“Miss Driver is at Harbridge.”

“In service?”

“No; at home.  They live there.  Her father is a Custom-house officer.”

That evening Harold informed his mother that important business called him away.  She remonstrated.  How could he leave the house while Miss Fanshawe was still there?  What was the business?  At least he might tell his mother; or it might wait.  She could not allow him to leave.

Mere waste of words; Harold was off next morning to Harbridge, and Phillipa reported progress to her co-conspirator.

“It promises well,” said Gilly.  “I may be able to muzzle that scoundrel after all.”

CHAPTER V.

A quaint old red-sandstone town; the river-harbour crowded with small craft, but now and again, like a Triton among the minnows, a timber-brig or a trading-barque driven in by stress of weather.  When the tide went out—­as it did seemingly with no intention of coming back, it went so far—­the long level sands were spotted with groups of fisherfolk, who dug with pitchforks for sand-eels; while in among the rocks an army of children gleaned great harvests of a kind of seaweed, which served for food when times were hard.

These rocks were the seaward barrier and break-water of the little port, and did their duty well when, as now, they were tried by the full force of a westerly gale.  It is blowing great guns; the hardy sheep that usually browse upon the upland slopes must starve perforce to-day—­they cannot stand upon the steep incline; the cocks and hens of the cottagers take refuge to leeward of their homes; every gust is laden with atoms of sand or stone, which strike like hail or small shot upon the face.  See how the waves dash in at the outlying rocks, hurrying onward like blood-hounds in full cry, scuffling, struggling, madly jostling one another in eagerness to be first in the fray; joining issue with tremendous crash, only to be spent, broken, dissipated into thin air.  Overhead the sky changes almost with the speed of the blast; sometimes the sun winks from a corner of the leaden clouds and tinges with glorious light the foam-bladders as they burst and scatter around their clouds of spray; in between the headlands the sea is churned into creaming froth, as though the housewives of the sea-gods with unwearying arms were whipping “trifle” for some tremendous bridal-feast.

The houses at Harbridge mostly faced the shore, but all had stone porches, and the doors stood not in front, but at one side.  The modest cottage which Mr. Driver called his own was like the rest; but as he enters, for all his care, a keen knife-edged gust of the pushing wind precedes him and announces his return.  Next instant the little lobby is filled:  a bevy of daughters, the good house-mother, one or two youngsters dragging at his legs, everyone eager to welcome the breadwinner home.  They divest him of his wraps, soothing him the while with that tender loving solicitude a man finds only at his own happy hearth.