A Singular Life

VII.

JANE GRANITE stood at the foot of the steep, uncarpeted stairs. She had a stone-china cup filled with tea in her hand. She had hesitation in her mind, and longing in her heart. When the minister had sent word that he would eat no supper, it was plain that something must be done. Her mother was out, and Jane had no superior intelligence to consult. For Mrs. Granite was appointed to the doom that overtakes the women of a poor and struggling religious movement : she was ex-officio beggar for the new mission ; on this especial occasion she was charged with the duty of wringing a portion of the minister’s almost invisible salary out of the least unfriendly citizens of the town. The minister had observed her from his window, tugging at her black skirts, as she sallied forth, ankle-deep, in the slush of the February afternoon ; and his brows had darkened at the sight. For the good woman would trudge and soak five miles for — what ? Possibly five dollars. How dreary the devices of small people to achieve large ends !

To the young man who had never had to think what anything cost, the cold, pecuniary facts of his position were galling past the power of these simple people to comprehend.

He did not care too much on his own account. He felt more surprise than impatience to see his coat turn shiny and frayed, and to know that he could not get another. He was learning not to mind his straw mattress as much as he did at first, and to educate himself to going without magazines and to the quality of Mrs. Granite’s tea. When a man deliberately elects a great personal sacrifice, he does not concern himself with its details, as women are more likely to do.

But there were aspects of his chosen work to which his soul was as sore as a boy’s. He could not accustom himself with the ease of a poor man’s son to the fact that a superb, supreme faith like the Christianity of Christ must beg for its living. “ It degrades ! ” he thought, looking up from his books. “ Lowell was right when he said that no man should preach who had n’t an independent property.” His Bible fell from his clenched hand ; he picked it up penitently, and tenderly smoothed the crumpled leaf at which it had opened. Half unconsciously, he glanced, and read, “ Take no scrip in your purse.” His burning eye followed along the page ; softened, and grew moist.

“ Perhaps, on the whole,” he said aloud, “ he really knew as much about it as any American poet.”

He returned patiently to his preparation for the evening service ; for he worked hard for these fishermen and drunkards, — harder than he had ever worked at anything in his life. To make them one half hour’s talk, he read, he ransacked, he toiled, he thought, he dreamed, he prayed.

The only thing which he had asked leave to take from his uncle’s house was his own library. It piled Mrs. Granite’s spare chamber from the old brown carpet to the low and dingy ceiling. Barricades of books stood on the floor by the ugly little coal-stove, and were piled upon the stained pine table at which he sat to study in a hard wood chair with a Turkey-red cushion. Of the pictures dear to his youth and to his trained taste, but two had come through with him in the flying leap from Beacon Street to Mrs. Granite’s. Over the table in his study a fine engraving watched him. It was Guido’s great St. Michael. Above the straw mattress in the chilly closet where he slept hung a large photograph of Leonardo’s Christ ; the one from the Last Supper, as it was found in the ruined fresco on the monastery wall.

But Jane Granite stood irresolute upon the bare, steep stairs, with the stone-china teacup in her hand.

The minister had never concentrated his mind on Jane. He was a busy man. She was a modest, quiet girl ; she helped her mother “ do ” his rooms, and never slammed the door when she went out. He felt a certain gratitude to her, for the two women took trouble for him far beyond the merits of the meagre sum allowed them for his bread and codfish. But, for the life of him, if he had been required to, he could not have told anybody how Jane Granite looked. When her timid knock struck the panel of his door, he started impatiently, put down his pen, and patiently bade her enter.

“ I thought perhaps, sir, you would drink your tea ? ” pleaded Jane. “ You have n’t eaten a morsel, and mother will mind it when she comes home.”

Bayard looked at her in a dazed way ; trying to see the connection between forty-cent Japan tea and that beautiful thing said of Whitefield, that he “ forgot all else about the men before him but their immortality and their misery.”

“It ’s getting cold,” said Jane, with quivering lip. “ I stood on the stairs so long before I could make up my mind to disturb you. Let me get a hot cup, now, sir, — do ! ”

“ Why, I ’ll come down ! ” said Bayard. “ I must not make myself as troublesome as this.”

He pushed away his books, and followed her to the sitting-room, where, in default of a dining-room, and in vague deference to the antecedents of a guest popularly reported not to be used to eating in the kitchen, the meals of the family were served.

“ Maybe you ’d eat the fish-hash — a mouthful, sir ? ” asked Jane, brightening ; “ and there ’s the stewed prunes.”

Bayard looked at her, as she ran to and fro, flushed and happy at her little victory over his supperless intentions. Jane was a trig, neat body ; small, as the coast girls often are, — I wonder why ? whether because the mother was underfed, or over-anxious when the fleets were out ? Jane Granite wore a blue gingham dress, closely fitted to a pleasant figure. She had a pleasant face, too ; she had no beauty, but that certain something more attractive than beauty to many men, — a kind of compactness of feature, and an ease of outline which haunts the retina ; it is not easy to describe, but we all know it. Her mother had told the minister that Jane was keeping company — that is the Windover phrase — with some one ; the details had escaped his memory.

He looked at her now, for the first time, attentively, as she served his tea. She flitted about lightly. She sang in the kitchen when she saw him smile. When he said, “ Thank you, Jane ! You have given me a delicious supper,”a charming expression crossed her face. He observed it abstractedly, and thought, How kind these good people are to me ! The paper shades were up, and Jane wished to draw them when she lighted the kerosene lamp ; but Bayard liked to watch the sea, as he often did at twilight. The harbor was full, for the weather was coming on wild. Clouds marshaled, and broke, and retreated, and formed upon a stormy sky. The lights of anchored fleets tossed up and down in the violet-gray shadow. The breakers growled upon the opposite shore. The best thing about his lodging was its near and almost unobstructed view of the sea, which dashed against a slip of a beach between the wharves of Windover Point, within a thousand feet of Mrs. Granite’s cottage.

As he sat, sipping his green tea, and making believe with his hash, to save the feelings of the girl, — watching the harbor steadily and comfortably the while, and saying nothing, — he was startled by the apparition of a man’s face pressed stealthily against the window-pane, and disappearing as quickly as it came. Bayard was sitting between the window and the light. Jane was dishing out his prunes from a vegetable dish into a blue willow saucer, and had seen nothing. Wishing not to alarm the girl, he went to the window quietly, and looked out. As he did so, he perceived that the intruder had his hand on the knob of the front door. Bayard sprang, and the two met in the cottage entry.

“What are you doing here ? ” began Bayard, barring the way.

“ I guess I’d better ask, what are you a-doin" here ?” replied the other, crowding by the minister with one push of an athletic shoulder. "I ’m on my own ground. I ain’t so sure of you. ”

Little Jane uttered a cry, and the athletic young man strode forward, and somewhat ostentatiously put his arm about her waist.

