Connecticut western news., 1883-09-19


 had grown to be the very apple of her uncle's eye. To her, the most lovable maid in all Cherbury, the gentle reader has been already introduced under the ietty.
 "'Tis cruel, cruel task is parting, D she sighs. as she wends her way up the lane by Humphreys side, "and 'twould break my heart, uncle, if this voyage were not Harry's last P
 "Right you be, my bonny lamb, right you be. Parting is heavy business at best. an that's Bible truth" assents Humphrey. "But then, you know, we mustn't take on when we're rightin sight O port, so to speak," he continues ill 8 more cheery tone. "Why, bless my heart, shouldn't feel bit surprised if you were to anchor up there an tell me, as peart as mebbe, that Harry had gone and bespoke 2, Sheldrake's Cottages, afore he started p
 "Aye, bless the lad that he did, un- cle; bespoke the cottage, and what's more, bespoke the pig Just the plump est little chap I've seen this many day as round an soft an beautiful as-as-" Her eyes beam softly over the retrospect, and the simile is lost.
 "I'm main glad to hear 1t, my lass, comments Humphrey, thoughtfully; for there's no denyin' that I'd wish to see thee settled all comfortable, if so be that any other change i'll the family is to come about. I've heared folks talkin' a deal O late, my dear; couplin' your mothers name with that O Farmer Cor don."
 A merry laugh issues spontaneously from Rachels lips. "His very words, uncle; Harry's very words 'Heared folks couplin' Rachel Cheals name wi that of Tom Gordon! ! But he thought the Rachel Cheal was me, uncle-me, an not mother" And over the recollec- tion she laughs the tears back into her eyes.
 Humphrey laughs too; and thus, laughing and chatting, the old coast guardsman and the maid 1achel make their way out of the lane, ana disappear in the direction of the little cottage on the North Down.
 Meanwhile, Rachel's lover has reached Harwich Harbor and joined his ship, the coasting brig Auld Reekie, which sets sail on the morrow morn for the port of Aberdeen. With fair breezes from the south and west she makes good run of 1t, loads her cargo of granite, and again quits port. By this time the summer has waned, and the period of the au, tumn equinox is at hand. At sunrise on the fourth day of her homeward voyage the brig encounters strong head winds from the southeast; before sunset it is blowing half gale, and an hour after ward-with her foresail in ribbons and her foreyard in splinters- she has put about, and is making last blind eff fort to run for the mouth of the Tees.
 A grim object, to the seafaring eye, is the Auld Reekie. For ve-and-forty years, fair weather and foul, she has been knocking up and down the east coast of Great Britain in search of 8 liveihood-now carrying wood, now coal, now stohe-and storm beaten, patched up, unseaworthy old hulk she looks, through all her. three coats oi paint. To catch sight of the line where now the Plimsoll mark would be, the observer, it was averred, would have to station himself couple of boat s-lengths off her weather-beam; and even then it would be necessary for a good stiff breeze to lay her over at an angle of for ty-five degrees to her headline, before his curiosity could be assuaged. Such is the vessel in which Harry Reed has | shipped as mate, and which-with her foremast gone by the board, her two hundred and fifty tons dead weight of granite shifting ill her hold, and her rotten sails blown to rags-is staggering | along in the inky darkness before the awful fury of the equinox. Like many another coffin-ship before her, she is al lowed short shrift. In a few minutes a terrific sea-eager, as it were, to put her out of her misery takes her on the counter and makes a clean sweep of her deck; and the same moment she reels, shudders, and finally plunges down headlong into the yawning gulf which opens to receive her.
 And Harry Reed? In this instance | vigorous young life, sustained by might of purpose, does not succumb quite so readily as rotten old timber. For two nights and two days, awful privation and suffering are his; but at length numbed, bruised, larcerated, and with the death-stupor stealing upon him-he is observed and picked up by an out | ward bound vessel.
 | In due course he recovers; and. en- rolled as one of the hands, proceeds with the ship to Valparaiso, whlther she is bound direct. There, with the present of silver coin and many elaborate di. rections, he entrusts to a hanger-on o the harbor all English letter-a wild outpouring of all the long-pent passion of his heart-to be posted in the town What eventually became of the poor painfully produced sheet no one living knows. Possibly the drunken tatterde malion to whom 1t was handed-l Span ish half-caste-put it to practical use a! a cigarette-paper, and its rhapsodies like many other lovers rhaphsodies drifted away ill smoke; more probabl. it lies embedded in the greasy lining o his jacket to this day. One thing i certain; that it never reached the sup