"Out of this window you know I saw my Jeannot's brig go away—away—away—till the masts were lost in the mists. Going with iron to Norway; the Fleur d'Epine of this town, a good ship, and a sure, and he her mate; and as proud as might be, and with a little blest Mary in lead round his throat.
"She was to be back in port in eight months bringing timber. Eight months—that brought Easter time.
"But she never came. Never, never, never, you know.
"I sat here watching them come and go, and my child sickened and died, and the summer passed, and the autumn, and all the while I looked—looked—looked; for the brigs are all much alike; only his I always saw as soon as she hove in sight because he tied a hank of flax to her mizzen mast; and when he was home safe and sound I spun the hank into hose for him; that was a fancy of his, and for eleven voyages, one on another, he had never missed to tie the flax nor I to spin the hose.
"But the hank of flax I never saw this time; nor the brave brig; nor my good man with his sunny blue eyes.
"Only one day in winter, when the great blocks of ice were smashing hither and thither, a coaster came in and brought tidings of how off in the Danish waters they had come on a waterlogged brig, and had boarded her, and had found her empty, and her hull riven in two, and her crew all drowned and dead beyond any manner of doubt. And on her stern there was her name painted white, the Fleur d'Epine, of Brussels, as plain as name could be; and that was all we ever knew—what evil had struck her, or how they had perished, nobody ever told.
"Only the coaster brought that bit of beam away, with the Fleur d'Epine writ clear upon it.
"But you see I never know my man is dead.
"Any day—who can say?—any of those ships may bring him aboard of her, and he may leap out on the wharf there, and come running up the stairs as he used to do, and cry, in his merry voice, 'Annémie, Annémie, here is more flax to spin, here is more hose to weave!' For that was always his homeward word; no matter whether he had had fair weather or foul, he always knotted the flax to his mast-head.
"So you see, dear, I could not leave here. For what if he came and found me away? He would say it was an odd fashion of mourning for him.