To Drift, therefore, the sailor determined to
go; and the stress upon his mind was such that even the prospect of
conversation with Mary Chirgwin--a thing he had certainly shrunk from under
other circumstances--caused him no uneasiness.
Over the last road that Joan had ever walked, and under similar conditions
of night and storm, he tramped up to Drift, entered through the side gate,
and surprised Mr. Chirgwin and his niece at their supper. As before with
the Tregenzas, so now again in company of Uncle Thomas and Mary, Joe Noy
formed the third in a trio of curious significance. Though aware that the
sailor was due from his voyage, this sudden apparition of him at such a
time startled his former friends not a little. Mary indeed was unnerved in
a manner foreign to her nature, and the candle-lighted kitchen whirled in
her eyes as she felt her hand in his. Save for an ejaculation from the old
man, which conveyed nothing beyond his astonishment, Noy was the first to
speak; and his earliest words relieved the minds of his listeners in one
great particular; he already knew the worst that had happened.
"I be come from Newlyn, from the Tregenzas. Thomasin have tawld me of all
that's falled out; but I couldn't bide in my awful trouble wi'out comin'
up-long. I reckon you'll let the past be forgot now. I'm punished ugly
enough. You seed her last, dead an' alive; you heard the last words ever
she spoke to any of her awn folks.
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