AN UGLY NIGHT.

The Advent days had now come, when the winds blow keen across the frozen ground, and nature seems to be in a violent grief over sins it had hoped to bury in frosty graves forever, but which will not quietly lie there. “Beyond Advent though is Christmas,” thought Walter, “and I shall spend it at Uncle Boardman’s. Father and mother will be there.”

Walter’s time at the station had almost expired. He could not say that he was tired of the service, and yet he noticed something in the attitude of the men which made him a little discontented. What it was, he could not definitely say, but there was some coolness on their part. Tom Walker and Woodbury Elliott were exceptions to any change by way of coolness, and yet was there not a noticeable warmth of treatment on their part? It had an element of pity, and as Joe Cardridge froze into a cold, contemptuous silence toward Walter, as others coolly noticed him, Tom and Woodbury were more cordial. When the wind, wintry and sharp, cuts into a party of men out doors, they may protect themselves against it by a fire. Does the wind blow more and more chilly? Then they pile the wood higher and higher. So Tom and Woodbury made friendship’s fire burn all the warmer, because an outside atmosphere was growing colder.

What did it all mean? Walter could not see to the bottom of this mystery. What had he done, why one man should shrink from him, and at the same time another man grow so much more friendly?

In addition to all this, came a very significant look from the keeper, one afternoon, as he and Walter chanced to be alone, and after the look, came a significant question. It was one of those sharp looks where one seems to have a gimlet in his eyes, and he bores deep into the person he confronts. Such a look as that of the detective meeting a criminal.

“Walter—I—I—hope I am on the wrong track altogether—but there are some stories round about you which I think you ought to know, and as keeper I think I ought to look into ’em. We have to be particular here, but you know that, of course—and—”

“Well, what is it, Cap’n Barney? Don’t keep a fellow roasting in an oven longer than is necessary. I am ready to answer any charges.”

Walter’s eyes were flashing, and as he straightened up in his indignation, it seemed as if he had grown six inches taller during the short speech the keeper had made.

“I have been suspecting that something was out of the way, because some of the men have cooled off so, and I’d like to get hold of the trouble well as you, Cap’n Barney. I’ll pull that rat out of his hole, if I can catch hold of his tail.”

The keeper smiled. He admired the young man’s spirit of ready, honest indignation, and Walter s figure of speech amused him.

“Wall, Walter, I don’t say the stories are true, and I have said that no man is to be held guilty until proved to be, and if you deny them, that ends ’em for me.”

He emphasized his remarks and put a period to them by bringing a huge, brown fist down on the long kitchen table, making the Coston signals and time–detectors there rattle away.

“Well, sir, name the charges, for it is getting awful warm here,” said Walter, in his impatience to know the charges, which he felt was to know several lies.

“Wall, they say at the ’cademy where you were, that you were up to scrapes, a–drinkin’ and carousin’, and that you have been drinkin’ here, even while at the station.”

“It is a lie, one big Atlantic lie, big as that ocean out there!”

“There, I told ye so!” said a voice triumphantly. “I knew it was just so! Good for you, Walter! S’cuse me, Cap’n, but I happened to come in just then and couldn’t help a–hearin’ ye.”

It was Tom Walker who had suddenly entered, his bushy beard whitened by the snow–flakes dropping without.

“If you hadn’t mentioned it, Cap’n, I was goin’ to, this very day. I thought it was dickerlus and didn’t b’lieve it was worth noticin’ at fust; but it’s got so at last, I should have spoken of it if you hadn’t, and Woodbury would if I hadn’t.”

“That’s so, Cap’n, every word of it!” and now behind Tom, appeared Woodbury at the door, brushing the snow off from his coat. “That’s so,” he continued, and he looked at Walter not at all in the gimlet fashion, but a friendly smile of recognition lightened up his handsome face.

“Oh, you are of my mind, boys,” said the keeper. “I knew Walter wouldn’t do that thing. It is not his style at all.”

“Now, Cap’n, I want to know who has been accusing me,” said Walter. “This thing must be looked into.”

“That is only fair. Several have mentioned it, but Joe Cardridge seems to be the special one.”

