Page:Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry - 1887.djvu/156

152 you for aid this night." He paused for a moment, and then said, in a lower tone: "I know your faith is not my faith, and that your life is not embittered with what has embittered mine. But tell me, sir, tell me—do you believe that the events of our life are ordained? For what hath happened to-night seems of a wise Being's ordering."

"Surely, sir," I said, "God knoweth all things, present and to come; but, whether he permits evil deeds to be wrought, or ordains good ones to be done"

"Enough, enough," said the mariner. "May Colvine, my love, trim thy father's shealing, and set the supper-table in array, for it is ordained that our deliverers shall rest with us, and break bread at our board; so come in."

And into the mariner's cottage we walked, not unawed by the presence of a being of whose temper and courage we had seen such a proof.

If the exterior of the cottage was rude and unskilfully built, the interior was wonderfully commodious and neat. The floor was laid of drifted ship-timber, and the walls were hung with nets as with tapestry; and fish-spears, and gaff-hooks of steel, sharp and bright, were grouped like weapons for battle in a chieftain's hall of old. The fruits of the fisherman's skill were everywhere visible: the chimney-mantel, a beam of wood which extended from side to side of the cottage, was covered with kippered salmon, large, and red, and savoury, and various kegs were filled with salted fish of the many excellent kinds which the Solway affords. A small bed stood near the chimney, swelled with the feathers of sea-fowl, and hillocked high with quilts and mantles, from beneath which some linen looked out, only rivalled in whiteness by the snow. A very small chamber was constructed at the farther end, into which May Colvine disappeared for a moment to readjust her dress, and, perhaps, add some other of those artificial attractions which women always bring in to the aid of their natural charms. The mariner seated himself, motioned me to a seat, over which a sealskin was thrown, while a lamp, fed plentifully with oil, and suspended from the roof, diffused light over the apartment. Nor was the place devoted to brute comfort alone: several books, among which I observed "Robinson Crusoe," and Homer's "Odyssey" in Greek, with a curious collection of Northern legendary ballads, were scattered about, and a shepherd's pipe and a fiddle were