“Yes. When Captain Dorrien was lost in the Alps three years ago, the fishing people in Minchkil Bay say it appeared. They believe in it implicitly. It was seen, too, at just about the time old Squire Dorrien, the General’s brother, died at sea.”
“And do you believe in it?”
“I don’t know. I suppose not. And yet if I were anywhere near the spot at night I’m sure I should be horribly afraid of seeing it. None of the fishermen like to go near The Skegs at night, but I suppose we ought to rise above such beliefs. Even my father won’t say he doesn’t believe in it, but he always rather evades the subject, so I don’t press it.”
“Quite right. And who are these Dorriens for whom the laws of Nature condescend to alter their course?”
“Ah! Now you’re laughing at my story. Never mind. They are the largest landowners hereabouts and their place is Cranston Hall. It lies in a line with that lofty headland—that’s Minchkil Beacon—three miles from Wandsborough.”
“What sort of people are they?”
The girl gives a little shrug of her shoulders and makes a distasteful moue. “Not nice. At least nobody likes them much. I don’t, though I don’t know them personally. It’s a case of instinctive dislike.”
“So you indulge in instinctive likes and dislikes,” says the stranger with a queer smile. “A very feminine trait.”
Then he relapses into silence. It is delightful to him to sit there in the golden summer morning, watching this beautiful girl with the oval face and expressive, ever-changing eyes. Roy, extended at full length on the shingle, is dreaming, his head resting on the skirt of Olive’s dress. Afar off the smoke of a distant steamer streaks the horizon, but for all else the blue sea is deserted. The shrimping boys have disappeared round the rocky promontory, and save for the girl, the man, and the dog, not a living thing moves within the cliff-girt bay. Inch by inch the sun creeps up to where they sit, which spot in a few moments will afford shade no longer.
Then, faintly distant, rings out the chime of a church clock.