casement of leaded glass. This being up, free range was given to the
swinging telescope along the beach to the right and left, and over the
open sea for miles, and into the measureless haze of air. She could
manage this glass to the best advantage, through her father's teaching,
and could take out the slide and clean the lenses, and even part the
object-glass, and refix it as well as possible. She belonged to the
order of the clever virgins, but scarcely to that of the wise ones.



CHAPTER II

WITH HER CREW AND CARGO


Long after the time of those who write and those who read this history,
the name of Zebedee Tugwell will be flourishing at Springhaven.

To achieve unmerited honor is the special gift of thousands, but to
deserve and win befalls some few in every century, and one of these few
was Zebedee. To be the head-man of any other village, and the captain of
its fishing fleet, might prove no lofty eminence; but to be the leader
of Springhaven was true and arduous greatness. From Selsey Bill to
Orfordness, taking in all the Cinque Ports and all the port of London,
there was not a place that insisted on, and therefore possessed, all
its own rights so firmly as this village did. Not less than seven stout
fishing-smacks--six of them sloops, and the seventh a dandy--formed the
marine power of this place, and behaved as one multiplied by seven. All
the bold fishermen held their line from long-established ancestry, and
stuck to the stock of their grandfathers, and their wisdom and freedom