the words which were addressed to him. “Shake him off, Caleb.” “Strike him from you with your foot.” “Swim to the right shore; swim for it, even if you take him with you.” Yes; he could hear them all; but hearing and obeying were very different. It was not easy to shake off that dying man; and as for swimming with him, that was clearly impossible. It was as much as he could do to keep his head above water, let alone any attempt to move in one settled direction.
For some four or five minutes they lay thus battling on the waves before the head of either of them went down. Trow had been twice below the surface, but it was before he had succeeded in supporting himself by Morton’s arm. Now it seemed as though he must sink again—as though both must sink. His mouth was barely kept above the water, and as Morton shook him with his arm, the tide would pass over him. It was horrid to watch, from the shore the glaring upturned eyes of the dying wretch, as his long streaming hair lay back upon the wave. “Now, Caleb, hold him down. Hold him under,” was shouted in the voice of some eager friend. Rising up on the water, Morton made a last effort to do as he was bid. He did press the man’s head down—well down below the surface—but still the hand clung to him, and as he struck out against the water, he was powerless against that grasp.
Then there came a loud shout along the shore, and all those on the platform, whose eyes had been fixed so closely on that terrible struggle beneath them, rushed towards the rocks on the other coast. The sound of oars was heard close to them—an eager pressing stroke, as of men who knew well that they were rowing for the salvation of a life. On they came, close under the rocks, obeying with every muscle of their bodies the behests of those who called to them from the shore. The boat came with such rapidity—was so recklessly urged, that it was driven somewhat beyond the inlet; but in passing, a blow was struck which made Caleb Morton once more the master of his own life. The two men had been carried out in their struggle towards the open sea; and as the boat curved in, so as to be as close as the rocks would allow, the bodies of the men were brought within the sweep of the oars. He in the bow—for there were four pulling in the boat—had raised his oar as he neared the rocks—had raised it high above the water; and now, as they passed close by the struggling men, he let it fall with all its force on the upturned face of the wretched convict. It was a terrible, frightful thing to do—thus striking one who was so stricken; but who shall say that the blow was not good and just? Methinks, however, that the eyes and face of that dying man will haunt forever the dreams of him who carried that oar!
Trow never rose again to the surface. Three days afterwards his body was found at the ferry, and then they carried him to the convict island and buried him. Morton was picked up and taken into the boat. His life was saved; but it may be a question how the battle might have gone had not that friendly oar been raised in his behalf. As it was, he lay at the cottage for days before he was able to be moved, so as to receive the congratulations of those who had watched that terrible conflict from the shore. Nor did he feel that there had been anything in that day’s work of which he could be proud;—much rather of which it behoved him to be thoroughly ashamed. Some six months after that he obtained the hand of Anastasia Bergen, but they did not remain long in Bermuda. “He went away, back to his own country,” my informant told me; “because he could not endure to meet the ghost of Aaron Trow, at that point of the road which passes near the cottage.” That the ghost of Aaron Trow may be seen there and round the little rocky inlet of the sea, is part of the creed of every young woman in Bermuda.
The Mistletoe Bough
“Let the boys have it if they like it,” said Mrs. Garrow, pleading to her only daughter on behalf of her two sons.
“Pray don’t, mamma,” said Elizabeth Garrow. “It only means romping. To me all that is detestable, and I am sure it is not the sort of thing that Miss Holmes would like.”
“We always had it at Christmas when we were young.”
“But, mamma, the world is so changed.”
The point in dispute was one very delicate in its nature, hardly to be discussed in all its bearings, even in fiction, and the very mention of which between mother and daughter showed a great amount of close confidence between them. It was no less than this. Should that branch of mistletoe which Frank Garrow had brought home with him out of the Lowther woods be hung up on Christmas Eve in the dining-room at Thwaite Hall, according to his wishes; or should permission for such hanging be positively refused? It was clearly a thing not to be done after such a discussion, and therefore the decision given by Mrs. Garrow was against it.
I am inclined to think that Miss Garrow was right in saying that the world is changed as touching misletoe boughs. Kissing, I fear, is less innocent now than it used to be when our grandmothers were alive, and we have become more fastidious in our amusements. Nevertheless, I think that she made herself fairly open to the raillery with which her brothers attacked her.
“Honi soit qui mal y pense,” said Frank, who was eighteen.
“Nobody will want
