by all acounts the Frenchies'll be drove out of
Spain in less'n a week."

There was silence in Boutigo's van for a full minute; and then the old
woman spoke from the corner:

"Well, go on, Sam, and tell the finish to the company."

"Is there more to tell?" I asked.

"Yes, sir," said Sam, leaning forward again, and tapping my knee very
gently, "there were _two men_ condemned at Tregarrick, that Assize;
and two men put to death that morning. The first to go was a
sheep-stealer. Ten minutes after, Dan'l saw Hughie his brother led
forth; and stood there and watched, with the reprieve in his hand.
His wits were gone, and he chit-chattered all the time about St.
Sebastian."

LOVE OF NAOMI.

I.

The house known as Vellan's Rents stands in the Chy-pons over the
waterside, a stone's throw beyond the ferry and the archway where
the toll-keeper used to live. You may know it by its exceeding
dilapidation and by the clouds of steam that issue on the street from
one of its windows. The sill of this window stands a bare foot above
the causeway, and glancing down into the room as you pass, you will
see the shoulders of a woman stooping over a wash-tub. When first I
used to pass this window the woman was called Naomi Bricknell; later
it was Sarah Ann Polgrain; and now it is (euphemistically) Pretty
Alice. One goes and makes way for another, but the wash-tub is always
there and the rheumatic fever; and while these remain they will never
lack, as they have never lacked yet, for a woman to do battle for dear
life between them.

But my story concerns the first of these only, Naomi Bricknell. She
and her mother occupied two rooms in Vellan's Rents as far back as I
can remember, and were twisted with the fever about once in every six
months. For this they paid one shilling a week rent. If you lift the
latch and push the front door open, you seem at first to be looking
down a well; for a flight of thirty-two steps plunges straight from
the threshold to the quay door and a square of green water there. And
when the sun is on the water at the bottom of this funnel, the effect
is pretty. But taking note of the cold wind that rushes up this
stairway and into the steaming room where the wash-tub stands, you
will understand how it comes that each new tenant takes over the
rheumatic fever as one of the fixtures.

In a room to the right of the stairway, and facing Naomi's, lived a
middle-aged man who was always known as Long Olive