In the Tideway

by Flora Annie Webster Steel

Substantial enough for the nineteenth century, yet reminding one irresistibly of those Swiss châlets in boxes which are to be bought for a sixpence in the Lowther Arcade. The fault, no doubt, of its surroundings; above all, of a sound which seemed to monopolize the whole landscape,--the sound of the Atlantic rolling in upon two miles of shelving sand a little to the southward. A sound that went on night and day, day and night, without a pause. Rhythmically true to a second, not to be shut out by any device of man. The strongest must put up with it or go away. On this particular September day, with the keen bright nor'wester sending a cross sea round the point, its voice had a querulous ring in it very different from the roar which echoed for fifteen miles across the island when the Atlantic was in a southwesterly mood.

Rick Halmar, however, being a sailor accustomed to the sea in all tempers, took little heed of its tone. He sat to leeward of a cairn which tradition said marked the grave of a Viking, and whittled away at a piece of wood he had found close by, the pretence of fishing having been set aside when Miss Willina's decided little figure disappeared from sight. He whittled with more than the sailor's ordinary dexterity; for his father had been a Norwegian sprung from a long line of ancestors who had whiled away the winter days when their ships were in dock with wood-carving. Not much else save that trick of the knife, a straight Norse nose, and a passion for the sea had Eric Halmar inherited from the father he had never seen. For within a year of that hasty marriage between the shipwrecked sailor and Miss Willina's younger sister, pretty little Mrs. Halmar was in Eval House once more, weeping and waiting. Weeping for her handsome husband; waiting for her child to be born. She wept even after the waiting was over, till consolation came in the shape of another husband; for she was not a person of great steadfastness, and even her land prejudice against the sea as a profession had given way before Miss Willina's stern common sense.

"The laddie thinks of nothing else," said his aunt; "indeed, why should he, seeing he comes of pure Viking blood on the one side, and something of it on the other, if old tales be true? Send him to the navy; then if he is drowned, it will be decently in the Queen's uniform."

So into the navy he went, and, having passed through Greenwich, was now awaiting orders at Eval; where he found a most congenial playmate in his aunt.

His still beardless face dimpled with smiles as he worked. To begin with, the wood, which had evidently been used as a cow peg, was mahogany. In other words, it must have been stolen from the drift pile on which his uncle, by virtue of his official position, was supposed to keep an eye, since the logs which the Gulf Stream leaves in its course are Government property. This amused Rick, seeing that the mere suggestion of such nefarious possibilities was a sure bait to his uncle's anger. Then the subject he had elected to carve seemed to him amusing. It was a replica of a Numbo Jumbo he had seen amongst the Caribbees, and which had tickled his fancy by its lavish ugliness. So his knife being a perfect tool-chest of implements, he gouged and punched, chiselled and filed, until, as he stuck the pointed end of the peg into the ground again, a very creditable copy of a malignant god stood before him.

"It's the best I've done yet," he said to himself; "that dodge of the bread-pellet eyes with the shot in the middle of them gives the old devil quite a live look."

He was not yet twenty-one, and boy enough to be proud of the ingenuity which had converted some sandwich crumbs and the lead off a cast into a pair of evil eyes. Man enough, however, to whistle "Who is Sylvia?" as he leant back against the cairn, smiling at Numbo Jumbo and thinking of Lady Maud.

"Rick! you bad boy!" cried his aunt's eager voice just as he was beginning to forget everything in drowsiness. "You promised you wouldn't when I threw the last into the Minch, and this is worse, ever so much worse!"

"Better, you mean. It's the best I've done. Look at its eyes!" Miss Willina pretended to shudder as her hand, instinct with righteous vengeance, went out towards the idol.

"You might leave it there till we go," pleaded Rick. "It really is the best I've done by a long way. Then you could take it home Aunt Will, and have a real auto-da-fe. It's more orthodox than drowning; besides, it will help the peats to a blaze when we go in."