as quickly added, "Starving for food, that's what you are."

"It's the Lord's will," answered the old man.


The coach had come to a halt a dozen paces away. The child within it
could hear nothing of this conversation; but to the end of his life his
memory kept vivid the scene and the two figures in it--his father, in
close-fitting riding-coat of blue, with body braced, leaning sideways a
little against the wind, and a characteristic hint of the cavalryman
about the slope of the thigh; the old wreck-picker standing just forward
of the bay's shoulder and looking up, with blown hair and patient eyes.
Memory recalled even the long slant of the bay's shoulder--a perfectly
true detail, for the horse was of pure English race and bred by the
Collector himself.

After this, as he remembered, some command must have been given, for
Manasseh climbed down, opened the coach door and drew from under the
seat a box, of which he raised the lid, disclosing things good to eat--
among them a pasty with a crisp brown crust.

The wreck-picker broke off a piece of the pasty and wrapped it in a
handkerchief--and memory recalled, as with a small shock of surprise,
that the handkerchief was clean. The old man, though ragged enough to
scare the crows, was clean from his bare head to his bare sea-bleached
feet. He munched the rest of the pasty, talking between mouthfuls. To
his discourse Dicky paid no heed, but slipped away for a scamper on the
sands.

As he came running back he saw the old man, in the act of wiping his