Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1.djvu/702

with Luke's cap in her hand, which she held up before the fire to dry. So she sat one morning holding the tiny basket which the waves had dashed ashore.

Briton and his wife looked at each other, and at young Emmins, who, after a moment's hesitation, had put out the lantern light, and followed her back into the house.

"It is his cap," said Bondo, in a low voice, but not so low as to escape the ear of Clarice.

"The sea sent it for a token," said she, without turning her gaze from the fire.

The old people moved up to the hearth.

"Sit down, Emmins," said Briton. "You've served us well to-day." In any trouble Old Briton's comfort was in feeling a stout wall of flesh around him.

Bondo sat down. Then he and Briton helped each other explain the course taken by themselves and the other boatmen that day, and they talked of what they would do on the morrow; but they failed to comfort Clarice, or to awaken in her any hope. She knew that in reality they had no hope themselves.

"They will never come back," said she. "You will never find them." She spoke so calmly that her father was deceived. If this was her conviction, it would be safe to speak his own.

"The tide may bring the poor fellows in," said he.

At these words the cap which the poor girl held fell from her hand. She spoke no more. No word or cry escaped her, —not by a look did she acknowledge that there was community in this grief,—as solitary as if she were alone in the universe, she sat gazing into the fire. She was not overcome by things external, tangible, as she had been when she sat alone out on the sea-beach at the Point. The world in an instant seemed to sink out of her vision, and time from her consciousness; her soul set out on a search in which her mortal sense had failed, and here no arm of flesh could help her.

"I shall find him," she said, in a whis-

per. They all heard her, and looked at one another, trouble and wonder in their faces. "I shall find him," she repeated, in a louder tone; and she drew herself up, and bent forward,—but her eyes saw not the cheerful fire-light, her ears took in no sound of crackling faggot, rising wind, or muttered fear among the three who sat and looked at her.

Bondo Emmins had taken up the cap when Clarice dropped it,—he had examined it inside and out, and passed it to Dame Briton. There was no mistaking the ownership. Not a child of Diver's Bay but would have recognized it as the property of Luke Merlyn. The dame passed it to the old man, who looked at it through tears, and then smoothed it over his great fist, and came nearer to the fire, and silence fell upon them all.

At last Dame Briton said, beginning stoutly, but ending with a sob, "Has any body seen poor Merlyn's wife? Who'll tell her? Oh! oh!"

"I will go tell her that Clarice found the cap," said Bondo Emmins, rising.

Clarice sat like one in a stupor,—but that was no dull light shining from her eyes. Still she seemed deaf and dumb; for, when Bondo bade her good-night, she did not answer him, nor give the slightest intimation that she was aware of what passed around her.

But when he was gone, and her father said,—"Come, Clarice,—now for bed,—you'll wake the earlier,"—she instantly arose to act on his suggestion.

He followed her to the door of her little chamber and lingered there a moment. He wanted to say something for comfort, but had nothing to say; so he turned away in silence, and drank a pint of grog.

Bondo Emmins was not a native of Diver's Bay. Only during the past three or four years had he lived among the fishermen. He called the place his home, but now and then indications of restlessness escaped him, and seemed to promise years of wandering, rather than a life of