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ago, and the old sir is just as fishy as ever. I tell him he'd full better lay back now, and take some peace of his life, but wild hosses would n't hold him home soon's ever he takes a notion to go.

"He's got it worked down consid❜ble fine, too, the old sir has. You take it out abreast of his place there on the aidge of the hollow, and you'll get the rote double and thribble as plain as what we do here. As fur back as I can remember, it's always been his way to take a walk down acrosst his field there to the aidge of the hollow every morning reg'lar, so's to stop and listen for the rote a spell. Nobody else knows exactly how he works it, but seems's though someways or 'nother he makes out to tell whether or no it's going to be a day outside. That sounds kind of queer like, but it's seldom ever he misses his cal'lation.

"There's always some rote in that hollow, you see, no matter if it's the dead of summer time and stark calm, and Uncle Pelly, he cal❜lates to make a set to the east'ard or west'ard, according to whichever way he gets the rote the plainest. He cal❜lates to keep well to wind'ard in room of to loo'ard, you see, allowing the rote tells him it's liable to breezen up and overblow, especially soon's ever the weather grows catchy in the fall o' the year. Folks can laugh all they want; there's something to it, just the same. I never knowed the old sir to stub his toe any great yet, without it was to blow a sail or two offn him, and he's been going out of here rising of sixty year now."

It was nearly dark when we came upon a cluster of houses, in few of which, however, were any signs of life visible. Shubael remarked that but a baker's dozen or so remained in all the once populous Number Four District, and that most of these would be glad to sell at any price. Directly after he pointed out the lights of his own dwelling, beyond question also "sightly," but standing fully exposed to every bleak wind, on the very top of the highest rocky hill in the township of Kentle's Harbor. Just opposite, dimly dis

cernible in the gathering gloom, rose the bulky form of the meeting-house and its stunted belfry, like the neighboring schoolhouse of Number Four, long closed for lack of population to support it; "a couple more of our old has-beens," was the skipper's brief comment as we turned in at his barnyard.

I soon ascertained without surprise that the unfortunate cow, rather than the difficulty from which she suffered, had 'already yielded to the unique treatment adopted. Meantime the storm steadily increased, until, returning nearly in its face being thought out of the question, I accepted the hospitalities of the house over night. But for me, at least, little sleep was possible in the distracting turmoil raging about the building until near daybreak. In the furious blasts several blinds banged themselves from their fastenings with ear-splitting crashes; a loose sash of my window rattled abominably, and pelting floods of rain beat with constantly increasing violence against the small panes, till, forcing entrance, it dripped steadily from the narrow sill on the braided rugs of the floor. Later in the night, changing to sleet, it beat upon the glass like a sand-blast, until succeeded near dawn by the muffled swirl of plastering snow.

Next morning, under a thick coating of ice, the trees cracked sharply in the then waning gale, as we started to return in a borrowed wagon, with wheels clogged by muddy snow and leaves. When nearly abreast of the small house in which Shubael's uncle, Pelatiah Spurling, lived, two men were met bearing homeward pails of water drawn from a well in the adjoining field. They first spoke of the unequaled fury of the storm, and then, after condoling with Skipper Shubael over the loss of the cow, inquired whether he had seen or heard anything of his uncle before leaving the village the day before.

While one was yet speaking, the tall, angular figure of a white-bearded old man appeared from behind a clump of alders in the field close by. He wore a short jumper of faded blue frocking, with the

oilskin sou'-wester and high red boots of the local fishermen. In one hand was a wooden water bucket, and, with head sharply inclined against the still boisterous wind and drizzle, he slowly followed a well-worn path toward the spring.

"There he goes now, this minute!" Shubael exclaimed. "Hullo, there, Uncle Pelly, you!" he shouted. "Keep her off a point or two! Guess you must had an all-day job of it yesterday, and no yachting trip, neither, was it?"

Apparently not hearing these words, however, the old man plodded steadily on. At the well-curb he left his pail, and continued across the spongy field in the direction of the hollow.

"The old sir grows deef right along, now'days," one of the men said.

"Yes, he doos so," the other assented. "My woman, she was speaking of it only the last time he was in home there. All the way you can make any talk along of him now'days is to get close aboard on the port side. I'm glad, though, he give his hooker sheet, and come back yesterday before this breeze o' wind took holt so spiteful. But he must got in consid❜ble late, for I was home all the afternoon myself, and never see no sign of him coming up along before night-time."

"I guess likely they made a long day of it fast enough," said Shubael. "The old sir allowed he cal❜lated to pull them trawls if it took a leg. By good rights they had no call to go out yesterday, anyways. You can't take and jump the old Palm into a head-beat sea same's you could forty year ago, and, to tell the truth, I'm plaguy glad the old man see when he'd got enough, and pointed her for the turf in some kind of season. Just you take and watch him a minute, doctor! He's dropped his bucket there to the well, so's to lug home a turn of water when he comes back along, same's usual. There you, now he's got hisself all placed in just the right berth to hearken to the rote. Godfrey mighty! Seems's though I'd seen him doing that very same act since I was the bigness of a trawl-kag!"

