pen Bible, her
face was dropped upon them. Joan touched her and said not unkindly:

"A little bit of Bible-reading do send people to sleep quick, don't
it, Denas?"

"I was so tired, mother."

"Aw, my dear, you be no worse than Christian in the 'Pilgrim's
Progress.' He did go to sleep, too, when he was reading his roll.
Come, my girl, it is your time for bed. Sitting up won't help you to
bear trouble."

"Mother, won't it be time enough to bear trouble when it is really
here to be borne?"

"It do seem as if it would. Love be a fearful looker-forward. Go to
bed, my girl; maybe you will sleep sorrow away."

So Denas went to bed and did not awake until the grey light of the
stormy morning was over everything. She could hear the murmur of
voices in the living-room, and she dressed quickly and went there.
John Penelles sat by the fire drinking hot tea. His hair had yet bits
of ice in it, his face still had the awful shadow that is cast by the
passing-by of death. Denas put her arms around his neck and kissed
him; she kissed him until she began to sob, and he drew her upon his
knee, and held her to his breast, and said in a whisper to her:

"Ten men drowned, my dear, and three frozen to death; but through
God's mercy father slipped away from an ugly fate."

"Oh, father, how could you bear it?"

"God help us, Denas, we must bear what is sent."

"What a night it has been! How did you live through it?"

"It's dogged as does it and lives through it. It's dogged as does
anything, my dear, all over the world. I stuck to the boat and the
boat stuck to me. God Almighty Himself can't help a coward."

The storm continued all day, but began to slacken in intensity at
sunset. There was of course no service at Pendree. John, even if he
had not been so worn out, could not have reached the place in such a
storm, either by land or sea. But the neighbours, without seeming
premeditation, gathered in John's cottage at night, and he opened his
Bible and read aloud:

"Terrors take hold on him, as waters; a tempest stealeth him away in
the night. The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth; and as a
storm hurleth him out of his place."

And it was to these words, with their awful application to the wicked,
that Denas listened the last night she intended to spend under her
father's roof. John's discourses were nearly always like his nature,
tender and persuasive; and this terrible sermon wove itself in and out
of her wanderin