“Joe Cardridge! Where is he?” asked Walter looking at the boat–room door, the outer door, the door leading upstairs to the crew’s room. “Where is he? I’ll get him and bring him here and face the charges here.”

He was starting off, trying to go in several directions at once, when the keeper said, “Hold on, Walter. It is Joe’s day off. He is not within a mile of this place now, but he will be back I s’pose in time to go on his beat. This thing shall be looked into.”

“I insist upon it that it shall,” said Walter.

The weather outside was not at all attractive to the patrolmen that day, and when the twilight drew its dusky curtains about the station, the outlook was still bad. A north–west wind was blowing very strong and cutting. Snow was still falling in light, dry flakes. What was already on the ground served as a plaything to the wind that seemed to be intelligently and maliciously gathering it up and then hurling it into the faces of all travelers, flinging it over their heads in blinding, cutting sheets, withdrawing these until its victim walked in an easy, careless confidence, then sending the snow again in sheets more closely folding and stifling and cutting.

“You’d better wrap up specially warm,” was Tom Walker’s reminder to Walter, who went on to his beat at night.

“I will, thank you. I will put on that new blue flannel blouse for one thing.”

“I would, Walter. I find that mine comes in awful handy. You see it is padded thick and warm. Six of us, I believe, bought them.”

These six new flannel blouses were bought from a traveling clothing–peddler who came to the station and with a glib tongue so skillfully paraded the advantages of a purchase, that almost all the men accepted this rare opportunity.

“Well, Walter, you might have done wuss,” said Aunt Lydia, one day when Walter chanced to call upon her, and laying it on her sewing basket asked her to examine the blouse.

“You paid all it’s worth, but it does seem thick and warm, and I guess it will do you service. I will take a few stitches in it for you where a needle is wanted.”

“A pretty good looking set of surfmen when we get our new blouses on, neat and clean, you know, and then turn out for some drill at the station. The only trouble is that the coats look so much alike and are of about the same size.”

“Look alike!” thought Aunt Lydia. “Guess I will tuck a blue ‘W’ on somewhere.”

With her nimble needle, she “tucked” this blue initial inside one of the sleeves just above the wrist. The blouse lining was white. Without any reference to this, she handed Walter’s blouse back to him.

He wore this blouse, that night of the wind and snow.

“Glad I have got it,” he said, pushing out into the night. “It helps keep a fellow warm. Now for it!”

He crossed from the station lot to the beach, and was glad to find a strip of sand that the rising tide had not yet covered. “Boom—m—m—m!” went the waves in one unending roar. The wind was drowned in that chorus, and as it blew from the north–west and drove at his back, Walter cared little for its fury. When the tide forced him to walk upon the rocks, though their surface was so uneven and so slippery with the snow, he made steady progress and completed his beat in about the usual time, He turned to begin his homeward walk, and then the wind pounced upon him with all its fury.

“Now I have you!” it seemed to say. “I can drive into your face, blind your eyes with snow—there, take that!” A flurry of flakes came into his face, sharp, tingling, compelling him to turn and offer his back to the charge.

“I can go this way,” thought Walter. “Hard work though! What if I should see any trouble on the water and have to signal and start for the station?”

No sign of trouble did the young patrolman discover, no flash from any rocket. There was only one huge, roaring blackness! He stubbornly fought his way over the rocks, across any chance bit of sand, now splashing through the pools left in the ledges by the tide, struggling over an ice bank to high ground where a field skirted the shore and along whose edge he could walk and still have before him that ocean which he must continually watch and ever be prepared to fight. He was not far from the station, and was saying, “Well, I have whipped the wind this time,” when he remembered that he still had an ugly place to cross. It was an abrupt break in a shore ledge, and could be avoided by keeping to the right and taking the ground in the rear of the ledge. By making this detour, though, he lost sight of the sea, and in that interval, what if some vessel sent up from the water its plea for help—a vain appeal because no vigilant patrol detected the rocket’s flight?

