The Sunday morning news. [volume] (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1886-1891, 1890-08-31
ABS0l1J TElsH PURE

/ brave ship had been lured to its destruc-
ton by the false bale fires Pickering
among the jagged rocks; the booty had
been rich, and the dead men, with their
pale eyes staring heayeawards, told no
tales Legend said that she herself had
gioried in setting light to the blazing
beacons, and had been amongst the most
eager for plumber. Until one awful
night, when the wreckers decoyed q
large brig to its doom; and in the dark
ness OF the storm which dashed and
whipped the coast small fishing boat
had also mistaken the warning and had
driven straight on to the Devils Teeth,
as the ragged, saw like lire of rocks
north of the bay were called.
And when the morning dawned there
lay upon the yellow sand, half buried
with drift and tangled brown bladder
weed, two co1pses locked in each Others
arms. One was old and gray; the face
Of the other was marble white, and damp
golden rings chung to the cold brow.
AS Dinah Retallack, wandering along
the shore, came up to them, she stopped
to see, as was usual, if there was any
thing worth stripping from the bodies
before they were hurled back, half naked.
into the NAV of the sea again to be bat
tered and bruised past recognition on the
cruel, Jagged rocks.
One, the younger, had a pair of gold
rings in his ears. At the bottom of
chest in Dinahs cottage she had NUM-
Der of these, threaded on bit of tarred
sail Irvine. Here would be another pair
to add. Old Isaac Levi, certain work
ing goldsmith in back street in PEN
zance, bought such things by weight
and asked no awkward questions She
had "nice few bits and scraps to take
to him next time she went into town, she
reflected, complacent1y.
Those two rings, with white stones
shining like glass, that Job brought in
after the last great storm, when the
! merchantmen was lost Eth, poor thingi
She, may be, was the captains bride.
How whisht and dowly sight she was
lying there, her black hair all drying in
the sun-lke the weeds--and newell,
he was rare, fine man. The gold watch
was not SO much beaten about by the
rocks, only the salt water had got into
the works. But she would not sell that
Isaac should see what could be done Il
was to be her present to Benjamin, the
son Of his fathers old age, their only
child. How surprised and pleased he
would be, for he knew nothing about it,
and should not know whence it came.
Benjamin was strange in some ways,
though good lad. He did not like the
wrecking, and called it blood money
when any one took away and sold what
belonged toto them as had no use for
the like. But the captains gold watchi
He could not stand against that, for he
sorely wanted one, Dinah knew. Well,
it was no good wasting time She knelt
down by the bodies of the drowned men
and turned the face of the younger,
which lay against the wet brown weed,
to the light. Then happened that which
was not forgotten in TrevarTock for
many long year, and every one who
saw it was destined to remember it till
the grave closed over them.
A terrible, an awful cry--a shrek 90
wild and fierce that those who heard it
shuddered-went up from the kneeling
woman. It echoed round the crags and
far along the bay, bringing hurried foot
steps to the spot. Dinah Retallack lay
senseless on the sand-beside the dead
forms of her husband and son.
And since that day she had dwelt apart:
an outcast, the brand of Cain upon her,
Stunned by her fellows for her morose,
strange ways, and bitter, stranger words.
How she lived, none knew; that she was
somehow leagued with the powers Of
darkness, all believed Wrecling had
died out along the coast, though to this
day the laws of hotsam and jetsam are
loosely enough interpreted on the wild
Cornish shores.
But Dinah Retallack still remained,
an old woman of S0-a lingering relic of
the terrible old times. Her brown face
was a mass of net like wrinkles. and two
fierce black eyes blazed from under
shaggy. white brows. Once she had been
tall, but now she was bent almost double,
and always walked with crutch handled
ash stick. From Madge's childhood she
had had q secret terror Of Dinah
Strange tales were abroad respecting
her. Did not Jenny Polwhele, the
smith. die of fever after he had refused
to give her a lift on the road to Penzance7
Had not she cast the evil eye on Farmer
Yeatman's cattle last year, after his cow
herd had thrown stone at her? And
when Thoroas Beale, the Baptist minis
ter, more daring than the mild curate Of
St. Osyth's, had bearded her in her den,
she had torn the good books he had Of
fered her into shreds before his face and
had driven him from her door with
curses. So people said.
Perhaps Madge Treyylian carried
things to an extreme; but it was certain
that no one in Trevarrock liked old
Dinah, and many feared her. Even Mrs
Trevylian, with all her plain, good sense,
was not free from the prevailing feeling.
That Dinah was witch was of course
nonsense; but that she had been very
wicked woman was certain.
With trepidation Madge had awaited
the result Of Harold's knock, and when
old Dinah, after long delay, slowly
opened TIE door, she shrank back af-
frighted.
The old woman presented strange,
LII .oI x~1f