There is Sorrow on the Sea | Page 6

your trouble and of another's also, and of my own
as well; and so I said over and over again, Oh, why will men be hard on
women? Why do they look for them to be iron like themselves, bearing
double burdens as most women do? But afterwards I settled to a
quietness which I would not have you think was happiness, for I have
given up thought of that. Nor would I have you think me bearing
trouble sweetly, for sometimes I was most hard and stubborn. But I
lived on in a sort of stillness till that morning when, sitting by my
window, I read all you had written to me. And first of all I must tell you
how my heart was touched at your words about our childhood together.
I had not thought it lay so deep in your mind, Cousin Dick. It always
stays in mine; but then, women have more memories than men. The
story of that night I knew; but never fully as you have told it to me in
your letter. Of what happened after Lancy Doane left the inn, of which
you have not written, but promised the writing in your next letter, I
think I know as well as yourself. Nay, more, Cousin Dick. There are
some matters concerning what followed that night and after, which I
know, and you do not know. But you have guessed there was
something which I did not tell you, and so there was. And I will tell
you of them now. But I will take up the thread of the story where you
dropped it, and reel it out.
"You left the inn soon after Lancy Doane, and James Faddo went then
too, riding hard for Theddlethorpe, for he knew that in less than an hour
the coast-guards would be rifling the hiding places of his smuggled
stuff. You did not take a horse, but, getting a musket, you walked the
sands hard to Theddlethorpe.

"I know it all, though you did not tell me, Cousin Dick. You had no
purpose in going, save to see the end of a wretched quarrel and a
smuggler's ill scheme. You carried a musket for your own safety, not
with any purpose. It was a day of weight in your own life, for on one
side you had an offer from the Earl Fitzwilliam to serve on his estate;
and on the other to take a share in a little fleet of fishing smacks, of
which my father was part owner. I think you know to which side I
inclined, but that now is neither here nor there; and, though you did not
tell me, as you went along the shore you were more intent on handing
backwards and forwards in your mind your own affairs, than of what
should happen at Theddlethorpe. And so you did not hurry as you went,
and, as things happened, you came to Faddo's house almost at the same
moment with Lancy Doane and two other mounted coast-guards.
"You stood in the shadow while they knocked at Faddo's door. You
were so near, you could see the hateful look in his face. You were
surprised he did not try to stand the coast-guards off. You saw him, at
their bidding, take a lantern, and march with them to a shed standing
off a little from the house, nearer to the shore. Going a roundabout
swiftly, you came to the shed first, and posted yourself at the little
window on the sea-side. You saw them enter with the lantern, saw them
shift a cider press, uncover the floor, and there beneath, in a dry well,
were barrels upon barrels of spirits, and crouched among them was a
man whom you all knew at once--Laney's brother, Tom. That, Cousin
Dick, was Jim Faddo's revenge. Tom Doane had got refuge with him
till he should reach his brother, not knowing Lancy was to be
coast-guard. Faddo, coming back from Mablethorpe, told Tom the
coast-guards were to raid him that night; and he made him hide in this
safe place, as he called it, knowing that Lancy would make for it.
"For a minute after Tom was found no man stirred. Tom was quick of
brain and wit--would it had always been put, to good purposes!--and
saw at once Faddo's treachery. Like winking he fired at the traitor, who
was almost as quick to return the fire. What made you do it I know not,
unless it was you hated treachery; but, sliding in at the open door
behind the coast-guards, you snatched the lantern from the hands of one,
threw it out of the open door, and, thrusting them aside, called for Tom

to follow you. He sprang towards you over Faddo's body, even as