‘However shall we tell Polly?’ I groaned.

But a cold hand was laid on mine at that instant, and I turned round to see Polly herself just behind me.  She could wait no longer, but had run down to the shore to hasten her husband up the hill.  She was trembling from head to foot, and seemed ready to faint.  The kind-hearted fishermen crowded round her with words of cheer and comfort.

’He’ll be all right, my lass, never fear.  He’s put into Saltburn or Staithes maybe; these gales they drive so far.  He’ll be home all safe and sound afore night.’

But Polly did not seem to hear them.  She stretched out her hands feebly to Mr. Christie and to me as she said: 

‘Take me home; I can bear it better there.’

The fishermen turned away sorrowfully, and there were very few dry eyes amongst the group which we left on the shore.

When we reached the house again all was quite still, and as we entered the bedroom I thought the little soul had passed away, but I bent over him to listen and to my relief I found he was still breathing.

As I look back, I hardly know how we lived through that sorrowful day.  The doctor came, and did nothing but shake his head in the ominous way which doctors have when they feel a case is beyond their power.  I think Polly had so little hope herself that she did not care to ask him what his real opinion was.

I went out for a short walk in the afternoon, to get a little fresh air to strengthen me for the coming night, when I had determined to watch with Polly beside little John, if he was still living.  My young friends, Bob and Harry, joined me, and we were pacing up and down together watching the tide come in when we thought we saw a dark speck far out to sea.

There were others who saw it also.  The coastguard was looking at it through his telescope, and before very long the shore was covered with fishermen and their wives, all gazing in the same direction.  Whatever the object was, it was coming rapidly shoreward; wind and tide were both with it, and it was being borne swiftly along.  After a little time we could distinguish, even without the help of a telescope, what it was, and I do not think there was anything which we could have been more aghast to see, for the floating object was a boat bottom upwards, and being driven rapidly before the tide.

A groan came from the group of fishermen who were watching, and as the capsized boat neared shore they ran into the water to meet it.  I do not think it was necessary to look at the name upon it as it was dragged out of the water:  we all did look, however, and we found there the name which we knew we should see before we looked.  It was the Mary Ann.

I shall never forget the piercing shriek which came from the wife of one of Duncan’s mates, who was standing just behind me, when she read the name on the boat.  I thought the shock and the sorrow had driven her mad, for she ran screaming up the hill; indeed, I firmly believe that for the time she was quite out of her mind.