III.
What had Jenny been about in the dead woman's house? What was she carrying off beneath her cloak? Why was her heart beating? Why did she hasten with such trembling steps to her own cabin, without daring to look back? What did she hide in her own bed, behind the curtain? What had she been stealing?
When she entered the cabin, the cliffs were growing white. She sank upon the chair beside the bed. She was very pale; it seemed as if she felt repentance. Her forehead fell upon the pillow, and at intervals, with broken words, she murmured to herself, while outside the cabin moaned the savage sea.
"My poor man! O Heavens, what will he say? He has already so much trouble. What have I done now? Five children on our hands already! Their father toils and toils, and yet, as if he had not care enough already, I must give him this care more. Is that he? No, nothing. I have done wrong—he would do quite right to beat me. Is that he? No! So much the better. The door moves as if someone were coming in; but no. To think that I should feel afraid to see him enter!"
Then she remained absorbed in thought, and shivering with the cold, unconscious of all outward sounds, of the black cormorants, which passed shrieking, and of the rage of wind and sea.
All at once the door flew open, a streak of the white light of morning entered, and the fisherman, dragging his dripping net, appeared upon the threshold, and cried, with a gay laugh, "Here comes the Navy."
"You!" cried Jenny; and she clasped her husband like a lover, and pressed her mouth against his rough jacket.
"Here I am, wife," he said, showing in the firelight the good-natured and contented face which Jenny loved so well.
"I have been unlucky," he continued.
"What kind of weather have you had?"
"Dreadful."
"And the fishing?"
"Bad. But never mind. I have you in my arms again, and I am satisfied. I have caught nothing at all, I have only torn my net. The deuce was in the wind to-night. At one moment of the tempest I thought the boat was foundering, and the cable broke. But what have you been doing all this time?"
Jenny felt a shiver in the darkness.
"I?" she said, in trouble, "Oh, nothing; just as usual. I have been sewing. I have been listening to the thunder of the sea, and I was frightened."
"Yes; the winter is a hard time. But never mind it now."
Then, trembling as if she were going to commit a crime:
"Husband!" she said, "our neighbour is dead. She must have died last night, soon after you went out. She has left two little children, one called William and the other Madeline. The boy can hardly toddle, and the girl can only lisp. The poor, good woman was in dreadful want."
The man looked grave. Throwing into a corner his fur cap, sodden by the tempest: "The deuce," he said, scratching his head. "We already have five children; this makes seven. And already in bad weather we have to go without our supper. What shall we do now? Bah, it is not my fault, it's God's doing. These are things too deep for me. Why has He taken away their mother from these mites? These matters are too difficult to understand. One has to be a scholar to see through them. Such tiny scraps of children! Wife, go and fetch them. If they are awake, they must be frightened to be alone with their dead mother. We will bring them up with ours. They will be brother and sister to our five. When God sees that we have to feed this little girl and boy besides our own, He will let us take more fish. As for me, I will drink water. I will work twice as hard. Enough. Be off and bring them! But what is the matter? Does it vex you? You are generally quicker than this."
His wife drew back the curtain.
"Look!" she said.
