THE LESSON AT THE COTTAGE.

Edith was very busily searching for corallines and sea weeds, a few days after the evening walk recorded in our first chapter. She was alone, for her two sisters had appeared more than usually confidential and unwilling for her company, and her dear teacher was engaged that afternoon at the Young Ladies' Seminary, so she tried to make herself happy in her solitary ramble. A boat came in at this moment, and the pleasant shout of the boatmen's voices, and the grating of the little craft as it landed on the pebbly shore, attracted the young lady's notice, and she stood for a few moments to watch the proceedings. Amongst those on shore, who had come to lend a hand in pulling the boat in, Edith thought that she recognised a face, and on a little closer inspection she saw it was old Joe Murray, who had stopped her course to the beach a few evenings before. She did not wish to encounter Joe, so slipping behind the blue jacketed crowd, she walked quickly forwards, but Joe followed her.

"Young lady," he said, "if you are looking for corallines, you can't do better than ask your papa some fine afternoon, to drive you as far as Sheldon, and you'll find a sight of fine weeds there, as I know, for my boy, my poor boy I lost, I mean," said he, again touching the rusty crape on his hat, "my boy was very curious in those things, and had quite a museum of 'em at home." How could Edith stand against such an attack? It was plain that the old man wanted to make peace with her, and, cheerfully thanking him, she was moving on, but the old boots grinding the shingle, were again heard behind her, and turning round, she saw Joe at her heels.

"Miss, I don't know as I ought to have stopped you that night. I am a poor old fisherman, and you are a young lady, but I meant no harm, and for the moment only did it in a joke."

"Oh, dear," said Edith, "don't think any more about it, I was very cross that night, and you were quite right, I should have got Miss Schomberg into sad trouble if I had gone that way. As it was, I was out too late. Have you lost a son lately, said Edith, I heard you say you had just now? Was he drowned?" inquired the child, kindly looking up into Joe's face.

"Yes Miss, he was drowned," said Joe, "he came by his death very sadly. Will you please, Miss, to come home with me, and I will shew you his curiosities, and if you please to take a fancy to any, I'm sure you are very welcome. I don't know any good it does me to turn 'em over, and look at them as I do times and often, but somehow when we lose them we love, we hoard up all they loved. He had a little dog, poor Bob had, a little yapping thing, and I never took to the animal, 'twas always getting into mischief, and gnawing the nets, and stealing my fish, and I used often to say, 'Bob, my boy, I love you but not your dog. No, that saying won't hold good now. I can't love that dog of yours. Sell it, boy—give it away—get rid of it some how.' All in good part, you know, Miss, for I never had any words with him about it. And now Bob is gone—do you know, Miss, I love that dumb thing with the sort of love I should love his child, if he had left me one. If any one huffs Rover, (I ain't a very huffish man,) but I can tell you I shew them I don't like it, I let the creature lay at my feet at night, and I feed him myself and fondle him for the sake of him who loved him so. And you may depend Miss, the dog knows his young master is gone, and the way he is gone too, for I could not bring him on the shore for a long while, but he would set up such a howl as would rend your heart to hear. And that made me love the poor thing I can tell you."

"But how did it happen?" softly asked Edith.

"Why Miss it ain't at all an extraordinary way in which he met his death. It was in this way. He was very fond of me, poor boy, but he liked his way better than my way too often. And may be I humoured him a little too much. He was my Benjamin, you must know Miss, for his mother died soon after he was born. Sure enough I made an idol of the lad, and we read somewhere in the Bible, Miss, that 'the idols he will utterly abolish.' But I don't like looking at the sorrow that way neither. I would rather think that 'whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth.' Well, Miss, like father like son. My boy loved the sea, as was natural he should, but he was too venturesome; I used often to say, 'Bob, the oldest sailor living can't rule the waves and winds, and if you are such a mad cap as to go out sailing in such equally weather on this coast, as sure as you are alive you will repent it.' He and some young chaps hereabouts, got such a wonderful notion of sailing, and though I have sailed many and many a mile, in large vessels and small, I always hold to it that it is ticklish work for the young and giddy. Why sometimes you are on the sea, Miss, ah, as calm as it is now—all in peace and safety—a squall comes, and before you know what you are about you are capsized. I had told him this, and he knew it, Miss, but he got a good many idle acquaintances, as I told you, and they tempted him often to do bold reckless things such as boys call brave."

