She drew her hand back and looked coldly at him. He was staggered, and said: “Well, Ciss!” “Well,” she said, “what do you want here?” Will stepped forward, and tried to put his arm round her to take a kiss. She thrust him from her impatiently. For a moment he stood motionless, then he burst forth: “It was you—you who snatched me out of the water.” “You are mistaken, it was Jacob Finch. I stood by. I would have done that for any one.” Will became white as chalk; then almost in fury, as if he would have torn her, he cried: “Ciss! you be cruel to me and to yourself. I don’t care, say yes or no, fight or bite if you will, mine you shall be, or I will carry you in these arms and throw you and myself together over the cliff into the sea.” He seized her in his strong arms, clasped her to his heart, and covered her face with kisses. So, in a paroxysm of fury, was this courtship done. And Cicely melted like wax against glowing iron. But only for a moment, and then said: “Well, if it must be, it must.” Fifty years have passed since that day. There is now an old seaman sits smoking his pipe on the bench, looking seaward, and he yarns with his mates, and is looked up to and listened to by the younger men. He has got strapping sons of his own. They are seamen as was their father. He has a daughter married, and the old chap is fond of taking one of his grandchildren out with him, to walk on the quay and sit on the old bench beside him or else on his knee. That old man is Will Swan. The Crowe, by holy matrimony, had become a Swan. The pretty Cicely I remembered so long ago was now dead; and old Bill wore a black band round his blue jersey arm. A day or two ago I was sitting by him on the bench. He was silent for a long time, smoking and blowing clouds. Presently he turned his face to me. I saw there was trouble in it. “You knew my wife, sir?” he said. “Indeed I did, since I was a little child.” “I know you did.” Then again silence. Presently again his face turned, and he drew his pipe from his mouth and rested it on his knee. “You’re a minister now, sir?” “Yes; I am a parson.” “Then p’r’aps you can tell me something.” “I will tell you what I can.” “You see, sir, Ciss was that won’erful sort of a woman. Though us was married for fifty years her never once in all that time would say as her loved me.” Again a long pause; another smoke. Then a turn to me: “You _are_ a parson?” “Yes. What do you want?” “Well, you can tell me. When I get into life everlasting, do you think Ciss will meet me at the gates o’ Paradise and say: ‘What are you doin’ here now? Don’t you go bothering of me, _I_ don’t want you’?” “All that is left behind,” said I, “all, all in the soil and dross of the grave. Above, the bright happy smile will break out, and the welcome, and the hands will be stretched out——”