“I must go down into that hole and keep my eyes on the ocean,” thought Walter, and guided by his lantern, he was stepping down the rough declivity in the rock, when the wind as if fearful that it might for a single instant, in some sheltered nook, lose its opportunity to make trouble, blew with frantic fury. In the midst of this fiendish blast, Walter’s light was blown out!

“She’s gone!” he was saying one moment, and the next, he was conscious that he was making a misstep and was tumbling! Then came a blank, as if the wind extinguishing his lantern, had extinguished him also, and down into a black hole he had fallen. There was an interval of unconsciousness black as the sea beyond him. Finally he was aware that somebody was calling to him. A light also was trying to reach him as he lay at the bottom of this deep, black pit. The light flashed into his eyes, sharpened and expanded, and the voice too sounded louder and louder. At last, the voice said, “Hullo, boy, what ye up to down here?”

“Joe Cardridge!” thought Walter.

“Come, git up! Lemme help ye!”

“What have you been saying about me?” was Walter’s first thought. Then he reflected: “Well, this is hardly the time to bring the matter up when a man is saving you from a fall.”

“Jest lean on me. You had an ugly tumble,” said Joe.

“Oh, I guess I can get up, thank you.”

“There’s blood on your face. You must have hit yourself when you struck.” Then Joe’s tone changed. “That comes from havin’ surf–boys round,” he muttered with a sneer. “Ought to be home with their mothers.”

“What did you say?” asked Walter, catching the words with difficulty in his confused state of mind. “I’m obliged to you for finding me, but I can walk myself. Surf–boys are good for something,” he added with pride.

“Oh, don’t be techy. Come along.”

“You can go ahead,” said Walter with dignity, “and I will follow.” Joe made another mutter, but it was unintelligible this time, and Walter made no reply.

“I have had a bad tumble and did not know anything for some time,” said Walter, as he entered the station and found Cook Charlie in a chair by the stove.

“Poor feller!” exclaimed the cook sympathetically. “Sit down here, and I’ll have you some coffee less than no time. What—blood on ye? Here, let me wipe it off.”

“Not serious, I guess.”

“No, only a hard rub. I’ll fix it.”

Charlie insisted on caring for Walter, but the latter said he must care for himself. Cook Charlie’s sympathy though, was pleasant. Something else was agreeable; Walter’s mortification and bruises were all finally drowned in the depth of that sea never cruel but always kind—sleep.

Keeper Barney was walking the next morning through the crew’s sleeping quarters when he heard a stealthy step behind him. With the sound of the steps came the sound of a voice, “Cap’n.”

“Oh, is that you, Joe?”

“Yes, Cap’n. May I have a word with you?” asked Joe Cardridge.

“Sartin. Say on.”

“I don’t know as it is any of my business, but it is some of your’n. You know there have been stories round about that boy, Walter—”

“Yes, Joe, and I don’t believe them. I told him about them, and he wanted to know who said so, and I had to give your name. He is dreadful anxious to see you, and if you have any proof, I advise you to be ready to bring it on.”

“Proof!” said Joe sneeringly, flashing a spark of hate out of his usually dull, sleepy black eyes. “What was last night but proof?”

“Last night? Why, it was an awful tough night, and the feller stumbled. Did you never fall? Cook Charlie said it was done in the discharge of duty, so he gethered, that Walter might have avoided the place, but if he had, he would have lost sight of the ocean, and not bein’ so well used to the place as some of the rest of us, he did not succeed in keepin’ his footin’.”

“Keepin’ his footin’!” was Joe’s contemptuous reply. “Look here! What would you say if I told you the boy was under the influence of liquor when I found him. I s’pose he took suthin’—it bein’ a cold night—and he took too much; but you don’t want the men to do that.”

“Neither too much nor too little. I don’t want them to touch it at all. There is plenty of hot coffee. That will brace ’em up and warm ’em up. Do you mean to say that you have positive proof that Walter had been a–foolin’ with drink?”

“He acted jest like it.”

“But he was hurt, and very nat’rally was confused.”

“S’posin’ I should say I saw a bottle stickin’ out of his pockets, when he was undressin’?”

“You did?”

“May be there now, for all I know,” said Joe carelessly.

