CHAPTER XIV.

CHAPTER XIV.TWO BAD CASES.Old Capt. Elliott, so the people called him, could not climb a certain stairway. That was not so strange, for it was the stairway of a new life, and amendment is sometimes the hardest thing one can attempt. And yet it does not seem as if a little piece of paper, would have so hindered Capt. Elliott—a little piece of paper in his pocket—for it bore him down as if it had been a mill–stone round his neck, and climb, he could not. Say rather, climb hewouldnot. The facts were these. He had been very much agitated by the services at the Hall. They were a glass to his soul, in which he had looked, and had seen what a needy, miserable being he was. He resolved he would begin a new life, and he climbed one step in that stairway—the step of prayer. Hethought he had climbed another step, which is just as important, repentance; that he had begun to leave behind him old sins and was on the way to speedy improvement. But a call one evening from Miss P. Green led him to think otherwise. She suddenly appeared at his door, interrupting him while he was praying, her bright eyes flashing and her little curls dancing, and handing him a letter, remarked, “I found this in the mail, Cap’n, and none of your folks were down, and as I was over this way, I thought I would bring it along.”“Thank ye,” he replied gruffly, and taking the proffered note, he turned away, leaving Miss P. Green on the broad stone steps before his door.She withdrew her bright eyes and her dancing little curls, saying, “There, I should have thought he might have said, ‘It’s from so–and–so.’ That would have been some pay; butIknow! It’s from Boardman Blake. I can tell his handwriting a mile off. I wonder what he is writing for, when he might come himself.”Capt. Elliott also wondered; but some things we can say better with our pens than we can with our tongues, and this was Boardman’s situation.The old man forced open the envelope with his big fingers, and read this:“Capt. Elliott;“Dear Sir,—I am aware that the time on my mortgage is up, and I know you have a right to come over and take my house. I thought perhaps you might give me a little time, as it is very hard just now to raise any money. If you could do this, it would be a great favor to me. I am a good deal worried about it, and am sorry you can’t have your money. Hoping you can oblige me, I am,“Truly yours,“Boardman Blake.”“Can’t pay!” sneered the captain. “How does he get money to live on? How does he s’pose I can live? Wants a little time? Well, hasn’t he had it? It is that old mill into which his money has gone, and now he wants more time. Nonsense!”Capt. Elliott put the document in his pocket and tried to pray once more, but he couldn’t. The step he wanted to climb up was so hard, or rather that paper in his pocket was so weighty! “A little time,” he kept mumbling to himself. Gray–headed old man, chafing because a worried neighbor begged him not to take his house, but give him a little time in which to attempt payment, while he himself was only a beggar at God’s throne, and had not that Heavenly Father given him a long time for repentance?Who was he, thus gripping another unfortunate by the neck and refusing him the solicited favor? Get up from your knees, Capt. Elliott. Stop your praying and go to writing. Tell Boardman Blake he shall have his “little time.” Then kneel again and ask God to have mercy on you, an undeserving old beggar. As it is, that note in your pocket clogs your progress, holds you down and holds you back. You thought you were getting along rapidly, and had mounted several stairs and were up quite high. Now you feel bruised and sore, and down in the depths, as if you had had a tumble and were lying at the foot of the stairway again. A bad case indeed.Ah, God will not take us unless we come to him whole–hearted in our desire to serve Him, and not only ready to give up every sin, but actually giving it up, letting go old grudges, willing to do the just and honest and generous thing by our neighbor. Then He takes us up in His arms and calls us, “Son, Daughter!”Another bad case, and that very day too. The day was not stormy, and yet threatening. The sea looked cold, and the white crests of the waves were like patches of snow, pure but chilling, while between these wintry tufts were black hollows of water. A mist hadadvanced so far toward the station that the shore could not be inspected from the lookout two miles either way. The patrols were on duty therefore, and Walter was at the Crescent end of the beach, as that part facing the rocks in the river was called. Wrapped in his thick, warm fisher jacket, he faced the keen, chilly though not violent wind blowing from the north–east. Now he made broad footprints in the gray sand with his big rubber boots, then he stumbled over rocks matted with the rich brown of the sea–weed, or some bold encroachment of the sea would compel him to withdraw to the top of a high wall of rock. He was near the end of his beat, and halted a moment to watch the play of the waves about the Chair.He soon became aware of the presence of another spectator, somebody looking in the same direction. It was a man leaning upon a bulky rock projecting from the sands. As soon as Walter saw his bending form, the broad back, the strong shoulders supporting a round head, and noticed that he was a person of short stature, he exclaimed, “That’s the man! That’s the way the man looked whom I saw one morning in Uncle Boardman’s store, standing behind the counter as if handling the books onthose shelves. I have been hunting for him all this time. Yes, that’s—” The man here turned quickly about, and involuntarily Walter added, and said it aloud, “Baggs!”“Hum, did you want me?” replied Baggs rather ungraciously.“Oh!” said Walter confusedly. “Beg your pardon, Mr. Baggs. Good morning!”“Well, no, I should think it was a bad morning. I want to know why you are interrupting me.”“I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I am on my beat, and I only wish to attend to that. I saw you looking at the Chair, and I was looking at it myself.”“Well, can’t a man look at the Chair and not be interrupted?” replied Baggs, with a good deal of warmth.“Oh, yes, and I can too,” said Walter, who was not the person to be crowded when in the discharge of his duties. He felt that he represented the whole Life Saving Service of the Atlantic coast, and he was not willing that Baggs or any one else should do anything that looked like interference. “I suppose,” added Walter, “I looked at you rather hard, for you made me think of a man who mysteriously appeared and then disappeared in my uncle’sstore one morning.” The next moment, Walter was saying to himself, “There, I did not intend to say that. Just like me to let a thing out.”Walter’s impulsive nature could not easily retain in concealment anything that interested him. It was like an arrow on the string of a drawn bow, and fly it might, any moment. Baggs was disposed to let fly something also.“Then you haven’t forgotten that, have you?” he said testily. “What do you suppose a man would want in there, at that time? He couldn’t be stealin’, for I’d like to know what your uncle has got in there that’s worth stealin’, or got anywhere as to that matter. No, sir, I wasn’t the man. My mission is not that of a thief,” said the pure and lofty Baggs, striking an attitude designed to be majestic, but which only made more conspicuous the awkward proportions of his thick, squat figure.“If you had let my uncle alone,” exclaimed Walter very decidedly, “he would have had something that might have been worth the envying.”“Are you going to teachme, sir?”“No, I am going about my business,” replied Walter coolly, “for I can’t stay here any longer.”“Well, sir, another time don’t interrupt anybody looking off.”“I am willing any one should look at the Chair all day, Mr. Baggs. Good day, sir.”Walter had said, “Well, I’ll treat him decently anyway,” but his last remark had an effect that does not generally follow “decent” remarks. Baggs trembled with excitement, blustered, almost foamed, and inquired stammeringly, “Why—why should I—look at—the Chair? Why—why—what have I done—to it—why—what have I done to the Chair? You, you’re mistaken, sir, you—”Walter turned away in silence and walked on to the end of his beat. Baggs remained, muttering to himself as he looked toward the ill–omened rocks. When he did leave, he took the road leading to the village, passed through The Harbor and then followed the winding line of the water up to the mill.“My nephew!” he exclaimed, and stopped as that brisk vigorous young trader approached.“Not much trade stirring to–day,” remarked Chauncy, rubbing his hands.“Won’t be in this hole,” replied the uncle gloomily.“Oh, yes,” said Chauncy encouragingly, “it will come, it will come. Fact is, the weather is against us. You can’t force a market against the weather.”The two had halted near the water. Just beyond their feet, in a little curve of the shore, the water suddenly deepened. The boys of the neighborhood called it the “Pool,” and sometimes used it as a bathing tub.“There are too many people that are against us ever to expect much, Chauncy.”“What do you mean, uncle?”“Well,” said Baggs, dropping his voice and moving his head nearer to Chauncy’s ear as if afraid that somebody might hear him, “there is that Walter Plympton. I think he knows more than is good for our business. He must somehow be forced out of the neighborhood. As I understand it, he will not be at the station long, but he must not stay here at all. I will get his old booby uncle to send him home; and I want you, nephew” (he always said this when he wished to be affectionate, and sincerely affectionate he never was), “I want you, nephew, to say round here and there, you know, that you—don’t think he is much of a feller—indeed you know of his bein’—bein’—”“Being what, uncle?” asked Chauncy eying sharply his relative.“Well, if you don’t just know, get up something. Well—”“Get up what, uncle?”“Well, now, at the ’cademy, wasn’t there some scrape, wasn’t there drinkin’, wasn’t there—”Chauncy was flippant and conceited and brassy, and he had veneered certain of his uncle’s tricks of trade with the name “business methods,” and had practiced them as the customary thing among shrewd, enterprising men, and therefore permissible. Chauncy was not base enough to spatter with lies the character of one whom he knew to be trustworthy. He had rather avoided Walter since the boat–race, but he could not deliberately go to work to ruin his character. Chauncy now mildly demurred; but at the same time, he lifted his cap and stroked those formidable locks of hair, and that meant a pugnacious attitude, a very decided, “I won’t.”“Oh, I don’t believe I would, uncle,” said Chauncy. “I don’t really know anything against Walter. He’s a sort of a Puritan, and thinks considerable of Walter Plympton; but we all of us have a pretty good idea of ourselves. Guess I wouldn’t,” and he added a title sometimes used among the great man’s relatives, “Uncle Bezzie.”This fond uncle was not in a mood to be contradicted, and then patted with a soft title. Heturned fiercely on Chauncy, his face swelling and darkening, his crooked eye flashing, and his voice roughening.“What are you—you—makin’ opposition for? Who raised you,—who—raised you, sir,—yes, raised from—from obscurity, and gave you a place in—in—a fust class mercantile house? What—why—do you oppose for? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, sir, yes—and—take that.”The uncle here lost control of the temper hidden behind the usually mild voice. He lost control of himself altogether, for advancing toward the astonished Chauncy, who was peacefully but decidedly rubbing his lofty knob of hair, he suddenly and violently pushed his beloved nephew over into the water. There was a fearful agitation, for a few moments, down in that hitherto peaceful pool; but Chauncy soon crawled out of the unexpected bath.“That’s—that’s mean!” he ejaculated, spitting the water from his mouth and shaking it off from his dripping clothes. Baggs, though, did not hear him. He was angrily moving away.CHAPTER XV.THE BARNEY LITERARY CLUB.Cook Charlie was a blessing. Nature had made him that handsome present of a happy temperament, and common sense had taught him to take good care of the gift.“I know my man,” said Keeper Barney when he hired him. “He’s worth a fortin.”I have already said that Cook Charlie was fat. He was also bald. Though not over thirty, his appearance of age gave a certain authority to his opinions, and a second title for him was that of “old man.” Old man or young man, he was always good–natured. Did it blow without? Did the wind bring a sting with every blast? Cook Charlie was calm. Did the sky scowl on the tired surfman? Cook Charlie was sure to smile. Did any discussionin the living–room become a disputation, ill–natured, angry, and did the men turn uneasily in their chairs, stamping stormily on the floor with their hard, heavy boots? “So—so, boys,” Cook Charlie would exclaim. “Now, look here! Let me put that question.” And this amiable manipulator of contentious souls would “put the question” so skillfully that both sides might find themselves on the same side! Then Cook Charlie was monarch of the kitchen stove. He knew that, and what a center of comfort and happiness he made that stove! No sulking fire—one big, black pout—awaited the chilled surfman when he came from his windy beat; but a cheery heat radiated from that stove, in whose ascending current the patrolman rubbed and bathed his hands gratefully. Then the breakfasts, dinners, and suppers! There was not a great variety of food, but it was sure to be hot. It was sure to be abundant also. Then Cook Charlie would have a little “surprise” for the men, perhaps a pudding that he would covertly slip out of the oven and land on the table amid a series of, “Oh—Oh—Oh!” I think he realized that he had a mission in that bleak little station, and with his cook stove he could do marvels. He did not say it in words, but there was acheerful little tune forever sounding in his thoughts, and this was the burden of the song:“My stove is king,My stove is king.”“Mr. Barney,” said the district superintendent Baker, one day, “who is your right hand man here—I mean the one you get the most help from?”“My cook,” said the keeper promptly. “Of course he wants his wages, but I don’t think he works just for them. I think he takes a pleasure in seein’ how well he can do. He keeps his fire in good condition all the time, so that the boys can warm themselves handy any hour; and then, you know, surfmen must be well fed if you want good work of them. I call Cook Charlie my steerin’ oar.”It was Cook Charlie that Walter had a special talk with one morning. The young surfman’s watch was now toward sunrise. He halted as he was about finishing his beat, and from the doorstep of the station, looked off upon the sea. Winter was whitening the earth, but the warm flush of summer was on the sea and in the sky. It was a holiday sky, a long fold of purple swathing the horizon. Then came a pink flush, and deep set in this was themorning star. The sea was one vast sheet of silver, warm and placid. Along the shore, it was wrinkled and broken into surf. Far at the right, the sky was of a cold azure, and the sea beneath it was chilled and shadowy also. Here were two vessels sailing. They seemed to be eagerly pushing toward that summer light in the east and that sea of silver.“I’ll watch the sun come up,” said Walter, and this sentinel of the Life Saving Service, his extinguished lantern in his hand, stood sharply watching as if for an enemy that would come by water. A noise on the land called his attention away for a few minutes. When he turned again, no enemy was there on that still, shining sea, but away off on the horizon’s edge was a tiny, pink boat, a boat without oar or sail, a boat that must have come for a carnival, but had mistaken the time of the year. The pink flamed into silver, and the little boat became a gay turban of some royal Turk about to show his eyes and peep over the horizon line at the earth. Was this the enemy that the young coastguard expected? No, the turban expanded into a very big innocent–looking frozen pudding laid by Neptune’s jolly cook on this smooth, polished table of the sea. This confectioner’s dish soon began torise, growing into a lofty, bulging dome, a towering dome, rising, swelling, rounding out—till there swung clear of the sea a globe of fire, the sun himself! He began to assert his presence in the most unmistakable way, sending out the sharpest, the most dazzling rays, from which Walter was glad to turn away his eyes.“A new day,” said Walter, “and what is to be done to–day? Breakfast, and then I may turn in awhile, and have a nap. The newspaper will come, and I suppose I shall read that. We shall have a drill of some kind, and the watch from the lookout must be kept up. Then I suppose we shall be loafing about Charlie’s stove. I believe I have about gone through that library in the corner. I wish—yes—and I’ll ask Charlie about it right off.”Cook Charlie was alone with his stove, his coffee–pot, and frying–pan. An appetizing fragrance welcomed the hungry young surfman as he opened the door of the station.“Good chance now,” thought Walter, “and I’ll speak about it.”“Charlie,” said Walter, laying down his time–detector and signal, and hanging up his lantern, “I wanted to ask your opinion.”“Ask away. No charge made.”“You know time hangs a little heavy here.”“That’s so, Walter, but what of it?”“Well, I was thinking if we couldn’t have a little variety here. Now there are some subjects that it would be rather interesting to know about, it seems to me, and it would be in our line of business. I mean such as the sea and storm, or commerce, or our Life Saving Service and that of England. You know somebody might write on them, and we have a little society–meeting and read our pieces. We could have a certain afternoon for it, and then we could discuss subjects. We might call it the ‘Mutual Improvement Society,’ or something like that, you know.”“That’s quite an idea, Walter. The name though might frighten some of ’em out of doors.”“Call it—call it ‘Round the Stove Society.’”“Ha–ha, we have that all the time. That’s a sticker, the name. What shall she be? Well, I guess we had better get our boat before we name it. You let me speak to the Cap’n, and then if he favors it, you say a word to Tom and Woodbury, and I’ll try the rest.”Keeper Barney that morning was delayed by his work, and took his fried potatoes, biscuit and coffee after the usual breakfast hour. Cook Charlie thought, “Now is the time. Weare alone, and I’ll bring up that little matter now. Let me see; how shall I take him? The Cap’n is a fustrate feller, but he likes to have the credit of siggestin’, and doin’ things hisself. I must jest fix it in some way so that he’ll mention it hisself. Let’s see.”Fingering his bald head as if he expected to find the right idea on the outside, if not inside, he approached the keeper, holding out an additional plate of “fried taters” just from the pan, steaming and savory, as an innocent magnet to bring the keeper’s heart into a favorable attitude toward the new plan.“Oh, Charlie, you’re real good,” exclaimed the keeper.“You earn it, Cap’n. You have to work hard enough on somethin’ all the time, fussin’ or worryin’. I wish the men only had somethin’ to occupy their time.”“‘Twould be a good idea if they would jest till up their spare minutes,” remarked the keeper, as he drank with avidity his coffee.“A readin’ somethin’, you know; and it wouldn’t hurt ’em to be a–studyin’.”“I know it. I wish our superintendent at Washington would send us two or three—four or five nice new books every winter for our lib’ry. Congress, of course, must give him the money.”“Why, Cap’n, I’ve let your cup be empty! Jest let me fill it up smokin’ hot.”“Charlie, you know jest where a man feels tender. You ought to run a beach hotel.”“I am a–doin’ it now, Cap’n. Ha–ha! There, take another biscuit, a hot one. I do wish the men would be improvin’ their minds. Everybody can do somethin’. One winter I was at Duxton, the young people there had a little society, to write on subjects, you know. Fact is, people can improve themselves if they want ter.”The keeper made no reply, not even saying, “A–hem!” He continued to eat in silence. Charlie eyed him sharply.“Hullo! He’s got an idea! That’s the way he allers does when an idea strikes him. He says nothin’ and eats faster and faster, as if an idea on four legs, its mouth open, was after him. Hold on!” thought the cook.Soon came a communication from the silent eater. He looked up, and then slammed his hands on the table.“Charlie, I’ve got an idea! Now what do you think of it? There’s no sense in the men’s loafin’ round the stove forever. Let’s get up a society, a kind of readin’, perhaps speakin’ or debatin’ society. Call it—the—the—”“Cap’n, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Acap’tul idee! Call it the Barney Lit’rary Club. Hoor–rah!”And here Cook Charlie in his enthusiasm began to swing the dish that he held in his hand. It was half full of crisp brown potatoes, and they too were unable to resist the excitement of the hour, and danced off in every direction.“Oh, Cap’n, there’s the rest of your breakfast!”“No matter!” said the keeper, a light flashing from his eyes that made still warmer the color of his hair, his face and his beard. “No matter! I’ve had a good breakfast. We’ve got an idee, you know, to pay for it.”“That’s so, Cap’n. You brought down the right bird that time.”“You might sound the men on the subject and tell ’em what I’m a–thinkin’ of.”“I will, Cap’n.”“There’s Walter. He’s handy with his pen. You tech him up.”“I will, sure.”“I must be off now on the beach.”As he left the room, Cook Charlie went to the door leading upstairs and called out, “Come here, Walter. The Cap’n’s proposed jest what we wanted, and I engaged to speak to you. Come down! I want to ‘tech’ you up.”Details were all arranged, and one afternoon the “Barney Literary Club” held its first meeting. It was a wintry day without. The wind blew sharp and strong from the north–west, and meeting the tide that was coming in, broke up the sea into short, fierce little waves whose dark, angry blue was spattered with flakes of white, chilling foam. Across the frozen land and the dark sea, the brightest of suns looked smilingly out of a clear sky, but his smiles did not warm the land or cheer the sea. Did not all this though, make the living–room of the station a snugger, jollier place?“A grain small,” thought the keeper, “is this room when we and our big boots all try to get into it, but we have had some good times here, and we will have to–day another.”The keeper, as president, sat in the chair of honor, and that was an ordinary chair placed against the wall between the boat–room door and the outer door. At his right sat Cook Charlie, the secretary, awkwardly fumbling a lead pencil and sheet of paper. Walter was on the left of the president. An eager yet embarrassed look was on his face, for he had been appointed to read a paper which he nervously clutched with both hands. The other members of the crew were scattered about the room, all ofthem permanently located except Slim Tarleton. It was his watch, and every few minutes he would run up the stairs and from the lookout sweep with his glass the sea, that subtle, treacherous power which must be watched, day and night. The president made a very short speech to the “Barney Literary Club,” and then read a paper on the United States Life Saving Service. The facts given are embodied already in this book.“I will now call on Walter for a paper,” said the president.There was a tickle that needed to be expelled from Walter’s throat, and at the same time a warm blush spread up to the roots of his hair.“My paper is on the Life Saving Service of other countries. Great Britain, which has a coast almost five thousand miles long, has a Royal National Life–boat Institution. It is supported by voluntary offerings. Its object is to provide and maintain life–boats, and it also rewards efforts to save the shipwrecked at points where it may have no station. A life–boat with all necessary equipments, and that would include carriage, will cost somewhat over three thousand dollars, and a boathouse can be built for about seventeen hundred. The cost of keeping up a station is about three hundred andfifty dollars for the year, a sum that would support an American station with seven men for only one month. In England, the above sum pays the crew for going off to any wrecks, for exercising their boat once every three months, and covers also the coxswain’s salary and any repairs. The life–boats are of different sizes—six, eight, ten and twelve–oared. Some of the crews go out but seldom. When it is rough thereabouts at the Goodwin Sands, the life–boat men must stand watch all the time. At Ramsgate, the service is so important that a steamer waits on the boat constantly, its fires banked up ready for any emergency. Different cities like Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and others, have given life–boats to the Institution, and contribute every year to its funds.“England’s work though for the shipwrecked takes in something else besides the work of the life–boats. There is the Rocket Service. The thirtieth of June, 1881, there were two hundred and eighty–eight rocket stations. The rocket apparatus consists of the rocket, the rocket line, the whip, the hawser, and sling life–buoy. The rocket has a line, a light one, fastened to it, which is shot over a wreck. Then the rest of the apparatus is used. We use the gun or mortar instead of the rocket. England’s rocket stationsare under the control of the Board of Trade. The men of the coastguard manage the rockets. For every life saved, the Board of Trade pays a sum of money. It gives medals also to those who may have shown unusual courage. The wants of sailors and others who may be saved from shipwreck are now met by the ‘Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners’ Royal Benevolent Society.’ The work, then, that we do in our stations, in England seems to be spread out, and it is done by several bodies, and how much the whole may cost, I can’t say. Of course, it is not fair to compare the money expended in England with the amount we spend, until we know all the expenses there. I think, though, our system is better than England’s.“There is a ‘French Society for Saving Life from Shipwreck.’ It was started in 1865, and not only along the coast of France, but in Algeria and other colonies, has this society carried on its work. In sixteen years, it saved two thousand and one hundred and twenty–nine lives. June 30th, 1881, it had sixty–two life–boat stations, and three hundred and ninety–one mortar or other projectile stations. It is modeled after the English system, but it prefers the gun to the rocket.“There is the ‘German Association for the Rescue of Life from Shipwreck,’ founded in 1865. It is supported by donations. The last report I saw, gave it seventy–four life–boat stations, twenty of these having the mortar or rocket apparatus. There must be a larger number now. In 1880–81, it saved two ships and a hundred and twenty–two lives; and from May, 1880, to May, 1881, its members subscribed over a quarter of a million of dollars. Germany has flat sandy beaches, and it cannot so well use England’s heavy boats. It is said that in Russia, Italy and Spain, life saving societies patterned more or less after England’s ‘National Life–boat Institution,’ have been organized. England must have a magnificent navy of life–boats and a fine rocket service; but I guess Uncle Sam with his hands in his deep pockets, paying out more and more every year, has organized a service that can’t be matched elsewhere. That is my opinion, and I would like to ask the company’s.”This patriotic appeal to the company was exceedingly popular. Boots went down heavily, hands came together sharply, and enthusiastic cries of “Good!” “Good!” were heard all over the room. Then the secretary read a humorous paper on “The Surfman—his firstStormy Patrol,” giving experiences he had gleaned from the crew, and so faithfully reported that they were readily recognized, winning him a round of hand–claps.“Woodbury!” “Woodbury!” was now heard from several quarters. “That Sea–Sarpent! Let us have it!” “Don’t be bashful!”Woodbury Elliott was nervously twisting in his chair, the color deepening in his fair complexion, saying, “No! No! I couldn’t!” But the Literary Club had all attended school with him, save Walter and Joe Cardridge (a bad specimen of imported humanity) and they knew what Woodbury could do at “speakin’ pieces.”That famous character, the sea–serpent, he had made still more famous by his successful delivery, at school, of a comical criticism upon the animal, and in after days, it would often be called for, and was always sure of an admiring audience.“Well, here goes!” said the surfman, and Woodbury Elliott rose to give once more this marine gem. The laughter following it was hearty as ever, but it had not wholly died away when an unexpected orator, Joe Cardridge, volunteered to entertain the Literary Club.“Boys, you did not know I was a speaker. Well, I was some, once,” he asserted in hisconceited way, “and if you’d like, I’ll give you the ‘Auctioneer.’”Without waiting for an answer from the club, he called out to Cook Charlie, “Where is that butter firkin I saw round here? I want it to stand on.”“A leetle ticklish, Joe. I wouldn’t resk it.”