"It was one morning at the end of September, Bob says to me, 'Father, we are going to keep my birthday; I am sixteen to-day,' and so he was, bless him, sixteen the very day he died. 'We are going to keep my birthday,' says he, 'Newton, and Somers, and Franklin, and I, we are all going to Witton,' that is the next town, Miss, as you may know, 'we are going to have a sail there, and dine at grandmother's, and home again at night, eh Father.' 'Bob,' says I, 'I can't give my consent; that ticklish sailing boat of young Woods' requires wiser heads and steadier hands than your's to manage. You know my opinion of sailing, and you won't grieve me, I hope, by going.' I might have told him, but I did not, that I did not like the lads he was going with, but I knew that would only make him angry, and do no good just as his heart was set upon a frolic with them, so I said nought of that, but I tried to win him, (that's my way with the young ones,) though I failed this time; go he would, and he would have gone, let me have been as angry as you please. But I have this comfort, that no sharp words passed my lips that day, and no bitter ones his. I saw he was set on the frolic, and I hoped no harm would come of it. How I watched the sky that day, Miss, no mortal knows; how I started when I saw a sea gull skim across the waves! how I listened for the least sound of a squall! Snap was just as fidgetty seemingly, and we kept stealing down to the beach, long before it was likely they should be back. As I stood watching there in the evening, where I knew they would land, I saw young Newton's mother; she pulled me by my sleeve, anxious like, and said, 'What do you think of the weather Joe?' 'Why, Missis,' said I, 'there is an ugly look about the sky, but I don't wish to frighten you; please God they'll soon be home, for Bob promised to be home early.'"

"Well, Miss, there we stood, the waves washing our feet, till it grew dark, and then I could stand it no longer. I said to the poor mother, 'keep a good heart,' but I had little hope myself, God knows, and off I made for Witton. Well, they had not been there, I found the grandmother had seen nothing of them. They were picked up a day or so after, all four of them washed up by the morning tide; their boat had drifted no one knows where, and no one knows how it happened; but I suppose they were driven out by the fresh breeze that sprung up, and not knowing how to manage the sails, they were capsized."

"There they all lay. Miss, in the churchyard. It was a solemn sight, I can tell you, to see those four coffins, side by side, in the church. They were all strong hearty lads, and all under seventeen. I go and sit on his grave sometimes, and spell over all I said, and all he said that day; and glad enough I am, that I can remember neither cross word nor cross look. Ah, my lady, I should remember it if it had been so. We think we are good fathers and good friends to them we love while they are alive, but as soon as we lose 'em, all the kindness we ever did them seems little enough, while all the bad feelings we had, and sharp words we spoke, come up to condemn us."

By this time they had reached the fisherman's cottage; it was prettily situated, as houses on the south coast often are, under the shadow of a fine over-hanging cliff. Masses of rock, clad with emerald green, were scattered here and there, and the thriving plants in the little garden, gave evidence of the mildness of the air in those parts, though close upon the sea. The cottage was very low, but white and cheerful looking outside, and as clean and trim within as a notable and stirring woman could make it. Joe's daughter-in-law, the same described by Joe the other evening as the woman of a high spirit, was to-day absent on an errand to the town; and Edith, who loved children, stopped at the threshold to notice two or three little curly-headed prattlers, who were playing together at grotto making, an amusement which cost grandfather many a half-penny. Some dispute seemed to have arisen at the moment of their entrance between the young builders, for a good-humoured, plain-looking girl, of twelve, the nursemaid of the baby, and the care-taker of four other little ones, was trying to pacify the aggrieved. In vain—little Susy was in a great passion, and with her tiny foot kicked over the grotto, the result of several hours' labour; first, in searching on the shore for shells and pebbles, and secondly, in its erection. Then arose such a shriek and tumult amongst the children, as those only can conceive who know what a noise disappointed little creatures, from three to seven years old, can make. They all set upon Susy, "naughty, mischievous, tiresome," were among the words. The quiet looking girl, who had been trying to settle the dispute, now interfered again. She led Susy away gently, but firmly, into another part of the garden, where spying her grandfather, she took the unwilling and ashamed little girl for him to deal with, and ran hack to the crying children and ruined grotto.

