At that moment there came another thundering[9] knock at the little front door, and a handful of stones and earth was flung against the window, followed the next moment by a rattling of the panes.

[9]

Father and daughter, genial, portly parson, and creamy-skinned, black-eyed maiden, sprang to their feet, and looked once at each other.

There were wild folk in these parts, and lonesome errands to be run sometimes by Parson Langney, who had begun life as a surgeon, and who had been lucky enough to be pitch-forked into a living which exactly suited his adventurous habits, his love of fox-hunting, and his liking for good wine and well-hung game.

Before the importunate summons could be repeated, Parson Langney had come out of the little dining-parlor, and drawn the bolt of the front door.

For Nance, the solitary housemaid of the modest establishment, was getting into years, and inclined to regard a late visitor as a person to be thwarted by being kept as long as possible waiting at the door.

“Hast no better manners than to do thy best to drive the glass from out the panes?” asked[10] he, as soon as he found himself face to face with the intruder, who proved to be a sailor, in open jacket, loose shirt and slops, and flat, three-cornered hat.

[10]

“Oons, sir, ’tis a matter of life and death!” said the man, as he saluted the parson with becoming respect, and then pointed quickly back in the direction of the sea, which could be seen faintly glistening in the murky light of a clouded moon. “I’m from the revenue cutter in the offing yonder, where one of my mates lies with a bullet in’s back, sent there by one of those rascally smugglers in a fray we’ve had with them but now. I’ve been in the village for help, but they say there’s no doctor here but yourself. So I beg your honor’ll come with me, and do what you can for him. And could you tell me of a woman that would watch by him? For we’ve all got our hands full, and he’ll be wandering from his wits ere morning.”

The parson, without a moment’s delay, had begun, by the help of his daughter, to get into a rough brown riding-coat that hung from a nail on the whitewashed wall.

“Why, there you have me out,” said he, as[11] he buttoned himself up to the chin, and put a round, broad-brimmed black hat, with a bow and a twisted band of black cloth, 

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