“Oh, it’s good enough. An auctioneer must be up ’bove his crowd, you know. Fun for ye now, boys, I tell ye. I was always great on it, and I guess I’m good for it now. Where’s that firkin?”The firkin was brought, turned upside down, and Joe mounted it. He had forgotten a part of his speech, but it made no difference in his enjoyment of his fancied brilliant success. He gesticulated, jumped up and down, endeavored to work up into buying mood his audience with frequent threats like this, “Goin’, goin’, genlummum!” The bottom of a butter firkin can stand what is reasonable, but what self–respecting firkin will submit to everything? Joe’s would not. In the midst of several infuriated shrieks. “Goin’, goin’, genlummum,” his audience looking on with a silent but manifest sneer, several heard a suspicious “cr—cr—ack!” Joe in his intense admiration of the performer did not hear it. He gave anotherjump, the word “gone” issuing from his throat, when the firkin emphasized this threat by suddenly withdrawing its bottom, and “gone” it was for the auctioneer! Down he came, partly in the firkin and partly outside of it, falling in a very mixed condition. The club roared. Any merriment was now sincere. The president forgot all his dignity and joined in the laugh. The secretary was always ready for any fun. As for Joe, he was mad. He declared that he had been insulted. “Fool!” he shouted at Walter. “What you larfin’ at?” Leering at the company in his rage and mortification, he rushed out of doors.“Guess he’ll cool off there,” observed the president. “We will have the next exercise.”This was the “Opening of the Drawer.” Any one was at liberty to drop into an imaginary drawer any question about the papers. He could ask it orally, or write it on a slip of paper. The club would then attempt to answer the question.After a session of two hours, this company of literati broke up. It resolved itself into a station–crew again. Distinguished orators and able writers changed into hungry surfmen around a supper table where huge cups of coffee sent up little clouds of fragrant steam.There was a further change into patrolmen in thick Scotch caps, and Guernsey jackets and heavy, stamping boots, into watchers for the night coming and going. At last the unemployed members of the Literary Club were all soundly snoring under thick army blankets, the little kitchen was deserted, save by the keeper, and the stove made but a faint little murmur by the side of that great black ocean thundering on the rocks and roaring all through the cold, black night.CHAPTER XVI.AN UGLY NIGHT.The Advent days had now come, when the winds blow keen across the frozen ground, and nature seems to be in a violent grief over sins it had hoped to bury in frosty graves forever, but which will not quietly lie there. “Beyond Advent though is Christmas,” thought Walter, “and I shall spend it at Uncle Boardman’s. Father and mother will be there.”Walter’s time at the station had almost expired. He could not say that he was tired of the service, and yet he noticed something in the attitude of the men which made him a little discontented. What it was, he could not definitely say, but there was some coolness on their part. Tom Walker and Woodbury Elliott were exceptions to any change by way of coolness, and yet was there not a noticeablewarmth of treatment on their part? It had an element of pity, and as Joe Cardridge froze into a cold, contemptuous silence toward Walter, as others coolly noticed him, Tom and Woodbury were more cordial. When the wind, wintry and sharp, cuts into a party of men out doors, they may protect themselves against it by a fire. Does the wind blow more and more chilly? Then they pile the wood higher and higher. So Tom and Woodbury made friendship’s fire burn all the warmer, because an outside atmosphere was growing colder.What did it all mean? Walter could not see to the bottom of this mystery. What had he done, why one man should shrink from him, and at the same time another man grow so much more friendly?In addition to all this, came a very significant look from the keeper, one afternoon, as he and Walter chanced to be alone, and after the look, came a significant question. It was one of those sharp looks where one seems to have a gimlet in his eyes, and he bores deep into the person he confronts. Such a look as that of the detective meeting a criminal.“Walter—I—I—hope I am on the wrong track altogether—but there are some stories round about you which I think you ought toknow, and as keeper I think I ought to look into ’em. We have to be particular here, but you know that, of course—and—”“Well, what is it, Cap’n Barney? Don’t keep a fellow roasting in an oven longer than is necessary. I am ready to answer any charges.”Walter’s eyes were flashing, and as he straightened up in his indignation, it seemed as if he had grown six inches taller during the short speech the keeper had made.“I have been suspecting that something was out of the way, because some of the men have cooled off so, and I’d like to get hold of the trouble well as you, Cap’n Barney. I’ll pull that rat out of his hole, if I can catch hold of his tail.”The keeper smiled. He admired the young man’s spirit of ready, honest indignation, and Walter s figure of speech amused him.“Wall, Walter, I don’t say the stories are true, and I have said that no man is to be held guilty until proved to be, and if you deny them, thatends’em for me.”He emphasized his remarks and put a period to them by bringing a huge, brown fist down on the long kitchen table, making the Coston signals and time–detectors there rattle away.“Well, sir, name the charges, for it is gettingawful warm here,” said Walter, in his impatience to know the charges, which he felt was to know several lies.“Wall, they say at the ’cademy where you were, that you were up to scrapes, a–drinkin’ and carousin’, and that you have been drinkin’ here, even while at the station.”“It is a lie, one big Atlantic lie, big as that ocean out there!”“There, I told ye so!” said a voice triumphantly. “I knew it was just so! Good for you, Walter! S’cuse me, Cap’n, but I happened to come in just then and couldn’t help a–hearin’ ye.”It was Tom Walker who had suddenly entered, his bushy beard whitened by the snow–flakes dropping without.“If you hadn’t mentioned it, Cap’n, I was goin’ to, this very day. I thought it was dickerlus and didn’t b’lieve it was worth noticin’ at fust; but it’s got so at last, I should have spoken of it if you hadn’t, and Woodbury would if I hadn’t.”“That’s so, Cap’n, every word of it!” and now behind Tom, appeared Woodbury at the door, brushing the snow off from his coat. “That’s so,” he continued, and he looked at Walter not at all in the gimlet fashion, but a friendlysmile of recognition lightened up his handsome face.“Oh, you are of my mind, boys,” said the keeper. “I knew Walter wouldn’t do that thing. It is not his style at all.”“Now, Cap’n, I want to know who has been accusing me,” said Walter. “This thing must be looked into.”“That is only fair. Several have mentioned it, but Joe Cardridge seems to be the special one.”“Joe Cardridge! Where is he?” asked Walter looking at the boat–room door, the outer door, the door leading upstairs to the crew’s room. “Where is he? I’ll get him and bring him here and face the charges here.”He was starting off, trying to go in several directions at once, when the keeper said, “Hold on, Walter. It is Joe’s day off. He is not within a mile of this place now, but he will be back I s’pose in time to go on his beat. This thing shall be looked into.”“I insist upon it that it shall,” said Walter.The weather outside was not at all attractive to the patrolmen that day, and when the twilight drew its dusky curtains about the station, the outlook was still bad. A north–west wind was blowing very strong and cutting. Snowwas still falling in light, dry flakes. What was already on the ground served as a plaything to the wind that seemed to be intelligently and maliciously gathering it up and then hurling it into the faces of all travelers, flinging it over their heads in blinding, cutting sheets, withdrawing these until its victim walked in an easy, careless confidence, then sending the snow again in sheets more closely folding and stifling and cutting.“You’d better wrap up specially warm,” was Tom Walker’s reminder to Walter, who went on to his beat at night.“I will, thank you. I will put on that new blue flannel blouse for one thing.”“I would, Walter. I find that mine comes in awful handy. You see it is padded thick and warm. Six of us, I believe, bought them.”These six new flannel blouses were bought from a traveling clothing–peddler who came to the station and with a glib tongue so skillfully paraded the advantages of a purchase, that almost all the men accepted this rare opportunity.“Well, Walter, you might have done wuss,” said Aunt Lydia, one day when Walter chanced to call upon her, and laying it on her sewing basket asked her to examine the blouse.“You paid all it’s worth, but it does seem thick and warm, and I guess it will do you service. I will take a few stitches in it for you where a needle is wanted.”“A pretty good looking set of surfmen when we get our new blouses on, neat and clean, you know, and then turn out for some drill at the station. The only trouble is that the coats look so much alike and are of about the same size.”“Look alike!” thought Aunt Lydia. “Guess I will tuck a blue ‘W’ on somewhere.”With her nimble needle, she “tucked” this blue initial inside one of the sleeves just above the wrist. The blouse lining was white. Without any reference to this, she handed Walter’s blouse back to him.He wore this blouse, that night of the wind and snow.“Glad I have got it,” he said, pushing out into the night. “It helps keep a fellow warm. Now for it!”He crossed from the station lot to the beach, and was glad to find a strip of sand that the rising tide had not yet covered. “Boom—m—m—m!” went the waves in one unending roar. The wind was drowned in that chorus, and as it blew from the north–west and drove at hisback, Walter cared little for its fury. When the tide forced him to walk upon the rocks, though their surface was so uneven and so slippery with the snow, he made steady progress and completed his beat in about the usual time, He turned to begin his homeward walk, and then the wind pounced upon him with all its fury.“Now I have you!” it seemed to say. “I can drive into your face, blind your eyes with snow—there, take that!” A flurry of flakes came into his face, sharp, tingling, compelling him to turn and offer his back to the charge.“I can go this way,” thought Walter. “Hard work though! What if I should see any trouble on the water and have to signal and start for the station?”No sign of trouble did the young patrolman discover, no flash from any rocket. There was only one huge, roaring blackness! He stubbornly fought his way over the rocks, across any chance bit of sand, now splashing through the pools left in the ledges by the tide, struggling over an ice bank to high ground where a field skirted the shore and along whose edge he could walk and still have before him that ocean which he must continually watch and ever be prepared to fight. He was not farfrom the station, and was saying, “Well, I have whipped the wind this time,” when he remembered that he still had an ugly place to cross. It was an abrupt break in a shore ledge, and could be avoided by keeping to the right and taking the ground in the rear of the ledge. By making this detour, though, he lost sight of the sea, and in that interval, what if some vessel sent up from the water its plea for help—a vain appeal because no vigilant patrol detected the rocket’s flight?“I must go down into that hole and keep my eyes on the ocean,” thought Walter, and guided by his lantern, he was stepping down the rough declivity in the rock, when the wind as if fearful that it might for a single instant, in some sheltered nook, lose its opportunity to make trouble, blew with frantic fury. In the midst of this fiendish blast, Walter’s light was blown out!“She’s gone!” he was saying one moment, and the next, he was conscious that he was making a misstep and was tumbling! Then came a blank, as if the wind extinguishing his lantern, had extinguished him also, and down into a black hole he had fallen. There was an interval of unconsciousness black as the sea beyond him. Finally he was aware that somebodywas calling to him. A light also was trying to reach him as he lay at the bottom of this deep, black pit. The light flashed into his eyes, sharpened and expanded, and the voice too sounded louder and louder. At last, the voice said, “Hullo, boy, what ye up to down here?”“Joe Cardridge!” thought Walter.“Come, git up! Lemme help ye!”“What have you been saying about me?” was Walter’s first thought. Then he reflected: “Well, this is hardly the time to bring the matter up when a man is saving you from a fall.”“Jest lean on me. You had an ugly tumble,” said Joe.“Oh, I guess I can get up, thank you.”“There’s blood on your face. You must have hit yourself when you struck.” Then Joe’s tone changed. “That comes from havin’ surf–boys round,” he muttered with a sneer. “Ought to be home with their mothers.”“What did you say?” asked Walter, catching the words with difficulty in his confused state of mind. “I’m obliged to you for finding me, but I can walk myself. Surf–boys are good for something,” he added with pride.“Oh, don’t be techy. Come along.”“You can go ahead,” said Walter with dignity,“and I will follow.” Joe made another mutter, but it was unintelligible this time, and Walter made no reply.“I have had a bad tumble and did not know anything for some time,” said Walter, as he entered the station and found Cook Charlie in a chair by the stove.“Poor feller!” exclaimed the cook sympathetically. “Sit down here, and I’ll have you some coffee less than no time. What—blood on ye? Here, let me wipe it off.”“Not serious, I guess.”“No, only a hard rub. I’ll fix it.”Charlie insisted on caring for Walter, but the latter said he must care for himself. Cook Charlie’s sympathy though, was pleasant. Something else was agreeable; Walter’s mortification and bruises were all finally drowned in the depth of that sea never cruel but always kind—sleep.Keeper Barney was walking the next morning through the crew’s sleeping quarters when he heard a stealthy step behind him. With the sound of the steps came the sound of a voice, “Cap’n.”“Oh, is that you, Joe?”“Yes, Cap’n. May I have a word with you?” asked Joe Cardridge.“Sartin. Say on.”“I don’t know as it is any of my business, but it is some of your’n. You know there have been stories round about that boy, Walter—”“Yes, Joe, and I don’t believe them. I told him about them, and he wanted to know who said so, and I had to give your name. He is dreadful anxious to see you, and if you have any proof, I advise you to be ready to bring it on.”“Proof!” said Joe sneeringly, flashing a spark of hate out of his usually dull, sleepy black eyes. “What was last night but proof?”“Last night? Why, it was an awful tough night, and the feller stumbled. Did you never fall? Cook Charlie said it was done in the discharge of duty, so he gethered, that Walter might have avoided the place, but if he had, he would have lost sight of the ocean, and not bein’ so well used to the place as some of the rest of us, he did not succeed in keepin’ his footin’.”“Keepin’ his footin’!” was Joe’s contemptuous reply. “Look here! What would you say if I told you the boy was under the influence of liquor when I found him. I s’pose he took suthin’—it bein’ a cold night—and he took too much; but you don’t want the men to do that.”“Neither too much nor too little. I don’t want them to touch it at all. There is plenty of hot coffee. That will brace ’em up and warm ’em up. Do you mean to say that you have positive proof that Walter had been a–foolin’ with drink?”“He acted jest like it.”“But he was hurt, and very nat’rally was confused.”“S’posin’ I should say I saw a bottle stickin’ out of his pockets, when he was undressin’?”“You did?”“May be there now, for all I know,” said Joe carelessly.“Nonsense. I don’t believe it. You are altogether too suspicious, and I can prove it now.”Here the keeper walked to the opposite side of the room, and turning to the clothes that swung from a row of pegs above Walter’s chest, began to pull them over. Suddenly he drew back his hand as if it had touched a red–hot coal! In one of the pockets in Walter’s blue blouse, was a brandy–flask!“Indeed!” exclaimed the keeper.“Didn’t I tell ye so? That’s what I saw in Walter’s pocket last night, and I smelt his breath. You goin’ to keep such a boy as that round?”Here Joe looked up into the keeper’s face somewhat as a snake might be supposed to eye the object he had struck and vanquished.“Wall—I must look into this. Let everything stay jest as it is. I must go into my room a few minutes. Soon as Walter comes into the station, I’ll have him up here, and I want you to be round too.”“I’m ready any time, Cap’n. I’m down on pickerprites. Only next time, Cap’n, be willin’ to take my word quick as you do Walter’s.”Keeper Barney did not hear the last sentence. He hurried away to his room, glad to close the door and hide his manifest disappointment. His position was one that bringing responsibility, carried anxiety with it also. There were many details in his work sometimes perplexing and always burdening. He expected this. He was prepared to find among the men in his crew the average amount of laziness and eye–service, of ill–temper and jealousy. He was not surprised if some men proved to be treacherous, and after seeing Joe Cardridge’s face once, he expected to find many bad places in the fabric of his character. Walter Plympton, he did thoroughly trust, and he was heartsick at the evidence that he was untrustworthy.“I did not expect to git that blow,” said thekeeper. “However, I’ll see what Walter has to say ’fore finally condemnin’ him. The evidence though looks bad. The sooner I go through this thing, the better. Walter will be in pretty quick, I guess.”He appeared sooner than he was expected. Joe Cardridge’s boots had hardly ceased to pound their way downstairs before another pair began to pound their way up, and somebody rapped on the keeper’s door.“Come in!” was Keeper Barney’s response. The door opened and Walter entered.“Joe Cardridge said you wanted to see me and I told him I wanted to see him and you together. He has not come though. And then, sir, I had a letter for you. I brought it with me from the office last evening, but you were not here when I came, and Cook Charlie thought it would do to give it to you this morning rather than disturb you, as you were not feeling just right. It is in my blouse hanging up, and I will get it now.”Walter fumbled in his pockets for the letter, but his blouse refused to yield any such document. Indeed, it had none to yield.“Why, why, I can’t find it!” stammered Walter.“What letter?” asked the keeper sternly.He had followed Walter into the crew’s room, and was eying him sharply.“It was a letter from the district superintendent,—judging from the envelope—and I supposed I had it sure, but I can’t find it where I put it. Let me hunt all through my blouse, look in every pocket. What’s—this? Why!”The keeper eyed Walter still more sharply and curiously, watching him with a smile of wonder to see what Walter would do when he reached the pocket where the brandy flask was. A guilty person would have attempted to hide it, but in a natural way Walter pulled it out, held it up, and manifested his surprise.“Is that the letter the superintendent sent?” inquired the keeper sarcastically. “If it is, he has changed his principles a good deal.”“That isn’t mine. I don’t know anything about it, Cap’n Barney.”“Look here! Hasn’t this thing gone far enough, Walter? Here you arrive at the station in a s’picious condition when your patrol is up, one of the surfmen picking you up, and a brandy flask is found in your pocket. A letter too is missing, a letter from the deestrick superintendent, who will make us a visit in five days, and I s’pose it is a special matter he wants me to look into. It puts me in a prettyfix. You—you—you.” The keeper was stumbling about in his effort to find the word he wished to use. He was angry at the loss of the letter, knowing that it might contain directions whose neglect would seriously damage him in the opinion of his superior. While he was irritated by a sense of his loss, Walter was indignant at the thought that he could be supposed to carry a brandy flask with him for tippling purposes. His bright hazel eyes were full of fire–flashes, and he threw back his handsome head in the pride of innocence.“Cap’n Barney,” he asserted, “I am very sorry that letter can’t be found. I think it will be found, but if it should not turn up to–day I will write to the superintendent and tell him frankly of all that happened, of my misfortune last night, and ask him to write to you, saying that I am sorry for troubling him, and as for the other matter—”“Yes,” said a voice breaking in suddenly, “that’s fair enough.” It was Cook Charlie’s voice. He had come upstairs, unobserved by the keeper and Walter. “You see, Cap’n,” he continued, and in that tone of voice which was peculiar to Charlie and was like “oil on troubled waters,” “I am part to blame ’bout this letter business. Walter had it lastnight, and wanted to hand it over then, but I told him jest to hold on to it, that the mornin’ would do. Of course, you work hard, and you were sick—and everybody knows you have enough on your mind to make a hoss sick, and there isn’t a more faithfuler keeper on the coast—and of course, I did not want to disturb ye. Blame me as well as Walter. Oh, it will turn up! Besides, he has offered to do the fair thing in writing to the superintendent, and that relieves a faithful keeper like you, and nobody could do more.”Under the skillful stroking of Cook Charlie’s words of praise, Keeper Barney’s agitation rapidly subsided, and the hard, angry lines in his face began to fade away.Walter now spoke; “As for that brandy flask, I have no idea how it came in my pocket. It is my coat, I allow, but I don’t own what’s in that pocket. There is some mistake here, and it was put in accidentally or somebody is trying to harm me. You can dismiss me if you want to, but I want the superintendent to investigate this whole matter, and if you will wait until he comes—no, turn me off now if you think it fair when I have had no chance to turn round, you might say, and speak for myself.”“It is Joe Cardridge who says you were not jest right when he found you last night.”“Doeshesay that I had been a–drinking? Then it’s a lie. Let me see him! Where is he?”“Quiet, Walter! You have got friends.” This was a new voice, Woodbury Elliott’s.By this time, all the crew were upstairs. The loud talking had attracted one curious head above the railing that guarded the stairs running up from the kitchen, then another head, then a third, till finally they all had stolen up stealthily, for no matter what etiquette might have demanded, the curiosity of human nature inherited from Eve (and Adam also) was a stronger motive, and there they were in a rough circle about the keeper and Walter.“Quiet!” said Woodbury softly to Walter again. “Cap’n Barney, let me say a word why I think you should let this thing hang over until the superintendent’s visit, that is supposin’ you had made up your mind to discharge Walter.” He then proceeded to review the whole case, beginning with the slanderous stories whispered about Walter, and closing with a reference to the mysterious discovery of the flask in Walter’s pocket. Against everything that looked suspicious, he put Walter’s previous good character and excellent record.“Cap’n Barney, has a man of us given you so little trouble in his conduct in the station? Has a man been more prompt to mind you, been more pleasant among the crew?”As Woodbury went on, pleading with animation, it was plain that in the opinion of the crew, he was fully sustaining his reputation as the best school orator in the “deestrict.” There were little chuckles of admiration heard now and then, and the keeper himself nodded his assent to Woodbury’s points.He had hardly finished his plea, when an eager voice on the outer rim of the circle squeaked, “Lemmespeak! Guess I can speak some,” said Joe Cardridge, hastily moving forward. “I have a few p’ints to make. I was the one who found Walter, and know more’n any one else. I’ve told ye how I found him, and you know what you yourself found in his blouse! And what do the reggerlations say?”He now began to quote from a regulation that says, “Keepers are forbidden to keep or sell, or allow to be kept or sold on the station premises, any intoxicating liquors; nor will they permit any person under the influence of intoxicating drinks to enter the station house or remain upon the premises.”With all the impressiveness of a jury orator,gesticulating furiously, amid the undisguised impatience of his auditors, he continued to quote: “Keepers will—will—not permit any—pusson—under the—influen—en—za—of intoxicatin’—drinks—drinks—er—er.”“Er—Er!” said some one in the ring of listeners, and all began to laugh. Joe was raving. He declared that he would not stay to be insulted, that Walter was clearly proved guilty. He was careful to say nothing disrespectful to the keeper, but he did not hesitate to pay his compliments to the crew in very stalwart Saxon. He then went downstairs, stamping and raving about “Surf–boys.” He would have returned, but the keeper stopped him. “I shall do my duty,” coolly declared the keeper, “and I shall expect you, Joe Cardridge, to do yours. As for Walter’s case, it shall lie over until the arrival of the superintendent. If you can explain things, Walter, I shall be glad to have you. I don’t think any of you will blame me for not dismissing the case at once when you remember how strictly I shall be held to account, and how dangerous in our work all tamperin’ with liquor may be. Cool heads and steady nerves, we must have.”“I believe that, Cap’n Barney,” said Walter, “and I will help you maintain discipline. I onlywant a chance to turn around and defend myself; for somebody is striking at me in the dark, and I don’t know where to strike back. It is a cowardly game they are playing. False, every bit of it.”“That’s so,” grunted that faithful supporter, Tom Walker.“Only give me a chance, sir,” insisted Walter.“You are goin’ to have it.”When the crew separated, Slim Tarleton patted Woodbury on the shoulder and said, “You did well, Wood; you did well. ’Twas good as the ‘Sea Sarpint.’”The favorite orator of The Harbor was gratified to win this praise, and he went away happy. With what feelings though did Walter separate from his mates? Buttoning his coat closely about him, into the wintry air out he stepped, anxious to seclude himself a while. He went to a nook in the rocks overshadowing the dismal, unfortunate hole into which he fell only the night before. The storm was over. The clouds were breaking up, and the hard, pitiless blue sky was disclosing itself in irregular patches. The tone of the coloring of the sea was also that of a hard, pitiless blue, dashed here and there with chilling foam–streaks. Against a land white and frozen, the surf continuallyswept like one snow–drift rolling up against another. Walter sat down in his rocky corner and looked off upon the sea. It was not pleasant to be suspected, and suspected wrongfully. It was true that he had the sympathy of most of the crew, and the keeper wished to find him innocent, but Keeper Barney showed that he was distrustful. Walter’s time at the station was almost up. In a week, Silas Fay, for whom Walter had been serving as substitute, expected to be in his old place, and Walter wished to leave with credit, not under this horrible cloud of suspicion. He was going back to Uncle Boardman’s. He would meet The Harbor people and May Elliott. He would soon visit those at home. It was not an agreeable thought that he would go as one accused even if not proved guilty. He felt that these accusations set him apart, isolated him, and others were looking at him as one suspected. There was a great, crushing loneliness that bore upon him,—only for a moment though. While he was watching the sea and the eastern sky, the sun suddenly broke through the clouds, and a flood of light swept everywhere, far out to sea, far along the shore, warming the wave–crests, the surf, the snow–banks. And with this burst of light, flashed into Walter’s soul the thought of God, fillingand glorifying all space without, all the soul within. It was God who knew him, understood him, believed him, would befriend him; and Walter was no longer alone. That revelation of God made in this trying hour was a new, unanticipated, rich experience. It came when he was hard pressed and driven in upon himself, so weak, helpless and alone, only to find that God had not failed him and was with him all the time. God will not fail any trusting child. He will stand by you. Walter felt strong. He rose from his seat in the rocks and stood erect as if shaking off a hard, heavy burden. The tears were in his eyes.“I did not think God was so near,” he murmured. In his religious life, he had been trying to follow God, not with all the success he craved, and yet still trying to follow Him. And now in this hour of trial, of attack by enemies, that great Leader had come to him and strengthened him. Is He not always near? There is dimness of sight in us, and not a lack of nearness on God’s part.“I will try to keep close to God,” thought Walter.There came to him also that consciousness of nature’s approbation, which he had experienced once before. The sky, the sun, the sea, allseemed to assure him that he was right and that they were in league with him. That sea, though—could it be trusted? Might it not prove treacherous, those chilling hidden depths under all the sunlight now flashing across the waves?“Five days in which to show I am innocent,” said Walter. “Who knows what may happen in five days?”Yes, who could tell?He turned from the sea and walked back to the station.

