the rising moon.  It was a young moon, and, while he waited, her thin horn pushed up through the furze brake on the hill’s summit and she mounted into the free heaven.  With upturned eye the young minister followed her course for twenty minutes, not consciously observant; for he was thinking over his ambitions, and at his time of life these are apt to soar with the moon.  Though possessed with zeal for good work in this small seaside town, he intended that Troy should be but a stepping-stone in his journey.  He meant to go far.  And while he meditated his future, forgetting the chill in the night air, it was being decided for him by a stronger will than his own.  More than this, that will had already passed into action.  His destiny was actually launched on the full spring tide that sucked the crevices of the grey wall at the garden’s end.

A slight sound drew the minister’s gaze down from the moon to the quay-door.  Its upper flap still stood open, allowing a square of moonlight to pierce the straight black shadow of the garden wall.

In this square of moonlight were now framed the head and shoulders of a human being.  The young man felt a slight chill run down his spine.  He leant forward out of the window and challenged the apparition, bating his tone as all people bate it at that hour.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

There was no reply for a moment, though he felt sure his voice must have carried to the quay-door.  The figure paused for a second or two, then unbarred the lower flap of the door and advanced across the wall’s shadow to the centre of the bright grass-plat under the window.  It was the figure of a young woman.  Her head was bare and her sleeves turned up to the elbows.  She wore no cloak or wrap to cover her from the night air, and her short-skirted, coarse frock was open at the neck.  As she turned up her face to the window, the minister could see by the moon’s rays that it was well-favoured.

“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.”