t important business called
him away. She remonstrated. How could he leave the house while Miss
Fanshawe was still there? What was the business? At least he might
tell his mother; or it might wait. She could not allow him to leave.

Mere waste of words; Harold was off next morning to Harbridge, and
Phillipa reported progress to her co-conspirator.

"It promises well," said Gilly. "I may be able to muzzle that
scoundrel after all."

CHAPTER V.

A quaint old red-sandstone town; the river-harbour crowded with small
craft, but now and again, like a Triton among the minnows, a
timber-brig or a trading-barque driven in by stress of weather. When
the tide went out--as it did seemingly with no intention of coming
back, it went so far--the long level sands were spotted with groups of
fisherfolk, who dug with pitchforks for sand-eels; while in among the
rocks an army of children gleaned great harvests of a kind of seaweed,
which served for food when times were hard.

These rocks were the seaward barrier and break-water of the little
port, and did their duty well when, as now, they were tried by the
full force of a westerly gale. It is blowing great guns; the hardy
sheep that usually browse upon the upland slopes must starve perforce
to-day--they cannot stand upon the steep incline; the cocks and hens
of the cottagers take refuge to leeward of their homes; every gust is
laden with atoms of sand or stone, which strike like hail or small
shot upon the face. See how the waves dash in at the outlying rocks,
hurrying onward like blood-hounds in full cry, scuffling, struggling,
madly jostling one another in eagerness to be first in the fray;
joining issue with tremendous crash, only to be spent, broken,
dissipated into thin air. Overhead the sky changes almost with the
speed of the blast; sometimes the sun winks from a corner of the
leaden clouds and tinges with glorious light the foam-bladders as they
burst and scatter around their clouds of spray; in between the
headlands the sea is churned into creaming froth, as though the
housewives of the sea-gods with unwearying arms were whipping "trifle"
for some tremendous bridal-feast.

The houses at Harbridge mostly faced the shore, but all had stone
porches, and the doors stood not in front, but at one side. The modest
cottage which Mr. Driver called his own was like the rest; but as he
enters, for all his care, a keen knife-edged gust of the pushing wind
precedes him and an