d began to bend the petticoat on the halliards.

"No, no ... please ... it's cruel!"

He could hear that she was crying softly; hesitated, and faced round
again.

"There now ... if it teases you so. There wasn' no harm meant. You
shall have it back--wait a moment!"

He came forward and clambered out on the bowsprit, and from the
bowsprit to the jib-boom beneath her. She was horribly afraid he would
fall, and broke off her thanks to whisper him to be careful, at which
he laughed. Standing there, and holding by the fore-topmast stay, he
could just reach a hand up to the parapet, and was lifting it, but
paused.

"No," said he, "I must have a kiss in exchange."

"Please don't talk like that. I thank you so much. Don't spoil your
kindness."

"You've spoilt my joke. See, I can hoist myself on the stay here. Bend
over as far as you can, I swear you shall have the petticoat at once,
but I won't give it up without."

"I can't. I shall never think well of you again."

"Oh, yes, you will. Bend lower."

"Don't!" she murmured, but the moonlight, refracted from the water
below, glimmered on her face as she leaned towards him.

"Lower! What queer eyes you've got. Do you know what it means to kiss
over running water?" His lips whispered it close to her ear. And with
that, as she bent, some treacherous pin gave way, and her loosely
knotted hair fell in dark masses across his face. She heard him laugh
as he kissed her in the tangled screen of it.

The next moment she had snatched the bundle and sprung to her feet and
away. But as she passed by the trapdoor and hurriedly retwisted her
hair before descending, she heard him there, beyond the parapet,
laughing still.

IV

Three weeks later she married John Penaluna. They spent their
honeymoon at home, as sober folks did in those days. John could spare
no time for holiday-making. He had entered on his duties as master of
Hall, and set with vigour about improving his inheritance. His first
step was to clear the long cliff-garden, which had been allowed to
drop out of cultivation from the day when he had cast down his mattock
there and run away to sea. It was a mere wilderness now. But he fell
to work like a navvy.

He fought it single-handed. He had no money hire extra labour, and
apparently had lost his old belief in borrowed capital, or perhaps had
grown timid with home-keeping. A single labourer--his father's old
hind--managed the cows and the small farmstead. Hester