A DANE IN THE DIKE


Now, whether spy-glass had been used by any watchful mariner, or whether
only blind chance willed it, sure it is that one fine morning Mary met
with somebody. And this was the more remarkable, when people came to
think of it, because it was only the night before that her mother had
almost said as much.

"Ye munna gaw doon to t' sea be yersell," Mistress Anerley said to her
daughter; "happen ye mought be one too many."

Master Anerley's wife had been at "boarding-school," as far south as
Suffolk, and could speak the very best of Southern English (like her
daughter Mary) upon polite occasion. But family cares and farm-house
life had partly cured her of her education, and from troubles of distant
speech she had returned to the ease of her native dialect.

"And if I go not to the sea by myself," asked Mary, with natural logic,
"why, who is there now to go with me?" She was thinking of her sadly
missed comrade, Jack.

"Happen some day, perhaps, one too many."

The maiden was almost too innocent to blush; but her father took her
part as usual.

"The little lass sall gaw doon," he said, "wheniver sha likes." And so
she went down the next morning.