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The rocks were now lined with men commenting in an apathetic way upon the tragedy enacting before their eyes.

"Why don't they do something?" In my ignorance of the curious stolidity which falls upon the shore in face of danger upon the sea, I stood shrieking: "Why doesn't somebody go? Why don't you men do something?"

The fishermen and the summer people looked into each other's eyes, but no man answered a word.

"Can't you help them?" I pleaded with another weather-beaten fisherman.

"Can't be done, or I'd do it."

"I came down to see them capsize, an' I guess they'll go," said a gruff voice.

But Scud gave me a long look. He stood quite silent. An expression of rare gravity was on his joyous face. He glanced apprehensively from the boat to the house.

"She can't, Scud; she's fainted. There isn't anybody but me. I've got to do something. The children have got to be saved, Scud!" The Western girl shook him by the arm. Her very ignorance gave a force to her appeal that intelligence could not have supplied. Had I understood what I asked I should not have said: "Scud, won't you go? They are drowning. See, Scud! Go!"

The doomed sail was beaten here and there in the fierce wind; the jib was blown to tatters. The boat took in water, righted, and careened with every riotous puff. A hundred times men turned their faces away and women shrieked, expecting it to go down. A hundred times repeated miracle protected the helpless boat.

Scud walked slowly down the heaving gangway that connected the rocks with the float. The man who came down to see the boat capsize followed with his hands in his pockets. He balanced himself on the railing with his elbows as the gangway jumped beneath him.

"What yer up ter, Scud?" he yelled above the tempest. "They're driftin' on yer trap. That'll fetch 'em."

Scud looked up. His feet were washed in the water that flooded the float at every surge. To strike the trap meant instant overturn. To become entangled in and driven on to the meshes of the broad, deep net meant inevitable death.

"I guess I'll go. Help me shove the dingy off." So spoke Scud, deliberately.

"You—" The rest of the expletive was lost in the gale. The breakers made sport of Scud, and spat at him with their white tongues. "Your childer! The twins! Betty!" thundered his friend.

Scud hurriedly put in the oar-locks. As he bent, the wind caught his cap and dashed it on the rocks. Scud shook his brown hair to the furies.

"Ye see!" yelled his companion significantly. "Now get in, will ye?"

"Shet up, Steve! Gimme them oars. Don't ye see I'm goin'? I wish I hed my dory."

A murmur of applause went up from the crowd as the fisherman shoved off. The light tender was twisted about and all but cast upon the cliffs before he could gain his first stroke.

And now the man of the sea set his weak mouth into petrified resolve. The wind and the water attacked his boat like assassins. They meant to kill. Scud knew this. He rowed guardedly, mistrustful of a cowardly feint, of an underhand lunge. The tender quivered beneath each dash of the waves, each onslaught of the squall, each hurried stroke of the oars. Scud rowed warily, lest he be over-turned and buried between the trough and the height of the waves. The wind howled at him. The bay showered upon him. The gale clutched him and turned him about. How now! Whence came these muscles of steel that subdued such powers arrayed against lazy Scud? How now! Whence came that indomitable judgment that baffled the elements at their own wildest sport? Fishermen stared from the shore at this unparalleled exhibition of skill, coolness, courage and strength from Scud.

Then, with the spite of which only a white squall is capable, it thundered against Scud, and with the animosity of which only the Atlantic Ocean is capable, it rose upon Scud and well-nigh bore him under. Hope is easily dashed in the hearts of inert spectators, but Scud did not falter. The crowd stood by commenting:

"Scud! Thet Scud? Poor Betty! Poor widder! We'll hev ter fish him up ter-night. Plucky fellow! Brave deed! That's grit! Thar's skill! Who'd 'a' thought it? Scud!"

But Scud the "easy," Scud the do-little, Scud the good-for-naught—Scud, of whom nobody expected anything—comfortable, self-indulgent Scud, rowed on sturdily straight out into that hell. Could he ever overtake the boat? How was it possible? If he did the extra weight would swamp the fancy tender, built only to carry two or three at the most in light weather. How could he get one in?

"Why the – didn't he take his dory?" asked an old man.

"How in – can he bring her up with a haulin'-line an' git in from the rocks?" answered another contemptuously.

"Scud may get 'em," ventured an expert, "but what'll he do with 'em?"