CHAPTER XIV.TWO BAD CASES.Old Capt. Elliott, so the people called him, could not climb a certain stairway. That was not so strange, for it was the stairway of a new life, and amendment is sometimes the hardest thing one can attempt. And yet it does not seem as if a little piece of paper, would have so hindered Capt. Elliott—a little piece of paper in his pocket—for it bore him down as if it had been a mill–stone round his neck, and climb, he could not. Say rather, climb hewouldnot. The facts were these. He had been very much agitated by the services at the Hall. They were a glass to his soul, in which he had looked, and had seen what a needy, miserable being he was. He resolved he would begin a new life, and he climbed one step in that stairway—the step of prayer. Hethought he had climbed another step, which is just as important, repentance; that he had begun to leave behind him old sins and was on the way to speedy improvement. But a call one evening from Miss P. Green led him to think otherwise. She suddenly appeared at his door, interrupting him while he was praying, her bright eyes flashing and her little curls dancing, and handing him a letter, remarked, “I found this in the mail, Cap’n, and none of your folks were down, and as I was over this way, I thought I would bring it along.”“Thank ye,” he replied gruffly, and taking the proffered note, he turned away, leaving Miss P. Green on the broad stone steps before his door.She withdrew her bright eyes and her dancing little curls, saying, “There, I should have thought he might have said, ‘It’s from so–and–so.’ That would have been some pay; butIknow! It’s from Boardman Blake. I can tell his handwriting a mile off. I wonder what he is writing for, when he might come himself.”Capt. Elliott also wondered; but some things we can say better with our pens than we can with our tongues, and this was Boardman’s situation.The old man forced open the envelope with his big fingers, and read this:“Capt. Elliott;“Dear Sir,—I am aware that the time on my mortgage is up, and I know you have a right to come over and take my house. I thought perhaps you might give me a little time, as it is very hard just now to raise any money. If you could do this, it would be a great favor to me. I am a good deal worried about it, and am sorry you can’t have your money. Hoping you can oblige me, I am,“Truly yours,“Boardman Blake.”“Can’t pay!” sneered the captain. “How does he get money to live on? How does he s’pose I can live? Wants a little time? Well, hasn’t he had it? It is that old mill into which his money has gone, and now he wants more time. Nonsense!”Capt. Elliott put the document in his pocket and tried to pray once more, but he couldn’t. The step he wanted to climb up was so hard, or rather that paper in his pocket was so weighty! “A little time,” he kept mumbling to himself. Gray–headed old man, chafing because a worried neighbor begged him not to take his house, but give him a little time in which to attempt payment, while he himself was only a beggar at God’s throne, and had not that Heavenly Father given him a long time for repentance?Who was he, thus gripping another unfortunate by the neck and refusing him the solicited favor? Get up from your knees, Capt. Elliott. Stop your praying and go to writing. Tell Boardman Blake he shall have his “little time.” Then kneel again and ask God to have mercy on you, an undeserving old beggar. As it is, that note in your pocket clogs your progress, holds you down and holds you back. You thought you were getting along rapidly, and had mounted several stairs and were up quite high. Now you feel bruised and sore, and down in the depths, as if you had had a tumble and were lying at the foot of the stairway again. A bad case indeed.Ah, God will not take us unless we come to him whole–hearted in our desire to serve Him, and not only ready to give up every sin, but actually giving it up, letting go old grudges, willing to do the just and honest and generous thing by our neighbor. Then He takes us up in His arms and calls us, “Son, Daughter!”Another bad case, and that very day too. The day was not stormy, and yet threatening. The sea looked cold, and the white crests of the waves were like patches of snow, pure but chilling, while between these wintry tufts were black hollows of water. A mist hadadvanced so far toward the station that the shore could not be inspected from the lookout two miles either way. The patrols were on duty therefore, and Walter was at the Crescent end of the beach, as that part facing the rocks in the river was called. Wrapped in his thick, warm fisher jacket, he faced the keen, chilly though not violent wind blowing from the north–east. Now he made broad footprints in the gray sand with his big rubber boots, then he stumbled over rocks matted with the rich brown of the sea–weed, or some bold encroachment of the sea would compel him to withdraw to the top of a high wall of rock. He was near the end of his beat, and halted a moment to watch the play of the waves about the Chair.He soon became aware of the presence of another spectator, somebody looking in the same direction. It was a man leaning upon a bulky rock projecting from the sands. As soon as Walter saw his bending form, the broad back, the strong shoulders supporting a round head, and noticed that he was a person of short stature, he exclaimed, “That’s the man! That’s the way the man looked whom I saw one morning in Uncle Boardman’s store, standing behind the counter as if handling the books onthose shelves. I have been hunting for him all this time. Yes, that’s—” The man here turned quickly about, and involuntarily Walter added, and said it aloud, “Baggs!”“Hum, did you want me?” replied Baggs rather ungraciously.“Oh!” said Walter confusedly. “Beg your pardon, Mr. Baggs. Good morning!”“Well, no, I should think it was a bad morning. I want to know why you are interrupting me.”“I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I am on my beat, and I only wish to attend to that. I saw you looking at the Chair, and I was looking at it myself.”“Well, can’t a man look at the Chair and not be interrupted?” replied Baggs, with a good deal of warmth.“Oh, yes, and I can too,” said Walter, who was not the person to be crowded when in the discharge of his duties. He felt that he represented the whole Life Saving Service of the Atlantic coast, and he was not willing that Baggs or any one else should do anything that looked like interference. “I suppose,” added Walter, “I looked at you rather hard, for you made me think of a man who mysteriously appeared and then disappeared in my uncle’sstore one morning.” The next moment, Walter was saying to himself, “There, I did not intend to say that. Just like me to let a thing out.”Walter’s impulsive nature could not easily retain in concealment anything that interested him. It was like an arrow on the string of a drawn bow, and fly it might, any moment. Baggs was disposed to let fly something also.“Then you haven’t forgotten that, have you?” he said testily. “What do you suppose a man would want in there, at that time? He couldn’t be stealin’, for I’d like to know what your uncle has got in there that’s worth stealin’, or got anywhere as to that matter. No, sir, I wasn’t the man. My mission is not that of a thief,” said the pure and lofty Baggs, striking an attitude designed to be majestic, but which only made more conspicuous the awkward proportions of his thick, squat figure.“If you had let my uncle alone,” exclaimed Walter very decidedly, “he would have had something that might have been worth the envying.”“Are you going to teachme, sir?”“No, I am going about my business,” replied Walter coolly, “for I can’t stay here any longer.”“Well, sir, another time don’t interrupt anybody looking off.”“I am willing any one should look at the Chair all day, Mr. Baggs. Good day, sir.”Walter had said, “Well, I’ll treat him decently anyway,” but his last remark had an effect that does not generally follow “decent” remarks. Baggs trembled with excitement, blustered, almost foamed, and inquired stammeringly, “Why—why should I—look at—the Chair? Why—why—what have I done—to it—why—what have I done to the Chair? You, you’re mistaken, sir, you—”Walter turned away in silence and walked on to the end of his beat. Baggs remained, muttering to himself as he looked toward the ill–omened rocks. When he did leave, he took the road leading to the village, passed through The Harbor and then followed the winding line of the water up to the mill.“My nephew!” he exclaimed, and stopped as that brisk vigorous young trader approached.“Not much trade stirring to–day,” remarked Chauncy, rubbing his hands.“Won’t be in this hole,” replied the uncle gloomily.“Oh, yes,” said Chauncy encouragingly, “it will come, it will come. Fact is, the weather is against us. You can’t force a market against the weather.”The two had halted near the water. Just beyond their feet, in a little curve of the shore, the water suddenly deepened. The boys of the neighborhood called it the “Pool,” and sometimes used it as a bathing tub.“There are too many people that are against us ever to expect much, Chauncy.”“What do you mean, uncle?”“Well,” said Baggs, dropping his voice and moving his head nearer to Chauncy’s ear as if afraid that somebody might hear him, “there is that Walter Plympton. I think he knows more than is good for our business. He must somehow be forced out of the neighborhood. As I understand it, he will not be at the station long, but he must not stay here at all. I will get his old booby uncle to send him home; and I want you, nephew” (he always said this when he wished to be affectionate, and sincerely affectionate he never was), “I want you, nephew, to say round here and there, you know, that you—don’t think he is much of a feller—indeed you know of his bein’—bein’—”“Being what, uncle?” asked Chauncy eying sharply his relative.“Well, if you don’t just know, get up something. Well—”“Get up what, uncle?”“Well, now, at the ’cademy, wasn’t there some scrape, wasn’t there drinkin’, wasn’t there—”Chauncy was flippant and conceited and brassy, and he had veneered certain of his uncle’s tricks of trade with the name “business methods,” and had practiced them as the customary thing among shrewd, enterprising men, and therefore permissible. Chauncy was not base enough to spatter with lies the character of one whom he knew to be trustworthy. He had rather avoided Walter since the boat–race, but he could not deliberately go to work to ruin his character. Chauncy now mildly demurred; but at the same time, he lifted his cap and stroked those formidable locks of hair, and that meant a pugnacious attitude, a very decided, “I won’t.”“Oh, I don’t believe I would, uncle,” said Chauncy. “I don’t really know anything against Walter. He’s a sort of a Puritan, and thinks considerable of Walter Plympton; but we all of us have a pretty good idea of ourselves. Guess I wouldn’t,” and he added a title sometimes used among the great man’s relatives, “Uncle Bezzie.”This fond uncle was not in a mood to be contradicted, and then patted with a soft title. Heturned fiercely on Chauncy, his face swelling and darkening, his crooked eye flashing, and his voice roughening.“What are you—you—makin’ opposition for? Who raised you,—who—raised you, sir,—yes, raised from—from obscurity, and gave you a place in—in—a fust class mercantile house? What—why—do you oppose for? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, sir, yes—and—take that.”The uncle here lost control of the temper hidden behind the usually mild voice. He lost control of himself altogether, for advancing toward the astonished Chauncy, who was peacefully but decidedly rubbing his lofty knob of hair, he suddenly and violently pushed his beloved nephew over into the water. There was a fearful agitation, for a few moments, down in that hitherto peaceful pool; but Chauncy soon crawled out of the unexpected bath.“That’s—that’s mean!” he ejaculated, spitting the water from his mouth and shaking it off from his dripping clothes. Baggs, though, did not hear him. He was angrily moving away.

