"It's a rough sea, Mr. Chance."

"I know it, but I understand boating; I guess we can manage it."

"Don't you think the life-saving crew can do the work?" I asked.

"No," he answered shortly, "there won't be time for them to make enough trips. Come, boys, here she goes! Jump in, a half dozen of you that can pull oars."

There were boats enough, and soon there were men enough, for the human heart is kind and brave, and under a good leader men will walk up to Death himself without flinching.

Randolph Chance was big and strong, alert, and self controlled-a good leader. I realized all this just now, as I had not before, and I thought how strange it was that so much goodness should be bound up with so much folly. It was the old story of the wheat and the tares; and I said: "An enemy hath done this," and then I thought of Miss Sprig.

I don't like to dwell on that morning; the experience was new to me, and I can't forget it; I can't rid myself of the sound of those shrieks when the ship went down. She struggled like a human creature under a sudden blow-rocked, tottered, quivered, and then collapsed.

The little boats made five trips and brought ash.o.r.e almost all the pa.s.sengers and crew-all but one woman, and a little child.

I was one of the many who received the chilled and frightened victims of the storm, and indeed, as soon as we were able to dispose of the more delicate and needy ones, we turned our thought to the brave crews of the little boats, for their exertions had been almost superhuman, and they were well-nigh exhausted.

I bent over Randolph Chance, and begged him to take a little brandy some one had brought.

"Give it to the women," he said feebly.

"They are all cared for; I'm going to look out for you now, Mr. Chance."

"I wouldn't feel so done up," he said, "if it weren't for that woman.

She begged me to save her, and she had a little child in her arms," and his voice broke.

"You mustn't think of her," I said, "you did all you could."

"Yes, I did my best to reach her, but before I could get there, she went down. I can never forget her face. Oh, at such a time a fellow can't help wishing he were just a little quicker, and just a little stronger."

He had risen from the beach where he had flung himself or fallen, on leaving the boat, but he fell again. I could plainly see that the exhaustion from which he suffered was due as much to mental distress as to physical effort, and I thought no less of him for that.

He was finally prevailed upon to get into the wagon which had brought the life-saving crew, and which was now loaded down with the other boatmen, and many of the pa.s.sengers from the wreck, and so he was taken home. And I walked back alone, with a queer little feeling somewhere in the region of my heart.

Man, after all, is a harp, I said to myself; a good player-the right woman can draw forth wonderful music, but the wrong woman will call out nothing but discords.

Materials don't count for everything; there's a deal in the cooking.

I was on my way home, when I met two of my neighbors hurrying toward the scene-Mr. and Mrs. Daemon.

"You're too late," I said, "it's all over."

"I only heard of it a little while ago;" said Mrs. Daemon; "I was in the city, and I met Mr. Daemon who had just been told there was a wreck off this sh.o.r.e, and was coming out to see it, so we both took the first train."

They hurried on, wishing to see what they could, and I walked homeward.

Their appearance had slipped into my reflections as neatly as a good ill.u.s.tration slips into a discourse. I must tell you their story, and then see if you dare say man is not a harp, and woman not a harpist.

Years ago, when I was a child, I used to see my mother wax indignant over the wrongs inflicted upon one of her neighbors-a gentle little woman whose backbone evidently needed restarching. She was the mother of three children, and should have been a most happy wife, for her tastes were domestic-her devotion to her family unbounded. Unhappily, she was wedded to a man of overbearing, tyrannical temper-one of those ugly natures in which meanness is generated by devotion. The more he realized his power over his poor little wife, the more he bullied her, and beneath this treatment she faded, day by day, until finally she closed her tired, pathetic eyes forever. My mother used to say she had no doubt the man was overwhelmed by her death, and would have suffered from remorse, but for the injudicious zeal of some of the neighbors, who were so wrought up by this culmination of years of injustice and cruelty, that they attacked him fore and aft, as it were, creating a scandalous scene over the little woman's remains, accusing him of being her murderer, and a.s.signing him to the warmest quarters in the nether world.

As a result of this outbreak of public opinion the man hardened, and a.s.sumed a defiant att.i.tude which he continued to maintain toward the neighbors for some years. In the midst of all this furor, the sister of the departed wife walked calm and still. The power of the silent woman has often been dwelt upon, but I really do not think that half enough has been said, although I am aware of committing an absurdity when I recommend voluble speech on the subject of silence. Jesting and paradoxes aside, however, the silent woman wields a power known only to the man toward whom her silence is directed.

In this particular case the power was all for the best. Erelong the sister-in-law obtained such mastery over the forlorn household that she held not only the fate of the little ones, but that of the father as well, in the hollow of her hand.

Two years slipped by, and then the neighborhood that had dozed off, as it were, awoke to hear that the sister was going to marry that awful man.

At once the vigilance committee arose, and took the case in hand.

"It can't be possible," it cried to the woman.

"Yes, it is true," she said.

"Why, don't you know that he killed your sister?"

"I know he did."

"And you are going to marry him, in face of that?"

"Yes."

"Well, he'll kill you."

"Oh, no, he won't kill me"-there was a peculiar light in her eyes that puzzled them.

"What can you want to marry such a man for?" they cried, coming back to the original question.

"To keep the children. If I don't marry him, some one else will, and those children will go out of my hands."

Her devotion to the motherless brood had been past praise. There was nothing more to be said, and if there had been it would have availed nothing, for the sister had a mind of her own. She was one of those handsome women, who walk this earth like queens, and to whom lesser folk defer.

She married, and lo! the neighborhood was agog once more, for strange stories came floating from out that handsome house, and it appeared for a time that instead of his killing her she was like to kill him.

I remember one tale in particular, which my mother who, by the way, was no gossip, and was as peaceable as a barnyard fowl, was in the habit of rehearsing before a chosen few, occasionally, with a quiet relish that was amusing, considering the fact that ordinarily any comment on her neighbors' affairs was alien to her. It appeared that after a short wedding trip, during which the bridegroom had several times shown the cloven foot, the couple returned to their domicile. Probably the maids who had lived there for some years and were devoted to the new wife, had been warned of what was coming. At all events, they accepted everything as a matter of course.

Upon the evening of the married pair's return, a handsome dinner was served. The train was a trifle behind time; the day had been cold, and several other untoward circ.u.mstances had conspired to let loose the bridegroom's natural depravity. An overdone roast served to touch off this inflammable material.

"-- these servants!" he exclaimed; "I'll kick every one of them through the front window! Look at that roast!"

The doors being now open, a perfect storm of ugly, evil tempers poured forth.

At such times as these it was the custom of wife number one to shiver, shrink, implore-weep, then take the offending roast from the room, and replace it by something else which most likely was hurled at her, in the end.

The present Mrs. Daemon neither shivered nor shrank. She knew what to expect when she married this man, and she was ready. The guns were loaded and aimed, and they went off, and presto! the enemy lay dead on the dining room floor.

Instead of a roast beef solo, there was a duet, Mrs. Daemon's feminine soprano rising above her husband's masculine roar. She agreed with what he said as to the disposition of the servants, only adding that she intended to hang them all, before he put them through the front window.

"To insult us during our honeymoon with such a roast," she cried; "and look at this gravy! It's even worse!"

And with one swift stroke of her hand she sent the gravy bowl flying from off the table on to the handsome carpet.