“ Ah, I see! ” smiled the minister. “ It is strange that we have not met before. We must often have been in the house at the same time. I am a little absentminded. Perhaps it is my fault. A hundred pardons, Mr. ” —

Trawl. Ben Trawl was the name. Ben Trawl was not cordial. Perhaps that would be asking too much of the lover who had been mistaken for a burglar by another man ; and the young minister was already quite accustomed to the varying expressions with which a provincial town receives the leader of an unpopular cause. He recognized Ben Trawl now, — the young man who had the straight eyebrows, and who did not drink, who had been one of the crowd at the fight in Angel Alley on the ordination day which never had ordained.

The pastor found the situation embarrassing, and was glad when Mrs. Granite came in, soaked through and tired, with drabbled skirts.

She had collected six dollars and thirty-seven cents.

Bayard ground his teeth, and escaped to his study as soon as he could. There they heard him, pacing up and down hotly, till seven o’clock. Bayard had arranged one of those piteous attempts to “ amuse the people,” into which so much wealth of heart and brain is flung, with such atmospheric results. His notion of religions teaching did not end with the Bible, though it began there. The fishermen, who had irreverently named the present course of talks “ the Dickens,” crowded to hear them, nevertheless. The lecture of that evening (Sydney Carton, he called it) was a venture upon which Bayard had expended a good deal of thought and vitality.

Poor, wet Mrs. Granite waded out again, without a murmur, to hear it. She walked beside the minister, alone ; it was a long walk, for the new people met in the well-known hall at the head of Angel Alley.

“ Ben Trawl ’s kinder off his hook,” she explained apologetically. “ He would n’t come along of us, nor he would n’t let Jane come, neither. He has them spells.”

Jane Granite watched them off with aching heart. As he closed the door, the minister smiled and lifted his hat to her. Where was there a smile like his in all the world of men ? And where a man who thought or knew so little of the magic which his beauty wrought ?

For love of this radiance and this wonder the heart of the coldest woman of the world might have broken. Little Jane Granite looked after him till he was drowned in the dark. She came in and stood at the window, busying herself to draw the shade. But Ben Trawl watched her with half - closed eyes ; and when bright, wide eyes turn dull and narrow, beware of them !

“ Come here ! ” said Ben, in the voice of a man who had “ kept company ” with a girl for three years. In Windover, the respectable young people do not flirt or intrigue ; breach of troth is almost unknown among them. To walk with a girl on Sunday afternoon, and to kiss her Sunday evening, is to marry her, as a matter of course. Ben Trawl spoke in the imperious tone of the seafaring people who call a wife “ my woman,” and who lie on the lounge in the kitchen while she brings the water from the well. “ You come here, Jane, and sit on the sofy alongside of me ! I’ve got a word or so to say to you.”

Jane Granite came. She was frightened. She sat down beside her lover, and timidly surrendered the work-worn little hand which he seized and crushed with cruel violence within his own.

“ Mr. Granite was n’t never wholly satisfied about Ben.” Mrs. Granite was saying to the minister as they splashed through the muddy slush. “ His father ’s Trawl the liquor dealer, down to Angel Alley, opposite our place, a little below. But Jane says Ben don’t touch it ; and he don’t. I don’t know ’s I ’ve any call to come between her and Ben. He ’s a stiddy fellow and able to support her, and he ’s that fond of Jane ” —

“ He seems to be,” said Bayard musingly. His thoughts were not with Mrs. Granite. He hardly knew what she had said. He was not used to this petty, parish atmosphere. It came hard to him. He underestimated the value of these wearisome trifles in the large work performed by little people. Nothing in the world seemed to him of less importance than the natural history of Ben Trawl.

“ The wind is east,” he said abstractedly, “ and there ’s a very heavy sea on.”

He cast at the harbor and the sky the anxious look habitual with the people of Windover ; the stranger had already acquired it. He had not been a month in the fishing-town before he noticed that the women all spoke of their natural foe as the “ terrible sea.”

The hall which the new people had leased for their services and entertainments had long borne the grim name of Seraph’s Rest ; having been, in fact, for years, a sailors’ dance-hall of the darkest dye.

“ Give us,” Bayard had said, “ the worst spot in the worst street of this town. We will make it the best, or we will own ourselves defeated in our work.”

In such streets and in such places news has wings. There is no spot in Windover where rumor is run down so soon as in Angel Alley.

Bayard had talked perhaps half an hour, when he perceived by the restlessness in his crowded and attentive audience that something had happened. He read on for a moment : —

“ ‘ Are you dying for him ? ’ she whispered. ‘ And his wife and child. Hush ! Yes.'”

Then, with the perfect ease which he always sought to cultivate in that place between speaker and hearer, What is the matter ? ” he asked in a conversational tone.

“ Sir,” said an old captain, rising, “ there ’s a vessel gone ashore off Ragged Rock.”

Bayard swept his book and manuscript off the desk.

“ I was about to read you,” he said, “ how a poor fellow with a wretched life behind him died a noble death. Perhaps we can do something as grand as he did. Anyhow, we ’ll try. Come, boys !”

He thrust himself into his coat, and sprang down among the audience.

“ Come on ! You know the way better than I do ! If there ’s anything to do, we ’ll do it. Lead on, boys ! I’m with you ! ”

The audience poured into Angel Alley, with the minister in their midst. Confusion ran riot outside. The inmates of all the dens on the street were out. Unnoticed, they jostled decent citizens who had flocked as near as possible to the newsbearer. Panting and white, a hatless messenger from the lighthouse, who had run all the way at the keeper’s order to break the black word to the town, reiterated all he knew : "It ’s the Clara Em ! She weighed this afternoon under full canvas —and she ’s struck with fourteen men aboard ! I knew I could n’t raise nobody at the old Life-Saving Station ” —

“ It’s t’other side the Point, anyhow ! “ cried a voice from the crowd.

“ It’s four mile away ! ” yelled another.

“ Good heavens, man ! ” cried Bayard. “ You don’t propose to wait for them ? ”

“ I don’t see ’s there’s anything we can do.” observed the old captain deliberately. "The harbor ’s chock-full. If anybody could do anything for ’em, some o’ them coasters — but ye see there can’t no boat live off Ragged Rock in a breeze o’ wind like this.”

“ How far off is this wreck ? ” demanded Bayard, inwardly cursing his own ignorance of nautical matters and of the region. “ Can’t we get up some carts and boats and ropes, and ride over there ?”

“ It ’s a matter of three mile an’ a half,” replied the mate of a collier, “ and it’s comin’ on thick. But I hev known cases where a cart — Now there ’s them I-talians with their barnana carts.”