TWO BAD CASES.

Old Capt. Elliott, so the people called him, could not climb a certain stairway. That was not so strange, for it was the stairway of a new life, and amendment is sometimes the hardest thing one can attempt. And yet it does not seem as if a little piece of paper, would have so hindered Capt. Elliott—a little piece of paper in his pocket—for it bore him down as if it had been a mill–stone round his neck, and climb, he could not. Say rather, climb hewouldnot. The facts were these. He had been very much agitated by the services at the Hall. They were a glass to his soul, in which he had looked, and had seen what a needy, miserable being he was. He resolved he would begin a new life, and he climbed one step in that stairway—the step of prayer. Hethought he had climbed another step, which is just as important, repentance; that he had begun to leave behind him old sins and was on the way to speedy improvement. But a call one evening from Miss P. Green led him to think otherwise. She suddenly appeared at his door, interrupting him while he was praying, her bright eyes flashing and her little curls dancing, and handing him a letter, remarked, “I found this in the mail, Cap’n, and none of your folks were down, and as I was over this way, I thought I would bring it along.”

“Thank ye,” he replied gruffly, and taking the proffered note, he turned away, leaving Miss P. Green on the broad stone steps before his door.

She withdrew her bright eyes and her dancing little curls, saying, “There, I should have thought he might have said, ‘It’s from so–and–so.’ That would have been some pay; butIknow! It’s from Boardman Blake. I can tell his handwriting a mile off. I wonder what he is writing for, when he might come himself.”

Capt. Elliott also wondered; but some things we can say better with our pens than we can with our tongues, and this was Boardman’s situation.

The old man forced open the envelope with his big fingers, and read this:

“Capt. Elliott;

“Dear Sir,—I am aware that the time on my mortgage is up, and I know you have a right to come over and take my house. I thought perhaps you might give me a little time, as it is very hard just now to raise any money. If you could do this, it would be a great favor to me. I am a good deal worried about it, and am sorry you can’t have your money. Hoping you can oblige me, I am,

“Truly yours,

“Boardman Blake.”

“Can’t pay!” sneered the captain. “How does he get money to live on? How does he s’pose I can live? Wants a little time? Well, hasn’t he had it? It is that old mill into which his money has gone, and now he wants more time. Nonsense!”

Capt. Elliott put the document in his pocket and tried to pray once more, but he couldn’t. The step he wanted to climb up was so hard, or rather that paper in his pocket was so weighty! “A little time,” he kept mumbling to himself. Gray–headed old man, chafing because a worried neighbor begged him not to take his house, but give him a little time in which to attempt payment, while he himself was only a beggar at God’s throne, and had not that Heavenly Father given him a long time for repentance?Who was he, thus gripping another unfortunate by the neck and refusing him the solicited favor? Get up from your knees, Capt. Elliott. Stop your praying and go to writing. Tell Boardman Blake he shall have his “little time.” Then kneel again and ask God to have mercy on you, an undeserving old beggar. As it is, that note in your pocket clogs your progress, holds you down and holds you back. You thought you were getting along rapidly, and had mounted several stairs and were up quite high. Now you feel bruised and sore, and down in the depths, as if you had had a tumble and were lying at the foot of the stairway again. A bad case indeed.

Ah, God will not take us unless we come to him whole–hearted in our desire to serve Him, and not only ready to give up every sin, but actually giving it up, letting go old grudges, willing to do the just and honest and generous thing by our neighbor. Then He takes us up in His arms and calls us, “Son, Daughter!”

Another bad case, and that very day too. The day was not stormy, and yet threatening. The sea looked cold, and the white crests of the waves were like patches of snow, pure but chilling, while between these wintry tufts were black hollows of water. A mist hadadvanced so far toward the station that the shore could not be inspected from the lookout two miles either way. The patrols were on duty therefore, and Walter was at the Crescent end of the beach, as that part facing the rocks in the river was called. Wrapped in his thick, warm fisher jacket, he faced the keen, chilly though not violent wind blowing from the north–east. Now he made broad footprints in the gray sand with his big rubber boots, then he stumbled over rocks matted with the rich brown of the sea–weed, or some bold encroachment of the sea would compel him to withdraw to the top of a high wall of rock. He was near the end of his beat, and halted a moment to watch the play of the waves about the Chair.

He soon became aware of the presence of another spectator, somebody looking in the same direction. It was a man leaning upon a bulky rock projecting from the sands. As soon as Walter saw his bending form, the broad back, the strong shoulders supporting a round head, and noticed that he was a person of short stature, he exclaimed, “That’s the man! That’s the way the man looked whom I saw one morning in Uncle Boardman’s store, standing behind the counter as if handling the books onthose shelves. I have been hunting for him all this time. Yes, that’s—” The man here turned quickly about, and involuntarily Walter added, and said it aloud, “Baggs!”

“Hum, did you want me?” replied Baggs rather ungraciously.

“Oh!” said Walter confusedly. “Beg your pardon, Mr. Baggs. Good morning!”

“Well, no, I should think it was a bad morning. I want to know why you are interrupting me.”

“I didn’t mean to interrupt you. I am on my beat, and I only wish to attend to that. I saw you looking at the Chair, and I was looking at it myself.”

“Well, can’t a man look at the Chair and not be interrupted?” replied Baggs, with a good deal of warmth.

“Oh, yes, and I can too,” said Walter, who was not the person to be crowded when in the discharge of his duties. He felt that he represented the whole Life Saving Service of the Atlantic coast, and he was not willing that Baggs or any one else should do anything that looked like interference. “I suppose,” added Walter, “I looked at you rather hard, for you made me think of a man who mysteriously appeared and then disappeared in my uncle’sstore one morning.” The next moment, Walter was saying to himself, “There, I did not intend to say that. Just like me to let a thing out.”

Walter’s impulsive nature could not easily retain in concealment anything that interested him. It was like an arrow on the string of a drawn bow, and fly it might, any moment. Baggs was disposed to let fly something also.

“Then you haven’t forgotten that, have you?” he said testily. “What do you suppose a man would want in there, at that time? He couldn’t be stealin’, for I’d like to know what your uncle has got in there that’s worth stealin’, or got anywhere as to that matter. No, sir, I wasn’t the man. My mission is not that of a thief,” said the pure and lofty Baggs, striking an attitude designed to be majestic, but which only made more conspicuous the awkward proportions of his thick, squat figure.

“If you had let my uncle alone,” exclaimed Walter very decidedly, “he would have had something that might have been worth the envying.”

“Are you going to teachme, sir?”

“No, I am going about my business,” replied Walter coolly, “for I can’t stay here any longer.”

“Well, sir, another time don’t interrupt anybody looking off.”

“I am willing any one should look at the Chair all day, Mr. Baggs. Good day, sir.”

Walter had said, “Well, I’ll treat him decently anyway,” but his last remark had an effect that does not generally follow “decent” remarks. Baggs trembled with excitement, blustered, almost foamed, and inquired stammeringly, “Why—why should I—look at—the Chair? Why—why—what have I done—to it—why—what have I done to the Chair? You, you’re mistaken, sir, you—”

Walter turned away in silence and walked on to the end of his beat. Baggs remained, muttering to himself as he looked toward the ill–omened rocks. When he did leave, he took the road leading to the village, passed through The Harbor and then followed the winding line of the water up to the mill.

“My nephew!” he exclaimed, and stopped as that brisk vigorous young trader approached.

“Not much trade stirring to–day,” remarked Chauncy, rubbing his hands.

“Won’t be in this hole,” replied the uncle gloomily.

“Oh, yes,” said Chauncy encouragingly, “it will come, it will come. Fact is, the weather is against us. You can’t force a market against the weather.”

The two had halted near the water. Just beyond their feet, in a little curve of the shore, the water suddenly deepened. The boys of the neighborhood called it the “Pool,” and sometimes used it as a bathing tub.

“There are too many people that are against us ever to expect much, Chauncy.”

“What do you mean, uncle?”

“Well,” said Baggs, dropping his voice and moving his head nearer to Chauncy’s ear as if afraid that somebody might hear him, “there is that Walter Plympton. I think he knows more than is good for our business. He must somehow be forced out of the neighborhood. As I understand it, he will not be at the station long, but he must not stay here at all. I will get his old booby uncle to send him home; and I want you, nephew” (he always said this when he wished to be affectionate, and sincerely affectionate he never was), “I want you, nephew, to say round here and there, you know, that you—don’t think he is much of a feller—indeed you know of his bein’—bein’—”

“Being what, uncle?” asked Chauncy eying sharply his relative.

“Well, if you don’t just know, get up something. Well—”

“Get up what, uncle?”

“Well, now, at the ’cademy, wasn’t there some scrape, wasn’t there drinkin’, wasn’t there—”

Chauncy was flippant and conceited and brassy, and he had veneered certain of his uncle’s tricks of trade with the name “business methods,” and had practiced them as the customary thing among shrewd, enterprising men, and therefore permissible. Chauncy was not base enough to spatter with lies the character of one whom he knew to be trustworthy. He had rather avoided Walter since the boat–race, but he could not deliberately go to work to ruin his character. Chauncy now mildly demurred; but at the same time, he lifted his cap and stroked those formidable locks of hair, and that meant a pugnacious attitude, a very decided, “I won’t.”

“Oh, I don’t believe I would, uncle,” said Chauncy. “I don’t really know anything against Walter. He’s a sort of a Puritan, and thinks considerable of Walter Plympton; but we all of us have a pretty good idea of ourselves. Guess I wouldn’t,” and he added a title sometimes used among the great man’s relatives, “Uncle Bezzie.”

This fond uncle was not in a mood to be contradicted, and then patted with a soft title. Heturned fiercely on Chauncy, his face swelling and darkening, his crooked eye flashing, and his voice roughening.

“What are you—you—makin’ opposition for? Who raised you,—who—raised you, sir,—yes, raised from—from obscurity, and gave you a place in—in—a fust class mercantile house? What—why—do you oppose for? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, sir, yes—and—take that.”

The uncle here lost control of the temper hidden behind the usually mild voice. He lost control of himself altogether, for advancing toward the astonished Chauncy, who was peacefully but decidedly rubbing his lofty knob of hair, he suddenly and violently pushed his beloved nephew over into the water. There was a fearful agitation, for a few moments, down in that hitherto peaceful pool; but Chauncy soon crawled out of the unexpected bath.

“That’s—that’s mean!” he ejaculated, spitting the water from his mouth and shaking it off from his dripping clothes. Baggs, though, did not hear him. He was angrily moving away.

