He generally did his winter mischief on a mill and salt
marshes lower westward. Mr. Tinman had always been extremely zealous in
promoting the expenditure of what moneys the town had to spare upon the
protection of the shore, as it were for the propitiation or defiance of
the sea-god. There was a kindly joke against him an that subject among
brother jurats. He retorted with the joke, that the first thing for
Englishmen to look to were England's defences.
But it will not do to be dwelling too fondly on our eras of peace, for
which we make such splendid sacrifices. Peace, saving for the advent of a
German band, which troubled the repose of the town at intervals, had
imparted to the inhabitants of Crikswich, within and without, the
likeness to its most perfect image, together, it must be confessed, with
a degree of nervousness that invested common events with some of the
terrors of the Last Trump, when one night, just upon the passing of the
vernal equinox, something happened.
CHAPTER II
A carriage Stopped short in the ray of candlelight that was fitfully and
feebly capering on the windy blackness outside the open workshop of
Crickledon, the carpenter, fronting the sea-beach.
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