“ You won’t get no fog with this here breeze,” contended a very ancient skipper.

“ What ’ll you bet ? ” said the mate of the collier.

An Italian with a fruit cart was pushed forward by the crowd ; an express cart was impressed ; ropes, lanterns,and a dory appeared from no one knew where, at the command of no one knew who. Bayard suggested blankets and dry clothes. The proposal seemed to cause surprise, but these supplies were volunteered from somewhere. .

“ Pile in, boys ! ” cried the minister in a ringing voice. He sprang into one of the carts, and it filled in a moment. One of the horses became frightened at the hubbub and reared. Men swore and women shrieked. In the momentary delay, a hand reached over the wheel and plucked at Bayard’s sleeve. He flashed the lantern in his hand, and saw a woman’s strained, set face. It was Job Slip’s wife, Mari, with the little boy crying at her skirts.

“ Sir,” she said hoarsely, “ if it ’s the Clara Em, he ’s aboard of her — for they shipped him at five o’clock, though they see the storm a-comin’ — and him as drunk as death. But it’s true — he got it at Trawl’s — I see ’em lift him acrosst the wharf an’ sling him over int’ the dory.”

“ I ’ll do my best,” said Bayard, with set teeth. He reached over the wheel as the horses started, plunging, and wrung the hand of the drunkard’s wife. He could not trust himself to say more. Such a vision of what life meant to such a woman swept through Angel Alley upon the wings of the gale that he felt like a man whose eyes have beheld a panorama on a stage in hell.

Many people, as the carts rolled through the town, followed on foot, among them a few women whose husbands, sweethearts, or brothers were known to be aboard the Clara Em.

“ Here ’s an old woman with a boy aboard Seems you might find room in one them wagons for her ! ” cried a young voice. It was the girl known to Windover only by the name of Lena : she for whom the “ terrible sea “ could have no horrors ; the one woman of them from whom no betrothed lover could sail away, to whom no husband should return.

“ She ’s right about that. We must manage somehow ! ” called Bayard.

Strong hands leaned out and swept the old woman up over the wheel, and the horses galloped on.

There was neither rain nor snow ; but the storm, in the seaman’s sense of the word, was approaching its height. The wind had now become a gale, and blew southeast. The sky was ominously black. To Bayard s sensitive and excited imagination, as he looked out from the reeling wagon, the mouth of the harbor seemed to gape and grin ; the lights of the fleet, furled and anchored for dear life, lost their customary pleasant look, and snapped and shone like teeth in the throat of a monster.

The wagons rolled on madly ; the horses, lashed to their limit of speed, leaped down Windover Point. They had now left the road, and were dashing across the downs which stretched a mile farther to the eastern shore. The roughness of the route had become appalling, but a Cape horse is as used to boulders as a Cape fisherman ; neither wagon overset, though both rolled like foundering ships. The lanterns cut swaths of light in the blackness which bounding wheels and racing heels mowed down before them.

Walls of darkness rose ahead, and at the outermost, uttermost, margin roared the sea. It seemed to Bayard as if the rescuing party were plunging into eternal mystery.

The old woman whose son was aboard the Clara Em crouched at the minister’s feet. Both sat in the dory, which filled the wagon, and which was packed with passengers. The old woman’s bare hands were clenched together, and her lips shut like iron hinges. Bayard wondered at her massive silence. It was something primeval, solemn, outside of his experience. The women of the shore, in stress like hers, would weep, would sob or shriek. But to the women of the sea this anguish was as old as life itself : to it they were born, and of it they were doomed to die ; they bore it as they did the climate of the freezing Cape.

“That there saving service could n’t ha ’done nothin’ agin a wreck on Ragged Rock if they wanted to,” observed the old captain (they called him Captain Hap), peering from the wagon towards the harbor shore. “ It ’s jest ’s I told ye ; they re too fur — five mile across.”

“ But why is there no station nearer ? ” demanded Bayard, with the warmth of inexperience. “ Why is nothing put over here, if this reef is so bad, where it is needed ? ”

“ Wall,”said Captain Hap, with deliberation, “ that ’s a nateral cpiestion for a land-lubber. Every seaman knows there ain’t no need of gettin’ wrecked on that there reef. It ’s as plain as the beard on your face. Windover Light to the westward, Twin Lights to the east’ard, a fogbell, and a bell-buoy, and a whistlin’-buoy — Lord ! why, everybody knows how to keep off Ragged Rock ! ”

“ Then how did this vessel happen to strike ? ” persisted Bayard.

The men interchanged glances, and no one answered him.

“ Hi there ! Look, look ! I see her ! I see her spars ! ” yelled a young fellow on the front seat of the wagon. “ It ’s her ! It’s the Clara Em ! . . . Lord A’mighty! what in——was they thinkin’ of ? She’s got on full canvas ! See her ! see her ! see her ! See her lights ! It’s her, and she ’s bumpin’ on the reef! ”

Cries of horror ran from lip to lip. The driver lashed his horses onward, and the men in the wagons flung their lanterns to and fro in uncontrollable excitement. Some leaped over the wheels and ran shouting against the gale.

“ Clara Em, ahoy ! Clara Em, ahoy !”

But the old woman at Bayard’s feet sat still. Only her lips moved. She stared straight ahead.

“ Is she praying ? or freezing? Perhaps she ’s out of her mind,”thought Bayard.

He gently pulled her blanket shawl closer over her bare head, and wrapped it around her before he sprang from the wagon.

VIII.

There was but little depth of snow upon the downs and cliffs, but such as remained served to reflect and to magnify all possible sources of light. These were few enough and sorely needed. The Windover Light, a revolving lantern of the second power, is red and strong. It flashed rapidly, now blood-red, and now lamp-black. Bayard thought of the pillar of fire and cloud that led the ancient people. There should have been by rights a moon ; and breaks in battalions of clouds, at rare intervals, let through a shimmer paler than darkness, though darker than light. Such a reduction of the black tone of the night had mercifully befallen, when the staggering wagons clattered and stopped upon the large oval pebbles of the beach.

The fog, which is shy of a gale, especially at that season of the year, had not yet come in, and the vessel could be clearly seen. She lay upon the reef, broadside to the breakers ; she did not pitch, but, to a nautical eye, her air of repose was the bad thing about her. She was plainly held fast. Her red portlight, still burning, showed as each wave went down, and the gray outlines of her rigging could he discerned. Her foremast had broken off about five feet from the deck, and the spar, held by the rigging, was ramming the sides of the vessel.

