REUBE and Will did not go shad fishing the next night, after all. A fierce sou’wester blew up toward evening, and drifting for shad was out of the question. Every boat was made secure with extra care, and all night the fury of an unusually high tide put the Tantramar and Westcock dikes to the test. They stood the trial nobly, for well had their builders done their work.
The Dares’ wide-winged cottage, set in a hollow of the hill, was little jarred by the gusts that volleyed down upon it. Having seen the Dido well secured behind the little wharf, Reube felt altogether at ease.
“Are you quite sure,” asked Mrs. Dare that evening, “that Gandy won’t make another attack on the shad boat or the net?”
“O yes, mother,” answered Reube; “I’m no longer anxious on that score. Mart feels madder than ever, I’ve no doubt, and I think he’d have tried to drown Will last night if I had left him half a chance. But he is just mortally afraid of the penitentiary, and, now he knows we can prove a case against him, I imagine he’ll bottle his wrath for a while.”
“Well, dear, I hope you are right,” said his mother. “But I must say I think Mart Gandy is more dangerous than you give him credit for being. I want you to be very careful how you go about alone at night. I know that blood, and how it craves for vengeance. Be watchful, Reube, and don’t make the mistake of undervaluing your enemy.”
“No, mother, I won’t,” answered Reube. “I know that wise head of yours is generally in the right. If you think I ought to keep my weather eye open, why, open I will keep it, I promise you. And now it’s my turn! What were you doing out so late alone, when it was almost dark, with those poor eyes that can’t see much even in broad daylight?”
“I know it was imprudent, Reube, and I did have some trouble getting home,” confessed Mrs. Dare. “But, dear, I couldn’t help it. I heard quite late in the afternoon that Jim Paul was on a spree again, after keeping steady for a whole year. He has been drinking hard for a week—drunk all the time—and his wife sick in bed, and nothing to eat in the house. I went right down with a basket, and I was glad I went. The children were crying with hunger. And such a house! And Mrs. Paul lying on the floor, white as a ghost, where she had just fallen! She had got out of bed and tried to make some porridge for the children—there was nothing in the house but a little corn meal. Her husband was out, and she was trembling with fear lest he should return in a drunken frenzy and beat them all. Poor woman! And Jim Paul is a good husband and father when he is sober. You see, Reube, it took me a long while, blind as I’m getting, to find the children and straighten things up.”
“Well, mother, this autumn, if all goes well,” said Reube, cheerfully, “we’ll get the poor eyes fixed as good as new. And then you may stay out late sometimes without me scolding you.”
That night, when Reube and his mother were sleeping soundly, they were roused by a crash which the roaring of the wind could not drown. It seemed to shake the whole house. Reube sprang out of bed. As he dragged on his trousers his mother came to the door with a lamp in her hand.
“What is it, mother?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.