“Nonsense. I don’t believe it. You are altogether too suspicious, and I can prove it now.”

Here the keeper walked to the opposite side of the room, and turning to the clothes that swung from a row of pegs above Walter’s chest, began to pull them over. Suddenly he drew back his hand as if it had touched a red–hot coal! In one of the pockets in Walter’s blue blouse, was a brandy–flask!

“Indeed!” exclaimed the keeper.

“Didn’t I tell ye so? That’s what I saw in Walter’s pocket last night, and I smelt his breath. You goin’ to keep such a boy as that round?”

Here Joe looked up into the keeper’s face somewhat as a snake might be supposed to eye the object he had struck and vanquished.

“Wall—I must look into this. Let everything stay jest as it is. I must go into my room a few minutes. Soon as Walter comes into the station, I’ll have him up here, and I want you to be round too.”

“I’m ready any time, Cap’n. I’m down on pickerprites. Only next time, Cap’n, be willin’ to take my word quick as you do Walter’s.”

Keeper Barney did not hear the last sentence. He hurried away to his room, glad to close the door and hide his manifest disappointment. His position was one that bringing responsibility, carried anxiety with it also. There were many details in his work sometimes perplexing and always burdening. He expected this. He was prepared to find among the men in his crew the average amount of laziness and eye–service, of ill–temper and jealousy. He was not surprised if some men proved to be treacherous, and after seeing Joe Cardridge’s face once, he expected to find many bad places in the fabric of his character. Walter Plympton, he did thoroughly trust, and he was heartsick at the evidence that he was untrustworthy.

“I did not expect to git that blow,” said the keeper. “However, I’ll see what Walter has to say ’fore finally condemnin’ him. The evidence though looks bad. The sooner I go through this thing, the better. Walter will be in pretty quick, I guess.”

He appeared sooner than he was expected. Joe Cardridge’s boots had hardly ceased to pound their way downstairs before another pair began to pound their way up, and somebody rapped on the keeper’s door.

“Come in!” was Keeper Barney’s response. The door opened and Walter entered.

“Joe Cardridge said you wanted to see me and I told him I wanted to see him and you together. He has not come though. And then, sir, I had a letter for you. I brought it with me from the office last evening, but you were not here when I came, and Cook Charlie thought it would do to give it to you this morning rather than disturb you, as you were not feeling just right. It is in my blouse hanging up, and I will get it now.”

Walter fumbled in his pockets for the letter, but his blouse refused to yield any such document. Indeed, it had none to yield.

“Why, why, I can’t find it!” stammered Walter.

“What letter?” asked the keeper sternly. He had followed Walter into the crew’s room, and was eying him sharply.

“It was a letter from the district superintendent,—judging from the envelope—and I supposed I had it sure, but I can’t find it where I put it. Let me hunt all through my blouse, look in every pocket. What’s—this? Why!”

The keeper eyed Walter still more sharply and curiously, watching him with a smile of wonder to see what Walter would do when he reached the pocket where the brandy flask was. A guilty person would have attempted to hide it, but in a natural way Walter pulled it out, held it up, and manifested his surprise.

“Is that the letter the superintendent sent?” inquired the keeper sarcastically. “If it is, he has changed his principles a good deal.”

“That isn’t mine. I don’t know anything about it, Cap’n Barney.”

“Look here! Hasn’t this thing gone far enough, Walter? Here you arrive at the station in a s’picious condition when your patrol is up, one of the surfmen picking you up, and a brandy flask is found in your pocket. A letter too is missing, a letter from the deestrick superintendent, who will make us a visit in five days, and I s’pose it is a special matter he wants me to look into. It puts me in a pretty fix. You—you—you.” The keeper was stumbling about in his effort to find the word he wished to use. He was angry at the loss of the letter, knowing that it might contain directions whose neglect would seriously damage him in the opinion of his superior. While he was irritated by a sense of his loss, Walter was indignant at the thought that he could be supposed to carry a brandy flask with him for tippling purposes. His bright hazel eyes were full of fire–flashes, and he threw back his handsome head in the pride of innocence.

