And after this Mark had to
undo alone the nine gates between the Vicarage and Nancepean, though
Cass would go with him as far along his road as the last light of the
village could be seen, and what was more stay there whistling for as
long as Mark could hear the heartening sound.
But if these adventures demanded the companionship of Cass, the
inspiration of them was Mark's mother. Just as in the nursery games of
Lima Street it had always been she who had made it worth while to play
with his grenadiers, which by the way had perished in a troopship like
their predecessors the light dragoons a century before, sinking one by
one and leaving nothing behind except their cork-stands bobbing on the
waves.
Mrs. Lidderdale knew every legend of the coast, so that it was thrilling
to sit beside her and turn over the musty pages of the church registers,
following from equinox to equinox in the entries of the burials the
wrecks since the year 1702:
The bodies of fifteen seamen from the brigantine _Ann Pink_ wrecked
in Church Cove, on the afternoon of Dec. 19, 1757.
The body of a child washed into Pendhu Cove from the high seas
during the night of Jan. 24, 1760.
The body of an unknown sailor, the breast tattooed with a heart and
the initials M.
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