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“Be you the new preacher?” she asked, resting a hand on her hip and speaking softly up to him.

“I am the new Independent minister.”

“Then I’ve come for you.”

“Come for me?”

“Iss; my name’s Nance Trewartha, an’ you’m wanted across the water, quick as possible. Old Mrs. Slade’s a-dyin’ to-night, over yonder.”

“She wants me?”

“She’s one o’ your congregation, an’ can’t die easy till you’ve seen her. I reckon she’s got something ‘pon her mind; an’ I was to fetch you over, quick as I could.”

As she spoke the church clock down in the town chimed out the hour, and immediately after, ten strokes sounded on the clear air.

The minister consulted his own watch and seemed to be considering.

“Very well,” said he after a pause. “I’ll come. I suppose I must cross by the ferry.”

“Ferry’s closed this two hours, an’ you needn’t wake up any in the house. I’ve brought father’s boat to the ladder below, an’ I’ll bring you back again. You’ve only to step out here by the back door. An’ wrap yourself up, for ’tis a brave distance.”

“Very well. I suppose it’s really serious.”

“Mortal. I’m glad you’ll come,” she added simply.

The young man nodded down in a friendly manner, and going back into the room, slipped on his overcoat, picked up his hat, and turned the lamp down carefully. Then he struck a match, found his way to the back-door, and unbarred it. The girl was waiting for him, still in the centre of the grass-plat.

“I’m glad you’ve come,” she repeated, but this time there was something like constraint in her voice. As he pulled-to the door softly she moved, and led the way down to the water-side.

From the quay-door a long ladder ran down to the water. At low water one had to descend twenty feet and more; but now the high tide left but three of its rungs uncovered. At the young minister’s feet a small fishing-boat lay ready, moored by a short painter to the ladder. The girl stepped lightly down and held up a hand.

“Thank you,” said the young man with dignity, “but I do not want help.”

She made no answer to this; but as he stepped down, went forward and unmoored the painter. Then she pushed gently away from the ladder, hoisted the small foresail, and, returning to her companion, stood beside him for a moment with her hand on the tiller.

“Better slack the fore-sheet,” she said suddenly.

The young man looked helplessly at her. He had not the slightest idea of her meaning, did not in fact know the difference between a fore-sheet and a mainsail. And it was just to find out the depth of his ignorance that she had spoken.

“Never mind,” she said, “I’ll do it myself.” She slackened and made fast the rope, and took hold of the tiller again. The sails shook and filled softly as they glided out from under the wall. The soft breeze blew straight behind them, the tide was just beginning to ebb. She loosed the main sheet a little, and the water hissed as they spun down under the grey town towards the harbour’s mouth.

A dozen vessels lay at anchor below the town quay, their lamps showing a strange orange yellow in the moonlight; between them the minister saw the cottages of Ruan glimmering on the eastern shore, and over it the coast-guard flagstaff, faintly pencilled above the sky-line. It seemed to him that they were not shaping their course for the little town.

“I thought you told me,” he said at length, “that Mrs.–the dying woman–lived across there.”

The girl shook her head. “Not in Ruan itsel’–Ruan parish. We’ll have to go round the point.”

She was leaning back and gazing straight before her, towards the harbour’s mouth. The boat was one of the class that serves along that coast for hook-and-line as well as drift net fishing, clinker-built, about twenty-seven feet in the keel, and nine in beam. It had no deck beyond a small cuddy forward, on top of which a light hoar-frost was gathering as they moved. The minister stood beside the girl, and withdrew his eyes from this cuddy roof to contemplate her.