be aud, and a hundred years is too much for any man to expect.  And I’m so nigh it that the Aud Man is already whettin’ his scythe.  Ye see, I can’t get out o’ the habit of caffin’ about it all at once.  The chafts will wag as they be used to.  Some day soon the Angel of Death will sound his trumpet for me.  But don’t ye dooal an’ greet, my deary!”—­for he saw that I was crying—­“if he should come this very night I’d not refuse to answer his call.  For life be, after all, only a waitin’ for somethin’ else than what we’re doin’, and death be all that we can rightly depend on.  But I’m content, for it’s comin’ to me, my deary, and comin’ quick.  It may be comin’ while we be lookin’ and wonderin’.  Maybe it’s in that wind out over the sea that’s bringin’ with it loss and wreck, and sore distress, and sad hearts.  Look!  Look!” he cried suddenly.  “There’s something in that wind and in the hoast beyont that sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells like death.  It’s in the air.  I feel it comin’.  Lord, make me answer cheerful, when my call comes!” He held up his arms devoutly, and raised his hat.  His mouth moved as though he were praying.  After a few minutes’ silence, he got up, shook hands with me, and blessed me, and said goodbye, and hobbled off.  It all touched me, and upset me very much.

I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his spyglass under his arm.  He stopped to talk with me, as he always does, but all the time kept looking at a strange ship.

“I can’t make her out,” he said.  “She’s a Russian, by the look of her.  But she’s knocking about in the queerest way.  She doesn’t know her mind a bit.  She seems to see the storm coming, but can’t decide whether to run up north in the open, or to put in here.  Look there again!  She is steered mighty strangely, for she doesn’t mind the hand on the wheel, changes about with every puff of wind.  We’ll hear more of her before this time tomorrow.”

CHAPTER 7

CUTTING FROM “THE DAILYGRAPH”, 8 AUGUST

(PASTED IN MINA MURRAY’S JOURNAL)

From a correspondent.

Whitby.

One of the greatest and suddenest storms on record has just been experienced here, with results both strange and unique.  The weather had been somewhat sultry, but not to any degree uncommon in the month of August.  Saturday evening was as fine as was ever known, and the great body of holiday-makers laid out yesterday for visits to Mulgrave Woods, Robin Hood’s Bay, Rig Mill, Runswick, Staithes, and the various trips in the neighborhood of Whitby.  The steamers Emma and Scarborough made trips up and down the coast, and there was an unusual amount of ‘tripping’ both to and from Whitby.  The day was unusually fine till the afternoon, when some of the gossips who frequent the East Cliff churchyard, and from the commanding eminence watch the wide sweep of sea visible to the north and east, called attention to a sudden show of ‘mares tails’ high in the sky to the northwest.  The wind was then blowing from the south-west in the mild degree which in barometrical language is ranked ’No. 2, light breeze.’