Part 3 (1/2)

”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 s.h.i.+p 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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, wis.h.i.+ng 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.