rchief knotted sailor-fashion about his
strong neck, story after story flashed out, clear and dramatic, from his
answers. The bunch of houses there on the shore? Yes, that had a
history. The people living there were a dark-featured, reticent lot,
different from other people hereabouts. It was said that one of the
Spanish galleons went ashore there, and the men had been saved and had
settled on the spot and married Devonshire women, but their descendants
had never lost the tradition of their blood. Certainly their speech and
their customs were peculiar, unlike those of the villages near. He had
been there and had seen them, had heard them talk. Yes, they were
distinct. He laughed a little to acknowledge it, with an Englishman's
distrust of anything theatrical. A steep cliff started out into the
waves, towering three hundred feet in almost perpendicular lines. Had
that a name? Yes, that was called "Gallantry Bower." No; it was not a
sentimental story--it was the old sea-fight again. It was said that an
English sailor threw a rope from the height and saved life after life of
the crew of a Spaniard wrecked under the point.

"You know the history of your place very well," said Sally. The young
man kept his eyes on his steering apparatus and a slow half-smile
troubled his face and was gone.

"I've had a bit of an education for a seaman--Miss," he said. And then,
after apparently reflecting a moment, "My people live near the Leighs of
Burrough Court, and I was playmate to the young gentlemen and was given
a chance to learn with them, with their tutors, more than a common man
is likely to get always."

At that Sally's enthusiasm broke through her reserve, and I was only a
little less eager.

"The Leighs! The real, old Leighs of Burrough? Amyas Leigh's
descendants? Was that story true? Oh!--" And here manners and
curiosity met and the first had the second by the throat. She stopped.
But our sailor looked up with a boyish laugh that illumined his dark
face.

"Is it so picturesque? I have been brought up so close that it seems
commonplace to me. Every one must be descended from somebody, you know."

"Yes, but Amyas Leigh!" went on Sally, flushed and excited, forgetting
the man in his story. "Why, he's my hero of all fiction! Think of it,
Cousin Mary--there are men near here who are his great--half-a-dozen
greats--grandchildren! Cousin Mary," she stopped and looked at me
impressively, oblivious of the man so near her, "if I