Again the seamen called, and it seemed, as he looked at their meaningless gesticulations, that the bowsprit of the vessel now pointed higher than before. The appalling story thus told to him had barely got home when he saw a change in the conduct of the seamen. They ceased to cry and wave; they looked no longer at him but in the direction whence he had come, and turning, he saw the vessel’s little boat bobbing in the sea-troughs. It had an occupant too, a lad not greatly older than himself, using only a guiding oar, who so was directing the boat in the drifting waves towards the Ealan Dubh and the counter of the _Jean_. Then the whole folly of his conduct, the meaning of the seamen’s cries, the obvious and simple thing he should have done came to Gilian--he discovered himself the dreamer again. A deep contempt for himself came over him and he felt inclined to run back to the solace of the woods with a shame more burdensome than before, but the doings of the lad who had but to wade to pick up the lost boat and was now bearing down on the doomed vessel prevented him. He watched with a fascination the things being done that he should have done himself, he made himself, indeed, the lad who did them. It was as if in a dream, looking upon himself with a stranger’s admiration, he saw the little boat led dexterously beside the vessel in spite of the tumbling waves, and Black Duncan, out upon her bowsprit, board her, lift his master’s daughter in, and row laboriously ashore. Then Gilian turned and made a poor, contemptuous retreat. CHAPTER XVIII--DISCOVERY The town was dripping at its eaves and glucking full of waters at rone-mouths and syvers when he got into it after his disgraceful retreat He was alone in the street as he walked through it, a wet woebegone figure with a jacket-collar high up to the ears to meet the nip of the elements. Donacha Breck, leaning over his counter and moodily looking at the hens sheltering their wind-blown feathers under his barrow, saw him pass and threw over his shoulder to his wife behind a comment upon the eccentricity of the Paymaster’s boy. “He’s scarcely all there,” said he, “by the look of him. He’s wandering about in the rah as if it was a fine summer day and the sun shining.” Crossing from the school to his lodging, an arm occupied by a great bundle of books, the other contending with an umbrella, was the dominie, and he started at the sight of his errant pupil who nearly ran against him before his presence was observed. “Well, Gilian?” said he, a touch of irony in his accent, himself looking a droll figure, hunched round his books and turning like a weathercock jerkily to keep the umbrella between him and the wind that strained its whalebone ribs till they almost snapped. Gilian stopped, looked hard at the ground, said never a word. And old Brooks, over him, gazed at the wet figure with puzzlement and pity.