Chapter 9 CHAPTER III.

THE COTTAGE BY THE SEA.

"O blesséd sounds of wiser life

Contented with its day,

How ye rebuke the inner strife

That wears the soul away."

"The Eden we live in is our own heart,

And the first thing we do of our free choice

Is sure to be sin."

––Festus.

John Penelles was one of those strong religious characters whose minds no questions disturb, whose spiritual aspirations are never put out of breath. He had not yet been a yoke-fellow with sorrow. Hard work, the cruelty of the elements, the self-denials of poverty, these things he had known; but love had never smitten him across the heart.

When he rose that Easter Sunday he rose singing. He sang as he put on his chapel broadcloth; he was trying over the different metres and the Easter anthem as he walked about the sanded floor of his cottage, and thought over the heads of his sermon. For he was to preach that night in the little chapel of St. Swer, a fishing hamlet four miles to the northward; indeed, John preached very often, 42 being a local preacher in the circuit of St. Penfer, and rather famous for his ready, short sermons, full of the breath of the sea and of the savour of the fisher's life upon it.

Denas had gone to a neighbouring farm for milk. He heard her quick step on the shingle, and he stood still in the middle of the floor to meet her. She had on a short dress of pink calico and a square of blue-and-white-plaided flannel thrown over her head. She came in like the breath of the spring Sabbath. Her face was rosy, her lovely lips slightly apart, her blue eyes dewy and soft and bright and brimming with love. She lifted her face to her father's face, and he forgot in a moment all his fears. He saw only Denas, and not any of her faults; if she had faults, he buried them that moment in his love, and they were all put out of memory.

Roland and the Treshams were not spoken of. John and Joan both had the fisher's dislike to name a person or a thing they considered unlucky or unpleasant. "If you name evil you do call evil" was their simple creed; and it saved many a household worry. They sat down to their breakfast of tea, and fresh fish, and white loaf, and the wide-open door let in the sea wind, and the sea smell, and the soft murmur of the turning tide. John's heart was full of holy joy; he could feel it singing: "Bless the Lord, O my soul!" And though he was only a poor Cornish fisher, he was sure that the world was a very good world and that life was well worth the living.

"Joan, my dear," he said, "the Bible do tell us 43 that there shall be a new earth. Can it be a sweeter one than this is?"

"Aw, John, it may be a sight better, for we be promised 'there shall be no sea there,' thank God! no freezing, drowning men and no weeping wives. I do think of that when you are out in the frost and storm, John, and the thought be heaven itself."

"My dear, the sea be God's own highway. There be wonders by the sea. Was not St. John sent to the sea-side for the Revelations? 'Twas there he heard the angels, whose voices were like the sound of many waters. Heaven will be wonderful! wonderful! if it do make us forget the sea. Aw, my dear Joan, 'twill be something added to this earth, not something taken away, and the good thing added will make both the sea and the 'bounds of the everlasting hills' to be blessed."

"John, who told you that? And if the cruel, hungry, awful sea is not to be taken away, nor yet the 'everlasting hills,' what will make it a new earth?"

"God's tabernacle will be in it. Aw, my dear, that will make everything new––sea and land, men and women; and then there will be no more tears. My dear, when I think of that I love this old world, not only for what it is, but also for what it is going to be."

"Father, you are preaching and not eating your breakfast; and I want to get breakfast over and the cups washed, for I have to dress myself yet, and a new dress to put on, too," and Denas smiled and nodded and touched her father's big hand with 44 her small one, and then John smiled back, and with a mighty purpose began to eat his fish and bread and drink his tea.

The whole day took its colour from this happy beginning. In after-years John often spoke of that Easter Sabbath; of their quiet walk all together up the cliff to St. Penfer Chapel; of the singing, and the sermon, and the Sunday-school in the afternoon for the fisher children; of the walk to St. Swer with Denas by his side and the walk back, singing all the way home; of the nice supper ready for them, and how they had eaten and talked till the late moon made a band of light across the table, and John said hurriedly:

"Well, there now! The tide will be calling me before I do have time to get sleep in my eyes."

Then Joan rose quickly and Denas began to put away the bread and cheese and milk, and though none recognised the fact at the time, the old life passed away for ever when the three rose from that midnight supper.

Yet for several days afterward nothing seemed to be changed. John went to his fishing and had unusual good fortune; and Joan and Denas were busy mending nets and watching the spring bleaching. It was the duty of Denas to take the house linen to some level grassy spot on the cliff-breast and water and watch it whiten in the sunshine. Monday she had gone to this duty with a vague hope that Roland would seek her out. She watched all day for him. She knew that she was looking pretty, and she felt that her employment was picturesque.