to feel the need of
human companionship. He lived apart.

Sometimes, indeed, he would go down to The Ship in the evening and
lounge in the bar with the rest, but even there his solitude still
wrapped him round. He never expanded, however genial the atmosphere.

The other men treated him with instinctive respect. He was powerful
enough to thrash any two of them, and no one cared to provoke him to
wrath. For Rufus in anger was a veritable mad bull.

"Leave him alone! He's not safe!" was the general advice and warning of
his fellows, and none but Adam ever interfered with him.

Just recently, however, Adam had begun to take a somewhat quizzical
interest in the welfare of his son. It had been an established custom
ever since his second marriage that Rufus should eat his Sunday dinner
at the family table down at The Ship. Mrs. Peck--Adam's wife was never
known by any other title, just as the man's own surname had dropped into
such disuse that few so much as knew what it was--had made an especial
point of this, and Rufus had never managed to invent any suitable excuse
for refusing. He never remained long after the meal was eaten. When all
the other fisher-lads were walking the cliffs with their own particular
lasses, Rufus was wont to trudge back to his hermitage and draw his
mantle of solitude about him once more. He had never walked with any
lass. Whether from shyness or surliness, he had held consistently aloof
from such frivolous pastimes. If a girl ever cast a saucy look his way
the brooding blue eyes never seemed aware of it. In speech with
womenkind he was always slow and half-reluctant. That his great
bull-like physique could by any means be an object of admiration was a
possibility that he never seemed to contemplate. In fact, he seemed
expectant of ridicule rather than appreciation.

In his boyhood he had fought several tough fights with certain lads who
had dared to scoff at his red hair. Sam Jefferson, who lived down on
the quay, still bore the marks of one such battle in the absence of two
front teeth. But he did not take affront from womenkind. He looked over
their heads, and went his way in massive unconcern.

But lately a change had come into his life--such a change as made Adam's
shrewd dark eyes twinkle whenever they glanced in his son's direction,
comprehending that the days of Rufus's tranquillity were ended.

A witch had come to live at The Ship, such a witch as had never before
danced along the S