“Cap’n Barney,” he asserted, “I am very sorry that letter can’t be found. I think it will be found, but if it should not turn up to–day I will write to the superintendent and tell him frankly of all that happened, of my misfortune last night, and ask him to write to you, saying that I am sorry for troubling him, and as for the other matter—”

“Yes,” said a voice breaking in suddenly, “that’s fair enough.” It was Cook Charlie’s voice. He had come upstairs, unobserved by the keeper and Walter. “You see, Cap’n,” he continued, and in that tone of voice which was peculiar to Charlie and was like “oil on troubled waters,” “I am part to blame ’bout this letter business. Walter had it last night, and wanted to hand it over then, but I told him jest to hold on to it, that the mornin’ would do. Of course, you work hard, and you were sick—and everybody knows you have enough on your mind to make a hoss sick, and there isn’t a more faithfuler keeper on the coast—and of course, I did not want to disturb ye. Blame me as well as Walter. Oh, it will turn up! Besides, he has offered to do the fair thing in writing to the superintendent, and that relieves a faithful keeper like you, and nobody could do more.”

Under the skillful stroking of Cook Charlie’s words of praise, Keeper Barney’s agitation rapidly subsided, and the hard, angry lines in his face began to fade away.

Walter now spoke; “As for that brandy flask, I have no idea how it came in my pocket. It is my coat, I allow, but I don’t own what’s in that pocket. There is some mistake here, and it was put in accidentally or somebody is trying to harm me. You can dismiss me if you want to, but I want the superintendent to investigate this whole matter, and if you will wait until he comes—no, turn me off now if you think it fair when I have had no chance to turn round, you might say, and speak for myself.”

“It is Joe Cardridge who says you were not jest right when he found you last night.”

“Does he say that I had been a–drinking? Then it’s a lie. Let me see him! Where is he?”

“Quiet, Walter! You have got friends.” This was a new voice, Woodbury Elliott’s.

By this time, all the crew were upstairs. The loud talking had attracted one curious head above the railing that guarded the stairs running up from the kitchen, then another head, then a third, till finally they all had stolen up stealthily, for no matter what etiquette might have demanded, the curiosity of human nature inherited from Eve (and Adam also) was a stronger motive, and there they were in a rough circle about the keeper and Walter.

“Quiet!” said Woodbury softly to Walter again. “Cap’n Barney, let me say a word why I think you should let this thing hang over until the superintendent’s visit, that is supposin’ you had made up your mind to discharge Walter.” He then proceeded to review the whole case, beginning with the slanderous stories whispered about Walter, and closing with a reference to the mysterious discovery of the flask in Walter’s pocket. Against everything that looked suspicious, he put Walter’s previous good character and excellent record.

“Cap’n Barney, has a man of us given you so little trouble in his conduct in the station? Has a man been more prompt to mind you, been more pleasant among the crew?”

As Woodbury went on, pleading with animation, it was plain that in the opinion of the crew, he was fully sustaining his reputation as the best school orator in the “deestrict.” There were little chuckles of admiration heard now and then, and the keeper himself nodded his assent to Woodbury’s points.

He had hardly finished his plea, when an eager voice on the outer rim of the circle squeaked, “Lem me speak! Guess I can speak some,” said Joe Cardridge, hastily moving forward. “I have a few p’ints to make. I was the one who found Walter, and know more’n any one else. I’ve told ye how I found him, and you know what you yourself found in his blouse! And what do the reggerlations say?”

He now began to quote from a regulation that says, “Keepers are forbidden to keep or sell, or allow to be kept or sold on the station premises, any intoxicating liquors; nor will they permit any person under the influence of intoxicating drinks to enter the station house or remain upon the premises.”

With all the impressiveness of a jury orator, gesticulating furiously, amid the undisguised impatience of his auditors, he continued to quote: “Keepers will—will—not permit any—pusson—under the—influen—en—za—of intoxicatin’—drinks—drinks—er—er.”

