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Updated: May 19, 2025
She was beside him in a moment, her arm thrown affectionately about his shoulders, and her sweet face turned up close to his, all aglow with sympathy and tenderness. "Why did you leave us?" she went on with a gentle playfulness, though the tears were in her own eyes. "Whatever made you think of getting work out of Weircombe? Oh, you dissatisfied old boy! I thought you were quite happy with me!"
A letter addressed to him, and enclosed in the packet containing Helmsley's Last Will and Testament, had explained the whole situation, and had fully described, with simple fidelity, the life his old friend had led at Weircombe, and the affectionate care with which Mary had tended him, while the conclusion of the letter was worded in terms of touching farewell.
To make his way gradually down through the one little roughly cobbled street to the very edge of the sea, was one of Helmsley's greatest pleasures, and he soon got to know most of the Weircombe folk, while they in their turn, grew accustomed to seeing him about among them, and treated him with a kindly familiarity, almost as if he were one of themselves.
The little community resumed its normal habit of cheerful attendance at Church every Sunday, satisfied to have shown to the ecclesiastical powers that be, the fact that "'Igh Jinks" in religion would never be tolerated amongst them; and the life of Weircombe went on in the usual placid way, divided between work and prayer, and governed by the twin forces of peace and contentment.
Up in the primrose-carpeted woods together they talked, like good friends, of a thousand things, of the weather, of the promise of fruit in the orchards, of the possibilities of a good fishing year, and of the general beauty of the scenery around Weircombe. Then, of course, there was the book which Angus was writing a book now nearing completion.
The view of the ocean from Weircombe was very wide and grand, on sunny days it was like an endless plain of quivering turquoise-blue, with white foam-roses climbing up here and there to fall and vanish again, and when the wind was high, it was like an onward sweeping array of Titanic shapes clothed in silver armour and crested with snowy plumes, all rushing in a wild charge against the shore, with such a clatter and roar as often echoed for miles inland.
Did it not seem that, notwithstanding his, Helmsley's, self-admitted worthlessness, the Divine Power had used him for the happiness of others, to serve as a link of love between two deserving souls? He began to think that it was not by chance that he had been led to wander away from the centre of his business interests, and lose himself on the hills above Weircombe.
She echoed the name and then, stooping abruptly towards the fire, began to make it up afresh. Helmsley watched her intently. "Don't you like Mr. Reay?" he asked. She turned a smiling face round upon him. "Why, of course I like him!" she answered "I think everyone in Weircombe likes him." "I wonder if he'll ever marry?" pursued Helmsley, with a meditative air. "Ah, I wonder!
He had walked for a longer time than he knew since the cart in which he had ridden part of the way had left him at about four miles away from Weircombe, and he felt that he must sit down on the roadside and rest for a bit before going further. How cruel, how fiendish it would be, he continued to imagine, if Mary were dead! It would be devil's work! and he would have no more faith in God!
There was an earthquake up at the rect'ry this marnin' the cook there sez she never 'eerd sich a row in all 'er life an' Missis Arbroath she was a-shriekin' for a divorce at the top of 'er voice! It's a small place, Weircombe Rect'ry, an' a woman can't shriek an' 'owl in it without bein' 'eerd.
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