t shed a
tear, but as he turned his eye on me, in passing, its expression went
to my heart. Stealing softly out, I left him to the silent Comforter
whose blessing is on the mourner.

Now the scene was changed. One was suddenly taken from his side who
had been a companion from boyhood to old age. They had played and
worked in company; together they had embarked on their first voyage,
and their last; and they had settled down in close neighborhood in the
evening of their days. Each had preserved the other's life in some
moment of peril, but took small praise to himself for so simple an act
of duty. Few words of fondness had ever passed between them. They had
gone along the path of life, without perhaps being conscious of any
peculiarly strong tie of friendship binding them together, till they
were thus torn asunder. The death of a daughter, long and slowly
wasting away before his eyes, could be calmly borne. But this blow was
wholly unforeseen, and his chest heavily rose and fell, and by the
bright firelight I saw tears rolling over his weather-beaten cheeks.

"A child will weep a bramble's smart,
A maid to see her sparrow part,
A stripling for a woman's heart;
Talk not of grief, till thou hast seen
The hard-drawn tears of bearded men."

The fury of the storm being abated, I resolved to follow Stephen down
to the shore. He was not in sight, and I knew not what direction to
take. It was a gloomy night, the transient glimpses of the moon
between driving masses of clouds only making the scene more wild and
appalling. I could see the tops of the tall trees bending under the
fury of the blast, ere it came to sweep the beach. The heaving billows
were covered with foam, far as the eye could reach, and, rising and
tumbling, seemed striving with each other as they rolled on towards
the sands. I had seen storms upon the ocean before, but never had it
presented so awful and majestic an appearance. As the breakers struck
upon the shore, and sent a huge mass of water upon the sands, their
sullen roar mingled with the howling and rushing of the wind, and
filled me with awe.

There were torches upon the beach, and as I drew near, I saw the
fishermen run together to one point. The body had just been washed
ashore, and lay stretched upon the sands. The head was bare, and long
locks of white hair streamed down upon the shoulders. The heavy
pea-jacket was off from one arm, as if he had endeavored to extricate
himself f