The astonishing rumor was literally true. The Clara Em, one of the famous fishermen of which Windover was too proud to be vain ; the Clara Em, newly built and nobly furnished, — none of your old-time schooners, clumsy of hulk and rotten of timbers, but the fastest runner on the coast, the stanchest keel that cleft the harbor, fine in her lines as a yacht, and firm in her beams as an ocean steamer ; the Clara Em, fearing neither gods nor men nor weather, and bound for Georges’ on a three weeks’ fresh-fishing trip, had deliberately weighed anchor in the teeth of a March southeaster, and had flung all her clean, green-white sails to the gale. As nearly as could be made out from the shore, she had every stitch up, and not a reef to her face, and she lay over against the rock like a great eagle whose wings were broken. Even a landsman could comprehend the nature of this daredevil act ; and Bayard, running to lend a hand to slide the dory from the wagon, uttered an exclamation of indignant horror.

“ How did this happen ? Were they mad ? ”

“ Full,” replied the old captain laconically.

“ Yes, I see she ’s under full sail. But why ? ” he persisted innocently.

The old captain, with a curious expression, flashed a lantern in the young minister’s face, but made no reply.

Cries could now be heard from the vessel ; for the wind, being dead off, bore sounds from sea to shore which could by no means travel from shore to sea. Ragged Rock was a rough spot in the kindest weather ; and in that gale, and with the wind in that direction, the roar and power of the surf were great. But it should be remembered that the blow had not been of long duration ; hence the sea was not what it would be in a few hours, if the gale should hold. In this fact lay the only possible chance of extending rescue in any form to the shipwrecked crew.

“ Clara Em, aho—oy—oy ! ” yelled a dozen voices. But the united throats of all Windover could not have made themselves articulate to the straining ears upon the schooner,

“ Where ’s yer crew ? Show up, there ! Can’t ye do nothin’ for yerselves ? Where ’s yer dories ? Hey ? What ? Clara Em, aho—oy—oy ! ”

“ They ’re deef as the two years’ drownded, “ said the old captain. “ An’ they ain’t two hundred feet from shore.”

“ Why, then surely we can save them ! ” exclaimed Bayard joyfully. But no man assented to the cheerful words.

The dory, a strong specimen of its kind, was now out of the wagon, and a score of arms dragged it over the pebbles. The surf dashed far up the beach, splashing men, boat, wagon, horses. Against the cliff the spray rose a hundred feet, hissing, into the air. The old captain watched the sea and measured the incoming rollers with his deep-set eye.

“ Ye cayn’t do it,” he pronounced. “ There ain’t a dory in Windover can live in that,”— he pointed his gaunt arm at the breakers.

“ Anyhow, we ’ll try ! ” rang out a strong voice.

Cries from the wreck arose again. Some of the younger men pushed the dory off. Bayard sprang to join them.

“ I can row!" he cried, with boyish eagerness. “ I was stroke at Harvard ! ” “ This ain’t Charles River,” said one of the men. “ Better stand back, Parson.”

They kindly withstood him, and leaped in without him, four of them, seamen born and bred. They ran the dory out into the surf. He held his lantern high to light them. In their wet oilskins, their rough, wild outlines looked like divers, or like myths of the deep. They leaped in and seized the oars with one of the wild cries of the sailor who goes to his duty, his dinner, or his death by the rhythm of a song or the thrill of a shout. The dory rose on a tremendous comber, trembled, turned, whirled, and sank from sight. Then came yells, and a crash.

“ There!” howled Captain Hap, stamping his foot, “ I told ye so ! ”

“ She ’s over ! ”

“ She ’s busted ! ”

“ She ’s smashed to kindlin’-wood ! ”

“ Here they be ! Here they come ! Haul ’em in ! ”

The others ran out into the surf, and helped the brave fellows, soaked and discomfited, up the beach. They were badly bruised, and one of them was bleeding.

The pedestrians from the town had now come up, — groups of men, and the few women ; and a useless crowd stood staring at the vessel. A big third wave rolled over and smashed the port-light.

“ It ’s been going on all these ages,” thought Bayard, — “ the helpless shore against the almighty sea.”

“ Only two hundred feet away ! ” he cried. “ I can’t see why something can’t be done ! I say, something shall ! Where are your ropes ? Where are your wits ? Where is all your education to this kind of thing ? Are you going to let them drown before your eyes ?”

“ There ain’t no need of goin’ so far’s that,”said the old captain, with the aggravating serenity of his class. “ If she holds till it ebbs, they can clomber ashore, every man-jack of ’em. Ragged Rock ain’t an island except at flood. It ’s a long, p’inted tongue o’rock runnin’ along, — so. You don’t understand it, Parson. Why, they could eenymost walk ashore, come mornin’, if she holds.”

“ It’s a good pull from now till sunup,”objected a fisherman. “ And it ’s the question if she don’t break up.”

“ Anyhow, I ’m going to try,” insisted Bayard. A rope ran out through his hands, shot high into the air, fell into the wind, and dropped into the breakers. It had carried about ten feet. For the gale had taken the stout cable between its teeth, and tossed it as a dog does a skein of silk, played with it, shook it to and fro, and hurled it away. The black lips of the clouds closing over the moon seemed to open and grin as the old captain said, “ You ken keep on tryin’ long ‘s you hev the inclination. Mebbe the women-folks will feel better for ’t; but you cay—n’t do it.”

“ Can’t get a rope to a boat two hundred feet away ? ” demanded Bayard.

“ Not without apparatus, no, sir ! Not in a blow like this here.” The old seaman raised his voice to a bellow to make himself audible twelve feet away. “ Why, it ’s reelly quite a breeze o’ wind,”he said.

“ Then what can we do ? ” persisted Bayard, facing the beach in great agitation. “ What are we here for, anyhow ? ”

“We ken watch for’em to come ashore,” replied the captain grimly.

Turning, in a ferment half of anger, half of horror, to the younger men, Bayard saw that some one was trying to start a bonfire. Driftwood had been collected from dry spots in the rocks, — or had a bucket of coal-tar been brought by some thoughtful hand ? — and in a little cave at the foot of the cliff, a woman, upon her knees in the shallow snow, was sheltering a tiny blaze within her two hands. It was the girl Lena. She wore a woolen cap, of the fashion called a Tam o’ Shanter, and a coarse fur shoulder cape. Her rude face showed suddenly in the flaming light. It was full of anxious kindliness. He heard her say, “ It ’ll hearten ’em, anyhow. It ’ll show ’em they ain’t deserted of God and men-folks too.”

“ Where ’s my old lady ?” added the girl, looking about. “I want to get her up to this fire. She’s freezing somewheres.”

