In the Roar of the Sea

by S. Baring-Gould

“And yet,” pleaded Menaida, senior, “I don’t know—I don’t like—you see——”

“You are moved by a little sentiment for Miss Judith Trevisa, or—I beg her pardon—Mrs. Cruel Coppinger. But it is a mistake, father. If you had had this sentimental regard for her, and value for her, you should not have suffered her to marry such a scoundrel, past redemption.”

“I could not help it. I told her that the man was bad—that is to say—I believed he was a smuggler, and that he was generally credited with being a wrecker as well. But there were other influences—other forces at work—I could not help it.”

“The sooner we can rid her of this villain the better,” persisted Oliver. “I cannot share your scruples, father.”

Then the door opened and Judith entered.

Oliver stood up. He had reseated himself on the opposite side of the fire to his father, after the ebullition of wrath that had made him pace the room.

He saw before him a delicate, girlish figure—a child in size and in innocence of face, but with a woman’s force of character in the brow, clear eyes, and set mouth. She was ivory white; her golden hair was spread out about her face—blown by the wind, it was a veritable halo, such as is worn by an angel of La Fiesole in Cimabue. Her long, slender, white throat was bare; she had short sleeves, to the elbows, and bare arms. Her stockings were white, under the dark-blue gown. Oliver Menaida had spent a good many years in Portugal, and had seen flat faces, sallow complexions, and dark hair—women without delicacy of bone and grace of figure—and, on his return to England, the first woman he saw was Judith—this little, pale, red-gold-headed creature, with eyes iridescent and full of a soul that made them sparkle and change color with every change of emotion in the heart and of thought in the busy brain.

Oliver was a fine man, tall, with a bright and honest face, fair hair, and blue eyes. He started back from his seat and looked at this child-bride who entered his father’s cottage. He knew at once who she was, from the descriptions he had received of her from his father in letters from home.

He did not understand how she had become the wife of Cruel Coppinger. He had not heard the story from his father, still less could he comprehend the enigmatical words of his father relative to her half-and-half marriage. As now he looked on this little figure, that breathed an atmosphere of perfect purity, of untouched innocence, and yet not mixed with that weakness which so often characterizes innocence—on the contrary blended with a strength and force beyond her years—Oliver’s heart rose with a bound and smote against his ribs. He was overcome with a qualm of infinite pity for this poor, little, fragile being, whose life was linked with that of one so ruthless as Coppinger. Looking at that anxious face, at those lustrous eyes, set in lids that were reddened with weeping, he knew that the iron had entered into her soul, that she had suffered and was suffering then; nay, more, that the life opening before her would be one of almost unrelieved contrariety and sorrow.

At once he understood his father’s hesitation when he urged him to increase the load of shame and trouble that lay on her. He could not withdraw his eyes from Judith. She was to him a vision so wonderful, so strange, so thrilling, so full of appeal to his admiration and to his chivalry.