This touching scene had drawn tears from Flora more than once, and she loved the good dog for his devoted attachment to the grief-stricken desolate old man. When, however, the fishing season returned, Jarvis roused himself from the indulgence of hopeless grief. The little cockle-shell of a boat was once more launched upon the blue sea, and Jarvis might daily be seen spreading its tiny white sheet to the breeze, while the noble buff Newfoundland dog resumed his place in the bow.
Jarvis came regularly every day to the house to offer fish for sale—cod, whitings, herrings, whatever fish chance had given to his net. Flora was glad to observe something like cheerfulness once more illumine the old sailor’s face. She always greeted him with kind words, and inquired affectionately after his welfare; and without alluding to his heavy family afflictions, made him sensible that she deeply sympathised in his grief.
Things went on smoothly, until one terrible night in October, Jarvis and his only remaining son, a strong powerful man of thirty, had been off with several experienced seamen in the pilot-boat, to put a pilot on board a large vessel which was toiling her way through the storm to London. Coming back, the wind rose to a gale, and the sailors, in trying to enter the harbour, ran the boat against one of the piers with such violence, that it upset, and the whole party were thrown into the water.
Old Jarvis was an admirable swimmer, and soon gained the beach, as did most of the others, two of their number being rescued from death by the exertions of the brave dog. One alone was missing—Harry Jarvis was the lost man.
From that hour Flora had never seen the old Jarvis or his dog. The boat lay high and dry upon the beach, and his net was still suspended between the poles where it had been left to dry, and she concluded that Jarvis had not survived this last terrible blow. It was a joyful surprise, therefore, to hear, that he was not only alive, but pursuing his old calling.
She found the fisherman leaning against the open kitchen-door, a basket of fish at his feet, and his clear grey eyes fixed vacantly upon the silver waves, which flashing and murmuring in the sunlight, came racing to the beach below. The old sailors’ wrinkled face, once so ruddy and bronzed, was as white as his hair; his cheeks had fallen in, and deep hollows had gathered about his temples; it was painful to observe the great alteration in his appearance since they last met. The old man started from his abstraction, as Flora’s foot sounded on the floor, and he tried to smile. It was a vain attempt, his shrunken features instantly contracted into their former melancholy expression.
“My good old friend” said Flora, “I am glad to see you; I was afraid you had been ill. What fish have you got for me?”
“Eels, Madam; I caught them in the river. They ar’n’t for sale, but just a little present. I he’erd you wor goin’ to cross the salt seas to Canady, an’ I had a mind to see you agin.”
“I will accept them with pleasure, Davy, and I am very much obliged to you for your kindness. I am very fond of eels,—we get them so seldom, they are quite a treat. I have not seen you out in the boat lately, Jarvis?”
“Maybe you’ll never see me out in her agin,” said the fisherman. “I’m thinking my fishing days are ’most over; boat, tackle and measter are all worn out together. I’ve parted with the boat; how’somever. An’ as to the sea, I allers look’d upon its broad face with pleasure, but t’has been a cruel enemy to me and mine; my path, I’m thinking, will be over it no more.”