FullReads

“Si, where have you been? Why have you never I been up to see us for so long?”

Young Si made no verbal reply. He merely lifted his cap with formal politeness and turned on his heel.

“Well, I never!” exclaimed Agnes, as soon as she recovered her powers of speech. “If that is how Young Si is going to treat his friends! He must have got offended at something. I wonder what it is,” she added, her curiosity getting the better of her indignation.

When they came out they saw the solitary figure of Young Si far adown, crossing the dim, lonely shore fields. In the dusk Agnes failed to notice the pallor of her companion’s face and the unshed tears in her eyes.

* * * * *

“I’ve just been down to the Point,” said Agnes, coming in one sultry afternoon about a week later, “and Little Ev said as there was no fishing today he’d take us out for that sail tonight if you wanted to go.”

Ethel Lennox put her drawing away listlessly. She looked pale and tired. She was going away the next day, and this was to be her last visit to the shore.

About an hour before sunset a boat glided out from the shadow of the Point. In it were Ethel Lennox and Agnes, together with Little Ev, the sandy-haired, undersized Pointer who owned the boat.

The evening was fine, and an off-shore breeze was freshening up rapidly. They did not notice the long, dark bank of livid cloud low in the northwest.

“Isn’t this glorious!” exclaimed Ethel. Her hat was straining back from her head and the red rings of her hair were blowing about her face.

Agnes looked about her more anxiously. Wiser in matters of sea and shore than her companion, there were some indications she did not like.

Young Si, who was standing with Snuffy their skids, lowered his spyglass with a start.

“It is Agnes Bentley and–and–that boarder of theirs,” he said anxiously, “and they’ve gone out with Little Ev in that wretched, leaky tub of his. Where are their eyes that they can’t see a squall coming up?”

“An’ Little Ev don’t know as much about managing a boat as a cat!” exclaimed Snuffy excitedly. “Sign ’em to come back.”

Si shook his head. “They’re too far out. I don’t know that the squall will amount to very much. In a good boat, with someone who knew how to manage it, they’d be all right. But with Little Ev–” He began walking restlessly up and down the narrow platform.

The boat was now some distance out. The breeze had stiffened to a slow strong wind and the dull-grey level of the sea was whipped into white-caps.

Agnes bent towards Ethel. “It’s getting too rough. I think we’d better go back. I’m afraid we’re in for a thunder squall. Look at the clouds.”

A long, sullen muttering verified her words.

“Little Ev,” she shouted, “we want to go in.”

Little Ev, thus recalled to things about him, looked around in alarm. The girls questioned each other with glances of dismay. The sky had grown very black, and the peals of thunder came louder and more continuously. A jagged bolt of lightning hurtled over the horizon. Over land and sea was “the green, malignant light of coming storm.”

Little Ev brought the boat’s head abruptly round as a few heavy drops of rain fell.

“Ev, the boat is leaking!” shrieked Agnes, above the wind. “The water’s coming in!”

“Bail her out then,” shouted Ev, struggling with the sail. “There’s two cans under the seat. I’ve got to lower this sail. Bail her out.”

“I’ll help you,” said Ethel.

She was very pale, but her manner was calm. Both girls bailed energetically.

Young Si, watching through the glass, saw them. He dropped it and ran to his boat, white and resolute.