The New Bloomfield, Pa. times. (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1877-188?, 1881-10-18
A Romance of the Sea.

TWENTY years or more back in the
/ past, Mrs. Forsythe, had been a
very pretty woman but after her hus-
band had taken her to Europe, and she
returned, with her baby, she never
seemed quite the same person. A night
of shipwreck and disaster, which she
experienced on the voyage home, had
produced marked change both in her
looks and her happy, cheerful nature.
Just why this should have wrought
such lasting effect, however, was not
plain until long afterward, when people
found out oil that had happened.
Telling the story herself, Mrs. For
sythe said that she had fancied from the
moment the steamer left Liverpool that
something dreadful would take place
before the voyage was over. The morn
ing to begin with, was dark and rairy,
and everything had a gloomy appear
ance. Then, before they had fairly got
underway, the wind began to blow and
the steamer rolled and creaked frightful-
ly. A storm was brewing, and on the
second day of the voyage it ragged over
the ocean furiously.
Lying i'll in stateroom, Mrs. For
sythe knew very little about what was
going on in the saloon or how her baby
was faring with its nurse. Mr. Forsythe
said, however, that there was no need
of alarm. Everything was quite as one
must expect when at sea. By and by
the storm would cease, of course, just as
the captain said it would, and the steam
er would reach her dock in New York
safe and sound, as usual. But Mr.. For
sythe was engrossed in the pages of
work on the Sanskrit language, which
he had hunted down in London, and at
such time nothing short of an earth
quake was ever likely to disturb him.
So there was little comfort to be gained
by his calm assurance.
The second day wore away and also
the third. Finally, night came on,
black and terrible; then three or four
hours afterward there was a frightful
shock, which seemed to threaten the
steamers instant destruction. Every
thing was in the widest confusion be-
fore any one had time to think; and
Mrs. Forsythe never was aware how her
husband carried her on deck. Her one
passionate desire was to have her baby in
her arms; but she and her husband both
searched in vain for the nurse who had.
The passengers were crowding their
way hither and thither, shouting to
one another; the wind, rushing through
the spars and rigging, whirled the
sparks from the smokestack in every di-
rection and the tops of the waves flood
ed the deck. A ship had run into the
steamers bow, and she was sinking,
somebody said; but no one stopped to
ask questions. The all important thing
was to secure place in one of the life
boats.
iron railing and waited-waited years, it
seemed-for her husband, who had gone
back to the cabin, to search again for
the child. She would never leave the
steamer, she said, until it was found !;
and she did not. One boat load after
another pushed off into the darkness,
and soon the deck was less crowded.
Then she managed, by clinging to a
guard rope, to reach the cabin door.
Atlast, though, Mr.. Forsyth appear
ed, bearing the baby, wrapped in rug,
that he had snatched from sofa. He
had found the child lying in chair,
where the darkness hid it until it cried.
But there was no time for explanation.
A boat was just then ready. In another
moment or two they had gained places
in 1t and were borne away, exhausted
and bewildered.