"He was always a good sailor, Elpsy, woman! Ne'er a ship came int' the Cove he went not up to her main truck; nor a craft lay becalmed i' the sight o' the bay he went not aboard and through every part o' her. He knew every rope in a ship as well as an admiral, the crathur! Ah, woman, he could do an officer's duty this day as well as the keptain o' the yacht yonder. He seemed to take to a seaman's life nat'rally, and it was ever discontented he was in the skiff. He loved to talk o' big ships, and foreign lands, battles by sea, and storms, and shipwreck, and the likes o' them things; and, with all his high notions, he ever loved a sailor betther than a lord, and the sailors all liked him, the jewil!"
"He is in his place, then, father Meredith," said Elpsy, chiming in with the favourable train of the old fisherman's garrulous praises of the youth. "Thou wouldst not call him ashore now an thou couldst."
"Nay, I would not say that, Elpsy, woman. Yet I begin to think the lad be best where he is. Yet it will be a dark day to my soul when the ship sails a-sea with him—the light o' my eyes! the core o' my heart! Och, hone! Sad will be the day to the soul o' me, Elpsy, woman! Come in, crathur, honey, an' take a bite o' the breakfast. It's you it is that's the comfort o' my lone bosom now, avourneen!"
"No, no, I have much to do the mornin', old man!" she said, turning from the door as the fisherman, after standing his oars up beside it, placed his hand upon the latch. "Take the gold freely; it is thine!" she added, casting it through the window upon the earthen floor of the cabin. "When the ship sails I will eat."
"Take a drap o' the dew, Elpsy, dear!" continued the old man, the grief, which at his age is always superficial, having, like a child's, been diverted for the time by the rattling gossip of the weird woman.
"Elpsy will fast from all save water till the masts of yonder yacht are shut from my sight by the meeting of sea and sky!"
She waved her hand with a lofty gesture as she spoke, as if she sought to impress the fisherman by her manner alone, and strode away from the hut towards the path that led up to the castle.
Grace Fitzgerald, after communicating the result of her interview with Mark, had left Kate to her repose. But, with grief at her feud with Lester, and her lively anticipations of beholding him at her feet, to be raised from that humble posture to her forgiving embrace, her mind was too active for rest, and sleep fled from her pillow, leaving it in the sole possession of her ardent thoughts. With the first blush of day, her face scarce less roseate than the morning sky with the consciousness of her object, she rose and threw open her lattice, and turned her face, with earnest expectation, towards the forest-path which led northward towards Castle More. From time to time she would lean far out of the window, and, with eager ear, listen as if to catch some distant sound. At length, with a look and exclamation of disappointment, not undivested of a slight shade of feminine pique, she closed the lattice and cast herself upon her pillow again, saying, in a tone of wounded pride,
"I care not! he is unworthy of a thought! I will forget him and try to sleep!"
She closed her eyelids, as if, at the same time, she expected her fevered thoughts, like the flower which folds its leaves together when the sun withdraws its light, would also shut themselves up and leave her to repose. But she now thought more vividly and acutely than before. It at length occurred to her that there might have been some delay on the part of the messenger. Perhaps Lester had not yet got her pacquet, or had just received it, and was now on his way to her!