m in the night, that had seemed like an
earthquake, or as if a thunderbolt had struck the house. But the
doctor said very gruffly, "It is no time to talk thus, when your
master is sick to death." But Anthony knew in himself that he would
not die yet.

It was long ere he was restored to a measure of health; and indeed he
never rightly recovered the use of his limbs; the doctor held that he
had suffered some stroke of palsy; at which Anthony smiled a little,
and made no answer.

When he was well enough to creep to and fro, he went sadly to the
dark room, and with much pain and weakness carried the furniture out
of it. The picture he cut in pieces and burnt; and the candles and
dishes, with the book, he cast into a deep pool in the stream; the
bones he buried in the earth; the hangings he stored away for his own
funeral.

Anthony never entered his workroom again; but day after day he sate
in his chair, and read a little, but mostly in the Bible; he made a
friend of a very wise old priest, to whom he opened all his heart, and
to whom he conveyed much money to be bestowed on the poor; there was a
great calm in his spirit, which was soon written in his face, in spite
of his pain, for he often suffered sorely; but he told the priest that
something, he knew not certainly what, seemed to dwell by him, waiting
patiently for his coming; and so Anthony awaited his end.

OUT OF THE SEA

It was about ten of the clock on a November morning in the little
village of Blea-on-the-Sands. The hamlet was made up of some thirty
houses, which clustered together on a low rising ground. The place was
very poor, but some old merchant of bygone days had built in a pious
mood a large church, which was now too great for the needs of the
place; the nave had been unroofed in a heavy gale, and there was no
money to repair it, so that it had fallen to decay, and the tower was
joined to the choir by roofless walls. This was a sore trial to the
old priest, Father Thomas, who had grown grey there; but he had no art
in gathering money, which he asked for in a shamefaced way; and the
vicarage was a poor one, hardly enough for the old man's needs. So the
church lay desolate.

The village stood on what must once have been an island; the little
river Reddy, which runs down to the sea, there forking into two
channels on the landward side; towards the sea the ground was bare,
full of sand-hills covered with a short grass.