It was withdrawn a distance away, creaming at the ebb. All beyond was a sheet of golden lustre fading into the bright mists of dawn. Right under the rising sun, like a bar beneath a crest, stretched the line of the Weary Sands, a perilous bank situate some five miles from shore; and between bank and coast rode a solitary little two-masted lugger, with shrouds of gossamer and hull of purple velvet, it seemed, in the soft glow. Even while I looked, this shook out sails like beetles’ wings, and, drawing away, revealed a tiny boat speeding shorewards. I bent and peered over. Ten fathoms beneath me the gully we had climbed in the dark discharged itself, a river of sand, upon the beach; and tumbled at its mouth, as it might be _débris_, lay a dozen pot-bellied fishing boats. Right and left the cliffs rose and dropped in fantastic conformations, until they sank either way into the horizon. It was a wonderful scene to the little town-bred boy. Presently I looked for the rowing-boat again, and saw it close in shore. In a minute it grated on the shingle, and there heaved himself out of it the tall fisherman who had escorted us last night. I was sure of him, and he also, it appeared, of me; for after staring up some time, shading his eyes with his hand, he turned, as if convinced, to haul his craft into safety. I watched him awhile, and was then once more absorbed in the little vessel drawing seawards, when I started to hear his voice suddenly address me close by. He must have come up the gully as soft-footed as a cat. His eyes were less like a marmoset’s by daylight; but they were still a strange feature in his gaunt forbidding face. I felt friendly towards every one; yet somehow this man’s expression chilled me, as he stood smiling down ingratiatory without another word. “Is that your little ship out there?” I asked, for lack of anything better. “Lor’ bless ’ee, no, sir,” he answered, heartily, but in a sort of breathless way. “What makes ’ee think so?” “Weren’t you coming from it?” “Me!” He protested, with a panting chuckle. “Jole Rampick own that _there_ little tender beauty! I’d skipped out _fur_ my morning dip, sir--_if_ you must know. A wonderful bracing water this--_if_ folks would only credit it.” His unshorn dusky face was not, I could not help thinking, the best testimony to its cleansing properties. But I kept my wisdom to myself, and turned to go back to the inn. Mr. Rampick volunteered his company, and on the way some instructive information. “Aye,” he panted huskily; “man and boy _fur_ nigh on fifty year have I known this here Abbot’s Dunberry, but never--_till_ three months ago--the healing vartues of its brine.” “Who told you of them?” I asked. “The Lord,” he answered, showing the under-whites of his eyes a moment. “The Lord, sir, _through_ his minister the parson--that’s Mr. Sant. Benighted we were--_and_ ignorant--till the light was vouchsafed us; and parson he revealed the Bethesda lying _at_ our very doors.”