it at the very spot, or near it, where the catastrophe had occurred. Thus, though the moon had risen by this time, and bathed the deep, as all things else on which it shone, in unutterable calm, Ralph's mental vision beheld waves mountains high, and one fair fragile form, now lifted on their foaming tops, now buried in their raging depths, but always dead and drowned. “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but will you favour me with half a pipeful of baccy?” inquired a cheerful voice at his elbow. “Seeing you was alone, and without your young woman--which is rare in these parts,” continued the stranger, evidently one of the fishing community of the place, for notwithstanding the fineness of the night, he was attired in water-proof overalls--“I made bold, fellow-smokers being always ready to help one another in that way, if in no other.--Thank you, sir. That will save me going to the inn to-night, a visit my missis don't approve of.” “Is _that_ the inn?” inquired Derrick, pointing to a little low-roofed cottage just at the entrance to the Cove, and only raised a few feet above high-water mark. “No, sir; that's my own little place, William Forest, at your service. If you happen to be in want of a boat, or one as can shew you where to find the fossils and such like, I can do that as well as any man in Coveton, let him be who he will.” “Then you are old Jacob Forest's nephew, I suppose, for he had no son, and only one daughter, had he?” “Just so, sir; my cousin Mary. A precious lucky woman she is. It was through her I came to have the cottage, for my uncle made it over to me when he moved to the grand house on the hill yonder, as my Lady Lisgard gave to him. God bless her Ladyship, and good Sir Robert too, though he's gone to heaven by this time, and don't want none of our wishes.” “Yes, yes,” answered Derrick with irritation; “you Coveton folks can talk of nothing but these Lisgards. Now, just dismiss them from your mind while you answer a question I am going to ask you. You are old enough to remember that terrible storm which took place here in the September of '32, are you not?” “Yes, sir, yes. And none of us that saw it is ever likely to forget it. That was the very time when old Sir Robert”---- “Damn Sir Robert!” interrupted Ralph with energy. “If you would only be so kind as to forget that respectable baronet, and all belonging to him, while you answer me a simple question, I shall be greatly obliged to you. Forgive me, mate--but my temper is not so good as my tobacco. Pray, take another pipeful. Now, after that same storm in which the _North Star_--that was the name of the ship, was it not?--was lost yonder, were there many bodies washed ashore about here?” “Dead uns, you mean, sir, of course?” answered the man hesitatingly. “Well, yes, there was. I should think, taking them all together, for they came in, some of them, weeks afterwards, I should think there was a dozen or more; many of them lashed to spars, poor things. But it was no use.”