and made much of his generosity, and wondered if this voyage were not to be rewarded by the prize for which he had sought openly so long. Old Briton and his dame inclined to that opinion.
But in the week following that of his departure there was a great stir and excitement among the people of the Bay. Little Gabriel was missing. A search, that began in surprise when Clarice returned home from some errand, was continued with increasing alarm all day, and night descended amid the general conviction that the child was drowned. He had been seen at play on the shore. No one could possibly furnish a more reasonable explanation. Every one had something to say, of course, and Clarice listened to all, turning to one speaker after another with increasing despair. Not one of them could restore the child to life, if he was dead.
There was a suspicion in her heart which she shared with none. It flashed upon her, and there was no rest after, until she had satisfied herself of its injustice. She went alone by night to town, and made her way fearlessly down to the harbor to learn if any vessel had sailed that day, and when the last ship sailed for Havre. The answers to the inquiries she made convinced her that Bondo Emmins must have sailed for France the day after his last conversation with her.
By daylight Clarice was again on the shore of Diver's Bay, there to renew a search which for weeks was not abandoned. Gabriel had a place in many a rough man’s heart, and the women of the Bay knew well enough that he was unlike all other children; and though it did not please them well that Clarice should keep him so much to herself, they still admired the result of such seclusion, and praised his beauty and wonderful cleanliness, as though these tokens of her care were really beyond the common range of tilings,—attainable, in spite of all she could say, by no one but Clarice Briton, and for no one but Gabriel. These fishermen and their wives did not speedily forget the wonderful boy; the boats never went out but those who rowed them thought about the child; the gatherers of sea-weed never went to their work but they looked for some token of him; and for Clarice,—let us say nothing of her just here. What woman needs to be told how that woman watched and waited and mourned?
IX.
Few events ever occurred to disturb the tranquillity of the people of Diver’s Bay. People wore out and dropped away, as the old fishing-boats did,—and new ones took their place.
Old Briton crumbled and fell to pieces, while he watched for the return of Bondo Emmins. And Clarice buried her old mother. She was then left alone in the cabin, with the reminiscences of a hard lot around her. The worn-out garments, and many rude traces of rough toil, and the toys, few and simple, which had belonged to Gabriel, constituted her treasures. What was before her? A life of labor and of watching; and Clarice was growing older every day.
Her hair turned gray ere she was old. The hopes that had specially concerned her had failed her,—all of them. She surveyed her experience, and said, weighing the result, the more need that she should strive to avert from others the evils they might bring upon themselves, so that, when the Lord should smite them, they, too, might be strong. The missionary had long since left this field of labor and gone to another, and his place at Diver’s Bay was unfilled by a new preacher. The more need, then, of her. Remembering her lost child, she taught the children of others. She taught them to read and sew and knit, and, what was more important, taught them obedience and thankfulness, and endeavored to inspire in them some reverence and faith. The Church did not fall into ruin there.
I wish that I might write here,—it were so easy, if it were but true!—that Bondo Emmins came back to Diver’s Bay in
