Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, September, 1880

"Iss, and now I tells 'ee behind," retorted Joan, "and to front and to back, and round all the sides—so there!"

"Oh, all right!" said Jerrem: "have your talk out: it don't matter to me;" and he threw himself down on the settle with apparent unconcern, taking from his breast-pocket a letter which he carefully unfolded.—"Did you know that I'd got a letter gived me to Guernsey, Eve," he said—"one they'd ha' kept waitin' there for months for me?"

Eve looked up, and, to her vexation, saw Jerrem reading the letter which on her first arrival she had written: the back of it was turned toward her, so as to ostentatiously display the two splotches of red sealing-wax.

"Why, you doan't mane to say you've a-got he?" exclaimed Joan, her anger completely giving way to her amazement. "Well, I never! after all this long whiles, and us a-tryin' to stop un, too!—Eve, do 'ee see he's got the letter you writ, kisses and all?"

"Joan!" exclaimed Eve in a tone of mingled reproof and annoyance, while Jerrem made a feint of pressing the impressions to his lips, casting the while a look in Eve's direction, which Joan intercepting, she said, "Awh! iss I would, seeing they'm so much mine as Eve's, and you doan't know t'other from which."

"That's all you can tell," said Jerrem.

"Iss, and all you can tell, too," replied Joan; adding, as the frown on his face betokened rising anger, "There, my dear, you'd best step inside wi' me and get a drop more o' your mornin's physic, I reckon."

"Physic?" growled Jerrem. "I don't want no physic—leastwise, no more than I've had from you already."

"Glad to hear it," said Joan. "When you change your mind—which, depend on it, 'ull be afore long—you'll find me close to hand.—I must make up a few somethin's for this evenin'," she said, addressing Eve, "in case any of 'em drops in. Adam's gone off," she added, "I don't know where, nor he neither till his work's done."

"Might just as well have saved hisself the trouble," growled Jerrem.

"No, now, he mightn't," replied Joan. "There's spurrits enough to wan place and t'other to float a Injyman in, and the sooner 'tis got the rids of the better, for 'twill be more by luck than good management if all they kegs is got away unseen."

"Oh, of course Adam's perfect," sneered Jerrem. Then, catching sight of Eve's face as he watched Joan go into the kitchen, he added with a desponding sigh, "I only wish I was; but the world's made for some: I s'pose the more they have the more they get."

Eve did not answer: perhaps she had not heard, as she was just now engaged in shifting her position so as to escape the dazzling rays of the sun, which came pouring down on her head. The movement seemed to awaken her to a sense of the day's unusual brightness, and, getting up, she went to the window and looked out. "Isn't it like summer?" she said, speaking more to herself than to Jerrem. "I really must say I should like to have gone somewhere for a walk."

The words, simple in themselves, flung in their tone a whole volume of reproach at Adam, for to Eve's exacting mind there could be no necessity urgent enough to take Adam away without ever seeing her or leaving a message for her.

"Well, come out with me," said Jerrem: "there's nothin' I should like better than a bit of a stroll. I'd got it in my head before you spoke."

Eve hesitated.

"P'r'aps you'm thinkin' Adam 'ud blame 'ee for it?"

"Oh dear, no, I'm not: I'm not quite such a slave to Adam's opinion as that. Besides," she added, feeling she was speaking, with undue asperity, "surely everybody may go for a walk without being blamed by anybody for it: at all events, I mean to go."

"That's right," said Jerrem.—"Here, I say, Joan, me and Eve's goin' out for a little."

"Goin' out? Where to?" said Joan, coming forward toward the door, to which he had advanced.

"Oh, round about for a bit—by Chapel Rock and out that ways."

"Well, if you goes with her, mind you comes back with her. D'ee hear, now?—Don't 'ee trust un out o' yer sight, Eve, my dear—not further than you can see un, nor so far if you can help it."

"You mind yer own business," said Jerrem.

"If you was to do that you'd stay at home, then," said Joan, dropping her voice; "but that's you all over, tryin' to put your finger into somebody's else's pie.—I doubt whether 'twill over-please Adam either," she added, coming back from watching them down the street; "but, there! if he and Eve's to sail in one boat, the sooner he learns 'twon't always be his turn to handle the tiller the better."

* * * * *

It was getting on for three o'clock when Adam, having completed all the business he could accomplish on that day, was returning home. He had been to the few gentlemen's houses near, had visited most of the large farms around, and had found a good many customers ready to relieve him of a considerable portion of the spirit which, by reason of their living so near at hand, would thus evade much of the danger attendant on a more distant transfer.

Every one had heard of the recent attack on the Lottery, and much sympathy was expressed and many congratulations were tendered on account of their happy escape.

