“Well, Miss, there we stood, the waves washing our feet, till it grew dark, and then I could stand it no longer.  I said to the poor mother, ‘keep a good heart,’ but I had little hope myself, God knows, and off I made for Witton.  Well, they had not been there, I found the grandmother had seen nothing of them.  They were picked up a day or so after, all four of them washed up by the morning tide; their boat had drifted no one knows where, and no one knows how it happened; but I suppose they were driven out by the fresh breeze that sprung up, and not knowing how to manage the sails, they were capsized.”

“There they all lay.  Miss, in the churchyard.  It was a solemn sight, I can tell you, to see those four coffins, side by side, in the church.  They were all strong hearty lads, and all under seventeen.  I go and sit on his grave sometimes, and spell over all I said, and all he said that day; and glad enough I am, that I can remember neither cross word nor cross look.  Ah, my lady, I should remember it if it had been so.  We think we are good fathers and good friends to them we love while they are alive, but as soon as we lose ’em, all the kindness we ever did them seems little enough, while all the bad feelings we had, and sharp words we spoke, come up to condemn us.”

By this time they had reached the fisherman’s cottage; it was prettily situated, as houses on the south coast often are, under the shadow of a fine over-hanging cliff.  Masses of rock, clad with emerald green, were scattered here and there, and the thriving plants in the little garden, gave evidence of the mildness of the air in those parts, though close upon the sea.  The cottage was very low, but white and cheerful looking outside, and as clean and trim within as a notable and stirring woman could make it.  Joe’s daughter-in-law, the same described by Joe the other evening as the woman of a high spirit, was to-day absent on an errand to the town; and Edith, who loved children, stopped at the threshold to notice two or three little curly-headed prattlers, who were playing together at grotto making, an amusement which cost grandfather many a half-penny.  Some dispute seemed to have arisen at the moment of their entrance between the young builders, for a good-humoured, plain-looking girl, of twelve, the nursemaid of the baby, and the care-taker of four other little ones, was trying to pacify the aggrieved.  In vain—­little Susy was in a great passion, and with her tiny foot kicked over the grotto, the result of several hours’ labour; first, in searching on the shore for shells and pebbles, and secondly, in its erection.  Then arose such a shriek and tumult amongst the children, as those only can conceive who know what a noise disappointed little creatures, from three to seven years old, can make.  They all set upon Susy, “naughty, mischievous, tiresome,” were among the words.  The quiet looking girl, who had been trying to settle the dispute, now interfered again.  She led Susy away gently, but firmly, into another part of the garden, where spying her grandfather, she took the unwilling and ashamed little girl for him to deal with, and ran hack to the crying children and ruined grotto.