'Not so extra particular for me, sir, though Martha and me was good friends enough; and as for the young gentleman, the ladies aren't his sisters but his aunts, you see, he having neither father nor mother, brother nor sister. Bless 'em, they're that wrapped up in him; and yet they haven't spoilt him, not they. "You see, Kiah," Miss Angel says to me, "we feel like as if we must answer to his dear papa, our brother that's dead, for how we bring up his boy; we daren't be pleasing ourselves, Kiah," says she. Dear, now, that's one thing I'm bound to own I miss down here, them coming in and out. But, if you'll believe it, sir, I've got a letter Miss Angel wrote me herself. I got my mate's missus, that's a fine scholar, to write to her for me, and there come a beautiful answer back; leastways them as read it to me says it's written like a book. I can make shift with a chapter of the Bible, but I can't get on with handwriting, you see. But it sounds just like as if she was talking to me, and she sends me a sovereign for a poor soul that lost her husband in a brush in the Channel last month—she's that feeling, Miss Angel, and she knows what it is to have them belonging to her in danger.'
The gentleman put his hand in his pocket.
'I'll give you something for her too,' he said; 'and mind you, Kiah, there's a worse thing than having those belonging to you in danger, and that's to have no one belonging to you at all. I'm staying at Plymouth for a bit, and I shall see you again.'
'Well, I hope you will, sir, and I'm very grateful to you, I'm sure, and so will she be; and you'll make yourself some friends, I doubt, if you be short of relations.'
And then, after fumbling in his pockets, he produced a letter, wrapped up with much care in a sheet of paper.
'May be, sir, you'd like to see the young lady's letter. No, you needn't read it all at once, for you see it's a long letter and very beautiful, and you being a scholar you'll understand that, and if you're coming in to-morrow you'd bring it back to me.'
The stranger promised and put the precious paper in his pocket, and then strolled away along the cliffs.
He had nowhere particular to go and nothing particular to do, only he liked to be out here, where the breeze blew salt and fresh in his face, and where he could see the dancing, plunging waves, and the beautiful line of coast. He had had plenty of hard work in the last few years, and had been tired and ill when he started a few months before for the country which, as he had said to Kiah, must always be home.
And now he found himself wondering whether it were worth while to get strong again, and to be brave and successful as he had been lately, when there was no one in all the world to whom his success made any difference. He had grown more happy and hopeful since he had come to Plymouth, for in those days, when the safety of England was depending from hour to hour upon her coast defences, the very life and heart of England seemed to be stirring and throbbing in the great seaport town. Even now, in these happier days, when no hostile ships are waiting for our weak moments in the Channel, we can hardly stand on Plymouth Hoe and see the stately ships in the port, and the guns ready to thunder defiance from the citadel, and think of Drake turning cheerily from his game of bowls to meet the Armada 'For God and Queen Bess,' without thrilling and glowing at the thought of the little land that rules the waves. And in those days every one was so eager and patriotic, and so ready and willing to fight Boney if he came, that our traveller had caught the enthusiasm too, and was wondering how he could give to his country's service the life that seemed of little use to any one else. Here, on the coast, where the danger was most real and present, people drew together in the sympathy of the one great anxiety, and the lonely man felt as if, in coming back to England, he had really got among friends, who were all ready to talk and tell the latest news and discuss the common safety with him as if he were indeed one of themselves.
He liked the fisher folk, too, in the villages round about, they were so frank and simple and kindly; and once or twice he had been out in their boats, for after the hot southern climate he had come from he felt as if he could not have too much of the fresh salt air. And there was always excitement, too, in the Channel in those days, when even a fishing-boat might have to make sail and get away at her best speed before a French privateer.