Adam was a general favorite, looked up to and respected as an honest, straight-forward fellow; and so little condemnation was felt against the trade carried on that the very magistrate consented to take a portion of the goods, and saw no breach of his office in the admonition he gave to keep a sharp lookout against these new-comers, who seemed somewhat over-inclined to show their teeth.

Adam spoke freely of the anxiety he felt as to the result of the encounter, but very few seemed to share it. Most of them considered that, having escaped, with the exception of strengthened vigilance no further notice would be taken, so that his mind was considerably relieved about the matter, and his heart felt lighter and his pace more brisk in returning than when in the morning he had set out on his errand.

His last visit had been to Lizzen, and thence, instead of going back by the road, he struck across to the cliff by a narrow path known to him, and which would save him some considerable distance.

The day was perfect—the sky cloudless, the sea tranquil: the young verdure of the crag-crowned cliffs lay bathed in soft sunshine. For a moment Adam paused, struck by the air of quiet calm which overspread everything around. Not a breath of wind seemed abroad, not a sail in sight, not a sound to be heard. A few scattered sheep were lazily feeding near; below them a man was tilling a fresh-cleared patch of ground; far away beyond two figures were standing side by side.

Involuntarily, Adam's eyes rested on these two, and while he gazed upon them there sprang up into his heart the wish that Eve was here. He wanted her—wanted to remind her of the promise she had given him before they parted, the promise that on his return she would no longer delay, but tell him the day on which he might claim her for his wife. A minute more, and with all speed he was making a straight cut across the *cliff-side. Disregarding the path, he scrambled over the projections of rock and trampled down the furze, with only one thought in his mind—how soon he could reach home.

"Where's Eve, Joan?" he asked as, having looked through two of the rooms, he came, still in breathless haste, into the outer kitchen, where Joan was now busily engaged in baking her cakes.

"Ain't her outside nowheres?" said Joan, wiping her face with her apron to conceal its expression.

"No, I can't see her."

"Awh, then, I reckon they'm not come in yet;" and by this time she had recovered herself sufficiently to turn round and answer with indifference.

"Who's they?" said Adam quickly.

"Why, her went out for a bit of a stroll with Jerrem. They—"

But Adam interrupted her. "Jerrem?" he exclaimed. "Why should she go out with Jerrem?"

"Awh, he's right enough now," said Joan. "He's so sober as a judge, or I wouldn't ha' suffered 'en anighst her. Eve thought she should like a bit of a walk, and he offered to go with her; and I was very glad of it too, for Tabithy wanted to sandy the floors, so their room was better for we than their company."

"'Tis very strange," said Adam, "that Eve can't see how she puts me out by goin' off any way like this with Jerrem. I won't have it," he added, with rising anger, "and if she's to be my wife she sha'n't do it, either; so she'd best choose between us before things go too far."

"Awh, don't 'ee take it like that," said Joan soothingly. "'Twasn't done with no manin' in it. Her hadn't any more thought o' vexin' 'ee than a babby; nor I neither, so far as that goes, or I should ha' put a stopper on it, you may be sure. Why, go and meet 'em. They'm only out by Chapel Rock: they left word where they was goin' a-purpose."

A little mollified by this, Adam said, "I don't tell Eve everything, but Jerrem and I haven't pulled together for a long time, and the more we see o' one another the worse it is, and the less I want him to have anything to say to Eve. He's always carryin' on some game or 'nother. When we were at Guernsey he made a reg'lar set-out of it 'bout some letter that came there to him. Well, who could that have been from? Nobody we know anything about, or he'd have said so. Besides, who should want to write to him, or what business had he to go blabbin' about which place we were bound for? I haven't seen all the soundings o' that affair clear yet, but I mean to. I ain't goin' to be 'jammed in a clench like Jackson' for Jerrem nor nobody else."

Joan made no answer. She seemed to be engaged in turning her crock round, and while bending down she said, "Well, I should go after 'em if I was you. They'm sure not to be very far off, and I'll get tea ready while you'm gone."

Adam moved away. Somewhat reluctant to go, he lingered about the rooms for some time, making up his mind what he should do. He could not help being haunted by an idea that the two people he had seen standing were Eve and Jerrem. It was a suspicion which angered him beyond measure, and after once letting it come before him it rankled so sorely that he determined to satisfy himself, and therefore started off down the street, past the quay and up by the steps.

"Here, where be goin' to?" called out a voice behind him.

Without stopping Adam turned his head. "Oh, Poll, is that you?" he said.

"Iss."

"Have ye seen Eve pass this way? I think she'd got Jerrem with her."

"S'pose if I have?" said Poll, with whom Adam was no favorite: "they doesn't want you. You stay where you be now. I hates to see anybody a-spilin' sport like that."