“Here’s a—”
“Did you—”
“Come—”
All spoke of the anguish in poor Cockie’s breast.
A faint moaning was heard in the adjoining cabin, and Ralph hurried away from the table, and Sandy was left alone.
Chapter Thirty Four.
A Sailor’s Cottage—The Telegram—“Something’s in the Wind”—The Good Yacht “Polar Star”—Hope for the Wanderers.
A cottage on a cliff. A cliff whose black, beetling sides rose sheer up out of the water three hundred feet and over; a cliff around which sea-birds whirled in dizzy flight; a cliff in which the cormorant had her home; a cliff against which all the might of the German Ocean had dashed and chafed and foamed for ages. Some fifty yards back from the edge of this cliff the cottage was built, of hard blue granite, with sturdy bay windows—a cottage that seemed as independent of any storm that could blow as the cliff itself was. In front was a neat wee garden, with nicely gravelled walks and edging of box, and all round it a natty railing painted an emerald green. At the back of the cottage were more gravelled walks and more flower garden, with a summer-house and a smooth lawn, from the centre of which rose a tall ship’s mast by way of flagstaff, with ratlines and rigging and stays and top complete.