16 OVER THE SEA:

 

panes, and men stood about in groups on the beach road, speculating, wondering, and
thankful they were safe ashore to-night.

Brown on his beat at the top of the cliff, and his wife in their cottage below both were
thinking of the terrible wreck just twelve years ago, when Nan came to bless their lives out
of the very jaws of death.

And Nan herself lay in bed, trembling as the storm shook the cottage, and still haunted
by the sight of the strange ship. ;

By this time the strange ship—a Dutch lugger—was close in shore, running helplessly
before the wind, and drifting right towards the fatal reef. rs

It was too late to warn her by | rockets. “No shouts or even
She was doomed. The life-
though it was but a forlorn
in the cottages,’ blankets
of those who should be

   
 
 
   
   
 

guns would have been heard in the din:
boat was being hastily manned,
hope. Fires were being stirred
got ready in anticipation
saved, and all the place was alive with pity, hope,
and preparation. And then the vessel
struck, Allwasoverina ¢ few seconds, and nothing
mass of floating, drifting
struggling bodies. For
the terrors of that night.
trembling, and then at
“mother” at the door of
into the blowing night:
back filled with half-
the men on shore cheered
how the rescued crew
to one cottage, and one
how to their cottage was ©
ing seaman, and laid

remained of her save one
timbers, and helpless,
years, Nan remembered
How she lay for a while
last got up and joined her
the cottage looking out
how the lifeboat came
drowned creatures: how
as she put out to sea again:
were carried here and there, one
to another: and, clearest of all,
borne the body of a strange-look- a
before the bright kitchen fire. Among the men who
carried him in was the village doctor, and seeing that this was a doubtful case he stayed,. .
and-after long and patient rubbing, and expanding of the arms and legs, the seemingly-
lifeless body gave a struggle, and life rushed back to the white cold limbs.

The rest was easy, and the good doctor leaving the rescued man in Mrs. Brown’s care,
passed on to see to others who needed his skill.

With morning, Brown came home, to find a strange man standing at his door muttering
and scowling, while his wife and Nan were within, worn out with their exertions, and
disappointed with the strange conduct of their ungrateful charge.

‘Look here, mate,” he said—“it’s bad luck to lose a berth aboard of a good ship—not
as I thinks much of an Englishman who ships with a Dutchman as you.appear to have
done. But there ain’t no call for you to be rough with those who’ve done their best with