The BEGINNING of The END
From this sad tangle we were next morning extricated by news from the south ports of our coast—news so ill that sentimental tears and wishes were of a sudden forgot; being this: that the smallpox had come to Poor Luck Harbour and was there virulently raging. By noon of that day the doctor’s sloop was underway with a fair wind, bound south in desperate haste: a man’s heart beating glad aboard, that there might come a tragic solution of his life’s entanglement. My sister and I, sitting together on the heads of Good Promise, high in the sunlight, with the sea spread blue and rippling below—we two, alone, with hands clasped—watched the little patch of sail flutter on its way—silently watched until it vanished in the mist.
“I’m not knowin’,” my sister sighed, still staring out to sea, “what’s beyond the mist.”
“Nor I.”
’Twas like a curtain, veiling some dread mystery, as an ancient tragedy—but new to us, who sat waiting: and far past our guessing.
“I wonder what we’ll see, dear,” she whispered, “when the mist lifts.”
“’Tis some woeful thing.”
She leaned forward, staring, breathing deep, seeking with the strange gift of women to foresee the event; but she sighed, at last, and gave it up.
“I’m not knowin’,” she said.
We turned homeward; and thereafter—through the months of that summer—we were diligent in business: but with small success, for Jagger of Wayfarer’s Tickle, seizing the poor advantage with great glee, now foully slandered and oppressed us.