Page:Mehalah 1920.djvu/31

Rh sky and the stars that stole out, with such distinctness that the boat seemed to be swimming in the sky, among black tatters of clouds, these being the streaks of land that broke the horizon and the reflection. Gulls were screaming, and the curlew uttered their mournful cry. Mehalah rowed swiftly down the Rhyn, as the channel was called that divided the Ray from the mainland, and that led to the "hard" by the Rose inn, and formed the highway by which it drew its supplies, and from which every farm in the parish of Peldon carried its casks of strong liquor. To the west extended a vast marsh from which the tide was excluded by a dyke many miles in length. Against the northern horizon rose the hill of Wigborough crowned by a church and a great tumulus, and some trees that served as landmarks to the vessels entering the Blackwater. In ancient days the hill had been a beacon station, and it was reconverted to this purpose in time of war. A man was placed by order of Government in the tower, to light a cresset on the summit, in answer to a similar beacon at Mersea, in the event of a hostile fleet being seen in the offing. Now and then the boat—it was a fiat-bottomed punt—hissed among the asters, as Mehalah shot over tracts usually dry, but now submerged; she skirted next a bed of bulrushes. These reeds are only patient of occasional flushes with salt water, and where they grow it is at the opening of a land drain, or mark a fresh spring. Suddenly as she was cutting the flood, the punt was jarred and arrested. She looked round. A boat was across her bows. It had shot out of the rushes and stopped her. "Whither are you going. Glory?" The voice was that of Elijah Rebow, the last man Mehalah wished to meet at night, when alone on the water. "That is my affair, not yours," she answered. "I am in haste; let me pass." " I will not. I will not be treated like this. Glory. I have shot you a couple of curlew, and here they are." He flung the birds into her boat. Mehalah threw them back again. "Let it be an understood thing between us, Elijah, that we will accept none of your presents. You have brought