"Ben will lend you a lantern," said the mail-carrier, "an' I will lend you the oars, as I promised; but what on earth you want to go any further in this storm for, beats me."
"This storm has only jist begun, and its goin' to last three days," returned Chillis. "No use waitin' for it to quit; so, good-night to you all. I've made a pretty mess o' your floor," he added, turning to glance at the little black puddles that had drained out of his great spongy blanket coat, and run down through his leaky boots on to the white-scoured boards of the kitchen; then, glancing from them to the mistress of the house—"I hope you'll excuse me." And with that he opened the door quickly, and shut himself out into the tempest once more, making his way by the lantern's aid to the boat-house at the landing, where he helped himself to what he needed, and was soon pulling up the creek. Luckily there was no current against him, for it was sickening work making the oar-stroke with that hurt in his shoulder.
He could see by the light of the lantern, which he occasionally held aloft, that the long grass of the tide-marsh was already completely submerged, the immense flats looking like a sea, with the wind driving the water before it in long rolls, or catching it up and flirting it through the air in spray and foam. His only guide to his course was the scattering line of low willows whose tops still bent and shook above the flood, indicating the slightly raised banks of the creek, everything more distant being hidden in the profound darkness which brooded over and seemed a part of the storm. But even with these landmarks he wandered a good deal in his reckoning, and an hour or more had elapsed before his watchful eyes caught the gleam of what might have been a star reflected in the ocean.
"Thank God!" he whispered, and pulled a little faster toward that spark of light.
In ten minutes more, he moored his boat to the hitching-post in front of a tiny cottage, from whose uncurtained window the light of a brisk wood-fire was shining. As the chain clanked in the ring, the door opened, and a woman and child looked out.
"Is that you, Eben?" asked the woman, in an eager voice, made husky by previous weeping. "I certainly feared you were drowned." Then seeing, as her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, that the figure still lingering about the boat was not her husband's she shrank back, fearing the worst.
"I'm sorry I'm not the one you looked for, Mrs. Smiley," answered Chillis, standing on the bit of portico, with its dripping honeysuckle vines swinging in the wind; "but I'm better than nobody, I reckon, an' Smiley will hardly be home to-night. The bay's awful rough, an' ef I hadn't started over early, I shouldn't have ventured, neither. No, you needn't look for your husband to-night, ma'am."
"Will you not come in by the fire, Mr. Chillis?" asked the woman, hesitatingly, seeing that he seemed waiting to be invited.
"Thankee. But I shall spile your floor, ef I do. I'm a perfect sponge, not fit to come near a lady, nohow. I thought," he added, as he closed the door and advanced to the hearth, "that I would jest stop an' see ef I could do anything for you, seein' as I guessed you'd be alone, and mebbe afeard o' the storm an' the high tide. Ladies mostly is afeard to be alone at sech times"—untying the yellow cotton handkerchief and throwing his sodden hat upon the stone hearth.
"Do you think there is any danger?" asked Mrs. Smiley, embarrassed, yet anxious. She stood in the middle of the room, behind him, with that irresolute air an inexperienced person has in unexpected circumstances.