“ Look alive, Lena ! There she is ! ” called one of the fishermen. He pointed to the cliff that hung over Ragged Rock. The old woman stood on the summit, and on the edge. How she had climbed there, Heaven knew ; no one had seen or aided her. She stood, bent and rigid, with her blanket shawl about her head. Her gray hair blew back from her forehead in two lean locks. Black against the darkness, stone carved out from stone, immovable, dumb, a statue of the storm, she stared out straight before her. She seemed a spirit of the wind and wet, a solemn figurehead, an anathema or a prayer ; symbol of a thousand watchers frozen on a thousand shores, — woman as the sea has made her.

The girl had clambered up the cliff like a cat, and could be seen putting her arms around the old woman and pleading with her. She did indeed succeed so far as to persuade her down to the fire, where she chafed the poor old creature’s hands, and held to her shrunken lips a bottle of Jamaica ginger that some fisherman’s wife had brought. But the old woman refused.

“ Keep it for Johnny,” she said, “ till he gets ashore.” It was the only thing she had been heard to say that night.

She pushed the ginger away, and crawled back to her solitary station on the cliff. Some one said. “ Let be ! Let her be! ”

And some one else said. “ Whar’s the use ? ”

At that moment a voice arose : “ There’s the cap’n ! There ‘s Joe Salt, cap’n of the Clara Em! He ’s acrosst the bowsprit signalin’! He ’s tryin’ to communicate ! ”

“ We have n’t seen another living figure moving across that vessel,” said Bayard, whose inexperience was as much perplexed as his humanity was distressed and thwarted by the situation. “ I see one man — on the bows — yes. But where are the rest ? You don’t suppose they ’re washed overboard already ? Oh, this is horrible ! ”

He was overwhelmed at the comparative. almost indifferent calmness of his fellow-townsmen.

The light-keeper and the old captain had run out upon the reef. They held both hands to their ears. The shouts from the vessel continued. Every man held his breath. The whirling blast, like the cone of a mighty phonograph, bore a faint articulation from the wreck.

“ Oh ! ” cried the young minister. “ He says they ’re all sunk ! ”

He Was shocked to hear a laugh issue from the lips of Captain Hap, and to see, in the light of the fire, something like a smile upon the keeper’s face.

“ You don’t understand, sir,” said one of the fishermen respectfully. “ He says they ’re all ” —

“ May as well out with it, Bob,” said another. “ The parson ’s got to get his initiation someways. Cap’n Salt says they ‘re drunk, sir. The crew of the Clara Em is all drunk.”

At this moment a terrible shriek rang above the roar of the storm. It came from the old woman on the top of the cliff.

Her eyes had been the first, but they were not the only ones now, to perceive the signs of arousing life upon the wreck.

A second man was seen to climb across the bows, to pause for an instant, and then to plunge. He went out of sight in a moment. The inrolling surf glittered in the blaze of the bonfires like a cataract of flame. The swimmer reappeared, struggled, threw up his arms, and disappeared.

“ I have stood this as long ns I can,” said Bayard in a low, firm voice. “ Give me a rope ! Tie it around me, some of you, and hold on ! I’m going to try to save that man.”

“ I ’ll go myself,” said one of the fishermen slowly.

“ Bob,” replied the minister, “ how many children have you ? ”

“ Eleven, sir.”

“ Stay where you are, then,” said Bayard. “ Such things are for lonely men.”

“ Bring the rope ! ” he commanded. “ Tie it yourselves — you know how — in one of your sailor’s-knots ; something that will hold. I ’m a good swimmer. I saved a man once on a yachting trip. Quick, there ! Faster ! ” “ There ’s another ! ” yelled the lightkeeper. “ There ’s a second fellar jumped overboard — swimming for his life ! Look, look, look ! He ’s sunk — no, he ain’t, he ain’t! He ’s bearing down against the rocks — My God ! Look at him ! look, look, look ! ”

Busy hands were at the rope about the minister’s waist ; they worked slowly, from sheer reluctance to do the deed. Bayard stamped the beach with divine impatience. His head whirled with such exaltation that he scarcely knew who touched him ; he made out to perceive that Ben Trawl was one of the men who offered to tie the bow-line ; he heard the old captain say shortly, “ I ’ll do it myself ! ”

He thought he heard little Jane Granite cry out, and that she begged him not to go, “ for his people’s sake,” and that Ben Trawl roughly silenced her. Strangely, the words that he had been reading — what ages since ! — in the hall in Angel Alley spun through his mind.

“ ‘ Are you dying for him ? ’ she whispered. ‘ And his wife and child. Hush ! Yes.’ ”

So ! This is the “ terrible sea ” ! This is what drowning means : this mortal chill; this crashing weight upon the lungs, the heart ; this fighting for a man’s breath ; this asphyxia ; this battle with wind and water, night and might ; this being hurled out into chaos, gaining a foot, and losing three ; this sight of something human yonder hurtling towards you on the billow which bears you back from it ; this struggling on again, and sweeping back, and battling out !

Blessing on the “ gentleman’s muscle,” trained in college days to do man’s work ! Thanks to the waters of old Charles River and of merry Newport for their unforgotten lessons ! Thank God for that wasted liberal education, — yes, and liberal recreation, — if it teach the arm, and fire the nerve, and educate the soul to save a drunken sailor now ! But save ? Can human power save that sodden creature, — only wit enough left in him to keep afloat and drift, dashing inward on the rocks ? He swirls like a chip. But his cry is the mortal cry of flesh and blood.

Bayard’s strangling lips move : “Now, Almighty Father, Maker of Heaven and Earth ” —

There were mad shouts upon the beach. A score of iron hands held to the line, and fifty men said to their souls, “That is a hero’s deed.” Some one flung the rest of the pailful of tar upon the fire, and it blazed up. The swimmer saw the yellow color touch the comber that broke above his head. The rope tightened like the hand of death upon his chest. Caught, perhaps ? Ah, there ! It has grazed the reef, and the teeth of the rock are gnawing at it ; so a mastiff gnaws at the tether of his chained foe, to have the fight out unimpeded.

“ If it cuts through I am gone,” thought Bayard. “ And Jesus Christ Thy Son, our Lord and Saviour.”

“ Haul in ! Haul in, I say ! Quick ! Haul ’em in for life’s sake, boys ! She tautens to the weight of two. The parson ’s got him ! ”

The old captain jumped up and down on the pebbles like a boy. Wet and glittering, through hands of steel, the line sped in.

“ Does she hold ? Is she cut ? Haul in, haul in, haul in ! ”

The men broke into one of their sudden, natural choruses, moving rhythmically to the measure of their song : —

As he felt his feet touch bottom, Bayard’s strength gave way. Men ran out as far as they could stand in the undertow, and seized and held and dragged, some the rescuer, some the rescued ; and so they all came dripping up the beach.

The rope dropped upon the pebbles, cut to a single strand.

