“Even so! flying with camp equipage and all. There stands your victor, that little old fellow with the broad shoulders. I say, come here a moment,” called he aloud, making a sign for Tate to approach. “The Collector is not in the least angry for what's happened; he knew you did n't mean anything serious. Pray, who are these ladies, your mistresses I mean?” “Lady Eleanor Darcy and Miss Darcy, of Gwynne Abbey,” replied Tate, sturdily, as he gave the names with a most emphatic distinctness. “The devil it was!” exclaimed M'Farland. “By my conscience, ye may well wonder at being in such company, sir,” said Tate, laughing, and resuming his place just in time to assist Lady Eleanor to ascend the steps. Helen quickly followed, the door was slammed to, and, Tate mounting with the alacrity of a town footman, the chaise set out at a brisk pace down the street. CHAPTER XXIII. THE COAST IN WINTER Although Tate Sullivan had arrived in Coleraine and provided himself with a chaise expressly to bring his mistress and her daughter back to “The Corvy,”--from which the sheriff's officers had retired in discomfiture, on discovering the loss of their warrants,--Lady Eleanor, dreading a renewal of the law proceedings, had determined never to return thither. From the postilion they learned that a small but not uncomfortable lodging could be had near the little village of Port Ballintray, and to this spot they now directed their course. The transformation of a little summer watering-place into the dismal village of some poor fishermen in winter, is a sad spectacle; nor was the picture relieved by the presence of the fragments of a large vessel, which, lately lost with all its crew, hung on the rocks, thumping and clattering with every motion of the waves. By the faint moonlight Lady Eleanor and her daughter could mark the outlines of figures, as they waded in the tide or clambered along the rocks, stripping the last remains of the noble craft, and contending with each other for the spoils of the dead. If the scene itself was a sorrowful one, it was no less painful to their eyes from feeling a terrible similitude between their own fortunes and that of the wrecked vessel; the gallant ship, meant to float in its pride over the ocean, now a broken and shattered wreck, falling asunder with each stroke of the sea! “How like and yet how unlike!” sighed Lady Eleanor; “if these crushed and shattered timbers have no feeling in the hour of adversity, yet are they denied the glorious hopefulness that in the saddest moments clings to humanity. Ours is shipwreck, too, but, taken at its worst, is only temporary calamity!” Helen pressed her mother's hands with fervor to her lips; perhaps never had she loved her with more intensity than at that instant.