“You cannot go to-night, Denas,” he said; “the tide is late and the wind is contrary.”
“Well, then,” the little maid answered with decision, “the contrary wind be God’s wind. ’Twas whist poor speed the fishers were once making––toiling and rowing––and the wind contrary, when He came walking on the water and into the boat, and then, to be sure, all was quiet enough.”
There were no words to dispute this position, and Denas went with the fishers, and sat singing like a spirit while the boat kissed the wind in her teeth. And anon the tide turned, and the wind changed, and there was a lull, and so the nets were well shot, 8 and they came back to harbour before the breeze just at cock-light––that is, when the cocks begin to crow for the dawning.
Thus petted and loved, the pretty girl made her way into all hearts, and when she said one day that she wanted to go to the school at St. Penfer and learn all about the strange seas and the strange lands that were in the world, her father and mother were quite thrilled by her great ambition. But she had her desire, and for three years she went to the private school at St. Penfer, and among the girls gathered there made many friends. Chief among these was Elizabeth Tresham, the daughter of a gentleman who had bought, with the salvage of a large fortune, the small Cornish estate on which he lived, or rather fretted away life in vain regrets over an irrevocable past. Elizabeth was his only daughter, but he had a son who was much older than Elizabeth––a handsome, gay young man about whom little was known in St. Penfer.
That little was not altogether favourable. It was understood that he painted pictures and played very finely on the piano, and every one could see that he dressed in the most fashionable manner and that he was handsome and light-hearted. But it could not be hid that he often came for money, which old Mr. Tresham had sometimes to borrow in St. Penfer for him. And business men noted the fact that his visits were so erratic and frequently so long in duration that it was hardly likely he had regular employment. And if a man had no private steady income, then for him to be without steady 9 daily labour was considered in St. Penfer suspicious and not at all respectable. So in general Roland Tresham was treated with a shy courtesy, which at first he resented, but finally laughed at.
“Squire Peverall is afraid of his daughter and barely returns my bow, and the rector has sent his pretty Phyllis to St. Ives while I am here, Elizabeth,” he said one night to his sister. “Phyllis is well enough, but she has not a shilling, and pray who would marry Clara Peverall with only a paltry twenty thousand?”
“Clara is a nice girl, Roland, and if you only would marry and settle down to a reasonable life, how happy I should be.”
“Could I lead a more reasonable life, Elizabeth? I manage to get more pleasure out of a hundred pounds than some men get out of their thousands.”
“And father and I carry the care of it.”
“You are very foolish. Why carry care? I do not. I let the men to whom I owe money carry the care.”