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keeping, and herself with little enough of education. Her hands were rough besides, from working in the fields, and milking when the wind blew from the north, or driving the cart to market at Penzance.
    ‘I’ll read ’n,’ she promised rashly, ‘but not while there’s daylight, and the hay not in.’
    She went away, proud if fearful of the book he had lent her.
    Mr Roxburgh must have felt incommoded by her leaning on him; he started fretting, and shrugging her off. ‘Why then, Ellen, don’t they weigh anchor?’ he asked as though he had never wondered at it before this evening.
    ‘Because the wind is not from the right quarter,’ she repeated with an equanimity she had cultivated, while settling the collar of the overcoat which her embrace had disarranged.
    The flower glowing in its chipped jar had been practically extinguished by the close of day; what sounded like a rat scampered somewhere through the dusk, back to business; water slithering on the vessel’s hull might have created an illusion of motion for any two souls less experienced in listening for it. The Roxburghs’ hearing was so finely tuned they all but jumped at sound of a pair of boots thudding down the companion-ladder, and when a hand rattled the loose door-knob, and a beard blundered through the slit of a doorway, and the face of Mr Courtney the mate became distinguishable, they were no less embarrassed for their shadowy thoughts.
    Mr Courtney was so solidly built, anything overwrought or inessential could only expect to be skittled. It was unlikely that the mate’s own mind would ever wander out of bounds, except perhaps during sleep, heaving in those more incalculable waters like one of the whales it delighted him to watch.
    Mr Courtney spouted rather than spoke, ‘Captain sends his compliments, but was called away, and you mustn’t wait dinner for him.’ As one accustomed to give orders rather than deliver speeches, the mate drew breath. ‘Other news—wind is veering, and unless we’re out of luck we’ll sail at dawn.’
    Cap in hand, Mr Courtney continued standing. The upper, whiter part of his forehead glimmered in the dusk above a leather mask fringed with whiskers, the effect of which might have made him look sinister had it not been for the ingenuous eyes. On discovering that Mr Courtney was the least sinister of men, Mrs Roxburgh had felt free during daylit moments to examine the texture of his weathered skin, for her own secret pleasure and his hardly concealed discomfiture. In spite of the broad wedding band the mate was not at ease with ladies.
    But rank compelled him to make the occasional effort. ‘Has the feller forgot to bring candles?’ His Adam’s apple jerked it out painfully.
    ‘On the contrary,’ Mrs Roxburgh answered, brighter than before, ‘we’ve had them all this while, but preferred to enjoy the evening light and our conversation.’ She patted her husband’s arm, asking him to support her, not so much in a falsehood as out of social expediency.
    ‘Nothing could have lit our gloom better than the news you’ve brought us,’ the gentleman contributed.
    Mr Courtney grunted and laughed together. ‘Hasn’t Sydney found favour with you?’
    ‘I can neither admire nor dislike what irritation prevents me seeing.’
    Her husband’s gravity so abashed the mate, Mrs Roxburgh lit the pair of yellow candles to alleviate a situation.
    His skin ablaze, Mr Courtney announced, ‘I’ll leave you, then. There’s things to attend to. And the feller’ll be fetching down your dinner in a jiffy.’ It implied that himself had found good reason why he should not sit down with the gentry.
    The instant after, he was gone; his great boots could be heard maltreating the timbers.
    Mrs Roxburgh’s spirits soared. She could have sung, and literally, but her music-making had never been admired. Instead her face reflected the joy she hoped to find in her husband, and indeed, the weight had been lifted even from Austin