CHAPTER XV.THE BARNEY LITERARY CLUB.Cook Charlie was a blessing. Nature had made him that handsome present of a happy temperament, and common sense had taught him to take good care of the gift.“I know my man,” said Keeper Barney when he hired him. “He’s worth a fortin.”I have already said that Cook Charlie was fat. He was also bald. Though not over thirty, his appearance of age gave a certain authority to his opinions, and a second title for him was that of “old man.” Old man or young man, he was always good–natured. Did it blow without? Did the wind bring a sting with every blast? Cook Charlie was calm. Did the sky scowl on the tired surfman? Cook Charlie was sure to smile. Did any discussionin the living–room become a disputation, ill–natured, angry, and did the men turn uneasily in their chairs, stamping stormily on the floor with their hard, heavy boots? “So—so, boys,” Cook Charlie would exclaim. “Now, look here! Let me put that question.” And this amiable manipulator of contentious souls would “put the question” so skillfully that both sides might find themselves on the same side! Then Cook Charlie was monarch of the kitchen stove. He knew that, and what a center of comfort and happiness he made that stove! No sulking fire—one big, black pout—awaited the chilled surfman when he came from his windy beat; but a cheery heat radiated from that stove, in whose ascending current the patrolman rubbed and bathed his hands gratefully. Then the breakfasts, dinners, and suppers! There was not a great variety of food, but it was sure to be hot. It was sure to be abundant also. Then Cook Charlie would have a little “surprise” for the men, perhaps a pudding that he would covertly slip out of the oven and land on the table amid a series of, “Oh—Oh—Oh!” I think he realized that he had a mission in that bleak little station, and with his cook stove he could do marvels. He did not say it in words, but there was acheerful little tune forever sounding in his thoughts, and this was the burden of the song:“My stove is king,My stove is king.”“Mr. Barney,” said the district superintendent Baker, one day, “who is your right hand man here—I mean the one you get the most help from?”“My cook,” said the keeper promptly. “Of course he wants his wages, but I don’t think he works just for them. I think he takes a pleasure in seein’ how well he can do. He keeps his fire in good condition all the time, so that the boys can warm themselves handy any hour; and then, you know, surfmen must be well fed if you want good work of them. I call Cook Charlie my steerin’ oar.”It was Cook Charlie that Walter had a special talk with one morning. The young surfman’s watch was now toward sunrise. He halted as he was about finishing his beat, and from the doorstep of the station, looked off upon the sea. Winter was whitening the earth, but the warm flush of summer was on the sea and in the sky. It was a holiday sky, a long fold of purple swathing the horizon. Then came a pink flush, and deep set in this was themorning star. The sea was one vast sheet of silver, warm and placid. Along the shore, it was wrinkled and broken into surf. Far at the right, the sky was of a cold azure, and the sea beneath it was chilled and shadowy also. Here were two vessels sailing. They seemed to be eagerly pushing toward that summer light in the east and that sea of silver.“I’ll watch the sun come up,” said Walter, and this sentinel of the Life Saving Service, his extinguished lantern in his hand, stood sharply watching as if for an enemy that would come by water. A noise on the land called his attention away for a few minutes. When he turned again, no enemy was there on that still, shining sea, but away off on the horizon’s edge was a tiny, pink boat, a boat without oar or sail, a boat that must have come for a carnival, but had mistaken the time of the year. The pink flamed into silver, and the little boat became a gay turban of some royal Turk about to show his eyes and peep over the horizon line at the earth. Was this the enemy that the young coastguard expected? No, the turban expanded into a very big innocent–looking frozen pudding laid by Neptune’s jolly cook on this smooth, polished table of the sea. This confectioner’s dish soon began torise, growing into a lofty, bulging dome, a towering dome, rising, swelling, rounding out—till there swung clear of the sea a globe of fire, the sun himself! He began to assert his presence in the most unmistakable way, sending out the sharpest, the most dazzling rays, from which Walter was glad to turn away his eyes.“A new day,” said Walter, “and what is to be done to–day? Breakfast, and then I may turn in awhile, and have a nap. The newspaper will come, and I suppose I shall read that. We shall have a drill of some kind, and the watch from the lookout must be kept up. Then I suppose we shall be loafing about Charlie’s stove. I believe I have about gone through that library in the corner. I wish—yes—and I’ll ask Charlie about it right off.”Cook Charlie was alone with his stove, his coffee–pot, and frying–pan. An appetizing fragrance welcomed the hungry young surfman as he opened the door of the station.“Good chance now,” thought Walter, “and I’ll speak about it.”“Charlie,” said Walter, laying down his time–detector and signal, and hanging up his lantern, “I wanted to ask your opinion.”“Ask away. No charge made.”“You know time hangs a little heavy here.”“That’s so, Walter, but what of it?”“Well, I was thinking if we couldn’t have a little variety here. Now there are some subjects that it would be rather interesting to know about, it seems to me, and it would be in our line of business. I mean such as the sea and storm, or commerce, or our Life Saving Service and that of England. You know somebody might write on them, and we have a little society–meeting and read our pieces. We could have a certain afternoon for it, and then we could discuss subjects. We might call it the ‘Mutual Improvement Society,’ or something like that, you know.”“That’s quite an idea, Walter. The name though might frighten some of ’em out of doors.”“Call it—call it ‘Round the Stove Society.’”“Ha–ha, we have that all the time. That’s a sticker, the name. What shall she be? Well, I guess we had better get our boat before we name it. You let me speak to the Cap’n, and then if he favors it, you say a word to Tom and Woodbury, and I’ll try the rest.”Keeper Barney that morning was delayed by his work, and took his fried potatoes, biscuit and coffee after the usual breakfast hour. Cook Charlie thought, “Now is the time. Weare alone, and I’ll bring up that little matter now. Let me see; how shall I take him? The Cap’n is a fustrate feller, but he likes to have the credit of siggestin’, and doin’ things hisself. I must jest fix it in some way so that he’ll mention it hisself. Let’s see.”Fingering his bald head as if he expected to find the right idea on the outside, if not inside, he approached the keeper, holding out an additional plate of “fried taters” just from the pan, steaming and savory, as an innocent magnet to bring the keeper’s heart into a favorable attitude toward the new plan.“Oh, Charlie, you’re real good,” exclaimed the keeper.“You earn it, Cap’n. You have to work hard enough on somethin’ all the time, fussin’ or worryin’. I wish the men only had somethin’ to occupy their time.”“‘Twould be a good idea if they would jest till up their spare minutes,” remarked the keeper, as he drank with avidity his coffee.“A readin’ somethin’, you know; and it wouldn’t hurt ’em to be a–studyin’.”“I know it. I wish our superintendent at Washington would send us two or three—four or five nice new books every winter for our lib’ry. Congress, of course, must give him the money.”“Why, Cap’n, I’ve let your cup be empty! Jest let me fill it up smokin’ hot.”“Charlie, you know jest where a man feels tender. You ought to run a beach hotel.”“I am a–doin’ it now, Cap’n. Ha–ha! There, take another biscuit, a hot one. I do wish the men would be improvin’ their minds. Everybody can do somethin’. One winter I was at Duxton, the young people there had a little society, to write on subjects, you know. Fact is, people can improve themselves if they want ter.”The keeper made no reply, not even saying, “A–hem!” He continued to eat in silence. Charlie eyed him sharply.“Hullo! He’s got an idea! That’s the way he allers does when an idea strikes him. He says nothin’ and eats faster and faster, as if an idea on four legs, its mouth open, was after him. Hold on!” thought the cook.Soon came a communication from the silent eater. He looked up, and then slammed his hands on the table.“Charlie, I’ve got an idea! Now what do you think of it? There’s no sense in the men’s loafin’ round the stove forever. Let’s get up a society, a kind of readin’, perhaps speakin’ or debatin’ society. Call it—the—the—”“Cap’n, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Acap’tul idee! Call it the Barney Lit’rary Club. Hoor–rah!”And here Cook Charlie in his enthusiasm began to swing the dish that he held in his hand. It was half full of crisp brown potatoes, and they too were unable to resist the excitement of the hour, and danced off in every direction.“Oh, Cap’n, there’s the rest of your breakfast!”“No matter!” said the keeper, a light flashing from his eyes that made still warmer the color of his hair, his face and his beard. “No matter! I’ve had a good breakfast. We’ve got an idee, you know, to pay for it.”“That’s so, Cap’n. You brought down the right bird that time.”“You might sound the men on the subject and tell ’em what I’m a–thinkin’ of.”“I will, Cap’n.”“There’s Walter. He’s handy with his pen. You tech him up.”“I will, sure.”“I must be off now on the beach.”As he left the room, Cook Charlie went to the door leading upstairs and called out, “Come here, Walter. The Cap’n’s proposed jest what we wanted, and I engaged to speak to you. Come down! I want to ‘tech’ you up.”Details were all arranged, and one afternoon the “Barney Literary Club” held its first meeting. It was a wintry day without. The wind blew sharp and strong from the north–west, and meeting the tide that was coming in, broke up the sea into short, fierce little waves whose dark, angry blue was spattered with flakes of white, chilling foam. Across the frozen land and the dark sea, the brightest of suns looked smilingly out of a clear sky, but his smiles did not warm the land or cheer the sea. Did not all this though, make the living–room of the station a snugger, jollier place?“A grain small,” thought the keeper, “is this room when we and our big boots all try to get into it, but we have had some good times here, and we will have to–day another.”The keeper, as president, sat in the chair of honor, and that was an ordinary chair placed against the wall between the boat–room door and the outer door. At his right sat Cook Charlie, the secretary, awkwardly fumbling a lead pencil and sheet of paper. Walter was on the left of the president. An eager yet embarrassed look was on his face, for he had been appointed to read a paper which he nervously clutched with both hands. The other members of the crew were scattered about the room, all ofthem permanently located except Slim Tarleton. It was his watch, and every few minutes he would run up the stairs and from the lookout sweep with his glass the sea, that subtle, treacherous power which must be watched, day and night. The president made a very short speech to the “Barney Literary Club,” and then read a paper on the United States Life Saving Service. The facts given are embodied already in this book.“I will now call on Walter for a paper,” said the president.There was a tickle that needed to be expelled from Walter’s throat, and at the same time a warm blush spread up to the roots of his hair.“My paper is on the Life Saving Service of other countries. Great Britain, which has a coast almost five thousand miles long, has a Royal National Life–boat Institution. It is supported by voluntary offerings. Its object is to provide and maintain life–boats, and it also rewards efforts to save the shipwrecked at points where it may have no station. A life–boat with all necessary equipments, and that would include carriage, will cost somewhat over three thousand dollars, and a boathouse can be built for about seventeen hundred. The cost of keeping up a station is about three hundred andfifty dollars for the year, a sum that would support an American station with seven men for only one month. In England, the above sum pays the crew for going off to any wrecks, for exercising their boat once every three months, and covers also the coxswain’s salary and any repairs. The life–boats are of different sizes—six, eight, ten and twelve–oared. Some of the crews go out but seldom. When it is rough thereabouts at the Goodwin Sands, the life–boat men must stand watch all the time. At Ramsgate, the service is so important that a steamer waits on the boat constantly, its fires banked up ready for any emergency. Different cities like Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and others, have given life–boats to the Institution, and contribute every year to its funds.“England’s work though for the shipwrecked takes in something else besides the work of the life–boats. There is the Rocket Service. The thirtieth of June, 1881, there were two hundred and eighty–eight rocket stations. The rocket apparatus consists of the rocket, the rocket line, the whip, the hawser, and sling life–buoy. The rocket has a line, a light one, fastened to it, which is shot over a wreck. Then the rest of the apparatus is used. We use the gun or mortar instead of the rocket. England’s rocket stationsare under the control of the Board of Trade. The men of the coastguard manage the rockets. For every life saved, the Board of Trade pays a sum of money. It gives medals also to those who may have shown unusual courage. The wants of sailors and others who may be saved from shipwreck are now met by the ‘Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners’ Royal Benevolent Society.’ The work, then, that we do in our stations, in England seems to be spread out, and it is done by several bodies, and how much the whole may cost, I can’t say. Of course, it is not fair to compare the money expended in England with the amount we spend, until we know all the expenses there. I think, though, our system is better than England’s.“There is a ‘French Society for Saving Life from Shipwreck.’ It was started in 1865, and not only along the coast of France, but in Algeria and other colonies, has this society carried on its work. In sixteen years, it saved two thousand and one hundred and twenty–nine lives. June 30th, 1881, it had sixty–two life–boat stations, and three hundred and ninety–one mortar or other projectile stations. It is modeled after the English system, but it prefers the gun to the rocket.“There is the ‘German Association for the Rescue of Life from Shipwreck,’ founded in 1865. It is supported by donations. The last report I saw, gave it seventy–four life–boat stations, twenty of these having the mortar or rocket apparatus. There must be a larger number now. In 1880–81, it saved two ships and a hundred and twenty–two lives; and from May, 1880, to May, 1881, its members subscribed over a quarter of a million of dollars. Germany has flat sandy beaches, and it cannot so well use England’s heavy boats. It is said that in Russia, Italy and Spain, life saving societies patterned more or less after England’s ‘National Life–boat Institution,’ have been organized. England must have a magnificent navy of life–boats and a fine rocket service; but I guess Uncle Sam with his hands in his deep pockets, paying out more and more every year, has organized a service that can’t be matched elsewhere. That is my opinion, and I would like to ask the company’s.”This patriotic appeal to the company was exceedingly popular. Boots went down heavily, hands came together sharply, and enthusiastic cries of “Good!” “Good!” were heard all over the room. Then the secretary read a humorous paper on “The Surfman—his firstStormy Patrol,” giving experiences he had gleaned from the crew, and so faithfully reported that they were readily recognized, winning him a round of hand–claps.“Woodbury!” “Woodbury!” was now heard from several quarters. “That Sea–Sarpent! Let us have it!” “Don’t be bashful!”Woodbury Elliott was nervously twisting in his chair, the color deepening in his fair complexion, saying, “No! No! I couldn’t!” But the Literary Club had all attended school with him, save Walter and Joe Cardridge (a bad specimen of imported humanity) and they knew what Woodbury could do at “speakin’ pieces.”That famous character, the sea–serpent, he had made still more famous by his successful delivery, at school, of a comical criticism upon the animal, and in after days, it would often be called for, and was always sure of an admiring audience.“Well, here goes!” said the surfman, and Woodbury Elliott rose to give once more this marine gem. The laughter following it was hearty as ever, but it had not wholly died away when an unexpected orator, Joe Cardridge, volunteered to entertain the Literary Club.“Boys, you did not know I was a speaker. Well, I was some, once,” he asserted in hisconceited way, “and if you’d like, I’ll give you the ‘Auctioneer.’”Without waiting for an answer from the club, he called out to Cook Charlie, “Where is that butter firkin I saw round here? I want it to stand on.”“A leetle ticklish, Joe. I wouldn’t resk it.”“Oh, it’s good enough. An auctioneer must be up ’bove his crowd, you know. Fun for ye now, boys, I tell ye. I was always great on it, and I guess I’m good for it now. Where’s that firkin?”The firkin was brought, turned upside down, and Joe mounted it. He had forgotten a part of his speech, but it made no difference in his enjoyment of his fancied brilliant success. He gesticulated, jumped up and down, endeavored to work up into buying mood his audience with frequent threats like this, “Goin’, goin’, genlummum!” The bottom of a butter firkin can stand what is reasonable, but what self–respecting firkin will submit to everything? Joe’s would not. In the midst of several infuriated shrieks. “Goin’, goin’, genlummum,” his audience looking on with a silent but manifest sneer, several heard a suspicious “cr—cr—ack!” Joe in his intense admiration of the performer did not hear it. He gave anotherjump, the word “gone” issuing from his throat, when the firkin emphasized this threat by suddenly withdrawing its bottom, and “gone” it was for the auctioneer! Down he came, partly in the firkin and partly outside of it, falling in a very mixed condition. The club roared. Any merriment was now sincere. The president forgot all his dignity and joined in the laugh. The secretary was always ready for any fun. As for Joe, he was mad. He declared that he had been insulted. “Fool!” he shouted at Walter. “What you larfin’ at?” Leering at the company in his rage and mortification, he rushed out of doors.“Guess he’ll cool off there,” observed the president. “We will have the next exercise.”This was the “Opening of the Drawer.” Any one was at liberty to drop into an imaginary drawer any question about the papers. He could ask it orally, or write it on a slip of paper. The club would then attempt to answer the question.After a session of two hours, this company of literati broke up. It resolved itself into a station–crew again. Distinguished orators and able writers changed into hungry surfmen around a supper table where huge cups of coffee sent up little clouds of fragrant steam.There was a further change into patrolmen in thick Scotch caps, and Guernsey jackets and heavy, stamping boots, into watchers for the night coming and going. At last the unemployed members of the Literary Club were all soundly snoring under thick army blankets, the little kitchen was deserted, save by the keeper, and the stove made but a faint little murmur by the side of that great black ocean thundering on the rocks and roaring all through the cold, black night.

THE BARNEY LITERARY CLUB.

Cook Charlie was a blessing. Nature had made him that handsome present of a happy temperament, and common sense had taught him to take good care of the gift.

“I know my man,” said Keeper Barney when he hired him. “He’s worth a fortin.”

I have already said that Cook Charlie was fat. He was also bald. Though not over thirty, his appearance of age gave a certain authority to his opinions, and a second title for him was that of “old man.” Old man or young man, he was always good–natured. Did it blow without? Did the wind bring a sting with every blast? Cook Charlie was calm. Did the sky scowl on the tired surfman? Cook Charlie was sure to smile. Did any discussionin the living–room become a disputation, ill–natured, angry, and did the men turn uneasily in their chairs, stamping stormily on the floor with their hard, heavy boots? “So—so, boys,” Cook Charlie would exclaim. “Now, look here! Let me put that question.” And this amiable manipulator of contentious souls would “put the question” so skillfully that both sides might find themselves on the same side! Then Cook Charlie was monarch of the kitchen stove. He knew that, and what a center of comfort and happiness he made that stove! No sulking fire—one big, black pout—awaited the chilled surfman when he came from his windy beat; but a cheery heat radiated from that stove, in whose ascending current the patrolman rubbed and bathed his hands gratefully. Then the breakfasts, dinners, and suppers! There was not a great variety of food, but it was sure to be hot. It was sure to be abundant also. Then Cook Charlie would have a little “surprise” for the men, perhaps a pudding that he would covertly slip out of the oven and land on the table amid a series of, “Oh—Oh—Oh!” I think he realized that he had a mission in that bleak little station, and with his cook stove he could do marvels. He did not say it in words, but there was acheerful little tune forever sounding in his thoughts, and this was the burden of the song:

“My stove is king,My stove is king.”

“Mr. Barney,” said the district superintendent Baker, one day, “who is your right hand man here—I mean the one you get the most help from?”

“My cook,” said the keeper promptly. “Of course he wants his wages, but I don’t think he works just for them. I think he takes a pleasure in seein’ how well he can do. He keeps his fire in good condition all the time, so that the boys can warm themselves handy any hour; and then, you know, surfmen must be well fed if you want good work of them. I call Cook Charlie my steerin’ oar.”

It was Cook Charlie that Walter had a special talk with one morning. The young surfman’s watch was now toward sunrise. He halted as he was about finishing his beat, and from the doorstep of the station, looked off upon the sea. Winter was whitening the earth, but the warm flush of summer was on the sea and in the sky. It was a holiday sky, a long fold of purple swathing the horizon. Then came a pink flush, and deep set in this was themorning star. The sea was one vast sheet of silver, warm and placid. Along the shore, it was wrinkled and broken into surf. Far at the right, the sky was of a cold azure, and the sea beneath it was chilled and shadowy also. Here were two vessels sailing. They seemed to be eagerly pushing toward that summer light in the east and that sea of silver.

“I’ll watch the sun come up,” said Walter, and this sentinel of the Life Saving Service, his extinguished lantern in his hand, stood sharply watching as if for an enemy that would come by water. A noise on the land called his attention away for a few minutes. When he turned again, no enemy was there on that still, shining sea, but away off on the horizon’s edge was a tiny, pink boat, a boat without oar or sail, a boat that must have come for a carnival, but had mistaken the time of the year. The pink flamed into silver, and the little boat became a gay turban of some royal Turk about to show his eyes and peep over the horizon line at the earth. Was this the enemy that the young coastguard expected? No, the turban expanded into a very big innocent–looking frozen pudding laid by Neptune’s jolly cook on this smooth, polished table of the sea. This confectioner’s dish soon began torise, growing into a lofty, bulging dome, a towering dome, rising, swelling, rounding out—till there swung clear of the sea a globe of fire, the sun himself! He began to assert his presence in the most unmistakable way, sending out the sharpest, the most dazzling rays, from which Walter was glad to turn away his eyes.

“A new day,” said Walter, “and what is to be done to–day? Breakfast, and then I may turn in awhile, and have a nap. The newspaper will come, and I suppose I shall read that. We shall have a drill of some kind, and the watch from the lookout must be kept up. Then I suppose we shall be loafing about Charlie’s stove. I believe I have about gone through that library in the corner. I wish—yes—and I’ll ask Charlie about it right off.”

Cook Charlie was alone with his stove, his coffee–pot, and frying–pan. An appetizing fragrance welcomed the hungry young surfman as he opened the door of the station.

“Good chance now,” thought Walter, “and I’ll speak about it.”

“Charlie,” said Walter, laying down his time–detector and signal, and hanging up his lantern, “I wanted to ask your opinion.”

“Ask away. No charge made.”

“You know time hangs a little heavy here.”

“That’s so, Walter, but what of it?”

“Well, I was thinking if we couldn’t have a little variety here. Now there are some subjects that it would be rather interesting to know about, it seems to me, and it would be in our line of business. I mean such as the sea and storm, or commerce, or our Life Saving Service and that of England. You know somebody might write on them, and we have a little society–meeting and read our pieces. We could have a certain afternoon for it, and then we could discuss subjects. We might call it the ‘Mutual Improvement Society,’ or something like that, you know.”

“That’s quite an idea, Walter. The name though might frighten some of ’em out of doors.”

“Call it—call it ‘Round the Stove Society.’”

“Ha–ha, we have that all the time. That’s a sticker, the name. What shall she be? Well, I guess we had better get our boat before we name it. You let me speak to the Cap’n, and then if he favors it, you say a word to Tom and Woodbury, and I’ll try the rest.”

Keeper Barney that morning was delayed by his work, and took his fried potatoes, biscuit and coffee after the usual breakfast hour. Cook Charlie thought, “Now is the time. Weare alone, and I’ll bring up that little matter now. Let me see; how shall I take him? The Cap’n is a fustrate feller, but he likes to have the credit of siggestin’, and doin’ things hisself. I must jest fix it in some way so that he’ll mention it hisself. Let’s see.”

Fingering his bald head as if he expected to find the right idea on the outside, if not inside, he approached the keeper, holding out an additional plate of “fried taters” just from the pan, steaming and savory, as an innocent magnet to bring the keeper’s heart into a favorable attitude toward the new plan.

“Oh, Charlie, you’re real good,” exclaimed the keeper.

“You earn it, Cap’n. You have to work hard enough on somethin’ all the time, fussin’ or worryin’. I wish the men only had somethin’ to occupy their time.”

“‘Twould be a good idea if they would jest till up their spare minutes,” remarked the keeper, as he drank with avidity his coffee.

“A readin’ somethin’, you know; and it wouldn’t hurt ’em to be a–studyin’.”

“I know it. I wish our superintendent at Washington would send us two or three—four or five nice new books every winter for our lib’ry. Congress, of course, must give him the money.”

“Why, Cap’n, I’ve let your cup be empty! Jest let me fill it up smokin’ hot.”

“Charlie, you know jest where a man feels tender. You ought to run a beach hotel.”

“I am a–doin’ it now, Cap’n. Ha–ha! There, take another biscuit, a hot one. I do wish the men would be improvin’ their minds. Everybody can do somethin’. One winter I was at Duxton, the young people there had a little society, to write on subjects, you know. Fact is, people can improve themselves if they want ter.”

