“It’s dogged as does it and lives through it. It’s dogged as does anything, my dear, all over the world. I stuck to the boat and the boat stuck to me. God Almighty Himself can’t help a coward.”
The storm continued all day, but began to slacken in intensity at sunset. There was of course no 135 service at Pendree. John, even if he had not been so worn out, could not have reached the place in such a storm, either by land or sea. But the neighbours, without seeming premeditation, gathered in John’s cottage at night, and he opened his Bible and read aloud:
“Terrors take hold on him, as waters; a tempest stealeth him away in the night. The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth; and as a storm hurleth him out of his place.”
And it was to these words, with their awful application to the wicked, that Denas listened the last night she intended to spend under her father’s roof. John’s discourses were nearly always like his nature, tender and persuasive; and this terrible sermon wove itself in and out of her wandering thoughts like a black scroll in a gay vesture. It pained and troubled her, though she did not consider why it should do so. After the meeting was over John was very weary; but he would not go to bed until he had eaten supper. He “wanted his little maid to sit near him for half-an-hour,” he said. And he held her hand in his own hand, and gave her such looks of perfect love and blessed her so solemnly and sweetly when at length he left her that she began to sob again and to stand on tiptoe that she might throw her arms around his neck and touch his lips with hers once more.
Her kisses were wet with her tears, and they made John’s heart soft and gentle as a baby’s. “She be the fondest little maid,” he said to his wife. “She be the fondest little maid! I could take a whole 136 year to praise her, Joan, and then I could not say enough.”
In reality, the last two days, with their excess of vital emotions, had worn Denas out. Never before had the life into which she was born looked so unlovely to her. She preferred the twitter and twaddle of Priscilla’s workroom to the intense realities of an existence always verging on eternity. She dared to contrast those large, heroic fishers, with their immovable principles and their constant fight with all the elemental forces for their daily bread, with Roland Tresham; and to decide that Roland’s delicate beauty, pretty, persuasive manners, and fashionable clothing were vastly superior attributes. So she was glad when the morning came, for she was weary of enduring what need no longer be endured.
It still rained, but she put on her best clothing, and Joan was not pleased at her for doing so. She thought she might come home some night when the rain was over and change her dress for the visit to Burrell Court. This difference of opinion made their last meal together a silent one; for John was in a deep sleep and Joan would not have him disturbed. Denas just opened the door and stood a moment looking at the large, placid face on the white pillow. As she turned away, it seemed as if she cut a piece out of her heart; she had a momentary spasm of real physical pain.
Joan had not yet recovered from her night of terror. Her face was grey, her eyes heavy, her heart still beating and aching with some unintelligible 137 sense of wrong or grief. And she looked at her child with such a dumb, sorrowful inquiry that Denas sat down near her and put her head on her mother’s breast and asked: “What is it, mother? Have I done anything to grieve you?”
“Not as I know by, dear. I wish you hadn’t worn your best dress––dresses do cost money, don’t they now?”
“Yes, they do, mother. There then! Shall I take it off? I will, to please you, mother.”