"Oh, hush! dears, pray hush," said Sarah, beginning to pick up the shells, "we will soon build it up again." This they all declared impossible, and cried afresh, but Sarah persevered, and quietly went on piling up the shells, till at last one little mourner took up her coarse pinafore and wiping her eyes, said, "Sarah does it very nicely." The grotto rose beautifully, and at last they were all quiet and happy again; all but poor Susy, who, seeing herself excluded, kept up a terrible whine. "I wonder if Susan is sorry," said Sarah. "Not she, not she, don't ask her here again," said they all. "Why not," said the grandfather, who having walked about with Susy awhile, and talked gravely to her, appeared to have brought about a change in her temper? "Why because she will knock it down again the first time any thing puts her out." "Won't you try her?" said Sarah, pleadingly; but they still said "No! no!" "Don't you mind the day, Dick," said Sarah, "when you pulled grandfather's new net all into the mud, and tangled his twine, and spoilt him a whole day's work?" "Yes," said Dick. "Ah, and don't you mind, too, when he went out in the boat next day, and you asked to go with him, just as if nothing had happened, and you had done no harm, he said, 'ah, Dick, if I were to mind what revenge says, I would not take you with me; you have injured me very much, but I'll mind what love says, and that tells me to return good for evil?'" "Yes," says Dick. "Do you think you could have hurt any thing of grandfather's after that?" "No," said Dick, "but I did not do it in a rage, as Susy did." "You did mischief, though," said Sarah; "but I want Susy to give over going into these rages. I want to cure her. Beating her does no good, mother says that herself; wont you all try and help to cure Susy?"

These children were not angels. I am writing of children as they are you know, and though they yielded, it was rather sullenly, and little Susan was given to understand that she was not a very welcome addition. Susy kept very close to Sarah, sobbing and heaving, till the children seeing her subdued, made more room for her, and her smile returned. Now the law of kindness prevailed, and when the time came to run down to the shore for some more shells, to replace those that had been broken, Susy, at Sarah's hint, ran first and fastest, and brought her little pinafore fullest of all. Edith watched all this, and her good old mentor was willing that she should. "I suppose you have taught them this way of settling disputes," said Edith to Joe. "I, oh no, Miss, I can't take all the credit. Sarah, there, she has taken to me very much since my Bob died, and she said to me the day of his funeral, when her heart was soft and tender-like, 'Grandfather, tell me what I can do to comfort you.' 'Oh, child,' says I, 'my grief is too deep for you to touch, but you are a kind girl, I'll tell you what to do to-night. Leave me alone, and, oh, try and make the children quiet, for my head aches as bad as my heart. Sally.'"

"Then Sarah tried that day and the next, but found it hard work; the boys quarrelled and fought, and the little once scratched and cried, and their mother came and beat one or two of the worst, but all did no good. There was no peace till bed time; still I encouraged her and told her, you know, about 'a soft answer turning away wrath,' and since that time, she has less often given railing for railing; and has not huffed and worried them, as elder sisters are apt to do. She is a good girl, is Sarah, but here comes the Missis home from market." "The Missis" certainly did not look very sweet, and her heavy load had heated her. She did not welcome Edith pleasantly, which, the old man observing, led her away to a little room he occupied at the back of the cottage, and showed her the corallines.

Edith saw plainly that though the poor father offered her any of them she liked to take, he suffered in parting with them, so calling Dick and Mary, she asked if they would hunt for some for her, like those in grandfather's stores. They consented joyfully, and Edith promising often to come and see the old man, ran down the cliff briskly, and hastened home. She thought a good deal as she walked, and asked herself if she should have had the patience and the gentleness of that poor cottage girl; if she should have soothed Susy, and comforted Dick and Mary; if she should have troubled herself to kneel down in the broiling sun and build up a few trumpery shells into a grotto, to be upset and destroyed presently. She came to the conclusion that for good, pleasant, prettily behaved children, she might have done so, but for shrieking, passionate, quarrelsome little things as they appeared to her then, she certainly should not. She felt humbled at the contrast between herself and Sarah; and when she arrived at home, for the first time, perhaps, in her life, she patiently bore her mamma's reproaches for being so late, and for the impropriety of walking away from her sisters, no one knew where. She was not yet quite skilled enough in the art of peace, to give the "soft answer;" but her silence and quietness turned away Mrs. Parker's wrath, and after dinner, Edith prepared herself for the visit of her dear Emilie.