The keeper made no reply, not even saying, “A–hem!” He continued to eat in silence. Charlie eyed him sharply.

“Hullo! He’s got an idea! That’s the way he allers does when an idea strikes him. He says nothin’ and eats faster and faster, as if an idea on four legs, its mouth open, was after him. Hold on!” thought the cook.

Soon came a communication from the silent eater. He looked up, and then slammed his hands on the table.

“Charlie, I’ve got an idea! Now what do you think of it? There’s no sense in the men’s loafin’ round the stove forever. Let’s get up a society, a kind of readin’, perhaps speakin’ or debatin’ society. Call it—the—the—”

“Cap’n, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Acap’tul idee! Call it the Barney Lit’rary Club. Hoor–rah!”

And here Cook Charlie in his enthusiasm began to swing the dish that he held in his hand. It was half full of crisp brown potatoes, and they too were unable to resist the excitement of the hour, and danced off in every direction.

“Oh, Cap’n, there’s the rest of your breakfast!”

“No matter!” said the keeper, a light flashing from his eyes that made still warmer the color of his hair, his face and his beard. “No matter! I’ve had a good breakfast. We’ve got an idee, you know, to pay for it.”

“That’s so, Cap’n. You brought down the right bird that time.”

“You might sound the men on the subject and tell ’em what I’m a–thinkin’ of.”

“I will, Cap’n.”

“There’s Walter. He’s handy with his pen. You tech him up.”

“I will, sure.”

“I must be off now on the beach.”

As he left the room, Cook Charlie went to the door leading upstairs and called out, “Come here, Walter. The Cap’n’s proposed jest what we wanted, and I engaged to speak to you. Come down! I want to ‘tech’ you up.”

Details were all arranged, and one afternoon the “Barney Literary Club” held its first meeting. It was a wintry day without. The wind blew sharp and strong from the north–west, and meeting the tide that was coming in, broke up the sea into short, fierce little waves whose dark, angry blue was spattered with flakes of white, chilling foam. Across the frozen land and the dark sea, the brightest of suns looked smilingly out of a clear sky, but his smiles did not warm the land or cheer the sea. Did not all this though, make the living–room of the station a snugger, jollier place?

“A grain small,” thought the keeper, “is this room when we and our big boots all try to get into it, but we have had some good times here, and we will have to–day another.”

The keeper, as president, sat in the chair of honor, and that was an ordinary chair placed against the wall between the boat–room door and the outer door. At his right sat Cook Charlie, the secretary, awkwardly fumbling a lead pencil and sheet of paper. Walter was on the left of the president. An eager yet embarrassed look was on his face, for he had been appointed to read a paper which he nervously clutched with both hands. The other members of the crew were scattered about the room, all ofthem permanently located except Slim Tarleton. It was his watch, and every few minutes he would run up the stairs and from the lookout sweep with his glass the sea, that subtle, treacherous power which must be watched, day and night. The president made a very short speech to the “Barney Literary Club,” and then read a paper on the United States Life Saving Service. The facts given are embodied already in this book.

“I will now call on Walter for a paper,” said the president.

There was a tickle that needed to be expelled from Walter’s throat, and at the same time a warm blush spread up to the roots of his hair.

“My paper is on the Life Saving Service of other countries. Great Britain, which has a coast almost five thousand miles long, has a Royal National Life–boat Institution. It is supported by voluntary offerings. Its object is to provide and maintain life–boats, and it also rewards efforts to save the shipwrecked at points where it may have no station. A life–boat with all necessary equipments, and that would include carriage, will cost somewhat over three thousand dollars, and a boathouse can be built for about seventeen hundred. The cost of keeping up a station is about three hundred andfifty dollars for the year, a sum that would support an American station with seven men for only one month. In England, the above sum pays the crew for going off to any wrecks, for exercising their boat once every three months, and covers also the coxswain’s salary and any repairs. The life–boats are of different sizes—six, eight, ten and twelve–oared. Some of the crews go out but seldom. When it is rough thereabouts at the Goodwin Sands, the life–boat men must stand watch all the time. At Ramsgate, the service is so important that a steamer waits on the boat constantly, its fires banked up ready for any emergency. Different cities like Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and others, have given life–boats to the Institution, and contribute every year to its funds.

“England’s work though for the shipwrecked takes in something else besides the work of the life–boats. There is the Rocket Service. The thirtieth of June, 1881, there were two hundred and eighty–eight rocket stations. The rocket apparatus consists of the rocket, the rocket line, the whip, the hawser, and sling life–buoy. The rocket has a line, a light one, fastened to it, which is shot over a wreck. Then the rest of the apparatus is used. We use the gun or mortar instead of the rocket. England’s rocket stationsare under the control of the Board of Trade. The men of the coastguard manage the rockets. For every life saved, the Board of Trade pays a sum of money. It gives medals also to those who may have shown unusual courage. The wants of sailors and others who may be saved from shipwreck are now met by the ‘Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners’ Royal Benevolent Society.’ The work, then, that we do in our stations, in England seems to be spread out, and it is done by several bodies, and how much the whole may cost, I can’t say. Of course, it is not fair to compare the money expended in England with the amount we spend, until we know all the expenses there. I think, though, our system is better than England’s.

“There is a ‘French Society for Saving Life from Shipwreck.’ It was started in 1865, and not only along the coast of France, but in Algeria and other colonies, has this society carried on its work. In sixteen years, it saved two thousand and one hundred and twenty–nine lives. June 30th, 1881, it had sixty–two life–boat stations, and three hundred and ninety–one mortar or other projectile stations. It is modeled after the English system, but it prefers the gun to the rocket.

“There is the ‘German Association for the Rescue of Life from Shipwreck,’ founded in 1865. It is supported by donations. The last report I saw, gave it seventy–four life–boat stations, twenty of these having the mortar or rocket apparatus. There must be a larger number now. In 1880–81, it saved two ships and a hundred and twenty–two lives; and from May, 1880, to May, 1881, its members subscribed over a quarter of a million of dollars. Germany has flat sandy beaches, and it cannot so well use England’s heavy boats. It is said that in Russia, Italy and Spain, life saving societies patterned more or less after England’s ‘National Life–boat Institution,’ have been organized. England must have a magnificent navy of life–boats and a fine rocket service; but I guess Uncle Sam with his hands in his deep pockets, paying out more and more every year, has organized a service that can’t be matched elsewhere. That is my opinion, and I would like to ask the company’s.”

This patriotic appeal to the company was exceedingly popular. Boots went down heavily, hands came together sharply, and enthusiastic cries of “Good!” “Good!” were heard all over the room. Then the secretary read a humorous paper on “The Surfman—his firstStormy Patrol,” giving experiences he had gleaned from the crew, and so faithfully reported that they were readily recognized, winning him a round of hand–claps.

“Woodbury!” “Woodbury!” was now heard from several quarters. “That Sea–Sarpent! Let us have it!” “Don’t be bashful!”

Woodbury Elliott was nervously twisting in his chair, the color deepening in his fair complexion, saying, “No! No! I couldn’t!” But the Literary Club had all attended school with him, save Walter and Joe Cardridge (a bad specimen of imported humanity) and they knew what Woodbury could do at “speakin’ pieces.”

That famous character, the sea–serpent, he had made still more famous by his successful delivery, at school, of a comical criticism upon the animal, and in after days, it would often be called for, and was always sure of an admiring audience.

“Well, here goes!” said the surfman, and Woodbury Elliott rose to give once more this marine gem. The laughter following it was hearty as ever, but it had not wholly died away when an unexpected orator, Joe Cardridge, volunteered to entertain the Literary Club.

“Boys, you did not know I was a speaker. Well, I was some, once,” he asserted in hisconceited way, “and if you’d like, I’ll give you the ‘Auctioneer.’”

Without waiting for an answer from the club, he called out to Cook Charlie, “Where is that butter firkin I saw round here? I want it to stand on.”

“A leetle ticklish, Joe. I wouldn’t resk it.”

“Oh, it’s good enough. An auctioneer must be up ’bove his crowd, you know. Fun for ye now, boys, I tell ye. I was always great on it, and I guess I’m good for it now. Where’s that firkin?”

The firkin was brought, turned upside down, and Joe mounted it. He had forgotten a part of his speech, but it made no difference in his enjoyment of his fancied brilliant success. He gesticulated, jumped up and down, endeavored to work up into buying mood his audience with frequent threats like this, “Goin’, goin’, genlummum!” The bottom of a butter firkin can stand what is reasonable, but what self–respecting firkin will submit to everything? Joe’s would not. In the midst of several infuriated shrieks. “Goin’, goin’, genlummum,” his audience looking on with a silent but manifest sneer, several heard a suspicious “cr—cr—ack!” Joe in his intense admiration of the performer did not hear it. He gave anotherjump, the word “gone” issuing from his throat, when the firkin emphasized this threat by suddenly withdrawing its bottom, and “gone” it was for the auctioneer! Down he came, partly in the firkin and partly outside of it, falling in a very mixed condition. The club roared. Any merriment was now sincere. The president forgot all his dignity and joined in the laugh. The secretary was always ready for any fun. As for Joe, he was mad. He declared that he had been insulted. “Fool!” he shouted at Walter. “What you larfin’ at?” Leering at the company in his rage and mortification, he rushed out of doors.

“Guess he’ll cool off there,” observed the president. “We will have the next exercise.”

This was the “Opening of the Drawer.” Any one was at liberty to drop into an imaginary drawer any question about the papers. He could ask it orally, or write it on a slip of paper. The club would then attempt to answer the question.

After a session of two hours, this company of literati broke up. It resolved itself into a station–crew again. Distinguished orators and able writers changed into hungry surfmen around a supper table where huge cups of coffee sent up little clouds of fragrant steam.There was a further change into patrolmen in thick Scotch caps, and Guernsey jackets and heavy, stamping boots, into watchers for the night coming and going. At last the unemployed members of the Literary Club were all soundly snoring under thick army blankets, the little kitchen was deserted, save by the keeper, and the stove made but a faint little murmur by the side of that great black ocean thundering on the rocks and roaring all through the cold, black night.

