The Strand Magazine - Vol. 1 - No. 5 - May 1891

hich flickered on the hearth and reddened the dark rafters overhead. The fisherman's nets were hanging on the wall. Some homely pots and pans twinkled on a rough shelf in the

e children's mother. She was alone. Outside the cabin the black ocean, dash

where the fish-soup was boiling. As soon as the five children were asleep, she fell upon her knees and prayed to Heaven for her husband in his struggle with the waves and darkness. And truly such a life as his was hard. The likeliest place for fish was a mere speck among the breakers, not more than twice as large as his own cabin-a spot obscure, capricious, changing on the moving desert, and

of barley. Heavens! the wind roared like the bellows of a forge, and the sea-coast echoed like an anvil. She wept and trembled. Poor wives whose husbands are at sea! How terrible to say, "My dear ones-father, lover, brothers, sons-are in the tempest." But Jenny was still more unhappy. Her husband was alone-a