The heavy, woodland atmosphere was quickened by the salt breath of the sea. The stranger inhaled it meditatively.
“That's the reef where the Tamalpais struck,” he said, “and more'n fifty miles out of her course--yes, more'n fifty miles from where she should have bin! It don't look nat'ral. No--it--don't--look--nat'ral!”
As he seemed to be speaking to himself, the young girl, who had been gazing with far greater interest at the foreign-looking southern shore, felt confused and did not reply. Then, as if recalling her presence, Brother Seabright turned to her and said:--
“Yes, young lady; and when you hear the old bell of the Tamalpais, and think of how it came here, you may rejoice in the goodness of the Lord that made even those who strayed from the straight course and the true reckoning the means of testifying onto Him.”
But the young are quicker to detect attitudes and affectation than we are apt to imagine; and Cissy could distinguish a certain other straying in this afterthought or moral of the preacher called up by her presence, and knew that it was not the real interest which the view had evoked. She had heard that he had been a sailor, and, with the tact of her sex, answered with what she thought would entertain him:--
“I was a little girl when it happened, and I heard that some sailors got ashore down there, and climbed up this gully from the rocks below. And they camped that night--for there were no houses at West Woodlands then--just in the woods where our chapel now stands. It was funny, wasn't it?--I mean,” she corrected herself bashfully, “it was strange they chanced to come just there?”
But she had evidently hit the point of interest.
“What became of them?” he said quickly. “They never came to Horse Shoe Settlement, where the others landed from the wreck. I never heard of that boat's crew or of ANY landing HERE.”
“No. They kept on over the range south to the Mission. I reckon they didn't know there was a way down on this side to Horse Shoe,” returned Cissy.
Brother Seabright moved on and continued his slow, plodding march. But he kept a little nearer Cissy, and she was conscious that he occasionally looked at her. Presently he said:--
“You have a heavenly gift, Miss Appleby.”