Now Scud had rowed beyond the net to the right, in order to bear down upon it the easier.

"Thar she strikes! God help 'em!" Cries came from a dozen throats. The sail-boat struck against the leader of the net. It swung broadside to the wind, that forced it over and under. Agonized shrieks were borne to the shore. I was glad that Mabel was a fainting woman.

For some time Scud's wife had stood apart and looked upon the scene. Her eyes were dry and feverish. She did not talk. She hugged a baby at her breast desperately. Salt held a pair of twins; the oldest girl another. Children sprawled upon the ground, clinging to their mother's feet and dress. None drew near or spoke to this pathetic group. What could one do? What word could one say? The storm swayed Betty here and there. Her hair waved in the hurricane. She had long, pretty hair. Spray drenched her. She did not cry out. She stood like the Niobe of the sea. She looked like one expecting the fate that had been only delayed. An average of two hundred men a year from this fishing-town are swallowed up by the ocean that affords them sustenance, and their starving widows are left after them. Betty was only one of a thousand of her kind who stolidly concealed a desolate suspense. And now her turn had come, harder than the rest, for she was in at the death.

It is a mystery until this day how Scud reached the over-turned sail-boat as he did. With a dory his work would not have been comparatively easy; but with a thirteen-foot yacht's tender it was super-human. The two girls clinging to the wreck were lifted bodily into the boat. Scud was quick but cool, and imparted perfect confidence to the water-sodden children. At the fisherman's peremptory order, the two boys clung to each side of the tender. We could see them dragging in the water; it was the only way. Scud now began to row before the storm.

There were no cheers from the rocks. Not a man of them stirred. The fishermen, hardened to perils of the sea, had been fascinated by this exhibition of cool-blooded heroism from the least heroic of them all.

The cockle-shell dashed madly towards the shore.

No power could row it weighted against the wind that beat upon it with fitful concentration. Straight before the tender was a little beach between the rocks, not more than twenty feet wide, but this was protected at its entrance by a line of reefs, easily passable at high tide, and bare at low. The rollers broke upon most of these rocks, and the spume swirled in dirty froth upon the pebbly beach. Scud made for the opening. The gale drove him wildly along. A few men now ran to the beach and the outlying rocks, ready to do the possible at any emergency. Would Scud pass the reef or not? There was not time to answer the question. The boat rose upon a huge wave. Foam and spray enveloped it from view. There was a rumbling cry of horror. There was a dull splintering crash. Fifty men rushed to the beach and lined the cliffs. The boat had struck upon the last rock. As the wave passed on, the terrible sight of black human heads appeared in a setting of white foam.

But these were within reach almost. These could be saved. Ah! Men wade in, somehow, anyhow, forming a line, and pass one to shore. Saved! And then another. Thank God! Here comes the third on that wave! Grasp that dress! Tenderly, it is a girl. All here! All saved!

But where is Scud? Oh, but he can swim. He is strong and used to chilling water and fierce waves. The helpless children safe, and Scud gone? Impossible! Incredible! Too horrible!

Involuntarily one man and then another turned to look at the widow and the orphans, and then they turned and cursed the sea aloud.

At this moment a dark little figure shot past them all, by the bewildered man, and dashed with a shriek into the foam. What did she do? How did she do it? What could be done? A woman—a little woman—her baby only one month old—Betty! She caught the sinking hand, the drowning head—she never knew how. A dozen men plunged in now. Spectators who had not wet their feet during all that horrible scene swam now in the whirlpool for the woman's sake, and for the shame she wrought upon them. Brawny arms and steady feet bore her back. Her little hand, rigid, clutched her husband by the collar of his shirt.

Scud was carried quickly up and laid upon the piazza. An ugly bruise was upon his forehead.

The wind died down. The rain came in white torrents. Betty stood in the deluge and shielded her husband automatically. The children, most of them too small to know the reason why, lifted up their voices and wept.

"Father," said Betty, softly, "why don't ye speak to me? Dearie, dearie Scud. I saved ye. Hain't ye nothing to say to me, Scud?"

"You'd better go into the house," said some one. "Leave Scud to us awhile." For in truth not a man or woman of us but believed that Scud was dead.

"You jess get us to a kitchen fire," said Betty, quietly, "and leave him to me."

