Fifty-Two Stories For Girls Part 41

"I daresay," I said, pretending to pout, "you wouldn't marry me because I'm poor."

"Poor!" she repeated, looking very firm and earnest now; "if the man I loved were poor, I'd carry a creel for him--I'd gather sh.e.l.ls for his sake; but I don't love anybody and don't mean to. Come."

So that was the beginning and end of my love-making for Cousin Maggie.

And Maggie had said she never meant to love any one. Well, we never can tell what may be in our immediate future.

Hardly had we left the cave that day, and put off from the sh.o.r.e, ere cat's-paws began to ruffle the water. They came in from the west, and before we had got half-way to the distant headland a steady breeze was blowing. We had hoisted our sail, and were running before it with the speed of a gull on the wing.

Once round the point, we had a beam wind till we entered the fiord, then we had to beat to windward all the way home, by which time it was blowing quite a gale.

It went round more to the north about sunset, and then, for the first time, we noticed a yacht of small dimensions on the distant horizon. Her intention appeared to be that of rounding the island, and probably anchoring on the lee side of it. She was in an ugly position, however, and we all watched her anxiously till nightfall hid her from our view.

I retired early, but sleep was out of the question, for the wind raged and howled around the house like wild wolves. About twelve o'clock the sound of a gun fell on my ears. I could not be mistaken, for the window rattled in sharp response.

I sprang from my couch and began to dress, and immediately after my aged relative entered the room. He looked younger and taller than I had seen him, but very serious.

"The yacht is on the Ba,"[2] he said, solemnly.

[Footnote 2: _Ba_ means a sunken rock.]

They were words to me of fearful significance. The yacht, I knew, must soon break up, and nothing could save the crew.

I quickly followed my relative into the back drawing-room, where Maggie was with her mother. We gazed out into the night, out and across the sea. At the same moment, out there on the terrible Ba, a blue light sprang up, revealing the yacht and even its people on board. She was leaning well over to one side, her masts gone, and the spray dashing over her.

"Come!" cried Maggie, "there is no time to lose. We can guide their boat to the cave. Come, cousin!"

I felt dazed, thunderstruck. Was I to take active part in a forlorn hope? Was Maggie--how beautiful and daring she looked now!--to a.s.sume the _role_ of a modern Grace Darling? So it appeared.

The events of that night come back to my memory now as if they had happened but yesterday. It is a page in my past life that can never be obliterated.

We pulled out of the fiord, Maggie and I, and up under lee of the island; then, on rounding the point, we encountered the whole force of the sea and wind. There was a glimmering light on the wrecked yacht, and for that we rowed, or rather were borne along on the gale. No boat, save a Shetland skiff, could have been trusted in such a sea.

As we neared the Ba, steadying herself by leaning on my shoulder, Maggie stood half up and waved the lantern, and it was answered from the wreck.

Next moment it seemed to me we were on the lee side, and Maggie herself hailed the shipwrecked people.

"We cannot come nearer!" she cried; "lower your boat and follow our light closely."

"Take the tiller now," she continued, addressing me, "and steer for the light you see on the cliff. Keep her well up, though, or all will be lost."

We waited--and that with difficulty--for a few minutes, till we saw by the starlight that the yacht's boat was lowered, then away we went.

The light on the cliff-top moved slowly down the wind. I kept the boat's head a point or two above it, and on she dashed. The rocks loomed black and high as we neared them, the waves breaking in terrible turmoil beneath.

Suddenly the light was lowered over the cliff down to the very water's edge.

"Steady, now!" cried my brave cousin, and next moment we were round a point and into smooth water, with the yacht's boat close beside us. The place was partly cave, partly "_noss_." We beached our boats, and here we remained all night, and were all rescued next morning by a fisherman's yawl.

The yacht's people were the captain, his wife, and one boy--the whole crew Norwegians, Brinster by name.

My story is nearly done. What need to tell of the grat.i.tude of those Maggie's heroism had saved from a watery grave!

But it came to pa.s.s that when, a few months afterwards, a beautiful new yacht came round to the fiord to take those shipwrecked mariners away, Cousin Maggie went with them on a visit.

It came to pa.s.s also that when I paid my very next visit to R---- in the following summer, I found living at my relative's house a Major Brinster and a Mrs. Brinster.

And Mrs. Brinster was my Cousin Maggie, and Major Brinster was my Cousin Maggie's fate.

THE PEDLAR'S PACK.

BY LUCIE E. JACKSON.

Colonel Bingham was seated in his library facing the window that looked out on to the green sloping lawn, the smiling meadow, and the dark belt of firs which skirted the wood. There was a frown on his brow, and his eyes wore a perplexed look. On the opposite side of the room stood a young girl of seventeen balancing herself adroitly on the ridge of a chair, and smiling with evident satisfaction at her own achievement.

The colonel was speaking irritably.

"You see, you can't even now sit still while I speak to you, but you must poise yourself on your chair like a schoolboy. Is it a necessary part of your existence that you must behave like a boy rather than a girl?"

Patty hung her head shamefacedly, and the smile left her lips.

"And then, what is this that I hear about a rifle? Is it true that Captain Palmer has lent you one?"

"Only just to practise with for a few weeks. Dad, don't be angry. He has a new one, so he doesn't miss it. Why"--warming to her subject and forgetting for the moment that she was in great danger of still further disgracing herself in her father's eyes by her confession--"I can hit even a small object at a very considerable distance five times out of six."

The perplexed look deepened in her father's eyes, but the irritability had cleared away. He toyed with the open letter that he held in his hand. "I suppose it is for this as well as for your other schoolboy pranks that your aunt has invited only Rose. But I don't like it--it is not right. If it were not for the unfairness to Rose, I should have refused outright. As it is, the invitation has been accepted by me, and it must stand, for Rose must not be deprived of her pleasures because you like----"

"Invitation! What invitation?" interrupted Patty.

"Your aunt is giving a big ball on the 13th, and she is insistent that Rose should be present. It will be the child's first ball, and I cannot gainsay her. But, Patty, I should like you both to go. You are seventeen, are you not?"

"Seventeen and a half," returned Patty with a little choke in her voice.

It was the first she had heard of the invitation, and it stung her to think that Lady Glendower thought her too much of a hoyden to invite her with the sister who was but one year older. Patty was girl enough to love dancing even above her other amus.e.m.e.nts, and the unbidden tears came into her eyes as she stood looking forlornly at her father.

Colonel Bingham coughed, and tapped his writing-desk with the letter.

"Seventeen and a half," he repeated, "quite old enough to go to a ball.

Never mind, Patty, I've a good mind to give a ball myself and leave out her younger daughter, only that it would be too much like _tu quoque_, and your aunt has a reason for not extending her invitation here which I should not have in relation to your cousin f.a.n.n.y, eh, Patty?"

But Patty's eyes were still humid, and she could only gaze dumbly at her father with such a pathetic look on her pretty face that Colonel Bingham could not stand it.

"Look here, child," he said, "why aren't you more like your sister Rose?

Then her pleasures would be always yours----"

"Who's talking about me?" asked a gay voice, and into the room walked Patty's sister Rose.