Leaning slightly forward, with one hand raised to his ear in an attitude of rapt attention, old Skipper Pelatiah Spurling stood listening under the gnarly limbs of a great oak, at the verge of the hollow, his long, white beard fluttering to one side in the strong sea wind.

"Unless he's very deaf, he ought to hear that rumble this morning," I said. "What do you suppose he expects to learn just now?"

"That's hard telling," one of the men laughed. "I've lived nigh neighbor to him the heft of my life, and ain't never fathomed this rote business yet. There's no rubbing it out, though, that somehow or 'nother, from the way she sounds up through the hollow there, the old sir will 'most generally give you the correct almanac for quite a little spell ahead!"

Shubael then spoke of waiting to learn from the old man his experience of the day before, but, as I was now growing somewhat anxious to reach my office again, he postponed the interview until a later occasion.

At the top of Harbor Hill we once more held up for a moment to view the wild scene that suddenly opened before us. Seaward a dense bank of fog still hung close over the madly heaving waters. From under this gray shroud of mist enormous cockling surges constantly rushed, and, charging upon the land in endless columns, tore themselves to pieces on the jagged, kelp-grown ledges in a broad fringe of seething foam and highleaping spray. Half a mile off shore, where the black heads of the dreaded Hue and Cry ledges now and then appeared in a mass of tumbling breakers, the bloodred bell-buoy danced the maddest of hornpipes, now buried from sight completely, and now flung reeling headlong on the crest of some great, on-rushing sea, its frenzied clang at times pealing loud above the rumbling rote. Suddenly, somewhat further to the left, a mountainous, darkling billow seemed to gather others to its mighty self, and, rearing a ragged outline high above the

misty horizon, broke in a wildly careering smother of snow-white foam, fully an acre in extent. An instant later came a thunderous report that shook the very ledges beneath our feet.

"Set-fire!" cried Shubael. "Now you've heard him talk, doctor! That was Old Aaron that up and spoke just now, and you might stop here to this Harbor a long spell, and not hear the likes again! It's seldom ever hubbly enough for Old Aaron to break, but when he doos take the notion, then all hands best stand from under!"

Saying which, in his excitement Shubael leaned far over the dashboard, and surprised the mare into a temporary trot by several blows with the reins. Half way down the hill, an old man, bent nearly double, came hobbling from his door to hail us.

"Make out to sight 'em, Shu?" he called.

"Sight what?" the skipper asked, stopping short.

"Why, the sticks of the wrack. Ain't you heard tell? They say there's some little hooker lays sunk off there somewheres, betwixt Old Aaron and the main, with just her mastheads showing."

"There wa'n't ary spar showing out there two minutes' time since, that I'll make affidavy to!" Shubael declared. “I guess likely no wrack won't hang together long when Old Aaron breaks same's he done just now, anyways!"

"That's what I says to 'em myself," the old fellow piped. "I told 'em he broke once at low-water slack last night, too, but they all allowed I dremp it."

"Your hearing is full better than the most of us now, Skipper Tommy!" Shubael called, as we drove on toward the village.

Nearly abreast of the bellowing Hue and Cry breakers, the road skirted a strip of coarse shingle beach, lying between glistening, spray-swept ledges, which reflected the pale sky in countless shining pools. Here the towering, white-crested seas hurled themselves in far-reaching

floods of seething brine that swept the snow from long stretches of the road, leaving in its place great windrows of fragrant rockweed and kelp. Scattered groups of people conferred at the tops of their voices, and intently watched the churning waste of breakers off shore. Women in hooded shawls pulled children back from the steep, gullied beach; mongrel curs raced to and fro among the long, stranded kelps, barking frantically at each breaking sea; and overhead the gulls wheeled, shrilly screaming.

We saw at once that something unusual had happened. Shubael Spurling drove straight to the nearest squad of men, prominent among whom he recognized a young fellow frequently going on shares in old Skipper Pelatiah's little schooner. Although uncommonly heavily clad in thick coat and knit muffler, this young man struck me at once as looking pinched and cold.

"What about this wrack business we hear tell of? Where doos she lay to?" Shubael demanded immediately.

"She give up only just a short spell since," the young man said. "The mastheads was showing all the morning off here, nigh in range with the bell."

"What one d'ye call her?" asked Shubael earnestly.

"Why, the old Palm, of course," said the other. "She's all the one to get picked up this time, so fur as ever I know."

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"Palm be jiggered!" Shubael claimed irritably. 'Shut up your tomfoolery, and talk some kind of sense, will you! The Palm come in last evening, to my knowing."