And it was repeated with many a trembling lip far down the coast that night that Scud would live.

It was the morning of my departure, and it had come by the last express the night before. It had been kept a profound secret, for we would not risk a cruel disappointment. Scud had rowed to town with a full fare of fish, and Salt was with him, doing the rowing. We left word that they should come to the house as soon as they had put up their dory. A peremptory message was sent to Betty to come over immediately to do some work. A few neighbors happened to drop in. There might have been a dozen or so in all. My cousin did not go into town that day. He said he wanted to see me off. Betty came a little early, and was set to scrubbing the pantry floor.

But Scud, a hero? He had forgotten all about it now. He was the same old fellow, just as easy, just as jolly, just as careless. Scud wasn't at all spoiled by what had happened. He was as comfortable as the sea, this very morning. Who would have suspected the passing of a grand storm upon the hearts of either? Scud's sluggish blood had been "up" for one fiery hour. For one great day he had been the hero of the coast—the peer of all its heroes. Then the fire went out, and Scud became as he was. Perhaps Scud was more popular; his babies were better fed. Fishermen treated him with a grudged respect, and when he was pointed out to every new squad of boarders as the bravest man on the whole coast, they smiled. How could that grinning, singing Scud save a jelly-fish?

It was just eleven o'clock. With what impatience we had waited for the tramp of those rubber boots! We rushed upon the piazza and greeted Scud and Salt, dressed in their oil-skins, just as they had come from the trap. Scud halted uneasily at the front door.

"No miss, I can't come in in this toggery; I'm all gurry. I'll go home and change my clothes. Couldn't get here sooner. Herrin' jess struck. We sold ten barr'l this mornin'."

But we constrained him, and Scud entered, staring about, shuffling his rubber boots and wiping them as best he might. White scales of fish glittered upon his black oil-skins. He looked as if he were mailed in silver.

It devolved upon me to fetch Betty from the pantry; but I saw as I went that all of the people in the parlor stood up as Scud entered, as if they were greeting a prince. Scud looked from one to the other uncomfortably. He blushed a deep russet red, and stared, and then laughed in a vacant way. Betty now appeared in the doorway, and the three made a most impressive group in their working-clothes, wondering what it was all about, and what the city folk were after now.

"Scud," said the master of the house, clearing his throat, "you have done the bravest deed this coast has record of for twenty years. You have saved to us our children, dearer than our life. You had your own wife to think of, and the children who depend upon you for their bread. You have been a hero. To us you are always a hero, and our love and gratitude will last as long as our days. I have the privilege of presenting to you the highest tribute Massachusetts pays to her brave men—the gold medal of her great Humane Society, one hundred years old. This honor has not been sought, but has been eagerly bestowed. May it never leave your family! It will be an inspiration to your boys. You have obtained the reward of your pluck, and you deserve it, old fellow. Now shake!" The speech broke in eloquence, but not in feeling.

"See," said Mabel, "I kiss the medal for you and for my dear children's sake." She flashed it from its plush case, and placed the solemn emblem, whose exquisite engravings glittered like a jewel, in his great wet hands.

Salt turned his face to the wall. Betty put her apron over her face, and Scud's eyes ran dripping over. He opened his mouth, but no sound came forth.

"And now, Betty, look here," said her mistress in a gay, tremulous tone, "I have something for you." She held out in her delicate hand forty silver dollars, the gift of the Humane Society to Betty herself. "You are a woman, and you saved a man's life," explained my cousin, "and the society always recognizes the courage of a woman."

But Betty drew herself up in her scrubbing dress. She had a fine look.

"Thank you, ma'am," she said, "and the gentleman too. But he was my husband; I don't take no money from nobody for savin' of my husband. I'm just as much obleeged to ye." Almost every child in her house was dressed in "given" clothes, but the unpauperized soul looked out of Betty's faded eyes.

"Well," said my cousin, looking nonplussed, "how would it do to make it over to the twins?"

"As ye please," said Betty, shining. So the four twin babies received ten silver dollars apiece from the Humane Society for plunging into the water and saving their father's life. This was an illegal procedure. I grant it. And if the Society now for the first time learneth of the matter, I am fain to believe that it is too old and too great to take account thereof.

