At the head of the street the town melted off into a suburb of
scattered houses, modest domiciles of twenty-five pounds or thirty
pounds rentals, detached, each with its garden and narrow
garden-door, for Falmouth in those days boasted few carriage-folk.
He paused once hereabouts, in the roadway between two walls, and
stood listening, while his right hand trembled on his stick; but
presently gripped my arm again and hurried me forward, nor halted
until we reached the summit, and the open country lay before us, with
the Channel and its long horizon on our left. Here, in a cornfield
on the very knap of the hill, and some two hundred yards back from
the road, stood the shell of an old windmill, overlooking the sea--
deserted, ruinous, without sails, a building many hundreds of years
older than the oldest house in Falmouth, serving now but as a
landmark for fishermen, and on Sundays a rendezvous for courting
couples. At the stile leading into the cornfield, Captain Coffin
released me, climbed over, hurried up the footpath to the windmill,
and, having satisfied himself that the building was empty, motioned
me to seat myself on the side where its long shadow pointed down
across a bank of nettles, and beyond the edge of the green young
barley sheeting the slope towards the harbour.

"Brooks," he began--but his voice rattled like a dried pea in a pod,
and he had to moisten his under-lip with his tongue before he could
proceed--"Brooks, are you in any way a superstitious kind o' boy?"

"That depends, sir," said I, diplomatically.

"After all these years, too," he groaned, "an' agen' all likelihood
o' natur'. But you saw him--hey? You heard what he said, an' that
cussed song, too? Sang it, he did; slapped it out at the top of his