But, in truth, they had a more substantial reason than poor Sarah’s wistful fancy for thinking that Jim was living.  When the ice broke up, his boat was found in a little cove, where it had floated right-side up, without any serious injury except the carrying away of the sails.  Of course this discovery roused new hopes in the homes of the missing men.  It did not “stand to reason” that four big strong, temperate young fellows, brought up to the hardy, amphibious island-life, had all fallen overboard, any more than it “stood to sense” that the boat had upset and then righted of itself.  Besides, “none of the boy’s corpuses had ever floated up.”  So the Tucketers took courage and felt sure that, whatever had become of the missing men, they were not drowned.

But still the slow months came and went, till the summer and autumn and another winter had passed by; and patient old Rachel Starbuck grew daily a little quieter and a little grayer; and the brave young wife grew a little stronger to bear, but not a whit less loving or prone to suffer, and stately old Thomas Macy grew daily more gentle and pitying in his ways as he looked long at the winsome face of the happy, wee grandchild, that throve and crowed and tried to utter sweet little hesitating words as gayly as if the world had never a sin, a sorrow or a weakness in it.

One day Sarah and her mother had carried the baby down to the small cottage at the back of the cliff, whither they went to attend to some little household matter; for, although they did not mention the subject, even to themselves, they still kept all there in readiness against Jim’s coming home.  Here, in the soft May sunshine, the red-frocked baby was sitting on the green turf step, playing with some “daffies,” first of the season, which Sarah had plucked from the little garden in the rear.  The mother and daughter were in the house, when both were alarmed by a scream from the usually merry child.  A man had it closely clasped in his arms, kissing it and calling it between half-choked sobs his “own pretty, pretty baby.”  The man was thin, pock-marked, bald, and clad in a ragged uniform of a British sailor, but to the faithful, longing eyes of mother and wife there was no mistaking their Jim.

It was long ere the story could be told, but at last they learned that on that sad November night Jim and his companions had gone out to the relief of the signaling ship.  She was, as old Stephen had conjectured, a British man-o’-war.  Being short of hands, and having on board as pilot a renegade native of the island, who knew where a ship could “lay-to” in safety, she had taken advantage of the storm to attract strong men within the range of her guns, then to command them to surrender, and thus to impress them into “His Majesty’s service” as “able seamen.”

For a long time Jim had managed to keep alive his resentful feelings toward his wife, accusing of being the source of all his misfortunes the poor little woman who was loving and longing so sincerely for him.  But when illness came he could hold out no longer.  “I made up my mind then,” said he, “that if ever I got hum agin, I’d go deown on my knees an’ ax pardin’ o’ my Sairy.”