The shadow of the Wolf

About half-past eight on a fine, sunny June morning, a small yacht crept out of Sennen Cove near the Land’s End and headed for the open sea. On the shelving beach of the Cove two women and a man, evidently visitors (or “foreigners” to use the local term), stood watching her departure with valedictory waving of cap or handkerchief, and the boatman who had put the crew on board, aided by two of his comrades, was hauling his boat up above the tide-mark.

A light northerly breeze filled the yacht’s sails and drew her gradually seaward. The figures of her crew dwindled to the size of dolls; shrank with the increasing distance to the magnitude of insects; and at last, losing all individuality, became mere specks merged in the form of the fabric that bore them. At this point the visitors turned their faces inland and walked away up the beach, and the boatmen, having opined that “she be fetchin’ a tidy offing” dismissed the yacht from their minds and reverted to the consideration of a heap of netting and some invalid lobster pots.

On board the receding craft two men sat in the little cockpit. They formed the entire crew, for the Sandhopper was only a ship’s lifeboat, timbered and decked, of light draught and, in the matter of spars and canvas, what the art critics would call “reticent.”

Both men, despite the fineness of the weather, wore yellow oilskins and sou’westers, and that was about all they had in common. In other respects they made a curious contrast, the one small, slender, sharp-featured, dark almost to swarthiness, and restless and quick in his movements: the other large, massive, red-faced, blue-eyed, with the rounded outlines suggestive of ponderous strength: a great ox of a man, heavy, stolid, but much less unwieldy than he looked.

The conversation incidental to getting the yacht under way had ceased and silence had fallen on the occupants of the cockpit. The big man grasped the tiller and looked sulky, which was probably his usual aspect; and the small man watched him furtively. The land was nearly two miles distant when the latter broke the silence with a remark very similar to that of the boatman on the beach.

“You’re not going to take the shore on board, Purcell. Where are we supposed to be going to?”

“I am going outside the Longships,” was the stolid answer.

“So I see,” rejoined the other. “It’s hardly the shortest course for Penzance though.”

“I like to keep an offing on this coast,” said Purcell; and once more the conversation languished.

Presently the smaller man spoke again; this time in a more cheerful and friendly tone. “Joan Haygarth has come on wonderfully the last few months; getting quite a fine-looking girl. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes,” answered Purcell; “and so does Phil Rodney.”

“You’re right,” agreed the other. “But she isn’t a patch on her sister though; and never will be. I was looking at Maggie as we came down the beach this morning and thinking what a handsome girl she is. Don’t you agree with me?”

Purcell stooped to look under the boom and answered without turning his head:

“Yes, she’s all right.”

“All right!” exclaimed the other. “Is that the way—”

“Look here, Varney,” interrupted Purcell; “I don’t want to discuss my wife’s looks with you or any other man. She’ll do for me or I shouldn’t have married her.”