Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880, page 19 by Various Authors
<< Return to Title Details & Download20
o were never for twenty-four hours in the same mind, and the game of love seemed to resolve itself into a war of extremes wherein anger, devotion, suspicion and jealousy raged by turns and afforded equal occasions of scandal and surprise. To add to their original difficulties, the lovers had now to contend against the circumstances of time and place, for during the winter, from most of the men being on shore and without occupation, conviviality and merriment were rife among them, and from Bell-ringing Night, which ushered in Gun-powder Plot, until Valentine's Day was passed, revels, dances or amusements of any kind which brought people together were welcomed and well attended. With the not unnatural desire to get away from her own thoughts, and to avoid as much as was possible the opportunity of being a looker-on at happiness in which she had no personal share, Joan greedily availed herself of every invitation which was given or could be got at, and, as was to be expected, Eve, young, fresh and a novice, became to a certain degree infected with the anxiety to participate in most of these amusements. Adam made no objection, and, though he did not join them with much spirit and alacrity, he neither by word nor deed threw any obstacle in their way to lessen their anticipation or spoil their pleasure, while Jerrem, head, chief and master of ceremonies, found in these occasions ample opportunity for trying Adam's jealousy and tickling Eve's vanity.
Nettled by the indifference which, from her open cordiality, Jerrem soon saw Eve felt toward him, he taxed every art of pleasing to its utmost, with the determination of not being baffled in his attempts to supplant Adam, who in Jerrem's eyes was a man upon whom Fortune had lavished her choicest favors. Born in Polperro, Zebedee's son, heir to the Lottery, captain of her now in all but name, what had Adam to desire? while he, Jerrem, belonged to no one, could claim no one, had no name and could not say where he came from. Down in the depths of a heart in which nothin