southward, below Rosudgeon: but what news came to me was ever of the
same tenour. Their marriage had brought neither children nor other
blessings. There were frequent quarrels, and the man had yielded to
drinking; the woman, too, it was reported. She, that had been so
trim a serving-maid, was become a slut with a foul tongue. They were
cruelly poor with it all; for money does not always stick to unclean
hands. I write all this to my reproach as well as to theirs, for
albeit they dwelt in another parish it had been my Christian duty to
seek them out. I did not, and I was greatly to blame.

'To pass over many years and come to the 2nd of December last (1718).
That night, about 11 o'clock, I sat in my library reading. It was
blowing hard without, the wind W.N.W.; but I had forgotten the gale
in my book, when a sound, as it were a distant outcry of many voices,
fetched me to unbar the shutters and open the window to listen.
The sound, whatever it was, had died away: I heard but the wind
roaring and the surf on the beaches along the Bay: and I was closing
the window again when, close at hand, a man's voice called to me to
open the front door. I went out to the hall, where a lamp stood, and
opened to him. The light showed me the young man Luke, on whom I had
not set eyes for these four-and-twenty years: nor, amazed and
perturbed as I was, did it occur to me as marvellous that he had not
aged a day. "There is a wreck," said he, "in the Porth below here;
and you, sir, are concerned in it. Will you fetch a lantern and come
with me?" He put this as a question, but in his tone was a command:
and when I brought the lantern he took it from me and led the way.
We struck across the Home Parc southward, thence across Gew Down and
the Leazes, and I knew that he was making for the track which leads
down to the sea by Prah Sands. At the entry of the track he took off
his coat and wrapped the lantern in it, though just there its light