News from the Duchy | Page 8

her,
or a hand to reach down from heaven and grip her by the hair; and all
the way she seemed to hear Our Lady's feet padding after her in the
darkness. But she never stopped nor stayed until she reached home; and
there, flinging in through the door and slamming to the bolt behind her,

she made one spring for the bed, and slid down in it, cowering over the
small stone image.
Rat-a-tat! tat!--someone knocked on the door so that the cottage shook.
"Knock away!" said Lovey. "Whoever thee be, thee 'rt not my cheeld."
Rat-a-tat! tat!
"My cheeld wouldn' be knockin': he's got neither strength nor sproil for
it. An' you may fetch Michael and all his Angels, to tear me in pieces,"
said Lovey; "but till I hear my own cheeld creen to me, I'll keep what I
have!"
Thereupon Lovey sat up, listening. For outside she heard a feeble wail.
She slipped out of bed. Holding the image tight in her right arm, she
drew the bolt cautiously. On the threshold at her feet, lay her own babe,
nestling in a bed of bracken.
She would have stooped at once and snatched him to her. But the stone
Christling hampered her, lying so heavily in her arm. For a moment,
fearing trickery, she had a mind to hurl it far out of doors into the
night. . . . It would fall without much hurt into the soft sand of the
towans. But on a second thought she held it forth gently in her two
hands.
"I never meant to hurt 'en, Aun' Mary," she said. "But a firstborn's a
firstborn, be we gentle or simple."
In the darkness a pair of invisible hands reached forward and took her
hostage.
When it was known that the Piskies had repented and restored Lovey
Bussow's child to her, the neighbours agreed that fools have most of the
luck in this world; but came nevertheless to offer their congratulations.
Meriden the Priest came also. He wanted to know how it had happened;
for the Piskies do not easily surrender a child they have stolen.

Lovey--standing very demure, and smoothing her apron down along
her thighs--confessed that she had laid her trouble before Our Lady.
"A miracle, then!" exclaimed his Reverence. "What height! What
depth!"
"That's of it," agreed Lovey. "Aw, b'lieve me, your Reverence, we
mothers understand wan another."

PILOT MATTHEY'S CHRISTMAS.
Pilot Matthey came down to the little fishing-quay at five p.m. or
thereabouts. He is an elderly man, tall and sizable, with a grizzled beard
and eyes innocent-tender as a child's, but set in deep crow's-feet at the
corners, as all seamen's eyes are. It comes of facing the wind.
Pilot Matthey spent the fore-half of his life at the fishing. Thence he
won his way to be a Trinity pilot, and wears such portions of an old
uniform as he remembers to don. He has six sons and four daughters,
all brought up in the fear of the Lord, and is very much of a prophet in
our Israel. One of the sons works with him as apprentice, the other five
follow the fishing.
He came down to the quay soon after tea-time, about half an hour
before the luggers were due to put out. Some twenty-five or thirty men
were already gathered, dandering to and fro with hands in pockets, or
seated on the bench under the sea wall, waiting for the tide to serve.
About an equal number were below in the boats, getting things ready.
There was nothing unusual about Matthey, save that, although it was a
warm evening in August, he wore a thick pea-jacket, and had turned the
collar up about his ears. Nor (if you know Cornish fishermen) was there
anything very unusual in what he did, albeit a stranger might well have
thought it frantic.
For some time he walked to and fro, threading his way in and out of the
groups of men, walking much faster than they--at the best they were

strolling--muttering the while with his head sunk low in his jacket
collar, turning sharply when he reached the edge of the quay, or
pausing a moment or two, and staring gloomily at the water. The men
watched him, yet not very curiously. They knew what was coming.
Of a sudden he halted and began to preach. He preached of Redemption
from Sin, of the Blood of the Lamb, of the ineffable bliss of Salvation.
His voice rose in an agony on the gentle twilight: it could be
heard--entreating, invoking, persuading, wrestling--far across the
harbour. The men listened quite attentively until the time came for
getting aboard. Then they stole away by twos and threes down the quay
steps. Meanwhile, and all the while, preparations on the boats