Of Jack Battle I saw less. He shipped with the fishing boats in the
summer and cruised with any vagrant craft for the winter. When he came
ashore he was as small and eel-like and shy and awkward as ever, with
the same dumb fidelity in his eyes.
And what a snowy maid had Rebecca become! Sitting behind her
spinning-wheel, with her dainty fingers darting in the sunlight, she
seemed the pink and whitest thing that ever grew, with a look on her
face of apple-blossoms in June; but the sly wench had grown mighty
demure with me. When I laughed over that ending to our last lesson,
she must affect an air of injury. 'Twas neither her fault nor mine, I
declare, coaxing back her good-humour; 'twas the fault of the face. I
wanted to see where the white began and the pink ended. Then Rebecca,
with cheeks a-bloom under the hiding of her bonnet, quickens steps to
the meeting-house; but as a matter of course we walk home together, for
behind march the older folk, staidly discoursing of doctrine.
"Rebecca," I say, "you did not take your eyes off the preacher for one
minute."
"How do you know, Ramsay?" retorts Rebecca, turning her face away with
a dimple trembling in her chin, albeit it was the Sabbath.
"That preacher is too handsome to be sound in his doctrine, Rebecca.
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