"'Or where the kneeling hamlet drains
The chalice of the grapes of God.'"
He very seldom spoke so much as this. They were surprised to hear him ramble on so; but it was an afternoon in which it was natural to sit upon the shore and talk, saying straight on just what came uppermost—a quiet, pleasant afternoon; an afternoon to lie upon the sand and conjure up old memories.
"I have been rambling, haven't I," he said presently. "Have I been talking aloud, or only thinking?"
"You have been talking," said Tiernay, wondering at such a question.
"Have I? I thought I had been only thinking. I will go and bathe, I think, and clear my head from dreams. I must have been quoting poetry, then," he added, smiling.
"Ay, and quoting it well, too," said Tiernay.
A young fisherman was waiting with a boat, and the lad had come with his towels. He stepped lazily across the sand to the boat, and they shoved off.
Besides the murmur of the surf upon the sand, playing with the shells and seaweed; besides the shouting of the bathing boys; besides the voices of the home-returning fishermen, carried sharp and distinct along the water; besides the gentle chafing of the stream among the pebbles, was there no other sound upon the beach that afternoon? Yes, a sound different to all these. A loud-sounding alarm drum, beating more rapidly and furiously each moment, but only heard by one man, and not heeded by him.
The tide drawing eastward, and a gentle wind following it, hardly enough to fill the sails of the lazy fishing-boats and keep them to their course. Here and there among the leeward part of the fleet, you might hear the sound of an oar working in the row-locks, sleepily coming over the sea and mingling harmoniously with the rest.
The young man with Cuthbert rowed out a little distance, and then they saw Cuthbert standing in the prow undressing himself. The fishing-boats near him luffed and hurriedly put out oars, to keep away. The Squire was going to bathe, and no Ravenshoe man was ill-mannered enough to come near.