“What are you staring at?” she asked lightly.

“Someone in oilskins has just rowed up and stopped over the river at Mr. Selincourt’s.  It looked like Oily Dave, but Phil said last night that he was away at the fishing,” Miles answered, as he turned back into the store.

“So he was,” said Katherine.  “There was the usual legend in his dirty windows that all drinks must wait until he came back, which is a fearful temptation to temperance people to wish that he would never come back at all.”

“His sort is sure to turn up safe and sound, no matter how great the danger; it is the best and worthiest that never come back,” Miles said, so gloomily that Katherine took instant alarm.

“What do you mean?  Has any bad news come?” she asked, gripping at the rough deal counter for support, and wondering how she would be able to bear it if he said yes.

“Mr. Selincourt went down to Seal Cove this morning and looked in here on his way back,” said Miles.  “He wanted to see you, but we told him that he could not; then he said that there was a good bit of worry about the boats.  One was blown clean into the swamps last night, and will have to stick there until the weather is fine enough for her to be towed off, and another came ashore, badly damaged, at the fish sheds; and he is afraid that some of the other boats may have been driven on to the rocks.”

“The boats right out in the bay would be safe, wouldn’t they?” Katherine asked, with fear in her eyes.

“You never can say what will be safe in weather such as we had last night,” Miles answered; then he moved restlessly towards the door of the store again, and stood looking out, eager to catch the man whose boat was moored under the alders on the opposite bank of the river, and to learn from him if there was news from the sea.

Katherine sat down suddenly.  It was as if someone had already been in to say that a boat was wrecked.  Disasters which were expected always came, so she told herself, and sat leaning her head against a box of soap, the smell of which ever after suggested shipwreck to her.

Ten minutes went past, then twenty minutes, and nearly half an hour had gone before Miles cried out excitedly:  “Here he comes down the path; Mr. Selincourt is there too, without any hat, and it is raining hard!  Yes, it is Oily Dave, and there goes his hand up to his mouth, just as if he were drinking!”

Katherine was at work by this time, packing stores into boxes, bags, and bundles, which would have to be carried over the long portage next day; but she left her task now and came round to the door, where she stood behind Miles and looked over his shoulder.

“If Mr. Selincourt were not there I would go down and call to the fellow to come over,” said Miles impatiently.

“No need,” rejoined Katherine quietly, “he is coming without any calling; don’t you see that he is turning his boat across the river?”