On the threshold stood an excited, red-faced man, his long sandy beard blown straight out like a pennon, and his arms moving windmill fashion as he bawled-- "A wreck! a wreck!" The men in the congregation leaped up.

The women uttered muffled cries, groped for their husbands' hats, and stood up also.

The choir in the gallery craned forward, for the church-door was right beneath them.
Parson Babbage held up his hand, and screamed out over the hubbub-- "Where's she _to ?_" "Under Bradden Point, an' comin' full tilt for the Raney!" "Then God forgive all poor sinners aboard!" spoke up a woman's voice, in the moment's silence that followed.
"Is that all you know, Gauger Hocken ?" "Iss, iss: can't stop no longer--must be off to warn the Methodeys! 'Stablished Church first, but fair play's a jewel, say I." He rushed off inland towards High Lanes, where the meeting-house stood.
Parson Babbage closed the book without finishing his sentence, and his audience scrambled out over the graves and forth upon the headland.
The wind here came howling across the short grass, blowing the women's skirts wide and straining their bonnet-strings, pressing the men's trousers tight against their shins as they bent against it in the attitude of butting rams and scanned the coast-line to the sou'-west.
Ruby Tresidder, on gaining the porch, saw Young Zeb tumble out of the stairway leading from the gallery and run by, stowing the pieces of his flute in his pocket as he went, without a glance at her.

Like all the rest, he had clean forgotten the banns.
Now, Ruby was but nineteen, and had seen plenty of wrecks, whereas these banns were to her an event of singular interest, for weeks anticipated with small thrills.

Therefore, as the people passed her by, she felt suddenly out of tune with them, especially with Zeb, who, at least, might have understood her better.