The House on the Beach: A Realistic Tale

wind lay with their shadows thrown shoreward on the cold smooth water, almost to the verge

tte to see his first play at the theatre when it should be performed-was very soothing. The beach rather looked like a stage, and the sea like a ghostly audience, with, if you will, the broadside bulks of black sailing craft at anchor for representatives of the newspaper piers. Annette was a nice girl; if a little commonplace and low-born, yet sweet. What a subject he could make of her father! "The Deserter" of

m fellow, to belying out on the beach on a cold night. Lord! I don't like

said Fellingham, j

's taking leave

gasped. "Good heavens, Mr.

lad. Girls choose as

d you say, sir? W

t. I could n't have done that myself. And I believe I'm in for a headache to-morrow; upon my soul, I do. Mart Tinman would champagne us; but, poor old boy, I struck him, and I couldn't make amends-didn't see my way; and we joined hands over the glass-to the deuce w

Tin man's wine. He touched Van Diemen on the shoul

oinder. "Except that I did n't exactly-I think you said I exactly'?-I did n't bargain for old Mart as my-but he's a sound ma

said Fellingham, wi

ly obliged to you for yo

en. "Her

ightly on seeing Herbert, whom she had taken for a coastguard, she

calling on his lungs to clear themselves and r

an's champagne!"

contact of two hostil

walked

r.--what's your Christian name? Stop with us as long as you like. Old friends for me! The joke of it is that Nelson was my man, and yet I went and enlisted in the cavalry. If you talk of chemical substances, old Mart Tinman was

e wind a little

"Allow me; your sha

er arms, and, pressing

not true? A word

m not cold," she replied and

olly boys! It's the air on the champagne. And hang me," said he, as

d; she stood like

Diemen would be to hear himself called squire in Old England. And a convict he was, for he did wrong once, but he worked his redemption. And the smell of my own property makes me feel my legs again. And I'll tell you what, Mr. Hubbard, as Netty calls you whe

olve a upon him, Van Diemen bored through a sh

I lost

disengaging her feminine garments to step after him

came out on

ense. I'm puffed up with money, and have n't the heart I once had. I say, Fellowman, Fellowbird, Hubbard-what's your right name?-

, I think, would like t

ne

be getting cold,"

replied Van Diemen, and

there was a novel directness and heat of tone in Herbert that alarmed her, and with reason. He divined in hideous outlines what had happened. He was no longe

gged him to l

al officer in the army, and if I have your permission-you see, anything's better, as it seems to me, than that you should depend for peace and comfort on o

s a dead

me, sir. I love your dau

nd your inter

struggled f

have you been

!" she answered the

your mind to the fact that it is known. What is known to Mr. Tinm

l Mart!" Van D

said Annette, and turned her eyes from the half-paralyz

as being discussed. At any rate, it's kn

a day. I'd rather live

elf, as to prepare for t

most generous!" Annet

id Herbert. "Can you suppose it generous, that even in the extremest case, he s

s prov

ished by his not allowin

I cannot hear it said th

might stay his attacks on Mr. Tinman; and she believed he had only been guessing the circumstances in which her father was placed; but the co

leave the r

engaged herself,

s being sober. I don't ask your opinion of me; I am a deserter, false to my colours, a breaker of his oath. Only mark this: I was married, and a common trooper, married to a handsome young woman, true as steel; but she was handsome, and we were starvation poor, and she had to endure persecution from an officer day by day. Bear that situation in your mind. . . . Providence dropped me a hundred pounds out of the sky. Properly speaking, it popped up out of the earth, for I reaped it, you may say, from a relative's grave. Rich and poor 's all right, if I'm rich and you're poor; and you may be happy though you're poor; but where there are many poor young women, lots of rich m

nformation from the Horse Guards; as for the people kn

lenced him. "I feel it, if it's in the wind; ever since Mart T

to bed, manifestly solaced by the idea t

her father to think of. It filled him with a vague apprehension, but he was unable to imagine that a young girl, and an English girl, and an enthusiastic young English girl, co