Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1901-05-01

breaking his pipe between his teeth,
abusing his outfit, and having cursed
copiously in all the customary terms
ut everything he could think of he spit
forth the rest of his choler on the fish
and the Holsters taken one by one from
his nets, never throwing them into the
baskets without an accompaniment of
scolding and bad names.
Then, home again, having within
reach of tongue and hand his wife, old
Auban's girl, it was not long before he
was treating her like the lowest of the
low in his speech. Then, as she heard
him resignedly, used to that sort of
thing already from her father, he grew
exasperated at her silence and one
evening struck her. After that her life
was frightful.
For ten years they talked of nothing
else on the Reserve but the thrashings
Patin gave his wife and his way of
swearing at her whenever he addressed
her. He swore, in fact, in an individ-
ual style, with n richness of vocabu-
larry and a sorority of organ eQualed by
no other man in Fecamp. From the
moment his boat appeared at the en-,
trance of the harbor, coming back from
the fishing, they awaited the first vol
ley he would launch from his deck to
the jetty as soon as he saw the white
cap of his helpmeet.
He stood up in the stern, steering,
his eye ahead or on the sail when the
sea was high. and, spite of the preoc-
equations of the narrow and difficult
channel, spite of the waves from the
deep that piled up in it like mountains,
he sought to make out among the wo-
men waiting for the fishers under the
bans girl, the jade!
Then when he saw her, for all the
clamor of the waves and wind, he
turned out on her a string OF abuse
with such a strength of throat that ey.
cry one laughed, although they were
honestly sorry for her. Then when
the boat came in at the quay he had
way of discharging his ballast of civili-
ties, as he called it. all the while un-
loading his fish, that drew around his
tying up place all the rapscallions and
loafers of the port
1t came out of his mouth sometimes
like cannon shots, short and awful;
sometimes like peals of thunder that
rolled out for five minutes such n hur-
ricane of objurgations that he seemed
to have in his lungs all the storms of
heaven.
Then when he was off the boat and
found himself face to face with her, in
the middle of a crowd of idlers and
tiShwOmen, he fished out of the bot
tom of his hold whole new cargo of
insults and abuse and escorted her
home with these, she in front he be
hind; she crying, he shouting
Alone with her, the doors shut. he
struck her on the slightest pretext.
Anything was enough to make him lift
his hand, and once begun he never
stopped, casting then in her face the
real grounds of his hate. With each
slap, with each thump, he vociferated:
"Ah, We penniless wench! All, We rag
ged, hungry jade! \ pretty thing |
did the day | ever washed my mouth
with the rotgut of your thief of ia
therw
She lived, poor woman, in a state of
incessant terror, in a constant tremble
of soul and body, in affrighted eXpecta-
ton of outrage and blows. And this
lasted for ten years. She was so tim
orous that she would grow pale when
talking to any one, and she thought of
nothing save of the beatings hanging
over her, and she had become lean,
dry and yellow.
One night, when her man was at sea,
wild beasts growl which the wind
makes when it comes on like a hound
unleashed. She sat up in bed, alarmed,
then, hearing nothing more, lay down
again, but almost at once there came
believing in her chimney that shook
the whole house, spreading throughout
the entire heavens as if n herd of mad
dened cattle were rushing through
space, snorting and lowing.
She rose and FASTENED to the har-
Dor. Other women were coming from
every direction with lanterns. The
men flocked out, and all watched,
lighting up in the night, on the sea,
the foaming whitecaps of the SUBMITS
of the waves.
The storm lasted ID hours. Eleven
sailors did not come back, and Patin
was among them.
They found on the Dieppe coast the
wreckage of the Young Amelia, his