CHAPTER XVI.AN UGLY NIGHT.The Advent days had now come, when the winds blow keen across the frozen ground, and nature seems to be in a violent grief over sins it had hoped to bury in frosty graves forever, but which will not quietly lie there. “Beyond Advent though is Christmas,” thought Walter, “and I shall spend it at Uncle Boardman’s. Father and mother will be there.”Walter’s time at the station had almost expired. He could not say that he was tired of the service, and yet he noticed something in the attitude of the men which made him a little discontented. What it was, he could not definitely say, but there was some coolness on their part. Tom Walker and Woodbury Elliott were exceptions to any change by way of coolness, and yet was there not a noticeablewarmth of treatment on their part? It had an element of pity, and as Joe Cardridge froze into a cold, contemptuous silence toward Walter, as others coolly noticed him, Tom and Woodbury were more cordial. When the wind, wintry and sharp, cuts into a party of men out doors, they may protect themselves against it by a fire. Does the wind blow more and more chilly? Then they pile the wood higher and higher. So Tom and Woodbury made friendship’s fire burn all the warmer, because an outside atmosphere was growing colder.What did it all mean? Walter could not see to the bottom of this mystery. What had he done, why one man should shrink from him, and at the same time another man grow so much more friendly?In addition to all this, came a very significant look from the keeper, one afternoon, as he and Walter chanced to be alone, and after the look, came a significant question. It was one of those sharp looks where one seems to have a gimlet in his eyes, and he bores deep into the person he confronts. Such a look as that of the detective meeting a criminal.“Walter—I—I—hope I am on the wrong track altogether—but there are some stories round about you which I think you ought toknow, and as keeper I think I ought to look into ’em. We have to be particular here, but you know that, of course—and—”“Well, what is it, Cap’n Barney? Don’t keep a fellow roasting in an oven longer than is necessary. I am ready to answer any charges.”Walter’s eyes were flashing, and as he straightened up in his indignation, it seemed as if he had grown six inches taller during the short speech the keeper had made.“I have been suspecting that something was out of the way, because some of the men have cooled off so, and I’d like to get hold of the trouble well as you, Cap’n Barney. I’ll pull that rat out of his hole, if I can catch hold of his tail.”The keeper smiled. He admired the young man’s spirit of ready, honest indignation, and Walter s figure of speech amused him.“Wall, Walter, I don’t say the stories are true, and I have said that no man is to be held guilty until proved to be, and if you deny them, thatends’em for me.”He emphasized his remarks and put a period to them by bringing a huge, brown fist down on the long kitchen table, making the Coston signals and time–detectors there rattle away.“Well, sir, name the charges, for it is gettingawful warm here,” said Walter, in his impatience to know the charges, which he felt was to know several lies.“Wall, they say at the ’cademy where you were, that you were up to scrapes, a–drinkin’ and carousin’, and that you have been drinkin’ here, even while at the station.”“It is a lie, one big Atlantic lie, big as that ocean out there!”“There, I told ye so!” said a voice triumphantly. “I knew it was just so! Good for you, Walter! S’cuse me, Cap’n, but I happened to come in just then and couldn’t help a–hearin’ ye.”It was Tom Walker who had suddenly entered, his bushy beard whitened by the snow–flakes dropping without.“If you hadn’t mentioned it, Cap’n, I was goin’ to, this very day. I thought it was dickerlus and didn’t b’lieve it was worth noticin’ at fust; but it’s got so at last, I should have spoken of it if you hadn’t, and Woodbury would if I hadn’t.”“That’s so, Cap’n, every word of it!” and now behind Tom, appeared Woodbury at the door, brushing the snow off from his coat. “That’s so,” he continued, and he looked at Walter not at all in the gimlet fashion, but a friendlysmile of recognition lightened up his handsome face.“Oh, you are of my mind, boys,” said the keeper. “I knew Walter wouldn’t do that thing. It is not his style at all.”“Now, Cap’n, I want to know who has been accusing me,” said Walter. “This thing must be looked into.”“That is only fair. Several have mentioned it, but Joe Cardridge seems to be the special one.”“Joe Cardridge! Where is he?” asked Walter looking at the boat–room door, the outer door, the door leading upstairs to the crew’s room. “Where is he? I’ll get him and bring him here and face the charges here.”He was starting off, trying to go in several directions at once, when the keeper said, “Hold on, Walter. It is Joe’s day off. He is not within a mile of this place now, but he will be back I s’pose in time to go on his beat. This thing shall be looked into.”“I insist upon it that it shall,” said Walter.The weather outside was not at all attractive to the patrolmen that day, and when the twilight drew its dusky curtains about the station, the outlook was still bad. A north–west wind was blowing very strong and cutting. Snowwas still falling in light, dry flakes. What was already on the ground served as a plaything to the wind that seemed to be intelligently and maliciously gathering it up and then hurling it into the faces of all travelers, flinging it over their heads in blinding, cutting sheets, withdrawing these until its victim walked in an easy, careless confidence, then sending the snow again in sheets more closely folding and stifling and cutting.“You’d better wrap up specially warm,” was Tom Walker’s reminder to Walter, who went on to his beat at night.“I will, thank you. I will put on that new blue flannel blouse for one thing.”“I would, Walter. I find that mine comes in awful handy. You see it is padded thick and warm. Six of us, I believe, bought them.”These six new flannel blouses were bought from a traveling clothing–peddler who came to the station and with a glib tongue so skillfully paraded the advantages of a purchase, that almost all the men accepted this rare opportunity.“Well, Walter, you might have done wuss,” said Aunt Lydia, one day when Walter chanced to call upon her, and laying it on her sewing basket asked her to examine the blouse.“You paid all it’s worth, but it does seem thick and warm, and I guess it will do you service. I will take a few stitches in it for you where a needle is wanted.”“A pretty good looking set of surfmen when we get our new blouses on, neat and clean, you know, and then turn out for some drill at the station. The only trouble is that the coats look so much alike and are of about the same size.”“Look alike!” thought Aunt Lydia. “Guess I will tuck a blue ‘W’ on somewhere.”With her nimble needle, she “tucked” this blue initial inside one of the sleeves just above the wrist. The blouse lining was white. Without any reference to this, she handed Walter’s blouse back to him.He wore this blouse, that night of the wind and snow.“Glad I have got it,” he said, pushing out into the night. “It helps keep a fellow warm. Now for it!”He crossed from the station lot to the beach, and was glad to find a strip of sand that the rising tide had not yet covered. “Boom—m—m—m!” went the waves in one unending roar. The wind was drowned in that chorus, and as it blew from the north–west and drove at hisback, Walter cared little for its fury. When the tide forced him to walk upon the rocks, though their surface was so uneven and so slippery with the snow, he made steady progress and completed his beat in about the usual time, He turned to begin his homeward walk, and then the wind pounced upon him with all its fury.“Now I have you!” it seemed to say. “I can drive into your face, blind your eyes with snow—there, take that!” A flurry of flakes came into his face, sharp, tingling, compelling him to turn and offer his back to the charge.“I can go this way,” thought Walter. “Hard work though! What if I should see any trouble on the water and have to signal and start for the station?”No sign of trouble did the young patrolman discover, no flash from any rocket. There was only one huge, roaring blackness! He stubbornly fought his way over the rocks, across any chance bit of sand, now splashing through the pools left in the ledges by the tide, struggling over an ice bank to high ground where a field skirted the shore and along whose edge he could walk and still have before him that ocean which he must continually watch and ever be prepared to fight. He was not farfrom the station, and was saying, “Well, I have whipped the wind this time,” when he remembered that he still had an ugly place to cross. It was an abrupt break in a shore ledge, and could be avoided by keeping to the right and taking the ground in the rear of the ledge. By making this detour, though, he lost sight of the sea, and in that interval, what if some vessel sent up from the water its plea for help—a vain appeal because no vigilant patrol detected the rocket’s flight?“I must go down into that hole and keep my eyes on the ocean,” thought Walter, and guided by his lantern, he was stepping down the rough declivity in the rock, when the wind as if fearful that it might for a single instant, in some sheltered nook, lose its opportunity to make trouble, blew with frantic fury. In the midst of this fiendish blast, Walter’s light was blown out!“She’s gone!” he was saying one moment, and the next, he was conscious that he was making a misstep and was tumbling! Then came a blank, as if the wind extinguishing his lantern, had extinguished him also, and down into a black hole he had fallen. There was an interval of unconsciousness black as the sea beyond him. Finally he was aware that somebodywas calling to him. A light also was trying to reach him as he lay at the bottom of this deep, black pit. The light flashed into his eyes, sharpened and expanded, and the voice too sounded louder and louder. At last, the voice said, “Hullo, boy, what ye up to down here?”“Joe Cardridge!” thought Walter.“Come, git up! Lemme help ye!”“What have you been saying about me?” was Walter’s first thought. Then he reflected: “Well, this is hardly the time to bring the matter up when a man is saving you from a fall.”“Jest lean on me. You had an ugly tumble,” said Joe.“Oh, I guess I can get up, thank you.”“There’s blood on your face. You must have hit yourself when you struck.” Then Joe’s tone changed. “That comes from havin’ surf–boys round,” he muttered with a sneer. “Ought to be home with their mothers.”“What did you say?” asked Walter, catching the words with difficulty in his confused state of mind. “I’m obliged to you for finding me, but I can walk myself. Surf–boys are good for something,” he added with pride.“Oh, don’t be techy. Come along.”“You can go ahead,” said Walter with dignity,“and I will follow.” Joe made another mutter, but it was unintelligible this time, and Walter made no reply.“I have had a bad tumble and did not know anything for some time,” said Walter, as he entered the station and found Cook Charlie in a chair by the stove.“Poor feller!” exclaimed the cook sympathetically. “Sit down here, and I’ll have you some coffee less than no time. What—blood on ye? Here, let me wipe it off.”“Not serious, I guess.”“No, only a hard rub. I’ll fix it.”Charlie insisted on caring for Walter, but the latter said he must care for himself. Cook Charlie’s sympathy though, was pleasant. Something else was agreeable; Walter’s mortification and bruises were all finally drowned in the depth of that sea never cruel but always kind—sleep.Keeper Barney was walking the next morning through the crew’s sleeping quarters when he heard a stealthy step behind him. With the sound of the steps came the sound of a voice, “Cap’n.”“Oh, is that you, Joe?”“Yes, Cap’n. May I have a word with you?” asked Joe Cardridge.“Sartin. Say on.”“I don’t know as it is any of my business, but it is some of your’n. You know there have been stories round about that boy, Walter—”“Yes, Joe, and I don’t believe them. I told him about them, and he wanted to know who said so, and I had to give your name. He is dreadful anxious to see you, and if you have any proof, I advise you to be ready to bring it on.”“Proof!” said Joe sneeringly, flashing a spark of hate out of his usually dull, sleepy black eyes. “What was last night but proof?”“Last night? Why, it was an awful tough night, and the feller stumbled. Did you never fall? Cook Charlie said it was done in the discharge of duty, so he gethered, that Walter might have avoided the place, but if he had, he would have lost sight of the ocean, and not bein’ so well used to the place as some of the rest of us, he did not succeed in keepin’ his footin’.”“Keepin’ his footin’!” was Joe’s contemptuous reply. “Look here! What would you say if I told you the boy was under the influence of liquor when I found him. I s’pose he took suthin’—it bein’ a cold night—and he took too much; but you don’t want the men to do that.”“Neither too much nor too little. I don’t want them to touch it at all. There is plenty of hot coffee. That will brace ’em up and warm ’em up. Do you mean to say that you have positive proof that Walter had been a–foolin’ with drink?”“He acted jest like it.”“But he was hurt, and very nat’rally was confused.”“S’posin’ I should say I saw a bottle stickin’ out of his pockets, when he was undressin’?”“You did?”“May be there now, for all I know,” said Joe carelessly.“Nonsense. I don’t believe it. You are altogether too suspicious, and I can prove it now.”Here the keeper walked to the opposite side of the room, and turning to the clothes that swung from a row of pegs above Walter’s chest, began to pull them over. Suddenly he drew back his hand as if it had touched a red–hot coal! In one of the pockets in Walter’s blue blouse, was a brandy–flask!“Indeed!” exclaimed the keeper.“Didn’t I tell ye so? That’s what I saw in Walter’s pocket last night, and I smelt his breath. You goin’ to keep such a boy as that round?”Here Joe looked up into the keeper’s face somewhat as a snake might be supposed to eye the object he had struck and vanquished.“Wall—I must look into this. Let everything stay jest as it is. I must go into my room a few minutes. Soon as Walter comes into the station, I’ll have him up here, and I want you to be round too.”“I’m ready any time, Cap’n. I’m down on pickerprites. Only next time, Cap’n, be willin’ to take my word quick as you do Walter’s.”Keeper Barney did not hear the last sentence. He hurried away to his room, glad to close the door and hide his manifest disappointment. His position was one that bringing responsibility, carried anxiety with it also. There were many details in his work sometimes perplexing and always burdening. He expected this. He was prepared to find among the men in his crew the average amount of laziness and eye–service, of ill–temper and jealousy. He was not surprised if some men proved to be treacherous, and after seeing Joe Cardridge’s face once, he expected to find many bad places in the fabric of his character. Walter Plympton, he did thoroughly trust, and he was heartsick at the evidence that he was untrustworthy.“I did not expect to git that blow,” said thekeeper. “However, I’ll see what Walter has to say ’fore finally condemnin’ him. The evidence though looks bad. The sooner I go through this thing, the better. Walter will be in pretty quick, I guess.”He appeared sooner than he was expected. Joe Cardridge’s boots had hardly ceased to pound their way downstairs before another pair began to pound their way up, and somebody rapped on the keeper’s door.“Come in!” was Keeper Barney’s response. The door opened and Walter entered.“Joe Cardridge said you wanted to see me and I told him I wanted to see him and you together. He has not come though. And then, sir, I had a letter for you. I brought it with me from the office last evening, but you were not here when I came, and Cook Charlie thought it would do to give it to you this morning rather than disturb you, as you were not feeling just right. It is in my blouse hanging up, and I will get it now.”Walter fumbled in his pockets for the letter, but his blouse refused to yield any such document. Indeed, it had none to yield.“Why, why, I can’t find it!” stammered Walter.“What letter?” asked the keeper sternly.He had followed Walter into the crew’s room, and was eying him sharply.“It was a letter from the district superintendent,—judging from the envelope—and I supposed I had it sure, but I can’t find it where I put it. Let me hunt all through my blouse, look in every pocket. What’s—this? Why!”The keeper eyed Walter still more sharply and curiously, watching him with a smile of wonder to see what Walter would do when he reached the pocket where the brandy flask was. A guilty person would have attempted to hide it, but in a natural way Walter pulled it out, held it up, and manifested his surprise.“Is that the letter the superintendent sent?” inquired the keeper sarcastically. “If it is, he has changed his principles a good deal.”“That isn’t mine. I don’t know anything about it, Cap’n Barney.”“Look here! Hasn’t this thing gone far enough, Walter? Here you arrive at the station in a s’picious condition when your patrol is up, one of the surfmen picking you up, and a brandy flask is found in your pocket. A letter too is missing, a letter from the deestrick superintendent, who will make us a visit in five days, and I s’pose it is a special matter he wants me to look into. It puts me in a prettyfix. You—you—you.” The keeper was stumbling about in his effort to find the word he wished to use. He was angry at the loss of the letter, knowing that it might contain directions whose neglect would seriously damage him in the opinion of his superior. While he was irritated by a sense of his loss, Walter was indignant at the thought that he could be supposed to carry a brandy flask with him for tippling purposes. His bright hazel eyes were full of fire–flashes, and he threw back his handsome head in the pride of innocence.“Cap’n Barney,” he asserted, “I am very sorry that letter can’t be found. I think it will be found, but if it should not turn up to–day I will write to the superintendent and tell him frankly of all that happened, of my misfortune last night, and ask him to write to you, saying that I am sorry for troubling him, and as for the other matter—”“Yes,” said a voice breaking in suddenly, “that’s fair enough.” It was Cook Charlie’s voice. He had come upstairs, unobserved by the keeper and Walter. “You see, Cap’n,” he continued, and in that tone of voice which was peculiar to Charlie and was like “oil on troubled waters,” “I am part to blame ’bout this letter business. Walter had it lastnight, and wanted to hand it over then, but I told him jest to hold on to it, that the mornin’ would do. Of course, you work hard, and you were sick—and everybody knows you have enough on your mind to make a hoss sick, and there isn’t a more faithfuler keeper on the coast—and of course, I did not want to disturb ye. Blame me as well as Walter. Oh, it will turn up! Besides, he has offered to do the fair thing in writing to the superintendent, and that relieves a faithful keeper like you, and nobody could do more.”Under the skillful stroking of Cook Charlie’s words of praise, Keeper Barney’s agitation rapidly subsided, and the hard, angry lines in his face began to fade away.Walter now spoke; “As for that brandy flask, I have no idea how it came in my pocket. It is my coat, I allow, but I don’t own what’s in that pocket. There is some mistake here, and it was put in accidentally or somebody is trying to harm me. You can dismiss me if you want to, but I want the superintendent to investigate this whole matter, and if you will wait until he comes—no, turn me off now if you think it fair when I have had no chance to turn round, you might say, and speak for myself.”“It is Joe Cardridge who says you were not jest right when he found you last night.”“Doeshesay that I had been a–drinking? Then it’s a lie. Let me see him! Where is he?”“Quiet, Walter! You have got friends.” This was a new voice, Woodbury Elliott’s.By this time, all the crew were upstairs. The loud talking had attracted one curious head above the railing that guarded the stairs running up from the kitchen, then another head, then a third, till finally they all had stolen up stealthily, for no matter what etiquette might have demanded, the curiosity of human nature inherited from Eve (and Adam also) was a stronger motive, and there they were in a rough circle about the keeper and Walter.“Quiet!” said Woodbury softly to Walter again. “Cap’n Barney, let me say a word why I think you should let this thing hang over until the superintendent’s visit, that is supposin’ you had made up your mind to discharge Walter.” He then proceeded to review the whole case, beginning with the slanderous stories whispered about Walter, and closing with a reference to the mysterious discovery of the flask in Walter’s pocket. Against everything that looked suspicious, he put Walter’s previous good character and excellent record.“Cap’n Barney, has a man of us given you so little trouble in his conduct in the station? Has a man been more prompt to mind you, been more pleasant among the crew?”As Woodbury went on, pleading with animation, it was plain that in the opinion of the crew, he was fully sustaining his reputation as the best school orator in the “deestrict.” There were little chuckles of admiration heard now and then, and the keeper himself nodded his assent to Woodbury’s points.He had hardly finished his plea, when an eager voice on the outer rim of the circle squeaked, “Lemmespeak! Guess I can speak some,” said Joe Cardridge, hastily moving forward. “I have a few p’ints to make. I was the one who found Walter, and know more’n any one else. I’ve told ye how I found him, and you know what you yourself found in his blouse! And what do the reggerlations say?”He now began to quote from a regulation that says, “Keepers are forbidden to keep or sell, or allow to be kept or sold on the station premises, any intoxicating liquors; nor will they permit any person under the influence of intoxicating drinks to enter the station house or remain upon the premises.”With all the impressiveness of a jury orator,gesticulating furiously, amid the undisguised impatience of his auditors, he continued to quote: “Keepers will—will—not permit any—pusson—under the—influen—en—za—of intoxicatin’—drinks—drinks—er—er.”“Er—Er!” said some one in the ring of listeners, and all began to laugh. Joe was raving. He declared that he would not stay to be insulted, that Walter was clearly proved guilty. He was careful to say nothing disrespectful to the keeper, but he did not hesitate to pay his compliments to the crew in very stalwart Saxon. He then went downstairs, stamping and raving about “Surf–boys.” He would have returned, but the keeper stopped him. “I shall do my duty,” coolly declared the keeper, “and I shall expect you, Joe Cardridge, to do yours. As for Walter’s case, it shall lie over until the arrival of the superintendent. If you can explain things, Walter, I shall be glad to have you. I don’t think any of you will blame me for not dismissing the case at once when you remember how strictly I shall be held to account, and how dangerous in our work all tamperin’ with liquor may be. Cool heads and steady nerves, we must have.”“I believe that, Cap’n Barney,” said Walter, “and I will help you maintain discipline. I onlywant a chance to turn around and defend myself; for somebody is striking at me in the dark, and I don’t know where to strike back. It is a cowardly game they are playing. False, every bit of it.”“That’s so,” grunted that faithful supporter, Tom Walker.“Only give me a chance, sir,” insisted Walter.“You are goin’ to have it.”When the crew separated, Slim Tarleton patted Woodbury on the shoulder and said, “You did well, Wood; you did well. ’Twas good as the ‘Sea Sarpint.’”The favorite orator of The Harbor was gratified to win this praise, and he went away happy. With what feelings though did Walter separate from his mates? Buttoning his coat closely about him, into the wintry air out he stepped, anxious to seclude himself a while. He went to a nook in the rocks overshadowing the dismal, unfortunate hole into which he fell only the night before. The storm was over. The clouds were breaking up, and the hard, pitiless blue sky was disclosing itself in irregular patches. The tone of the coloring of the sea was also that of a hard, pitiless blue, dashed here and there with chilling foam–streaks. Against a land white and frozen, the surf continuallyswept like one snow–drift rolling up against another. Walter sat down in his rocky corner and looked off upon the sea. It was not pleasant to be suspected, and suspected wrongfully. It was true that he had the sympathy of most of the crew, and the keeper wished to find him innocent, but Keeper Barney showed that he was distrustful. Walter’s time at the station was almost up. In a week, Silas Fay, for whom Walter had been serving as substitute, expected to be in his old place, and Walter wished to leave with credit, not under this horrible cloud of suspicion. He was going back to Uncle Boardman’s. He would meet The Harbor people and May Elliott. He would soon visit those at home. It was not an agreeable thought that he would go as one accused even if not proved guilty. He felt that these accusations set him apart, isolated him, and others were looking at him as one suspected. There was a great, crushing loneliness that bore upon him,—only for a moment though. While he was watching the sea and the eastern sky, the sun suddenly broke through the clouds, and a flood of light swept everywhere, far out to sea, far along the shore, warming the wave–crests, the surf, the snow–banks. And with this burst of light, flashed into Walter’s soul the thought of God, fillingand glorifying all space without, all the soul within. It was God who knew him, understood him, believed him, would befriend him; and Walter was no longer alone. That revelation of God made in this trying hour was a new, unanticipated, rich experience. It came when he was hard pressed and driven in upon himself, so weak, helpless and alone, only to find that God had not failed him and was with him all the time. God will not fail any trusting child. He will stand by you. Walter felt strong. He rose from his seat in the rocks and stood erect as if shaking off a hard, heavy burden. The tears were in his eyes.“I did not think God was so near,” he murmured. In his religious life, he had been trying to follow God, not with all the success he craved, and yet still trying to follow Him. And now in this hour of trial, of attack by enemies, that great Leader had come to him and strengthened him. Is He not always near? There is dimness of sight in us, and not a lack of nearness on God’s part.“I will try to keep close to God,” thought Walter.There came to him also that consciousness of nature’s approbation, which he had experienced once before. The sky, the sun, the sea, allseemed to assure him that he was right and that they were in league with him. That sea, though—could it be trusted? Might it not prove treacherous, those chilling hidden depths under all the sunlight now flashing across the waves?“Five days in which to show I am innocent,” said Walter. “Who knows what may happen in five days?”Yes, who could tell?He turned from the sea and walked back to the station.

AN UGLY NIGHT.

The Advent days had now come, when the winds blow keen across the frozen ground, and nature seems to be in a violent grief over sins it had hoped to bury in frosty graves forever, but which will not quietly lie there. “Beyond Advent though is Christmas,” thought Walter, “and I shall spend it at Uncle Boardman’s. Father and mother will be there.”

Walter’s time at the station had almost expired. He could not say that he was tired of the service, and yet he noticed something in the attitude of the men which made him a little discontented. What it was, he could not definitely say, but there was some coolness on their part. Tom Walker and Woodbury Elliott were exceptions to any change by way of coolness, and yet was there not a noticeablewarmth of treatment on their part? It had an element of pity, and as Joe Cardridge froze into a cold, contemptuous silence toward Walter, as others coolly noticed him, Tom and Woodbury were more cordial. When the wind, wintry and sharp, cuts into a party of men out doors, they may protect themselves against it by a fire. Does the wind blow more and more chilly? Then they pile the wood higher and higher. So Tom and Woodbury made friendship’s fire burn all the warmer, because an outside atmosphere was growing colder.

What did it all mean? Walter could not see to the bottom of this mystery. What had he done, why one man should shrink from him, and at the same time another man grow so much more friendly?

In addition to all this, came a very significant look from the keeper, one afternoon, as he and Walter chanced to be alone, and after the look, came a significant question. It was one of those sharp looks where one seems to have a gimlet in his eyes, and he bores deep into the person he confronts. Such a look as that of the detective meeting a criminal.

“Walter—I—I—hope I am on the wrong track altogether—but there are some stories round about you which I think you ought toknow, and as keeper I think I ought to look into ’em. We have to be particular here, but you know that, of course—and—”

“Well, what is it, Cap’n Barney? Don’t keep a fellow roasting in an oven longer than is necessary. I am ready to answer any charges.”

Walter’s eyes were flashing, and as he straightened up in his indignation, it seemed as if he had grown six inches taller during the short speech the keeper had made.

“I have been suspecting that something was out of the way, because some of the men have cooled off so, and I’d like to get hold of the trouble well as you, Cap’n Barney. I’ll pull that rat out of his hole, if I can catch hold of his tail.”

The keeper smiled. He admired the young man’s spirit of ready, honest indignation, and Walter s figure of speech amused him.

“Wall, Walter, I don’t say the stories are true, and I have said that no man is to be held guilty until proved to be, and if you deny them, thatends’em for me.”

He emphasized his remarks and put a period to them by bringing a huge, brown fist down on the long kitchen table, making the Coston signals and time–detectors there rattle away.

“Well, sir, name the charges, for it is gettingawful warm here,” said Walter, in his impatience to know the charges, which he felt was to know several lies.

“Wall, they say at the ’cademy where you were, that you were up to scrapes, a–drinkin’ and carousin’, and that you have been drinkin’ here, even while at the station.”

“It is a lie, one big Atlantic lie, big as that ocean out there!”

“There, I told ye so!” said a voice triumphantly. “I knew it was just so! Good for you, Walter! S’cuse me, Cap’n, but I happened to come in just then and couldn’t help a–hearin’ ye.”

It was Tom Walker who had suddenly entered, his bushy beard whitened by the snow–flakes dropping without.

“If you hadn’t mentioned it, Cap’n, I was goin’ to, this very day. I thought it was dickerlus and didn’t b’lieve it was worth noticin’ at fust; but it’s got so at last, I should have spoken of it if you hadn’t, and Woodbury would if I hadn’t.”

“That’s so, Cap’n, every word of it!” and now behind Tom, appeared Woodbury at the door, brushing the snow off from his coat. “That’s so,” he continued, and he looked at Walter not at all in the gimlet fashion, but a friendlysmile of recognition lightened up his handsome face.

“Oh, you are of my mind, boys,” said the keeper. “I knew Walter wouldn’t do that thing. It is not his style at all.”

“Now, Cap’n, I want to know who has been accusing me,” said Walter. “This thing must be looked into.”

“That is only fair. Several have mentioned it, but Joe Cardridge seems to be the special one.”

“Joe Cardridge! Where is he?” asked Walter looking at the boat–room door, the outer door, the door leading upstairs to the crew’s room. “Where is he? I’ll get him and bring him here and face the charges here.”

He was starting off, trying to go in several directions at once, when the keeper said, “Hold on, Walter. It is Joe’s day off. He is not within a mile of this place now, but he will be back I s’pose in time to go on his beat. This thing shall be looked into.”

“I insist upon it that it shall,” said Walter.

The weather outside was not at all attractive to the patrolmen that day, and when the twilight drew its dusky curtains about the station, the outlook was still bad. A north–west wind was blowing very strong and cutting. Snowwas still falling in light, dry flakes. What was already on the ground served as a plaything to the wind that seemed to be intelligently and maliciously gathering it up and then hurling it into the faces of all travelers, flinging it over their heads in blinding, cutting sheets, withdrawing these until its victim walked in an easy, careless confidence, then sending the snow again in sheets more closely folding and stifling and cutting.

