She turned down the sands towards the bonfire, grasping as she went all
the details of the scene.

In the glow of the dying fire sat a semicircle of men--Jim Lewarne, sunk
in a drunken slumber, Calvin Oke bawling in his ear, Old Zeb on hands
and knees, scraping the embers together, Toby Lewarne (Jim's elder
brother) thumping a pannikin on his knee and bellowing a carol, and a
dozen others--in stages varying from qualified sobriety to stark and
shameless intoxication--peering across the fire at the game in progress
between them and the faint line that marked where sand ended and sea
began.

"Zeb's turn!" roared out Toby Lewarne, breaking off _The Third Good Joy_
midway, in his excitement.

"Have a care--have a care, my son!" Old Zeb looked up to shout.
"Thee'rt so good as wed already; so do thy wedded man's duty, an' kiss
th' hugliest!"

It was true. Ruby, halting with her lantern a pace or two behind the
dark semicircle of backs, saw her perfidious Zeb moving from right to
left slowly round the circle of men and maids that, with joined hands
and screams of laughter, danced as slowly in the other direction.
She saw him pause once--twice, feign to throw the kerchief over one,
then still pass on, calling out over the racket:--

"I sent a letter to my love,
I carried water in my glove,
An' on the way I dropped it--dropped it--dropped it--"