Bayard was with difficulty persuaded to release his rigid clutch from the shoulder of the fisherman, who fell in a shapeless mass at his preserver’s feet. The light of the tar fire flared on the man’s bloated face. It was Job Slip.

“ Where’s the other ? ” asked Bayard faintly. “ There were two.”

He dimly saw, through streams of water, that something else had happened ; that men were running over the rocks, and collecting in a cleft, and stooping down to look, and that most of them turned away as soon as they had looked.

The old woman’s was the only quiet figure of them all. She had not left her place upon the cliff, but stood bent and stiff, staring straight ahead. He thought he heard a girl’s voice say : —

“ Hush ! Don’t talk so loud. She does n’t know — it ‘s Johnny ; and he’s been battered to jelly on the rocks.”

“ Mr. Bayard, sir,” said Job, who had crawled up and got as far as his knees, “ I was n’t wuth it.”

“ That ’s so,” said a candid bystander, with an oath.

“ Then be worth it ! ” said Bayard in a loud voice. He seemed to have thrown all that remained to him of soul and body into those four words : as he spoke them, he lifted his dripping arms high above his head, as if he appealed from the drunkard to the sky ; then he sank.

The gentlest hands in the crowd caught him, and the kindest hearts on the coast throbbed when the old captain called :

“ Boys ! Stand back ! Stir up the fire ! Where’s the dry blankets ? There’s plenty to ’tend to Johnny. Dead folks can bury their dead folks. Hurry up them dry clo’es an’ that there Jamaiky ginger! This here’s a livin’ man. Just a drop, sir — here. I ‘11 hold ye kinder easy. Can’t ? What ? Sho! . . . Boys, the parson ’s hurt.”

At that moment, a sound, solemn and sinister, reverberated from the tower of the lighthouse. The iron lips of the fogbell opened and spoke.

IX.

Captain Map had reached the years when a trip to the Grand Banks is hard work, dory-fishing off the coast a doubtful pleasure, and even yachting in an industrial capacity a burden. He had a quick eye, a kind heart, a soft foot, and the gentle touch strangely enough sometimes to be found in hands that have hauled in the cod-line and the main-sheet for fifty years. In short, Captain Hap made an excellent nurse, and sometimes served his day and generation in that capacity.

Bayard lay on the straw mattress under the photograph of Leonardo’s Christ, and thoughtfully watched Captain Hap. It was the first day that conversation had presented itself to the sick man in the light of a privilege ; and he worked up to the luxury slowly through intervals of delicious silence.

“ Captain Hap, I am quite well now — as you see. I must speak next Sunday.”

“ Call it Sunday arter,” suggested Captain Hap.

“ It was only a scratch on the head, was n’t it, Cap’n ? And this cold. It is a bad cold.”

“ For a cold, yes, sir, — quite a cold. You see, it anchored onto your lungs : there air folks that call such colds inflammation. That there cut on the head was a beautiful cut, sir ; it healed as healthy as a collie dog’s, or a year-old baby’s. We ’ll have you round now, sir, before you can say Cap’n Hap ! ”

“ Cap’n Hap ? ”

“ Well, sir ? ”

“ You ’ve done something for me, — I don’t know just what : whether it ’s my life that ’s saved, or only a big doctor’s bill.”

“ Ask Mrs. Granite, sir, and that there handy girl of hers ; we ’re all in it. You kept the whole crew on deck for a few days. You was a sick man for a spell.”

“ Captain, I am a well man now ; and there ’s one thing I will know. I‘ve asked you before. I’ve asked when I was out of my head, and I’ve asked when I was in it, and I’ve never got an answer yet. Now I ’m going to have it.”

“ Be you ? ” said Captain Hap. His small, dark, soft eyes twinkled gently ; but they took on lustre of metal across the iris, as if a spark of iron or flint had hit them.

“ It is time,” replied Bayard, “ that I knew all about it.”

“Meaning ” — began the captain softly.

“ Meaning everything,” said Bayard impatiently. “ The whole story. It ’s the best thing for me. I dream about it so.”

“ Yes, I’ve noticed your dreams was bad,” replied the nurse soothingly.

“ Captain, where ’s the Clara Em ?”

“ To the bottom,” responded the fisherman cheerfully.

“ And the men ? The crew ? Her captain ? Job Slip ? How many were drowned ? Out with it, Cap’n ! I’m not very easy to deceive when I’m in my senses. You may as well tell me everything.”

“ Mebbe I mought,” observed the captain. “ Sometimes it ’s the best way. There was n’t but one of ’em drowned, sir, — more ’s the pity.”

Bayard uttered an exclamation of shocked rebuke and indignation ; but the old captain sat rocking to and fro in Mrs. Granite’s best wooden rocking-chair, with the placid expression of those who rest from their labors, and are not afraid that their works should follow them.

“ Fellars that ’ll take a new fisherman — a regular dandy like that — and smash her onto Ragged Rock, bein’ in the condition those fellars were, ain’t worth savin’! ” said the seaman severely. “ Your treasurer here, J. B. S. Bond, he says last time he come to see you, says he, ‘ The whole of ’em warn’t worth our minister ! ’ ”

“ I must speak to Mr. Bond about that,” said the young man, with a clerical ring in his voice, “ It was n’t a proper thing for him to say. Who was drowned, Captain Hap ?”

“ Only Johnny,” replied the captain indifferently. “ He was born drunk, Johnny was ; his father was so before him, and three uncles. He ain’t any great loss.”

“ Did you see Johnny’s mother, Captain, — on the cliff, there, — that night?”

“ I did n’t take notice of her particular,” replied Captain Hap comfortably. “ I see several women round. There ’s usually a good many on the rocks, such times.”

“ Well, you ’ve got me,”said Bayard, with a smiling sigh. “ I ’m a little too weak to play the parson on yon yet, you Christian heathen, you stony-hearted minister of mercy ’. ”

“ Sho ! “ said the captain. “ ’T ain’t fair to call names. I can’t hit back, on a sick man.”

“ Very well,” said Bayard, sinking back on his thin, small pillows. “ Just go ahead and tell me the whole business, then. Where is Job Slip ? ”

“ Off haddockin’.”

“ Sober ? ”

“ So far. He’s come over here half a dozen times, but the doctor would n’t let him up to see you. His wife come, too. That woman, she ’d kiss the popples¹ underneath your rubber-boots.”

