"I can tell you no more. But the matter is strange. Perhaps he was
visiting the fat Captain Stoobar. I feel no solicitude concerning him
with my angel. She would never look twice at such a savage."

But the gallant French Captain missed the mark this time. The
strange-looking man with the long brown beard quitted the shore before
he reached the stepping-stones, and making a short-cut across the
rabbit-warren, entered the cottage of Zebedee Tugwell, without even
stopping to knock at the door. The master was away, and so were all the
children; but stout Mrs. Tugwell, with her back to the door, was tending
the pot that hung over the fire. At the sound of a footstep she turned
round, and her red face grew whiter than the ashes she was stirring.

"Oh, Mr. Erle, is it you, or your ghostie?" she cried, as she fell
against the door of the brick oven. "Do 'e speak, for God's sake, if He
have given the power to 'e."

"He has almost taken it away again, so far as the English language
goes," Erle Twemlow answered, with a smile which was visible only in his
eyes, through long want of a razor; "but I am picking up a little.
Shake hands, Kezia, and then you will know me. Though I have not quite
recovered that art as yet."

"Oh, Mr. Erle!" exclaimed Zebedee's wife, with tears ready to start for
his sake and her own, "how many a time I've had you on my knees, afore
I was blessed with any of my own, and a bad sort of blessing the best of
'em proves. Not that I would listen to a word again' him. I suppose you
never did happen to run again' my Dan'el, in any of they furrin parts,
from the way they makes the hair grow. I did hear tell of him over to
Pebbleridge; but not likely, so nigh to his own mother, and never come
no nigher. And if they furrin parts puts on the hair so heavily, who
could 'a known him to Pebbleridge? They never was like we be. They'd as
lief tell a lie as look at you, over there."

In spite of his own long years of trouble, or perhaps by reason of them,
Erle Twemlow, eager as he was to get on, listened to the sad tale that
sought for his advice, and departed from wisdom--as good-nature always
does--by offering useless counsel--counsel that could not be taken, and
yet was far from being worthless, because it stirred anew the fount of
hope, towards which the parched affections creep.

"But Lor bless me, sir, I never thought of you!" Mrs. Tugwell exclaimed,
having thought out her self. "What did Parson say, and yo