a lighthouse or a blue thunder-bolt, and flying with a long streak down

the hollow, just as if all the world was a-blazing. Three times it come,

with three different colours, first blue, and then white, and then

red as new blood; and poor Bob was in a condition of mind must be seen

before saying more of it. If he had been brought up to follow the sea,

instead of the shoemaking, maybe his wits would have been more about

him, and the narves of his symptom more ship-shape. But it never was

borne into his mind whatever, to keep a lookout upon the offing, nor

even to lie snug in the ferns and watch the yew-tree. All he was up

for was to make all sail, the moment his sticks would carry it; and he

feared to go nigh his sweetheart any more, till she took up with another

fellow."

"And sarve him quite right," was the judgment of the room, in high

fettle with hot rum and water; "to be skeered of his life by a

smuggler's signal! Eh, Cappen Zebedee, you know that were it?"

But the captain of Springhaven shook his head.

CHAPTER XIII

WHENCE, AND WHEREFORE?

At the rectory, too, ere the end of that week, there was no little

shaking of heads almost as wise as Zebedee Tugwell's. Mrs. Twemlow,

though nearly sixty years of age, and acquainted with many a sorrow, was

as lively and busy and notable as ever, and even more determined to

be the mistress of the house. For by this time her daughter Eliza,

beginning to be twenty-five years old--a job which takes some years in

finishing--began at the same time to approve her birth by a vigorous aim

at the mastery. For, as everybody said, Miss Eliza was a Carne in

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