“ Where ’s Johnny’s mother ? ”

“ They took her to the Widders’ Home yesterday. Some of ’em screeches all the way over. Folks say she never said nothing,”

“ What became of all those men,— the crew and captain ? ”

“ Why, they waited till ebb, just as I told you. Then they come ashore, the whole twelve on ’em. The crew they come first, and Cap’n Salt — that ’s Joe Salt — he fullered after. There was some folks waited round to see ’em off ; but it come up dreadful thick, spite of the breeze, — so thick it had stems to it. You could n’t see the vessel, not a line of her, and t was kinder cold and disagree’ble. So most the folks went home. But they got ashore, every man-jack of ’em alive.”

“ Thank God ’ ” breathed the sick man.

“ Well,” said the captain, “ that’s a matter of opinion. You’ve talked enough, sir ! ”

“Just one more, Cap’n Hap I Just this ! This I’ve got to know. What was it — exactly — that those men did ? How did they come to be in such a plight ? How in the world — that beautiful new boat — and an intelligent officer at the helm, Captain — how oil earth did it come about ? ”

“ The Clara Em was sot to sail,” replied Captain Hap calmly. “ That’s about all. Her owners they were sot, and her cap’n he was sot. It was the sotness done it. They ’d make the market first, you see, if they got the start, — and it’s a job gettin your crew aboard, you know. Anything to get your crew. Drunk or sober, that is n’t the point. Drunker they be, the easier to ship ’em. See ? Get your crew. Get ’em anyhow! They was all full, every mother’s son of ’em. Cap’n Joe, he was the only sober soul aboard, and that’s the truth, and he knew it when he set sail. Yes — oh yes. The storm was coinin’. He knew it was breezin’up. Oh yes, of course. So he got some sober men off the wharves to help him at the sheets, and he put up every stitch. Yes, sir ! every stitch he had ! And out he sails, with thirteen drunken men aboard, — him at the wheel, and not a hand to help him. That’s the English on ’t. The boat was d——drunk, beg your pardon, Parson ! He driv right out the harbor, and it was a sou’easter, and blew quite a breeze o’ wind, and you see he tacked, and set in, and he was tackin’ out, and it had breezed up eonsider’ble more ’n he expected. So he drove right on the reef. That’s about it.”

“ But why did n’t he take in sail? ”

“ How was he goin’ to do it with that crew ? Why, he could n’t leave the wheel to tie a reef-point.”

“ But there was his anchor.”

“ Did you ever try to heave one of them big anchors ? It takes four men.” “ What a situation ! Horrible ! ”

“ Wall, yes, it was inconvenient, — him at the wheel, and a dead-drunk crew, thirteen of ’em, below. Why, they was too drunk to know whether they drowned or not.”

“ Can the boat be raised ? Will she ever be good for anything ? ”

“ Kindlin’ wood,” remarked the captain dryly.

“ Captain Hap,” asked Bayard feebly, “ do things like this often happen ? ”

“ Sometimes.”

“ Is n’t this an extreme case ? ”

“ Wall, it don’t happen every day.”

“ But things of this kind, — do they occur often ? Do you know of other cases ? ”

“ Windover don’t have the monopoly of ’em, by no means,” mused Captain Hap. "There was the Daredevil over on South Shore. She was launched about a year ago. She went on a trial spin one day, and everybody aboard was pretty jolly. They put all their canvas up to show her off. It was a nor’wester that day, and they driv her right before the wind. She jest plunged bows down, and driv straight to the bottom, the Daredevil did. Some said it was her name. But, Lord ! rum done it.”

“ What do people say, how do they take it here in Windover, this case of the Clara Em? Were n’t they indignant?” “ Wall, the insurance folks was mad.” “ No, but the people, the citizens, the Christian people, — how do they feel about it ? ”

“ Oh, they’re used to it.”

Bayard turned wearily on his hard bed. He did not answer. He looked out and towards the sea. The engraved Guido over the study-table between the little windows regarded him. St. Michael was fighting with his dragon still.

“ He never got wounded,” thought the sick man.

“ Captain,” he said presently, “ these rooms seem to be full of — pleasant things. Who sent them all ? ”

“ Them geraniums and other greens ? Oh, the ladies of the mission, every mother’s daughter of ’em, married and single, young an’ old. Jellies? Lord! yes. Jellies enough to stock a branch grocery. What there is in the female mind, come to sickness, that takes it out in jellies "— mused the captain.

“ I ’ve taken solid comfort out of this screen,” said Bayard gratefully. “ I did suffer with the light before. Who sent that ? ”

“ That’s Jane Granite’s idee,” replied the captain. "She seems to be a clever girl. Took an old clo’es-horse and some rolls of wall-paper they had in the house.

They give fifteen cents a roll for that paper. It’s kinder tasty, don’t you think? ‘Specially that cherubim with blue wings settin’ on a basket of grapes.”

“ That reminds me. I see — some Hamburg grapes,” said Bayard, with the indifferent air of a man who purposely puts his vital question last. He pointed to a heaping dish of hothouse fruit and other delicacies never grown in Windover.

The captain replied that those come from the Boston gentleman ; they ’d kept coming all along. He thought she said there was a card to ’em by the name of —

“ Worcester ? “ asked the sick man quickly.

That was it, — Worcester.

“ He has n’t been here, has he ? The gentleman has n’t called to see me ? ”

The nurse shook his head, and Bayard turned his own away. He would not have believed that his heart would have leaped like that at such a little thing. He felt like a sick boy, sore and homesick with the infinite longing for the love of kin. It was something to know that he was not utterly forgotten. He asked for one of the Boston pears, and ate it with pathetic eagerness.

“ There ’s been letters,” said the captain ; “ but the doctor’s orders are ay’in’ your seeing ’em this week. There ’s quite a pile. You see, its bein’ in the papers let folks know.”

“ In the papers! What in the papers ? ”

“ What do you s’pose ? ” asked the captain proudly. “ A fellar don’t swim out in the undertow off Ragged Rock to save a d——fool of a drunken fisherman every day.”

“ I ’ll be split and salted,” added the fisherman-nurse, “ if we did n’t have to have a watchman here three nights when you was worst, to keep the reporters off ye! Thirteen Windover fellars volunteered for the job, and they would n’t none of ’em take a cent for it. They said they’d set up forty nights for you.”

“For me ? ” whispered the sick man. His eyes filled for the first time since the Clara Em went ashore on Ragged Rock. Something new and valuable seemed to have entered life as suddenly as the comfort of kin and the support of friends, and that bright, inspiriting atmosphere, which one calls the world, had gone from him. He had not expected that precious thing, — the love of those for whom we sacrifice ourselves. He felt the first thrill of it with gratitude touching to think of, in so young and lovable a man, with life and all its brilliant and beautiful possibilities before him.

It was an April night, and sea and sky were soft in Windover.

A stranger stood in Angel Alley, hesitating at a door which bore above its open welcome these seven words : —

“ THE CHURCH OF THE LOVE OF CHRIST.”

