cottage, about two hundred yards from it, a little knoll, shaded with sycamores, humped up out of the greensward.
At the foot of it, in the shadow of a tree, a tall old man was sitting bolt upright in a wooden chair with wheels. A brown book had fallen open beside him; and a musket, propped against the chair, threw a black shadow across the page.
"Loaded!" muttered the Parson, pointing. "He can draw a cork from a bottle at a hundred yards."
"More than most saints could," whispered the boy.
"He's a common-sense saint, not the ordinary run," replied the Parson with a grin.
The old man's back was towards them. He was gazing intently through a long glass at the privateer. Kit could see nothing but a straight back and moon-silvered head.