ore. Captain Jim fairly
scorched the wretched fellow with the lightning of his eyes. He seemed
a man transformed. He didn't say much--but the way he said it! You'd
have thought it would strip the flesh from the fellow's bones. I
understand that Captain Jim will never allow a word against any woman
to be said in his presence."
"I wonder why he never married," said Anne. "He should have sons with
their ships at sea now, and grandchildren climbing over him to hear his
stories--he's that kind of a man. Instead, he has nothing but a
magnificent cat."
But Anne was mistaken. Captain Jim had more than that. He had a
memory.
CHAPTER 10
LESLIE MOORE
"I'm going for a walk to the outside shore tonight," Anne told Gog and
Magog one October evening. There was no one else to tell, for Gilbert
had gone over the harbor. Anne had her little domain in the speckless
order one would expect of anyone brought up by Marilla Cuthbert, and
felt that she could gad shoreward with a clear conscience. Many and
delightful had been her shore rambles, sometimes with Gilbert,
sometimes with Captain Jim, sometimes alone with her own thoughts and
new, poignantly-sweet dreams that were beginning to span life with
their rainbows. She loved the gentle, misty harbor shore and the
silvery, wind-haunted sand shore, but best of all she loved the rock
shore, with its cliffs and caves and piles of surf-worn boulders, and
its coves where the pebbles glittered under the pools; and it was to
this shore she hied herself tonight.
There had been an autumn storm of wind and rain, lasting for three
days. Thunderous had been the crash of billows on the rocks, wild the
white spray and spume that blew over the bar, troubled and misty and
tempest-torn the erstwhile blue peace of Four Winds Harbor. Now it was
over, and the shore lay clean-washed after the storm; not a wind
stirred, but there was still a fine surf on, dashing on sand and rock
in a splendid white turmoil--the only restless thing in the great,
pervading stillness and peace.
"Oh, this is a moment worth living through weeks of storm and stress
for," Anne exclaimed, delightedly sending her far gaze across the
tossing waters from the top of the cliff where she stood. Presently
she scrambled down the steep path to the little cove below, where she
seemed shut in with rocks and sea and sky.
"I'm going to dance and sing," she said. "There's no one here to see
me--the seagulls won'
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