We were rowing over to catch my train. Scud was the oarsman. He sat quite still, and had a dazed look. Midway of the bay he stopped pulling, lifted and crossed his oars. I saw his Adam's apple rising and falling like an irresolute tide.

"I were took all of a sudden," he said, slowly; "I never felt so in all my life. My throat felt kinder queer an' dry. But I'm mightily obliged to yer. It might give Salt a lift. But I didn't know what to say, an' so I didn't say nothing'."

THE ROMANCE OF A MORTGAGE

1111 Court Street, Boston, Mass., Nov. 12, 1890.

Mr. Francis B. Ellesworth, University Club, Boston, Mass.:

My dear Frank, I am sorry to inform you that the Benson note is still uncollected. The party writes that he will try to pay it soon. Our correspondent in Sunshine, S. C., considers the Benson security in Cherokee first-class. As this is the only S. C. mortgage that has slipped up so far on our hands, I should advise you to be patient a few more days. Perhaps you had better give the party leeway up to Dec. 1, if necessary, as it is his first default since you took the papers, three years ago. However, if you are impatient and wish to settle the matter, send me down the trust deeds and notes. Run in any time. I shall be glad to see you.

Very truly yours,

Joseph Todd.

Young Ellesworth carefully deposited his cigar in the bronze ash receiver on the polished table by his side, and pulled out from his breast pocket a notebook which he consulted. After a few moments he seemed to satisfy himself as to the identity of his mortgager Benson; put his papers up, and sank back into a reverie.

The gray November day seemed to have contented itself with monopolizing the streets and the faded Common, and the poor tenements, and the ragged stragglers, and to have passed by the windows of Beacon Street, and the luxurious smoking-room of the new University Club. Francis Ellesworth sprawled listlessly in the deep chair by the window, and vaguely congratulated himself that he did not have to earn his supper. It was lucky that he did not have to, for any tyro of a physiognomist could have seen at a glance that the delicate features, the sallow complexion, brightened by red spots upon his cheeks, the gentle black eyes and the straight black hair, did not belong to a robust New England body.

The trouble with Ellesworth was, not that he was rich enough not to have to work, but that he was born at all. He considered it only a fair compensation for this insult that three years ago he had fallen heir to seventy-five thousand dollars, which he had successfully invested and reinvested ever since. This occupation, and the clubs and a few other necessary amusements formed his life.

He was not handsome, but just interesting looking enough not to pass unnoticed. He was not vulgar; that is to say, he did not drink too much, did not swear, and was not the kind of a fellow who compromises a woman by his attentions. He was neither clever nor stupid. Thousands of young men in our great cities are of this type, unimportant to men of intent, and a missionary field to women of character.

He needed an electric shock either to kill him or make a man of him. But perhaps, after all, Ellesworth was not wholly to blame for not trying to make his mark; for he was not so strong as other men, as I said before, and had, besides, so thoroughly coddled himself into that belief that useful activity was struck off of his list of possibilities.

Now it happened that this Benson mortgage was the first which he had taken out under his inheritance; it had a certain special interest to him for that reason; it had netted him eight per cent. clear, and he considered his fifteen hundred dollars well invested. His Harvard classmate, Todd, a good judge, had selected the mortgage for him, and altogether it seemed to the young property-holder quite an important, if not to say a public, financial affair that this first of October passed without producing sixty dollars from Benson. He didn't know who Benson was; nor did he care. How many a capitalist in the East knows the sturdy settler whose hard-earned home he holds in his relentless safe! The drought comes, the crops wither away; the cyclone sweeps the land; the only horse that does the ploughing dies; the mother is sick and the father tends the babies instead of the wheat—a hundred catastrophes menace the farmer, but whatever happens, the semi-annual dividend must be paid or the nightmare of his life comes to pass—the terrible capitalist in the East, less compassionate than the cyclone or the inundation or the drought, takes the home as a matter of course, just as he takes his dinner. Who would dare complain? Not Benson surely, thought Ellesworth, with the smile of a man who holds a "full hand."

"Work Benson for all he is worth," wrote Ellesworth on some blue club-paper, "and give him until the first of December."

The first of December came, but no South Carolina interest. Francis Ellesworth was greatly annoyed and told Todd so plainly.

"He is sick," explained Todd. "Somebody else wrote for him. The letter came the other day. But he signed it. He asks for another fifteen days."

Ellesworth frowned.