“You’d better wrap up specially warm,” was Tom Walker’s reminder to Walter, who went on to his beat at night.

“I will, thank you. I will put on that new blue flannel blouse for one thing.”

“I would, Walter. I find that mine comes in awful handy. You see it is padded thick and warm. Six of us, I believe, bought them.”

These six new flannel blouses were bought from a traveling clothing–peddler who came to the station and with a glib tongue so skillfully paraded the advantages of a purchase, that almost all the men accepted this rare opportunity.

“Well, Walter, you might have done wuss,” said Aunt Lydia, one day when Walter chanced to call upon her, and laying it on her sewing basket asked her to examine the blouse.

“You paid all it’s worth, but it does seem thick and warm, and I guess it will do you service. I will take a few stitches in it for you where a needle is wanted.”

“A pretty good looking set of surfmen when we get our new blouses on, neat and clean, you know, and then turn out for some drill at the station. The only trouble is that the coats look so much alike and are of about the same size.”

“Look alike!” thought Aunt Lydia. “Guess I will tuck a blue ‘W’ on somewhere.”

With her nimble needle, she “tucked” this blue initial inside one of the sleeves just above the wrist. The blouse lining was white. Without any reference to this, she handed Walter’s blouse back to him.

He wore this blouse, that night of the wind and snow.

“Glad I have got it,” he said, pushing out into the night. “It helps keep a fellow warm. Now for it!”

He crossed from the station lot to the beach, and was glad to find a strip of sand that the rising tide had not yet covered. “Boom—m—m—m!” went the waves in one unending roar. The wind was drowned in that chorus, and as it blew from the north–west and drove at hisback, Walter cared little for its fury. When the tide forced him to walk upon the rocks, though their surface was so uneven and so slippery with the snow, he made steady progress and completed his beat in about the usual time, He turned to begin his homeward walk, and then the wind pounced upon him with all its fury.

“Now I have you!” it seemed to say. “I can drive into your face, blind your eyes with snow—there, take that!” A flurry of flakes came into his face, sharp, tingling, compelling him to turn and offer his back to the charge.

“I can go this way,” thought Walter. “Hard work though! What if I should see any trouble on the water and have to signal and start for the station?”

No sign of trouble did the young patrolman discover, no flash from any rocket. There was only one huge, roaring blackness! He stubbornly fought his way over the rocks, across any chance bit of sand, now splashing through the pools left in the ledges by the tide, struggling over an ice bank to high ground where a field skirted the shore and along whose edge he could walk and still have before him that ocean which he must continually watch and ever be prepared to fight. He was not farfrom the station, and was saying, “Well, I have whipped the wind this time,” when he remembered that he still had an ugly place to cross. It was an abrupt break in a shore ledge, and could be avoided by keeping to the right and taking the ground in the rear of the ledge. By making this detour, though, he lost sight of the sea, and in that interval, what if some vessel sent up from the water its plea for help—a vain appeal because no vigilant patrol detected the rocket’s flight?

“I must go down into that hole and keep my eyes on the ocean,” thought Walter, and guided by his lantern, he was stepping down the rough declivity in the rock, when the wind as if fearful that it might for a single instant, in some sheltered nook, lose its opportunity to make trouble, blew with frantic fury. In the midst of this fiendish blast, Walter’s light was blown out!

“She’s gone!” he was saying one moment, and the next, he was conscious that he was making a misstep and was tumbling! Then came a blank, as if the wind extinguishing his lantern, had extinguished him also, and down into a black hole he had fallen. There was an interval of unconsciousness black as the sea beyond him. Finally he was aware that somebodywas calling to him. A light also was trying to reach him as he lay at the bottom of this deep, black pit. The light flashed into his eyes, sharpened and expanded, and the voice too sounded louder and louder. At last, the voice said, “Hullo, boy, what ye up to down here?”

“Joe Cardridge!” thought Walter.

“Come, git up! Lemme help ye!”

“What have you been saying about me?” was Walter’s first thought. Then he reflected: “Well, this is hardly the time to bring the matter up when a man is saving you from a fall.”

“Jest lean on me. You had an ugly tumble,” said Joe.

“Oh, I guess I can get up, thank you.”

“There’s blood on your face. You must have hit yourself when you struck.” Then Joe’s tone changed. “That comes from havin’ surf–boys round,” he muttered with a sneer. “Ought to be home with their mothers.”

“What did you say?” asked Walter, catching the words with difficulty in his confused state of mind. “I’m obliged to you for finding me, but I can walk myself. Surf–boys are good for something,” he added with pride.

“Oh, don’t be techy. Come along.”

“You can go ahead,” said Walter with dignity,“and I will follow.” Joe made another mutter, but it was unintelligible this time, and Walter made no reply.

“I have had a bad tumble and did not know anything for some time,” said Walter, as he entered the station and found Cook Charlie in a chair by the stove.

“Poor feller!” exclaimed the cook sympathetically. “Sit down here, and I’ll have you some coffee less than no time. What—blood on ye? Here, let me wipe it off.”

“Not serious, I guess.”

“No, only a hard rub. I’ll fix it.”

Charlie insisted on caring for Walter, but the latter said he must care for himself. Cook Charlie’s sympathy though, was pleasant. Something else was agreeable; Walter’s mortification and bruises were all finally drowned in the depth of that sea never cruel but always kind—sleep.

Keeper Barney was walking the next morning through the crew’s sleeping quarters when he heard a stealthy step behind him. With the sound of the steps came the sound of a voice, “Cap’n.”

“Oh, is that you, Joe?”

“Yes, Cap’n. May I have a word with you?” asked Joe Cardridge.

“Sartin. Say on.”

“I don’t know as it is any of my business, but it is some of your’n. You know there have been stories round about that boy, Walter—”

“Yes, Joe, and I don’t believe them. I told him about them, and he wanted to know who said so, and I had to give your name. He is dreadful anxious to see you, and if you have any proof, I advise you to be ready to bring it on.”

“Proof!” said Joe sneeringly, flashing a spark of hate out of his usually dull, sleepy black eyes. “What was last night but proof?”

“Last night? Why, it was an awful tough night, and the feller stumbled. Did you never fall? Cook Charlie said it was done in the discharge of duty, so he gethered, that Walter might have avoided the place, but if he had, he would have lost sight of the ocean, and not bein’ so well used to the place as some of the rest of us, he did not succeed in keepin’ his footin’.”

“Keepin’ his footin’!” was Joe’s contemptuous reply. “Look here! What would you say if I told you the boy was under the influence of liquor when I found him. I s’pose he took suthin’—it bein’ a cold night—and he took too much; but you don’t want the men to do that.”

“Neither too much nor too little. I don’t want them to touch it at all. There is plenty of hot coffee. That will brace ’em up and warm ’em up. Do you mean to say that you have positive proof that Walter had been a–foolin’ with drink?”

“He acted jest like it.”

“But he was hurt, and very nat’rally was confused.”

“S’posin’ I should say I saw a bottle stickin’ out of his pockets, when he was undressin’?”

“You did?”

“May be there now, for all I know,” said Joe carelessly.

“Nonsense. I don’t believe it. You are altogether too suspicious, and I can prove it now.”

Here the keeper walked to the opposite side of the room, and turning to the clothes that swung from a row of pegs above Walter’s chest, began to pull them over. Suddenly he drew back his hand as if it had touched a red–hot coal! In one of the pockets in Walter’s blue blouse, was a brandy–flask!

“Indeed!” exclaimed the keeper.

“Didn’t I tell ye so? That’s what I saw in Walter’s pocket last night, and I smelt his breath. You goin’ to keep such a boy as that round?”

Here Joe looked up into the keeper’s face somewhat as a snake might be supposed to eye the object he had struck and vanquished.

“Wall—I must look into this. Let everything stay jest as it is. I must go into my room a few minutes. Soon as Walter comes into the station, I’ll have him up here, and I want you to be round too.”

“I’m ready any time, Cap’n. I’m down on pickerprites. Only next time, Cap’n, be willin’ to take my word quick as you do Walter’s.”

Keeper Barney did not hear the last sentence. He hurried away to his room, glad to close the door and hide his manifest disappointment. His position was one that bringing responsibility, carried anxiety with it also. There were many details in his work sometimes perplexing and always burdening. He expected this. He was prepared to find among the men in his crew the average amount of laziness and eye–service, of ill–temper and jealousy. He was not surprised if some men proved to be treacherous, and after seeing Joe Cardridge’s face once, he expected to find many bad places in the fabric of his character. Walter Plympton, he did thoroughly trust, and he was heartsick at the evidence that he was untrustworthy.

“I did not expect to git that blow,” said thekeeper. “However, I’ll see what Walter has to say ’fore finally condemnin’ him. The evidence though looks bad. The sooner I go through this thing, the better. Walter will be in pretty quick, I guess.”

He appeared sooner than he was expected. Joe Cardridge’s boots had hardly ceased to pound their way downstairs before another pair began to pound their way up, and somebody rapped on the keeper’s door.

“Come in!” was Keeper Barney’s response. The door opened and Walter entered.

“Joe Cardridge said you wanted to see me and I told him I wanted to see him and you together. He has not come though. And then, sir, I had a letter for you. I brought it with me from the office last evening, but you were not here when I came, and Cook Charlie thought it would do to give it to you this morning rather than disturb you, as you were not feeling just right. It is in my blouse hanging up, and I will get it now.”

Walter fumbled in his pockets for the letter, but his blouse refused to yield any such document. Indeed, it had none to yield.

“Why, why, I can’t find it!” stammered Walter.

“What letter?” asked the keeper sternly.He had followed Walter into the crew’s room, and was eying him sharply.

“It was a letter from the district superintendent,—judging from the envelope—and I supposed I had it sure, but I can’t find it where I put it. Let me hunt all through my blouse, look in every pocket. What’s—this? Why!”

The keeper eyed Walter still more sharply and curiously, watching him with a smile of wonder to see what Walter would do when he reached the pocket where the brandy flask was. A guilty person would have attempted to hide it, but in a natural way Walter pulled it out, held it up, and manifested his surprise.

“Is that the letter the superintendent sent?” inquired the keeper sarcastically. “If it is, he has changed his principles a good deal.”

“That isn’t mine. I don’t know anything about it, Cap’n Barney.”

“Look here! Hasn’t this thing gone far enough, Walter? Here you arrive at the station in a s’picious condition when your patrol is up, one of the surfmen picking you up, and a brandy flask is found in your pocket. A letter too is missing, a letter from the deestrick superintendent, who will make us a visit in five days, and I s’pose it is a special matter he wants me to look into. It puts me in a prettyfix. You—you—you.” The keeper was stumbling about in his effort to find the word he wished to use. He was angry at the loss of the letter, knowing that it might contain directions whose neglect would seriously damage him in the opinion of his superior. While he was irritated by a sense of his loss, Walter was indignant at the thought that he could be supposed to carry a brandy flask with him for tippling purposes. His bright hazel eyes were full of fire–flashes, and he threw back his handsome head in the pride of innocence.

“Cap’n Barney,” he asserted, “I am very sorry that letter can’t be found. I think it will be found, but if it should not turn up to–day I will write to the superintendent and tell him frankly of all that happened, of my misfortune last night, and ask him to write to you, saying that I am sorry for troubling him, and as for the other matter—”

“Yes,” said a voice breaking in suddenly, “that’s fair enough.” It was Cook Charlie’s voice. He had come upstairs, unobserved by the keeper and Walter. “You see, Cap’n,” he continued, and in that tone of voice which was peculiar to Charlie and was like “oil on troubled waters,” “I am part to blame ’bout this letter business. Walter had it lastnight, and wanted to hand it over then, but I told him jest to hold on to it, that the mornin’ would do. Of course, you work hard, and you were sick—and everybody knows you have enough on your mind to make a hoss sick, and there isn’t a more faithfuler keeper on the coast—and of course, I did not want to disturb ye. Blame me as well as Walter. Oh, it will turn up! Besides, he has offered to do the fair thing in writing to the superintendent, and that relieves a faithful keeper like you, and nobody could do more.”

Under the skillful stroking of Cook Charlie’s words of praise, Keeper Barney’s agitation rapidly subsided, and the hard, angry lines in his face began to fade away.

Walter now spoke; “As for that brandy flask, I have no idea how it came in my pocket. It is my coat, I allow, but I don’t own what’s in that pocket. There is some mistake here, and it was put in accidentally or somebody is trying to harm me. You can dismiss me if you want to, but I want the superintendent to investigate this whole matter, and if you will wait until he comes—no, turn me off now if you think it fair when I have had no chance to turn round, you might say, and speak for myself.”

“It is Joe Cardridge who says you were not jest right when he found you last night.”

“Doeshesay that I had been a–drinking? Then it’s a lie. Let me see him! Where is he?”

“Quiet, Walter! You have got friends.” This was a new voice, Woodbury Elliott’s.

By this time, all the crew were upstairs. The loud talking had attracted one curious head above the railing that guarded the stairs running up from the kitchen, then another head, then a third, till finally they all had stolen up stealthily, for no matter what etiquette might have demanded, the curiosity of human nature inherited from Eve (and Adam also) was a stronger motive, and there they were in a rough circle about the keeper and Walter.

“Quiet!” said Woodbury softly to Walter again. “Cap’n Barney, let me say a word why I think you should let this thing hang over until the superintendent’s visit, that is supposin’ you had made up your mind to discharge Walter.” He then proceeded to review the whole case, beginning with the slanderous stories whispered about Walter, and closing with a reference to the mysterious discovery of the flask in Walter’s pocket. Against everything that looked suspicious, he put Walter’s previous good character and excellent record.

“Cap’n Barney, has a man of us given you so little trouble in his conduct in the station? Has a man been more prompt to mind you, been more pleasant among the crew?”

As Woodbury went on, pleading with animation, it was plain that in the opinion of the crew, he was fully sustaining his reputation as the best school orator in the “deestrict.” There were little chuckles of admiration heard now and then, and the keeper himself nodded his assent to Woodbury’s points.

He had hardly finished his plea, when an eager voice on the outer rim of the circle squeaked, “Lemmespeak! Guess I can speak some,” said Joe Cardridge, hastily moving forward. “I have a few p’ints to make. I was the one who found Walter, and know more’n any one else. I’ve told ye how I found him, and you know what you yourself found in his blouse! And what do the reggerlations say?”

He now began to quote from a regulation that says, “Keepers are forbidden to keep or sell, or allow to be kept or sold on the station premises, any intoxicating liquors; nor will they permit any person under the influence of intoxicating drinks to enter the station house or remain upon the premises.”

With all the impressiveness of a jury orator,gesticulating furiously, amid the undisguised impatience of his auditors, he continued to quote: “Keepers will—will—not permit any—pusson—under the—influen—en—za—of intoxicatin’—drinks—drinks—er—er.”

“Er—Er!” said some one in the ring of listeners, and all began to laugh. Joe was raving. He declared that he would not stay to be insulted, that Walter was clearly proved guilty. He was careful to say nothing disrespectful to the keeper, but he did not hesitate to pay his compliments to the crew in very stalwart Saxon. He then went downstairs, stamping and raving about “Surf–boys.” He would have returned, but the keeper stopped him. “I shall do my duty,” coolly declared the keeper, “and I shall expect you, Joe Cardridge, to do yours. As for Walter’s case, it shall lie over until the arrival of the superintendent. If you can explain things, Walter, I shall be glad to have you. I don’t think any of you will blame me for not dismissing the case at once when you remember how strictly I shall be held to account, and how dangerous in our work all tamperin’ with liquor may be. Cool heads and steady nerves, we must have.”

“I believe that, Cap’n Barney,” said Walter, “and I will help you maintain discipline. I onlywant a chance to turn around and defend myself; for somebody is striking at me in the dark, and I don’t know where to strike back. It is a cowardly game they are playing. False, every bit of it.”

“That’s so,” grunted that faithful supporter, Tom Walker.

“Only give me a chance, sir,” insisted Walter.

“You are goin’ to have it.”

When the crew separated, Slim Tarleton patted Woodbury on the shoulder and said, “You did well, Wood; you did well. ’Twas good as the ‘Sea Sarpint.’”

The favorite orator of The Harbor was gratified to win this praise, and he went away happy. With what feelings though did Walter separate from his mates? Buttoning his coat closely about him, into the wintry air out he stepped, anxious to seclude himself a while. He went to a nook in the rocks overshadowing the dismal, unfortunate hole into which he fell only the night before. The storm was over. The clouds were breaking up, and the hard, pitiless blue sky was disclosing itself in irregular patches. The tone of the coloring of the sea was also that of a hard, pitiless blue, dashed here and there with chilling foam–streaks. Against a land white and frozen, the surf continuallyswept like one snow–drift rolling up against another. Walter sat down in his rocky corner and looked off upon the sea. It was not pleasant to be suspected, and suspected wrongfully. It was true that he had the sympathy of most of the crew, and the keeper wished to find him innocent, but Keeper Barney showed that he was distrustful. Walter’s time at the station was almost up. In a week, Silas Fay, for whom Walter had been serving as substitute, expected to be in his old place, and Walter wished to leave with credit, not under this horrible cloud of suspicion. He was going back to Uncle Boardman’s. He would meet The Harbor people and May Elliott. He would soon visit those at home. It was not an agreeable thought that he would go as one accused even if not proved guilty. He felt that these accusations set him apart, isolated him, and others were looking at him as one suspected. There was a great, crushing loneliness that bore upon him,—only for a moment though. While he was watching the sea and the eastern sky, the sun suddenly broke through the clouds, and a flood of light swept everywhere, far out to sea, far along the shore, warming the wave–crests, the surf, the snow–banks. And with this burst of light, flashed into Walter’s soul the thought of God, fillingand glorifying all space without, all the soul within. It was God who knew him, understood him, believed him, would befriend him; and Walter was no longer alone. That revelation of God made in this trying hour was a new, unanticipated, rich experience. It came when he was hard pressed and driven in upon himself, so weak, helpless and alone, only to find that God had not failed him and was with him all the time. God will not fail any trusting child. He will stand by you. Walter felt strong. He rose from his seat in the rocks and stood erect as if shaking off a hard, heavy burden. The tears were in his eyes.

“I did not think God was so near,” he murmured. In his religious life, he had been trying to follow God, not with all the success he craved, and yet still trying to follow Him. And now in this hour of trial, of attack by enemies, that great Leader had come to him and strengthened him. Is He not always near? There is dimness of sight in us, and not a lack of nearness on God’s part.

“I will try to keep close to God,” thought Walter.

There came to him also that consciousness of nature’s approbation, which he had experienced once before. The sky, the sun, the sea, allseemed to assure him that he was right and that they were in league with him. That sea, though—could it be trusted? Might it not prove treacherous, those chilling hidden depths under all the sunlight now flashing across the waves?

“Five days in which to show I am innocent,” said Walter. “Who knows what may happen in five days?”

Yes, who could tell?

He turned from the sea and walked back to the station.

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