“ What goes on here ? ” the gentleman asked of a bystander.

“ Better things than ever went on here before,” was the reply. kThey ’ve got a man up there. He ain’t no dummy in a minister’s choker.”

The stranger put another question.

“ Well,”came the cordial answer, “ he has several names in Angel Alley : fisherman’s friend is one of the most pop’lar. Some calls him the gospel cap’n. There ’s those that prefers jest to say, the new minister. There ’s one name he don’t go by very often, and that ’s the Reverend Bayard.”

“ He has no right to the title,” murmured the stranger.

“ What ’s that ? ” interposed the other quickly.

The stranger made no reply.

“ Some call him the Christ’s Rest man,” proceeded the bystander affably.

“ That is a singular — ah — remarkable cognomen. How comes that ? ”

“ Why, you see, the old name for this place was Seraph’s Rest : it was the wust hell in Angel Alley — see ? — before he took it up an’ sot to prayin’ in it. So folks got it kinder mixed with the Love of Christ up on that sign there. Some calls the place Christlove, for short. I heard an I-talian call him the Christman t’other day.”

The stranger took off his hat by instinct, it seemed, unconsciously ; glanced at the inscription above the door, and passed thoughtfully up the steep, bare stairs into the hall or room of worship.

The service was already in progress, for the hour was late, and the gentleman observed with an air of surprise that the place was filled. He looked about for a comfortable seat, but was forced to content himself with standing-room in the extreme rear of the hall. Crowds overflowed the wooden settees, brimmed into the aisles, and were packed, in serried rows as tight as codfish in a box, against the wall. The simile of the cod was forced upon his mind in more senses than one. A strong whiff of salt fish assailed him on every side. This was varied by reminiscences of glue factories, taking unmistakable form. An expression of disgust crossed the stranger’s face ; it quickly changed into that abstraction which indicates the presence of moral emotion too great for attention to trifles.

The usual New England religious audience was not to be seen in the Church of the Love of Christ in Angel Alley. The unusual, plainly, was. The wealth and what the Windover Topsail called the society of Windover were sparsely represented on those hard settees. The clean, sober faces of respectable families were out in good force ; these bore the earnest, half-perplexed, wholly pathetic expression of uninfiuential citizens who find themselves suddenly important to and responsible for an unpopular movement ; a class of people who do not get into fiction or history, and who deserve a quality of respect and sympathy which they do not receive ; the kind of person who sets us to wondering what was the personal view of the situation dully revolving in the minds of Peter and the sons of Zebedee when they put their nets to dry upon the shores of Galilee, and tramped up and down Palestine at the call of a stronger and diviner mind, wondering what it meant and how it would all end.

These good people, not quite certain whether their own reputations were injured or bettered by the fact, sat side by side with men and women who are not known to the pews of churches. The homeless were there, and the hopeless, the sinning, the miserable, the disgraced, the neglected, the “ rats ” of the wharves and the outcasts of the dens.

The stranger stood packed in, elbow to elbow, between an Italian who served the country of his adoption upon the town waterworks, and a dark - browed Portuguese sailor. American fishermen, washed and shaven, in their Sunday clothes, filled the rear seats. Against the wall, lines of rude, red faces crowded like cattle at a spring : men of the sea and the coast, men without homes or characters ; that uninteresting and dangerous class which we dismiss in two idle words as the “ floating population.” Some of these men were sober ; some were not ; others were hovering midway between the two conditions : all were orderly, and a few were listening with evidences of emotion to the hymn, in which by far the greater portion of the audience joined. A girl wearing a Tam o’ Shunter and a black fur cape, and singing in a fine, untrained contralto, held her hymn-book over the settee to the Italian.

“ Come, Tony ! Pass it along ! ” she whispered. “ I can get on without it. Make ’em pile in and sing along the wall there ! ”

With rude and swelling cadence the fishermen sang : —

Their voices and their hearts rose high on
one of those plaintive popular melodies
of which music need never be ashamed.

The stranger, who had the appearance of a religious man, joined in the chorus heartily ; he shared the book which the girl had given to the Italian, who came in a bar too late, and closed the stanza on a shrill solo, —

This little incident excited a trifling smile ; but it faded immediately, for the preacher had arisen. His appearance was greeted with a respect which surprised the stranger. The audience at once became grave even to reverence ; the Italian cuffed a drunken Portuguese who was under the impression that responses to the service were expected of him ; the girl in the Tam o’ Shanter shook a woman who giggled beside her. A fisherman whispered loudly, “ Shut up there ! The parson ain’t quite tough yet. Keep it quiet for him ! Shut up there, along the wall! ”

There is nothing like a brave deed to command the respect of seafaring men. Emanuel Bayard, when he plunged into the undertow after Job Slip’s drunken, drowning body, swam straight into the heart of Windover. A rough heart that is, but a warm one, none warmer on the freezing coast, and sea-going Windover had turned the sunny side of its nature, and taken the minister in. The standards by which ignorant men judge the superior classes — their superb indifference to any scale of values but their own — should deserve more study than they receive.

It had never occurred to Bayard, who was only beginning to learn to understand the nature of his material, that he had become in three weeks the hero of the wharves and the docks, the romance of Angel Alley, the admiring gossip of the Banks and Georges’, the pride and wonder of the Wind over fishermen. Quite unconscious of this “ sea change,” wrought by one simple, manly act upon his popularity, he rose to address the people. His heart was full of what he was going to say. He gave one glance the length of the hall. He saw the crowds packed by the door. He saw the swaying nets, ornamented with globes and shells and starfish, after the fashion of the fishing-town ; these decorations softened the bare walls of the audience-room. He saw the faces of the fishermen lifting themselves to him and blurring together in a gentle glow. They seemed to him, as a great preacher once said of his audience, like the face “ of one impressive, pleading man,” whose life hung upon his words. He felt as if he must weigh them in some divine scales into which no dust or chaff of weakness or care for self could fall.

Something of this high consciousness crept into his face. He stood for a moment silent ; his beautiful countenance, thin from recent suffering, took on the look by which a man represses noble tears.

Suddenly, before he had spoken a word, a storm of applause burst out, shook the room from wall to wall, and roared like breakers under his astonished feet. He turned pale with emotion, but the fishermen thundered on. He was still so weak that this reception almost overcame him, and involuntarily he stretched out both his hands. At the gesture the noise sank instantly ; and silence, in which the sigh of the saddest soul in the room might have been heard, received the preacher.

His sensitive face, melted and quivering, shone down upon them tenderly. Men in drunken brawls, and men in drowning seas, and women in terrible temptation, remembered how he looked that night, when the safe and the virtuous and the comfortable had forgotten.

The stranger back by the door put his hat before his face.

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.