“No! no!” said Casely, frowning heavily, “I’ll not do that, Jinny.  Tell Hannah to fetch a rope, and call the other women.  If we could only have got a coble out it would have been all right, but there’s nobody to pull except a few daft wives and old Adam.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ll swim off, and you women folk can haul me in with the lass.  After that I’ll maybe try for him.”

Then this rare fellow had the rope fastened under his armpits, flung off his sea-boots and his sleeve-waistcoat, and struck off with a breast stroke that made never a splash.  The spray cut his face, the lashing feathers on the tops of the waves half-blinded him, but he held doggedly on, and presently hung on to the bladderweed that fringed the Cobbler’s Seat.  He climbed lightly up, and spoke to the girl.

“You’ll lie quiet, my bonny woman, and don’t be frightened if you get a mouthful or two.  Let me have you under the arms, and look smart.”

He waved and shouted, then let himself lightly down into the sea, while the women ran up the beach with the straining rope.  When his feet ground in the shallow water, he was bleeding at the mouth, but he carried the girl past the foam.

“Take her up to our house, and send for Bella to put her in bed.  She’s nigh done for.  And now, my lasses, give us that dry rope; this one’s over stiff.”

He struck off again, and was not long in getting to the stone; but it was difficult work to climb up, for the wind was fairly whistling by this time, and the waves had got a heavy impetus.  Ellington was blue with cold, and chattering at the teeth.  He had cramped his fingers in a hole bored by the common mollusc, which honeycombs the rocks, and as he crouched he looked not particularly noble.

“Now, my man, there isn’t much time, or else this would be a fine place for us to have a talk.  I’ve saved your lass for you, and I wish you had done the same to mine for me.  Now, come on; and mind, if you struggle, I’ll fell you like a stirk.”

Once more the women ran to the high end of the beach, and then Ellington was handed to them, limp and sick with sea water.

This was how Mr. Casely revenged himself.

* * * * *

Chiswick Press:—­C.  Whittingham and Co.  Tooks Court, Chancery Lane.

* * * * *

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