I was present at the ceremony. He was now dressed in a manner which
befitted his station--an old man bent and bowed, but still handsome,
and he bore upon his arm a tall woman, grey-haired and very pale, yet
with the traces of great beauty. As the parson laid her hand in her
husband's, I heard her whisper to him, "Dust to Dust."




KEEPER OF THE BISHOP.


For a fortnight out of every six weeks the little white faced man
walked the garrison on St. Mary's Island in a broadcloth frock-coat,
a low waistcoat and a black riband of a tie fastened in a bow; and it
gave him great pleasure to be mistaken for a commercial traveller. But
during the other four weeks he was head-keeper of the lighthouse on
the Bishop's Rock, with thirty years of exemplary service to his
credit. By what circumstances he had been brought to enlist under the
Trinity flag I never knew. But now, at the age of forty-eight he was
entirely occupied with a great horror of the sea and its hunger for
the bodies of men; the frock-coat which he wore during his spells on
shore was a protest against the sea; and he hated not only the sea but
all things that were in the sea, especially rock lighthouses, and of
all rock lighthouses especially the Bishop.

"The Atlantic's as smooth as a ballroom floor," said he. It was a
clear, still day and we were sitting among the gorse on the top of the
garrison, looking down the sea towards the west. Five miles from the
Scillies, the thin column of the Bishop showed like a cord strung