said they was a cunnin', desateful lot, and not to be dealt with no ways;" and Eve, knowing the opposition he had had to undergo, felt a just pride that they were forced into seeing that his fears had some ground and that his advice was worth following out.
Once past the houses, she determined no longer to linger, but walk on as briskly as possible; and this was the more advisable because the day was a true April one: sharp showers of mingled hail and rain had succeeded the sun, which now again was shining out with dazzling brightness.
The sea was green and rippled over with short dancing waves, across which ran long slanting shadows of a bright violet hue, reflected from the sun and sky; but by the time Eve reached a jutting stone which served as a landmark all this was vanishing, and, turning, she saw coming up a swift creeping shadow which drew behind it a misty veil that covered up both sea and sky and blotted them from view.
"Oh my! here's another hailstorm coming," she said; and, drawing the hood of her cloak close over her face, she made all haste down the steep bit of irregular rock toward where she knew that, a little way off the path, a huge boulder would afford her shelter.
Down came the rain, and with it such a gust of wind that, stumbling up the bit of cliff on which the stone stood, Eve was almost bent double. Hullo! Somebody was here already, and, shaking back her hood to see who her companion in distress might be, she uttered a sharp scream of horror, for the man who stood before her was no other than Reuben May.
"Then you're not glad to see me, Eve?" he said, for the movement Eve had involuntarily made was to put out her hands as if to push him away.
Eve tried to speak, but the sudden fright of his unexpected presence seemed to have dried up her throat and tongue and taken away all power of utterance.
"Your old chum, Capen Triggs, asked me how I should like to take a bit of a trip with him, and I thought, as I hadn't much to keep me, I'd take his offer; and, as he's stopped at Plymouth for a day or so, I made up my mind to come so far as here and see for myself if some of what I've been told is true."
"Why, what have you been told?" said Eve, catching at anything which might spare her some of the unpleasantness of a first communication.
"Well, for one thing, that you're going to be married to your cousin."
Eve's color rose, and Reuben, thinking it might be anger, said, "Don't make any mistake, Eve: I haven't come to speak about myself. All that's past and over, and God only knows why I ever got such folly into my head;" and Reuben thought himself perfectly sincere in making this statement, for he had talked himself into the belief that this journey was undertaken from the sole desire to carry out his trust. "What I've come to do is to speak to you like a friend, and ask you to tell me what sort of people these are that you're among, and how the man gets his living that you're thinking of being married to."
Eve hesitated: then she said, "There is no need for me to answer you, Reuben, because I can see that somebody already has been talking about them to you—haven't they?"
"Yes, they have, but how do I know that what they've said is true?"
"Oh, I dare say it's true enough," she said: "people ain't likely to tell you false about a thing nobody here feels ashamed to own to."
"Not ashamed of being drunkards, law-breakers, thieves?" said Reuben sternly.
"Reuben May," exclaimed Eve, flaming up with indignation and entirely forgetting that but a little time before she had held an exactly similar opinion, "do you forget that you're speaking of my own father's blood-relations—people who're called by the same name I am?"
"No, I don't forget it, Eve; and I don't forget, neither, that if I didn't think that down here you would soon become ruined, body and soul, I'd rather cut my tongue out than it should give utterance to a word that could cause you pain. You speak of your father, but think of your mother, Eve—think if she could rise up before you could you ask her blessing on what you're going to do?"
Eve's face quivered with emotion, and Reuben, seizing his advantage, continued: "Perhaps you think I'm saying this because I'm wanting you for myself, but, as God will judge us, 'tisn't that that's making me speak, Eve;" and he held out his hand toward her. "You've known me for many a long year now—my heart's been laid more bare to you than to any living creature: do you believe what I'm saying to you?"
"Yes, Reuben, I do," she answered firmly, though the tears, no longer restrained, came streaming from her eyes; "and you must also believe what I say to you—that my cousin is a man as honest and upright as yourself, that he wouldn't defraud any one of the value of a pin's point, nor take a thing that he didn't think himself he'd got a proper right to."
"Good God, Eve! is it possible that you can speak like this of one who gets his living by smuggling?" and a spasm of positive agony passed over Reuben's face as he tried to realize the change of thought and feeling which could induce a calm defence of such iniquity. "What's the difference whether a man robs me or he robs the king? Isn't he stealing just the same?"
"No, certainly not," said Eve, quickly. "I can't explain it all to you, but I know this—that what they bring over they buy and pay for, and certainly, therefore, have some right to."
"Have a right to?" repeated Reuben. "Well, that's good! So men have a right to smuggle, have they? and smuggling isn't stealing? Come! I should just like this cousin of yours to give me half an hour of his company to argue out that matter in."
"My cousin isn't at home," said Eve, filled with a sudden horror of what might be expected from an argument between two such tempers as Reuben and Adam possessed. "And if you've only come here to argue, whether 'tis with me or with them, Reuben, 'tis a waste of time that'll do no good to you nor any of us."
Reuben did not speak. He stood and for a few moments looked fixedly at her: then he turned away and hid his face in his hands. The sudden change from anger to sorrow came upon Eve unexpectedly: anything like a display of emotion was so foreign to Reuben that she could not help being affected by it, and after a minute's struggle with herself she laid her hand on his arm, saying gently, "Reuben, don't let me think you've come all this long way only to quarrel and say bitter things to me: let me believe 'tis as you said—because you weren't satisfied, and felt, for mother's sake, you wanted to be a friend to me still. I feel now as if I ought to have told you when I wrote that I was going to marry my cousin Adam, but I didn't do it because I thought you'd write to me, and then 'twould be easier to speak; and when you didn't take no notice I thought you meant to let me go altogether, and I can't tell you how hurt I felt. I couldn't help saying to myself over and over again (though I was so angry with you I didn't know what to do), 'I shall never have another such friend as Reuben—never.'"
Eve's words had their effect, and when Reuben turned his pale face to her again his whole mood was softened. "'Tis to be the same friend I always was that I've come, Eve," he said; "only you know me, and how I can never keep from blurting out all at once things that I ought to bring round bit by bit, so that they might do good and not give offence."
"You haven't offended me yet," she said—"at least," she added, smiling in her old way at him, "not beyond what I can look over; and so far as I can and it will ease your mind, Reuben, I'll try to tell you all you care to know about uncle and—the rest of them. I'm sure if you knew them you'd like them: you couldn't help it—more particularly Joan and Adam, if you once saw those two."
"And why can't I see them, Eve? It wouldn't seem so very strange, being your friend—for that's all I claim to be—going there to see you, would it?"
"No, I don't know that it would; only," and here she hesitated, "whatever you saw that you didn't like, Reuben, you'd only speak to me about. You wouldn't begin arguing with them, would you?"
Reuben
