"Bad form, I deem it—very."
"Whatever I call you, you will ever be the same dear old man to me!" exclaimed Derval, as his eyes filled, and he wrung his father's hand. "But I should like you to see the Amethyst under full sail before the wind, or even close hauled with her tacks aboard!" he added, with all a seaman's genuine enthusiasm in a really good craft. "She does indeed skim the waves, as if she were the work of magic. I have often watched her, as Scott describes the Mertouns watching Cleveland's vessel, as 'that rare masterpiece by which human genius aspires to surmount the waves and contend with the winds,' and you must know that we sailors think that a ship, like a woman, has a will of her own, yet knows what the helmsman wants of her; so right was he who said 'she walks the waters like a thing of life'—and this is precisely what the Amethyst does. Buoyant as a duck, when before the wind, I have seen her yard-arms nearly touch the great rollers on each side alternately."
So multifarious were his father's engagements, and so much was he pre-occupied by his schemes, that Derval soon found his own society could be spared, and one of his first acts was to visit the quaint old parsonage of the Tudor times, and present to Mr. Asperges Laud the grim natural curiosity he had for him—the head of a shark caught by Joe Grummet off Tristan d'Acunha, and which he had scraped and polished till he had rendered it, as he thought, a very high work of art indeed.
To reach the parsonage, he had to pass his mother's grave, and as he approached the well-known spot, with his head uncovered, he experienced somewhat of a shock, it seemed so neglected and forgotten; when under the Southern Cross, and far beyond the equator, how often had his prayerful thoughts come here, and how did he find it now?
The tiny, but pretty monumental cross, erected by his father in the days of their limited means—then almost penury—had fallen down, and the little patch of grass under which she lay was choked with weeds!
Even Mr. Asperges Laud had failed in the work of clearing and weeding it again and again—often with his own hands. But Derval resolved that not another day should pass, ere this desecration should end.
The kind old curate received him warmly and affectionately, as if he had been his own father, and with tears in his eyes, held up his hand to bless him.
Incidentally, he told him of the growing wealth of Finglecombe, and of the great fortune his father was amassing. Derval, who had naturally inferred that such was the case, now heard it distinctly for the first time, though he had been kept in ignorance of it; and, as naturally, he again asked of himself, why was this the case?
He strove to crush down the unpleasant suspicions of—he knew not what—that would occur to him again and again, and sought to enjoy to the full the brief term of his leave of absence. He sought all his old haunts, but only to find changes; the shingly shore, which he had been wont to seek for hours, and whence he saw the old weedy hull floating silently in the bay, was now giving place to a sea-wall and marine parade; the Druidical stones that formed the Pixies Parlour had become road metal, and the new hotel occupied its site; the haunted mill with its moss-grown wheel had given place to a new villa of astounding design; and he found nothing unchanged but the Tiws-stone, or rock, named after the Saxon god (of the third day of the week), on the summit of a hill, where in the deep snows of winter, it is said, that on certain nights are traced the marks of a naked human foot, and of a cloven hoof, while the shrieks of the "whist hounds" are heard with the winding of unearthly horns, in the hollow below the hill.
So for a time, a very little time, he gave himself up to the full enjoyment of the sleepy country life, which was so unlike what he had been leading for fully four years past.