sits up and talks, as you have seen her.'
'Yes. It is rather ghostly.'
'Justinian used to play – oh! he could play very well indeed.'
'Not so well as you.'
'Yes – much better – and he knows hundreds of tunes. But his fingers became stiff with rheumatism, and, as he had put off teaching Peter until it was too late, he taught me. That is all.'
'I think you play wonderfully well. Do you play nothing but old tunes?'
'I only know what I have learned. There is that song which I heard the lady sing last year – I don't know what it is called. Tell me if you like it.'
She struck the strings again and played a song full of life and spirit, of tenderness and fond memory – a bright, sparkling song – which wanted no words.
'Oh!' cried Roland, 'you are really wonderful. You are playing the "Kerry Dance."'
She laughed and layed down the violin.
'We must not have any more playing to-night. Do you really like to hear me play? You look as if you did.'
'It is wonderful,' he replied. 'I could listen all night. But if there is to be no more music, shall we look outside?'
If there were no light in the house the ship's lantern was hanging up, with one of those big ship's candles in it which are of such noble dimensions, and of generosity so unbounded in the matter of tallow. There was no moon; but the sky was clear and the sea could be seen by the light of the stars, and the revolving lights of Bishop's Rock and St. Agnes flashed across the water.
The young man shivered.
'We are in fairyland,' he said. 'It is a charmed island. Nothing is real. Armorel, your name should be Titania. How have you made me hear and believe all these things? How do you contrive your sorceries? Are you an enchantress? Confess – you cannot, in sober truth, play those tunes; the old lady is in reality only a phantom, called into visible shape by your incantations? But you are a benevolent witch – you will not turn me into a pig?'
'I do not understand. There have been no sorceries. There are no witches left on the Scilly Islands. Formerly there were many. Dorcas knows about them. I do not know what was the good of them.'
'I suppose you are quite real, after all. It is only strange and incomprehensible.'
'It is a fine night. To-morrow it will be a fine day with a gentle breeze. We will go sailing among the Outer Islands.'
'The air is heavy with perfume. What is it? Surely an enchanted land!'
'It is the scent of the lemon-verbena tree – see, here is a sprig. It is very sweet.'
'How silent it is here! Night after night never to hear a sound.'
'Nothing but the sound of the waves. They never cease. Listen – it is a calm night. But you can hear them lapping on the beach.'
Ten minutes later, when they returned to the house, they found candles lighted and supper spread. A substantial supper, such as was owed to a man who had had no dinner. There was cold roast fowl and ham; there was a lettuce-salad and a goodly cheese. And there was the unexpected and grateful sight of a 'Brown George,' with a most delectable ball of white froth at the top. Also, Roland remarked the presence of the decanter containing the blackberry wine.
'Now you shall have some supper.' Armorel assumed the head of the table and took up the carving-knife. 'No, thank you – I can carve very well. Besides, you are our visitor, and it is a pleasure to carve for you. Will you have a wing or a leg? Do you like your ham thin? Not too thin? Oh, how hungry you must be! That is ale – home-brewed ale: will you take some? or would you prefer a glass of the blackberry wine? No? – help yourself.'
'The beer for me,' said Roland. He filled and drank a tumbler of the beverage dear to every right-minded Briton. It was strong and generous, with flakes of hop floating in it like the bee's-wing in port. 'This is splendid beer,' he said. 'I do not remember that I ever tasted such beer as this. It is humming ale – October ale – stingo. No wonder our forefathers fought so well when they had such beer as this to fight upon!'
'Peter is proud of his home-brewed.'
'Do you make everything for yourselves? Is Samson sufficient for all the needs of the islanders? This beer is the beer of Samson – strong and mighty. My hair is growing long already – and curly.'
'We make all we can. There are no shops, you see, on Samson. We bake our own bread: we brew our own beer: we make our own butter: we even spin our own linen.'
'And you make your own wine, Armorel.' He called her naturally by her Christian name. You could not call such a girl 'Miss Armorel' or 'Miss Rosevean.' 'It is a wonderful island!'
After supper they sat by the fireside, and, by permission, he smoked his pipe.
Then, everybody else on the island being in bed and asleep, they talked. The young man had his way. That is to say, he encouraged the girl to talk about herself. He led her on: he had a soft voice, soft eyes, and a general manner of sympathy which surprised confidence.
She began, timidly at first, to talk about herself, yet with feminine reservation. No woman will ever talk about herself in the way which delights young men. But she told him all he asked: her simple lonely life – how she arose early in the morning, how she roamed about the island and sang aloud with none to hear her but the sea-gulls and the shags.
'Do you never draw?' he asked.
She had tried to draw, but there was no one to help her.
'Do you read?'
No, she seldom read. In the best parlour there was a bookcase full of books, but she never looked at them. As for the old lady and Dorcas, they had never learned to read. She had been at school over at St. Mary's, till she was thirteen, but she hardly cared to read.
'And the newspapers – do you ever read them?'
She never read them. She knew nothing that went on.
As for her ambitions and her hopes – if he could get at them. Fond youth! – as if a girl would ever tell her ambitions! But Armorel, apparently, had none to tell. She lived in the present; it was joy enough for her to wander in the soft warm air of her island home, upon the hills and round the coast, to cruise among the rocks while the breeze filled out the sail and the sparkling water leaped above the bow.
So far she told: nay, she hid nothing, because there was nothing to hide. She told no more because, as yet, her ambitions and her dreams of the future had no shape: they were vague and misty – she was only aware of their existence when restlessness seized her and impelled her to get up and run over the hills to Porth Bay and back again.
But at night, when she went to bed, she experienced quite a new and disquieting sensation. It showed at least that she was no longer a child, but already on the threshold of womanhood. With blushing cheek and beating heart she remembered that for an hour and more she had been talking about nothing but herself! What would Mr. Roland Lee think of a girl who could waste his time in talking about nothing but herself?
CHAPTER VI
THE FLOWER-FARM
Roland, startled out of sleep by the sudden feeling of danger which always seizes
