“I was with him when he died. The woman was quiet then. He lay for some hours as though insensible, and I thought the end might be at any moment. All at once he moved, held up his hand, assumed a listening attitude, a wonderful light and smile broke out over his face; he seemed to be hearkening attentively. Then he said, ‘NOW,’ laid his head on the pillow, and was dead.” That night, after the curate was gone, I rocked in my chair, musing, looking into the fire. I muttered, “Poor old Doble!” then after a pause, said, “Happy Doble!” and then, “Now I also understand.” Thereupon I took down a little book I had of Dr. Alexander’s poems, and read: “Down below, a sad mysterious music, Wailing through the woods and on the shore, Burdened with a grand majestic secret, That keeps sweeping from us evermore. Up above, a music that entwineth With eternal threads of golden sound, The great poem of this strange existence, All whose wondrous meaning hath been found.” MARY TREMBATH MARY TREMBATH This is a sketch—no more—of a woman who was to me, and is still, a problem for a casuist to solve. How so, you shall hear in the sequel. But, to begin, you must know her life’s story. Mary was, when a young married woman in a Cornish fishing-village, occupying a cottage at some little distance from the harbour. She must have been a fine woman then, she is fine in her old age. “Ah!” said she, “you have been to Maker? Did you go about in a boat there?” “Yes.” I had boated whilst staying in the place. “And did you see the Lady Rock?” “Yes, it was pointed out to me.” “And the Dead Man’s Rock?” “I think so.” “Well, it is all along of the Lady Rock that I was a widow.” “How so?” “You have heard tell about the Lady?” I had. The Lady is a little piece of white feldspar in a cliff that rises out of the sea, with a shelf before it, and this piece of quartz or feldspar bears a singular resemblance to the shape of a woman draped in white. Whenever the fishermen return with their trawls, they cast a few of the mackerel or herring they have caught on to the shelf before the White Lady, and, unless this be done, this oblation made, ill-luck will attend the fishermen on their next expedition; their nets will be caught and torn as by invisible hands in the deep, or no fish will enter the seines, or, worse still, the boat will capsize and possibly the fishermen on board will be drowned. The Dead Man’s Rock is another portion of cliff nearly horizontal, sometimes washed by the waves, and on this lies a mass of the same white spar, bearing something approaching the form of a corpse. But it demands more fancy to distinguish the corpse than the Lady.