Old Grindlay was kindly-hearted, but terribly ugly. As he sat there winking and blinking at the light, he looked more like a gnome than a human being. His son’s step was heard on the stone stairs at last, and, preceded by a cloud of tobacco smoke, he presently appeared. He was a far more cheerful-looking being than his father, but Leonard and Effie liked the latter better.
“Come, my dears,” said the little gnome, “let us toddle.”
“Keep the lights bright, Harry lad; I think it’s going to blow.”
Down the long stairs they went, and away into the house. The supper was laid in the old-fashioned kitchen, and cheerful it looked; for though it was July a bit of fire was burning on the hearth. It was wreckage they used for fuel here, and every bit of wood could have told a sorrowful, perhaps even tragic story, had it been able to speak.
“Something tells me, children,” said old Mrs Grindlay, as she cleared away the remains of the supper, “that you will not be long here. Hark to the sound of the rising wind! God save all at sea to-night!”
“Amen,” said the gnome.
“Amen,” said Leonard and Effie in one breath.
“Gather close round the fire now, children, and let us feel thankful to the Great Father that we are well and safe.”
The old woman began knitting as she spoke, the gnome replenished the fire with a few more pieces of wreck to drive the cold sea air out of the chimney. Then he lit his pipe, and sat down in his favourite corner.
After a pause, during which nothing was heard but the roar of the rising wind and the solemn boom of the waves, and the steady tick of an old clock that wagged the time away in a corner,—