Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/329

Rh rooms, two for you an' two for me; two facin' the harbour, an' two facin' the street. Now, if you'd took a dislike to this look-out, I must ha' put you over the street, an' moved in here myself. I do like the street, too. There's so much more goin' on."

"I think this arrangement will be better in every way," said the young minister.

"I'm glad of it. Iss, there's no denyin' that I'm main glad. From upstairs you can see right down the harbour, which is prettier again. Would'ee like to see it? O' course you would—an' it'll be so much handier for me answerin' the door, too. There's a back door at the end o' the passage. You've only to slip a bolt an' you'm out in the garden—out to your boat, if you choose to keep one. But the garden's a tidy little spot to walk up an' down in an' make up your sermons, wi' nobody to overlook you but the folk next door; an' they'm church-goers."

After supper that evening, the young minister unpacked his books and was about to arrange them, but drifted to the window instead. He paused for a minute or two with his face close to the pane, and then flung up the sash. A faint north wind breathed down the harbour, scarcely ruffling the water. Around and above him the frosty sky flashed with innumerable stars, and over the barque's masts, behind the long chine of the eastern hill, a soft radiance heralded the rising moon. It was a young moon, and, while he waited, her thin horn pushed up through the furze