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Show riiJM ni1- i - - a i - SHORT STORY OF THE DAY MMaMMMWWIMWaMMMS)eMMI ' AFTEB THE STOEM. The storm had lulled. The sea, churned up the night before Into a seething, heavy caldron of pitch-black waters, had subsided now. Into a rest-leas, rest-leas, uneasy swell, rising and falling like a woman's bosom after a storm of sobs. The wind, too, had fallen light. At midnight It had come with a sudden roar out of the north, beating on Its back a scud of sleet , and spray and driving helpless shipa before it on pitiless piti-less shores. . , The fishing boats had been out all night in the storm and stress, and now 4 cat wl' s mouse: I right shook in my bed. I did. a-thlnkin' o' Jem out in it all, an at ' laat I couldn't atan' It no longer. I Just slipped out, too, an' walked upan' down the beach so as to be a bit nlgher to him. I wiah there warn't no sea." she said, shivering, "ter part people an' scare them wot's ashore." Marthy looked down at her tenderly. "W'y. that wouldn't do nohow, Lis." she said; "you an' Jem wouldn't never ha' come acrost each other if there hadn't ha' been ao sea, .nor no smack-In' smack-In' nor nothin'." But Lis had ' knowledge of which Marthy, with all her sympathy, knew nothing. "Wy, yes, we should, Marthy," Mar-thy," she said quietly. "Nothin couldn't ha' kep' us two apart; we was forced ter come toe-ether, we was" went into the old boat, and over the steely, wind-blown river. The wide, slow circuit of ths boat necessitated by the swlft-flowlng tide, seemed never-ending; never-ending; so did the steep steps on ths fthr aide of the river and ths road to they were straggUng back into me harbor, ploughing over the bar In the wake of laboring steam tugs. or. confident con-fident In their knowledge of things nautical, making their ilow way In unaided. un-aided. Not a few bore marks of battle: here a torn sail, there rent cordage, or a spar snapped off, or a bit of the bulwarks bul-warks torn away. A little crowd stood on the pierhead watching them townsfolk, towns-folk, keenly Interested in the sight all too familiar: fishermen, calm, phlegmatic. phleg-matic. silently critical; strangers, verbose, ver-bose, excited. . Foremost of all was a group of women, wo-men, flsh gutters from the dens on the other side of the river, where their work was to clean herring all day at .long, low flah-fllled troughs. They could not work that morning, however, anxiety gnawed too cruelly at their heartstrings, for their men were at sea and there was no knowing whether they had corns safe and sound out of last night's hell of wind-driven rain squalls, of foam and spray and raging, turbulent waters. So, leaving the troughs, the women tied their shawls tight over their heads, and. In their working dress of rough serge, water boots and briny oilskin aprons, came to the harbor's mouth to watch and wait, and perhaps to welcome home their men.. "That's hard work a-waltln'." murmured mur-mured one of them. A alight, delicate-looking delicate-looking girl, to her neighbor, who was doing her beat to shelter her from the 1(6H wind, "Don't you worrit, gal. Lis," said the other consolingly: "the Wallant 'II be In afore you knows where ye are, see tf she ain't." Lis shook her head and the tears welled up into her plaintive gray eyes. "I wish I wor like you, Marthy," she said, "brave sad. heart some; I alius fare so timid when Jem's at sea, an' today I'm wuas'n ever. Did ys hear the wind In the night?" ahe went on, her voice low and terrorful, "that fared ter grip bold o' the house an' worry it like ' - . - Meanwhile ths slow procession of fishing boats straggled by, and the crowd watched them. Presently a steam tug neared the harbor's mouth, towing some half doien tawny-sailed smacks, two abreast. The smacks yawed this way. and that, and the tug looked like a mother with a troop of overgrown daughters a lltttle Inclined to get out of hand. "The Perry ha' got her work cut out this time," some one said. The smacks came into full view around the bend. "Hallo, what's up wi' that there hln-dermost hln-dermost one, hain't she got her flag half-mast?" A score of eager. Incredulous faces craned and peered. It was true; there hung the tell-tale flag; pregnant signal of death and disaster. The faces fell. "Must ha' lost a hand last night." A woman pressed forward to the very edge of the pier, pale and agonised. ago-nised. "What's wrong wl' Lis?" cried some one. fc "Hold your noise," with an angry nudge: "that there boat's the Waliant wot her man Jem Wacey's aboard on." Every heart went out to Lis In her anxiety, every eye scanned the Valiant's Val-iant's deck, where the crew were gathered, gath-ered, eager to recomlse Jem. An ominous omi-nous silence fell. Two men were mining min-ing Jem and the smack's master. The rest of them stood there, a dejected, crestfallen little group. The cry of agony broke from Liz's lips. "Where's Jem?" she cried. "I don't see my Jem." Still that ominous silence. Lis turned to Marthy with a desperate, agonised gesture. The girl understood her at once. . She took her hand. The crowd parted and the two ran down the pier along ths river aids to the ferry that led to denes and fish wharf. Lis stumbled stum-bled along, eearce seeing where ahe went, her breath coming In long, heartbreaking heart-breaking sobs. Down the rickety landing 'stags they . r the wharf whera boats wsrs "TtuTperry had ' cast her little fleet adrift now In mld-rlver, and one by one they were Joining ths serried ranks at the Quay-head. The Valiant was there already a chaos of fish and men. and tarry barrels and ropes and spars and shimmering. Iridescent fish scales. An eager crowd pressed on board. ' keen to leant the news of the night and the boat's loss.. A few steps mors and Lis was among them, fear eloquent tn her wide eyes and dry Hps. "Tea. the master's gone." one of ths crew was saying, sadly. "A thunderln! big wave took an -washed him overboard, over-board, and the same one hulled pore 'Wacey again the mast an' ". Lis gripped ths speaker's arm. "Killed!" shs gasped. "Is my Jem killed?" The sound of her voice reached ths cabin below. Before ths mats could reply there was a sound of etumbling footsteps up the companion and a man. pale and weak, his head bandaged up in a gaudy cotton handkerchief, came Into sight. He steadied himself for a moment, while his dased. eyes scanned the deck. Then he held outf his arms, and with a long pent-up cry. Lis flew to them like a homing bird. . Jem held her close, stroking; her hair and soothing her tenderly, while he bade her, lp a voice which was rather shaky in spite of ths chalT. "not to go a-kUiln' o' him orf Uke that theer; he wasn't dead, no, nor Ukely to be." And the gallant crew of the, Valiant turned their broad backs on ths two, and winked ths tsars out gf their honest hon-est eyes : but Marthy, iwoman-like, found vent for her pent-up emotion In scathing speech. "To think,' cried she, "that all this - here might ha' been spared If only you chaps had had the sense to bring Jem up on deck time you was a'comln' inter harbor. But there. It's Just like a lot o' men; no more per-ceivancs per-ceivancs among yer than ths babe upborn." up-born." ' ; - ; - . |