The age-herald., 1900-08-12

the sound she had heard when she steod with Richard on the beach and made her promise? Alas, why must this man with his one hours gooing have so moved the depths of her soul that al other men seem ed shadows. all other loves shallow and lacking? She began to be sure that Sea port was a small and dreary little place and she could hardly have told why she clung so to the vilalge of her birth But was 1t not the one place on earth which Richard Chenshaw called home? Here was the cottage where his mother watch ed and waited and prayed for him, here was the lonely window where a light had shined for him every night since he dis appeared, here the hearthstone where he had been rocked and cradled.
 There were the streets he had trod the doorways he had passed through. An, Rich ard, will ever shadow of thine fall again in the sunlight of Seaport streets? For this mother and sweetheart hoped and waited. Both women believed that Rich ard was upon the sea, the mother because money was sent her anonymously from for eign ports, and Annie because of some un- spoken thoughts which ever filled her soul when she stood on the shore and heard it's voice in storm or calm. Sometimes it was as if beckoning hands were drawing her out into the dim spaces where air and water meet Sometimes as if murmuring words were calling her from the land, and
 
 the old doctor of the village noted her pale cheeks and prescribed an ocean voyage and a winter in the tropics.
 Once out of sight of land Annie began to be like her old self; her cheek grew ruddy and her eyes shone. How she loved the salt spfSs of the sea; in calms and storms she loved it. Was it beca1se she was nearer her lover by sea than by land? Was she, perhaps, drawing nearer him every hour? Was there point of space some- where in this trackless waste where the two should meet? Let the good ship drive on, fearing not the shuddering sea nor the wrath of the winds She carries a heart of deathless love aboard her, and she must bring It to a harbor of peace
 It was long storm and a terrible one in which many ship met her doom. On the blackest night of it Richard Crans- haw, mate of the Anna Belle, stood on the deck of his ship with a heart that defied the storm. He was a bronzed, deep-chest- ed man of action. His dark mood was upon him and he cared not though the brig writhed and stranded in the sorture of the as if she might go to pieces any moment; the waves roared, the spray hissed as it broke over him, the timbers beneath him were grooming, the shrouds whistled aloft. But in the midst of it all and over 1t all there sounded a gun, a boom. Again another. It must be. Yes, it was a ship in distress, the danger sig nal of perishing souls.
 II will go," said Richard. "Give me the life-boat, I'll go to them!'
 Fool" shouted the captain through his trumpet. "Who will go with you?"
 "Who@ shouted Richard, holding up his hand Four men stepped out, their hands up.
 There came a sudden Hull of the wind and the boat was let down into the sobbing sea. It was the Florida-bound steamer in distress, and the first woman let down over the side was Annie Bergen. Richard caught her in his arms. He saw her face in the gleam of a flashing light; he felt the warm clinging of her arms and knew it was she-the only woman who ever held the key of his soul
 Strange wooing indeed, but wild and stormy one, such as suited well the nature and story of Richard and Annie Cranshaw.