b ought to have been back an hour or so ago,
for I had something to do in the village. Come to the boat, and I'll
tell you all about it," he added, in a less severe tone; for the thought
of the child he had rescued softened him a little, and he led the way
out of the washing-shed.

The storm had abated now, and the boat no longer rocked and swayed, so
that the children waded back through the mud without fear, while their
father talked of the little girl he had left with Dame Peters at
Fellness. They listened to his proposal to bring her home and share
their scanty meals with very little pleasure, and they wished their
mother would say she could not have another baby; but instead of this
Mrs. Coomber assented at once to her husband's plan of fetching the
child from Fellness that afternoon.

The Coombers were not a happy family, for the fisherman was a stern,
hard man by nature, and since he had lost his little girl he had become
harder, his neighbours said. At all events, his wife and children grew
more afraid of him--afraid of provoking his stern displeasure by any of
those little playful raids children so delight in; and every one of them
looked forward to the day when they could run away from home and go to
sea, as their grown-up brother had done. Bob, the eldest now at home,
was already contemplating taking this step very soon, and had promised
to help Dick and Tom when they were old enough. It had been a startling
revelation to Bob to hear his father speak as he had done on the beach
at Fellness about his brother, for he had long ago decided that his
father did not care a pin for any of them, unless it was for the baby
sister who had died, and even of that he was not quite sure. He had made
up his mind, as he walked through the storm that morning, that he would
not go back again, but make his way to Grimsby, or some other seaport
town, after his business at Fellness was done. But what he had heard on
the beach from his father somewhat shook his purpose, and when he
learned from Dame Peters afterwards, that the child they had rescued was
to share their home, he thought he would go back again, and try to bear
the hard life a little longer, if it was only to help his mother, and
tell her his father did care for them a bit in spite of his stern, hard
ways.

Perhaps Mrs. Coomber did not need to be told that her husband loved her
and his children; at all events, she received Bob's information with a
nod and a smile, an