"I'm deuced hard up just now," he said, "Christmas is coming on. That would just settle my flower bill. Halvin has sent me three confoundedly gentlemanly bills. That's the worst of it. Write and tell Benson I'll give him until the fifteenth of December—not another day."

"Just as you say," answered Todd. "It's all safe enough, but it will take some time to realize. Cherokee isn't exactly booming, but he's got fifty acres and one half cleared, the other half is heavy yellow pine. The timber is worth the whole amount, my correspondent assures me, besides the house and out-buildings. You won't lose, not a cent, I'll guarantee; but it's annoying, I will admit."

Then they fell to talking about the Yale foot-ball victory. Of course they talked late and Ellesworth walked to his apartments in a heavy shower.

That night, one of the catastrophes which prove demons or angels to our lives, occurred to the young man. He was taken suddenly and violently ill. Of the three physicians summoned by the excited janitor, to prescribe for the sickness, one called the case pneumonia; another preferred malaria; and the third, having just delivered an original paper on the subject, suggested brain grippe. In only one respect the three wise men agreed—their patient must spend the winter in the South. Oddly enough, they recommended Sunshine, South Carolina; and as Sunshine is a fashionable resort, with plenty of hotels and tennis and girls, Ellesworth found no difficulty in obeying the medical counsel. Thus in ten days he found himself in the land of the palmetto and the japonica. It was an abrupt change, and therefore all the more natural for that. The other day an invalid started for India on an eighteen hours' notice.

Ellesworth's illness and the journey had entirely driven the Benson matter out of his mind. He had drawn upon an emergency fund for his trip, and the fact that he was sixty dollars short had escaped his easy memory. Therefore the further announcement from Todd that Benson could not pay at the date agreed upon came to him as a new shock. Todd had written a formal letter to his classmate, merely stating the fact and asking for instructions. As Ellesworth read it, he had a vague feeling that there was something behind that was not told. But he had just lost a game of billiards to an inferior player, and felt cross.

"Confound that Benson!" he ejaculated. Then he sat down and wrote: "Foreclose at once. My attorneys, Squeeze & Claw, will give you the Benson trust deeds on presentation of this. Hurry it through as soon as you can."

He heaved a sigh of relief, and lighted a cigar with Todd's letter.

There are critics who assert that the modern story fails of its mission unless it deals in extraordinary characters embedded like the rare crystals of Hiddenite, in an extraordinary matrix; and that the public, tired to suffocation of its own commonplaces, has a right to expect something out of the usual run. If such a dictum were final Francis Ellesworth is in nowise a fit hero for a "penny-dreadful," nor was it even an extraordinary circumstance that made him inquire how far Cherokee Garden was from Sunshine.

"You can go by railroad," answered the Northern clerk, "or you can go horseback. It's only eight miles by road through the pines. It's a very pretty ride to take before dinner."

Ellesworth had two reasons for amusing himself by an easy trip to Cherokee. He had a vague feeling of remorse which often follows the decree of justice. Lincoln was made ill by being obliged to refuse a pardon. The greater the power the heavier it hangs upon the heart. Ellesworth, as he entertained himself in the conventional way, ever spending, never earning, began to feel that he had done a brutal thing, without even looking into the circumstances, to order a man's home sold over his head, because he had failed to pay interest for the first time. If Benson's farm were only eight miles away why did he not see him before he sent the command to foreclose? There was an atonement owing, and this feeling, rising like a mist in the mind of the young man, who knew much of pleasure and little of misery, drew him to the mortgaged plantation. And then, if Benson did prove a shiftless fellow, he wanted to see what kind of a place he might be soon forced to own. He might make it his winter resort and come down there every year. The more selfish thought reinforced the generous one, and piqued his curiosity, as he rode slowly into the wilderness, leaving Sunshine and its fashionable savor behind.

