AT HALF-MAST.

Otago Witness, Issue 2106, 5 July 1894, Page 41

AT HALF-MAST.

Men on the wharf were looking through their long glasses at the vessel coming in. Two of them spoke almost at the same time. "It is the Jessie Roberts," they said. A little boy, who had been looking too, started on a ran Dp the whaif. He never stopped rnnning till he broke, breathless, into a little house, low and weather-beaten, and banked with seaweed, under the brow of the hill. 41 Mother, mother 1 " he cried, " she's coming, she's coming ! The Jessie is most in." The yourg women, making bread, threw a faded shawl over her head and shoulders. She wiped her hands on her apron and started with the boy.

A little crowd was already on the wharf — folk drawn together by the common bond of daily brea'i, won from the deep waters, and the dearer ties of husbands, lovers, brothers,

and fathers on board. Two of the owners were there. They saw their vessel back from the crafty sea and the stealthy fog. All her white sails were spread and drawing. The sun of the clear winter morning shone on her clean decks. Ice in the rigging gleamed like diamonds. She was deep in the water, an earnest of hundreds — perhaps thousands — of barrels of fish in the hold.

" I hope they've got a good fare this time," said a careworn woman. " We've got to pay something on our mortgage next week. I ain't had a stitch of new clo'es for more than a year." The vessel fast grew bigger, and while those on the wharE watched she came about. Then the light left every face. No one said a word — no one made a cry or a groan. The men pressed nearer the edge of the wharf, and the women, white-faced and shuddering, shrunk back and drew together. Every eye was fixed on the vessel's mainmast--, where the Stars and Stilpes flow at halfmast. The topsail had hidden the flag until the vessel came about, and made it visible to the band of anxious ones collected on the whßrf.

There they Btood, waiting till the Jessie had been made fast. The woman from the little house, pale and trembling, held her boy by the band. To her came the captain with uncovered head. His blue eyes were wet with water that, though salt, was not of the sea. He tried to speak, but failed. The woman hid her face in her hands. The captain took the boy hy the hand, pat his arm about the woman'd waist, and led them home through the crowd that gently op9ned to permit the two stricken ones ta pass through. — Djnahoe's Magazine.