The night wore swiftly on—the morning rose as calm and sunny as if storms had never raged in the soft atmosphere which it gilded with its early sunbeams. Anne rose to look from the window—the Firth lay broad before her, still something moved and unquiet—rolling long waves upon the shore, and specked like the breast of some war-horse, with spots of foam. At a little distance, dashed against a bold, projecting cliff, the masts of the hapless vessel appeared through the dark water. Anne shuddered when she saw the white spars, rising so very short a way above the broad surface of the Firth. A little longer delay last night—a paroxysm of desperate energy a little less bold, and these hapless seamen, and this youthful mother, had been lying, far from all consciousness of earthly pain or pleasure, in the dark graves of the sea!
Sevenfold—seven saved for one lost! Alas, was this all?—had he no hope but this?
Anne’s patient waked—she began to look about her confusedly—then she recollected herself: “Willie, Willie, where is he—is he safe?”
Anne hastened to reassure her; but finding that she only partially succeeded, and hearing as she thought some one stirring below, she left the room to seek “Willie,” to satisfy his anxious wife.
In a small bare parlor below she found the serving-woman of the Lillies and Jacky—they had just made a fire, and Marget, with considerable grumbling, was preparing tea. Jacky, looking very dark, and pale, and wakeful, was moving about in her own intense stillness of nervous activity, discharging various pieces of work entrusted to her, and returning instantly to seek more.
“I declare,” exclaimed Marget, peevishly, as Anne reached the door, “ye’re enough to pit a body daft. Afore ane can think ye’re weel begun wi’ ae turn, ye’re seeking anither. Have ye washen a’ the cups?”
“Yes.”
Marget looked back—the long array of gleaming earthenware spoke for itself. In anticipation of so many stranger guests, Marget had collected a dusty congregation of cups and saucers, out of the corners of a dark old pantry.
“Do ye aye do your work as cleverly? Ye’re a strange speerit o’ a creature to get through a turn at that rate. Are ye aye as fast?”