It was a December morning. To one not used to the tropics, the sun, the heat, the greenness, the exhilaration were magical. Under what cold comforter was Boston Common shivering on this winter day! What pneumonic gales roared up Beacon Street and gnashed through Commonwealth Avenue, seeking whom they might devour, and having not a great way to go! How blue the street vendors looked—the Italian boys who gilded statuettes on Tremont Street, and the man under the old courthouse who offers to clean your gloves of the unpardonable sin—for five cents! How the fellows shivered as they stamped the snow off in the club vestibule! The wonder that New England is not depopulated when there is such an Eden in which to spend the devastating winter! So Ellesworth thought as he jogged along the uneven, sandy road, congratulating himself with every deep breath, and sitting straight and straighter in the saddle. He had never felt so happy and so free as he did this December morning. Passing slowly by a deserted orchard, he could see the yellow larks flying from tree to tree, and could hear the robins and the cat-birds calling each other names, and mocking each other merrily. Now and then he stopped his horse to watch a couple of quails leisurely hopping across the road, and strained his ears to hear their thrum as they were startled in the thicket. The very air seemed happy. Care and illness slipped away as the sunshine slipped on the faces of the leaves. It was December? No, it was summer with something thrown in that is never present in our Northern June.

Ellesworth galloped along until his horse stumbled into a mud-hole. Before him, in a hollow, a stream had to be forded in the usual Southern way. Above and beyond, a cabin could be seen from whose outside chimney smoke arose in a perpendicular column. Cocks crew in the distance, and there was every indication that the outskirts of Cherokee were represented in the hut before him. As Ellesworth halted in the deepest part of the brook, allowing his horse to drink, he saw clusters of mistletoe on the tops of slender trees. The dark green of this romantic parasite set against the gray of the trees and their moss formed a new picture for the Northerner. The glistening mistletoe with its white berries recalled scenes that he had read about. Ellesworth had played too lightly with life to have ever been seriously in love. The flirtation of a few weeks or months and the solemn tenderness of devoted love are not allied. The one passes into the other as seldom as silicon passes into the cells of a fallen tree. Ellesworth had never gone beyond conventional devotion: and this he had so far discreetly given to married women. This emblem of Christmas troth actually growing before his eyes, and seen by him in its native state for the first time, produced a vague longing upon the young New Englander. He remembered a precise and beautiful Boston girl, rich enough and all that, whom he had vainly tried to consider in the light of a possible wife. What well-bred surprise would she have poured upon him if he had attempted to claim the right of the mistletoe branch! He had waited in order to give and receive spontaneous, unconventional tokens of affection. He had dreamed of walking in the fields by the side of the phantom he loved, clasping her hand and swinging it with his, just like children in Arcadia. He wanted no wife who would accept her husband's kiss as a matter of necessity. He had seen them, and cynically watched the husband casting furtive, longing looks at her who swore to cherish him unto death.

Thus spoke the chaste, the alluring mistletoe to his heart. These thoughts surprised him, and he hurried along in vague discomfort over the little slope (the natives called it a hill) and up to the straggling village, called in his papers of description Cherokee Garden for no earthly reason whatever.

"Is this Cherokee Garden?" he asked of the wrinkled white woman sitting in the doorway of the solitary suburban residence.

"This ain't the hull of it, young man," she answered severely, taking her corn-cob pipe out of her mouth and looking at Ellesworth as if he had cast an aspersion upon a city. "Ye kin ride down the road a right smart bit until ye come to the kyars. The post office is on the other side o' the track." This she said with an accent of resentment.

"Do you know where a man called William Benson lives, whom I understand has a—a farm here somewhere?"

When Ellesworth had finished his question the old woman got up and, supported by her stick, tottered to his side, and peered up into his face.

"Air ye any kin ter Bill Benson? Air ye an'thin' to him?"

"No, no," stammered Ellesworth, taken aback. "I only wanted to call on him. Why?"

"Ye'll hev'ter go right smart ways to find Bill Benson," replied the old woman, grimly.

She peered up into his face again, and shook her head. Ellesworth, wondering whether his creditor had "skipped to Cuba to avoid payment," awaited information.

"Bill Benson" (she stopped to take a whiff, and then proceeded with a tone of awe caught from Methodist preachers) "hez gone to glory!"

"Where?" asked Boston, ignorant of the longitude and latitude of that strange place.

"To glory, young man!" repeated the old woman, impressively. "Elder Jones buried Bill in Tantallon buryin' ground, four mile from hyar down the track," added the woman, severely.

Her voice dropped to a whisper on the last words, and she looked to see their effect upon the horseman. The red handkerchief, tied over her head and under her chin, had fallen down behind her neck and revealed a bald head. The cock crew from the step of the hut.