This first—before I realized that I had fallen asleep on the rock, and that what I had dreamed was my sister playing, was the sound of the tide coming in, and that I was already sprinkled from head to foot with the spray. The Cradlebow continued calling to me cheerily, and would not give me time to consider the terrors of the situation then, nor afterwards, when I strove, in my half-stunned condition of mind, to weigh and appreciate the peril from which I had been rescued.
The children had wandered a mile or more along the beach and had gone home by another road. It was not yet dark. No alarm had been occasioned in Wallencamp as to my absence, but the Cradlebow, knowing that I had gone in the direction of the beach, had been moved to search for me, and had discovered me on the rock, where, in a few moments more, I should have waked to find myself at the mercy of the waves.
My deliverer laughed reassuringly, sending the boat leaping upon the shore, holding out his hand to me, as though this were merely an everyday occurrence, the close of some ordinary excursion, but, to me, life had suddenly grown significant.
The strong warm hand which clasped mine, weak and trembling, as I stepped from the boat, I must recognize henceforth, I knew, as the link between me and the living world.
For several days afterwards I considered the matter of my relation to the Cradlebow in a new and serious light, especially in the light of present gratitude, with a sense of life-long obligation; but the Cradlebow was too generous and noble to recognize the obligation, or take advantage of the gratitude. He loved me, I knew. He had watched for me. He had saved my life. He should know, I resolved, that if he wished it still I would wait for him.
And the idea was not foreign to my heart, but it grew, at last, too light of wing, and disposed to take up permanent abode in the realm of fancy. A poor, handsome young lover, seeking his fortune at the ends of the earth, and the future—ah, it did send a little stab to my conscience, to think that the uncertainty of that lover's future should so have heightened, to my mind, the romance of the picture. However, meeting him in the lane one evening, as I was returning from one of my parochial calls—it was just at dusk, I remember, and we stood under the balm-of-Gilead tree, in front of Emily's gate—I said very gravely and with none of that embarrassment which the occasion might seem to have warranted:—
"Luther, although I seem to myself much older than you, we are really, I suppose, of about the same age. I have known very happy attachments where inconsistencies of birth, habit, education were far greater, perhaps, than with us. I have made up my mind that, if you still desire it, I will wait for you."
"Wait for me, teacher!" exclaimed the Cradlebow, opening his eyes with a solemn, wide surprise; "why, of course!"
"Why, of course?" I questioned faintly, not knowing whether to smile at being thus abruptly disarmed, or to feel the least little bit piqued at the youth's unconscious audacity.
"What else should two people do who love each other?" There was nothing either of doubt or arraignment in the Cradlebow's serious eyes. "Besides," he continued; "I've known it all along. See here, teacher!" and he took from his pocket, and carefully unfolded, a sheet of paper against the background of which there lay revealed a dainty star fish, most curiously twisted about with some rare and beautiful sea vine.