"My God, skipper! Don't you really know yet?" the white-faced young fellow cried. "We was running her for home last night, and wearing nothing only a close-reefed foresail, with the sheet chock to the rigging at that! It blowed a livin' gale o' wind, and was shut in just as thicka-snow outside as ever you see it in God's world. We made a grain too fur to the east'ard, and Old Aaron up and broke on us fit to pitchpole the ablest big

Georges-man that ever sailed out of Cape Ann! It piled aboard all of ten foot deep over the stern, and wiped the five of us off 'n her clip and clean"

"Godfrey mighty, you!" broke in Shubael, his face flushing in downright anger; "I cal'late you'll do, young feller, by the jumping Judas I do, now! You'll make out to hold your end up, every time. Let me just tell you what; you'd full better hire right out for one of these playactors, in room of heaving away your time going haddicking out of here no longer! Next thing, maybe you'll be telling us how all the rest-part but you was drownded, won't ye?”

For answer, the young man swallowed hard, and nodded his head.

"Oho, I thought likely," said Shubael, with a grim smile. "All goners but you, every mother's son of 'em, you claim! Kind of rubbing it in, to take and lose the whole kit of 'em that way, wa'n't it? Maybe, now you would n't mind just telling of me how comes it Uncle Pelly is home there to Number Four this same Christmas mornin'!"

sir spoke he says like this, 'I been going out of this Harbor risin' seventy year now, and this is the first time ever God A'mighty shut the door plumb in my face when it come night-time!' The next secont a master great comber fell atop of us, and I never knowed another living thing till they fetched me to in Cap'n Futtock's store over here."

"John Ed Grommet!" spoke Shubael Spurling sternly; "if ever I wanted to take and pick me the biggest reg'larbuilt, out and out, A No. 1 liar that ever yet drawed the breath of life to this Harbor, I would n't have fur to seek, now, sure's ever the tide ebbs and flows! I cal'late you've got the nerve to stand right up in your boots with some fool-lie on your blame' tongue if 't was the Day of Judgment; but by the Lord, I want you should understand this time good and plain that I see Uncle Pel'tiah home there not two hours' time since! I see him, and passed the time o' day along of him, too, and what's more, the doctor here seen him, and Jason Kentle, and your own cousin, Thomas Grommet, they seen him

"How comes what?" the other asked, the very same time, going down acrosst in a puzzled way.

"I say, while you're at it, turn to and tell us how it was that the old sir never passed in his checks, too, in this 'ere scand'lous bad scrape of yourn!"

"Old Man Pel'tiah Spurling stood to the tiller hisself the time that sea hove us nigh end over end," the young fellow said solemnly, while Skipper Shubael stared him in the face, angry and incredulous. "After we was all washed off 'n her, him and me was all the ones to catch handholt again. Him and me gripped holt of the weather rail till she went out from under, and the very last words ever the old VOL. 97 - NO. 6

his mowin' field to the hollow. Leave it right direct to you, doctor, if that ain't God's own truth I'm telling!"

But before I could speak, a great shout broke from the men behind us, and, turning quickly, we saw a tangled mass of wreckage borne in at racehorse speed upon the crest of an immense combing sea. A luminous, greenish light flashed for an instant through the great, toppling wave, and, as it fell with deafening roar upon the resonant shingle, the body of Skipper Pelatiah Spurling was pitched headlong in a wild rush of hissing foam, almost at the feet of his relative.

.

TO THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

BY FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN

FOREVER young is that immortal throng
Whose golden rhymes to-day our lips recite:
Like stars they shine and sing across the night,
Unchanged and changeless through the ages long.
In Fancy's realm, upon foundations strong

They built their monuments of beauty bright,
Creating out of dreams for our delight
Arches and domes and pinnacles of Song.

They know not age; no, nor dost thou, in truth,
For thou with laurels green on locks of gold
Hast reached but now the poet's dewy prime.
A thousand years! O Song-enamored Youth,
Thy lyric castles never shall grow old,

Nor ruin mar their airy walls of rhyme!

THE WHITE DEATH OF THE SOUL
BY JOHN H. DENISON

MR. JOHN MORLEY, in his little book called Compromise, describes in rather lurid terms a disease of the soul which characterizes our civilization. The root of this disease lies, according to him, in "a revolution" that is "in its social consequence unspeakably ignoble." "Every age is in some sort an age of transition, but our own is characteristically and cardinally an epoch of transition in the very foundations of belief and conduct. The old hopes have grown pale, the old fears dim; strong sanctions have become weak, and once vivid faiths very numb. Religion, whatever destinies may be in store for it, is at least for the present hardly any longer an organic power. It is not that supreme, penetrating, controlling, decisive part of a man's life which it has been, and will be again. Conscience has lost its

strong and on-pressing energy, and the sense of personal responsibility lacks sharpness of edge. The natural hue of spiritual resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of distracted, wavering, confused thought. The souls of men have become void. Into the void have entered in triumph the seven devils of secularity."

It is noteworthy that in this description Mr. Morley traces the degeneracy of our times to a decay of two great vital centres of our civilization. Those vital centres are our corporate moral nature and our religion. Now, as a matter of fact, our civilization has but one religion. Our religious people are either Jews, Catholics, or Protestants. All derive their spiritual and moral vitality from the same source, namely, the Hebrew revelation. The ignoble

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