“Er—Er!” said some one in the ring of listeners, and all began to laugh. Joe was raving. He declared that he would not stay to be insulted, that Walter was clearly proved guilty. He was careful to say nothing disrespectful to the keeper, but he did not hesitate to pay his compliments to the crew in very stalwart Saxon. He then went downstairs, stamping and raving about “Surf–boys.” He would have returned, but the keeper stopped him. “I shall do my duty,” coolly declared the keeper, “and I shall expect you, Joe Cardridge, to do yours. As for Walter’s case, it shall lie over until the arrival of the superintendent. If you can explain things, Walter, I shall be glad to have you. I don’t think any of you will blame me for not dismissing the case at once when you remember how strictly I shall be held to account, and how dangerous in our work all tamperin’ with liquor may be. Cool heads and steady nerves, we must have.”

“I believe that, Cap’n Barney,” said Walter, “and I will help you maintain discipline. I only want a chance to turn around and defend myself; for somebody is striking at me in the dark, and I don’t know where to strike back. It is a cowardly game they are playing. False, every bit of it.”

“That’s so,” grunted that faithful supporter, Tom Walker.

“Only give me a chance, sir,” insisted Walter.

“You are goin’ to have it.”

When the crew separated, Slim Tarleton patted Woodbury on the shoulder and said, “You did well, Wood; you did well. ’Twas good as the ‘Sea Sarpint.’”

The favorite orator of The Harbor was gratified to win this praise, and he went away happy. With what feelings though did Walter separate from his mates? Buttoning his coat closely about him, into the wintry air out he stepped, anxious to seclude himself a while. He went to a nook in the rocks overshadowing the dismal, unfortunate hole into which he fell only the night before. The storm was over. The clouds were breaking up, and the hard, pitiless blue sky was disclosing itself in irregular patches. The tone of the coloring of the sea was also that of a hard, pitiless blue, dashed here and there with chilling foam–streaks. Against a land white and frozen, the surf continually swept like one snow–drift rolling up against another. Walter sat down in his rocky corner and looked off upon the sea. It was not pleasant to be suspected, and suspected wrongfully. It was true that he had the sympathy of most of the crew, and the keeper wished to find him innocent, but Keeper Barney showed that he was distrustful. Walter’s time at the station was almost up. In a week, Silas Fay, for whom Walter had been serving as substitute, expected to be in his old place, and Walter wished to leave with credit, not under this horrible cloud of suspicion. He was going back to Uncle Boardman’s. He would meet The Harbor people and May Elliott. He would soon visit those at home. It was not an agreeable thought that he would go as one accused even if not proved guilty. He felt that these accusations set him apart, isolated him, and others were looking at him as one suspected. There was a great, crushing loneliness that bore upon him,—only for a moment though. While he was watching the sea and the eastern sky, the sun suddenly broke through the clouds, and a flood of light swept everywhere, far out to sea, far along the shore, warming the wave–crests, the surf, the snow–banks. And with this burst of light, flashed into Walter’s soul the thought of God, filling and glorifying all space without, all the soul within. It was God who knew him, understood him, believed him, would befriend him; and Walter was no longer alone. That revelation of God made in this trying hour was a new, unanticipated, rich experience. It came when he was hard pressed and driven in upon himself, so weak, helpless and alone, only to find that God had not failed him and was with him all the time. God will not fail any trusting child. He will stand by you. Walter felt strong. He rose from his seat in the rocks and stood erect as if shaking off a hard, heavy burden. The tears were in his eyes.

“I did not think God was so near,” he murmured. In his religious life, he had been trying to follow God, not with all the success he craved, and yet still trying to follow Him. And now in this hour of trial, of attack by enemies, that great Leader had come to him and strengthened him. Is He not always near? There is dimness of sight in us, and not a lack of nearness on God’s part.

“I will try to keep close to God,” thought Walter.

There came to him also that consciousness of nature’s approbation, which he had experienced once before. The sky, the sun, the sea, all seemed to assure him that he was right and that they were in league with him. That sea, though—could it be trusted? Might it not prove treacherous, those chilling hidden depths under all the sunlight now flashing across the waves?

“Five days in which to show I am innocent,” said Walter. “Who knows what may happen in five days?”

Yes, who could tell?

He turned from the sea and walked back to the station.