A SHORT STORY.

Colonist, Volume LIV, Issue 13455, 28 June 1912, Page 3

A SHORT STORY.

1 —- , ■ •. (AH Rights Reserved.) . GALBRAITH OF THE WATER LILY.

! By OSWALD WILDRIDGE. i v Author of " When the Sea Gives up its Dead," " The Plotters," " Captain Jerry, Master Mariner," " Through the Snow- ' drifts," &c«

PART 11.

the Snow-

Three days later it was announced that the sloop had been ordered to Allerdale to refit, and when il was ascertained that she was actually laid up with her tackle unrove. the Moricambe smugglers glanced knowingly at each other, and by sundry winks and nods declared as •plainly as words that Lieutenant Elliott was more of a greenhorn than they had imagined, and that Captain Galbraitfo. would have no difficulty in running his next cargo round Grime Point.

It happened, however, that at that very moment Elliott and his crew were lying low aboard the Revenue cutter Kittiwake in one of the inlets on the other side of the Firth, whilst Jim Jordison was pontccl elsewhere—and each was biding his time. Like some mysterious creature of the night, the Water Lily, all her lights extinguished, swept round the Mull; then her canvas was braced up, and a course set for the j harbour in which the whisky barrels were to be secretly landed. Judged by the free-and-easy bearing of the blue-guernseyed men {cunning about the deck, the vessel might have been engaged upon a perfectly fair .md square enlerprre; but the thing1 that sat so lightly upon them was not indifference, but habit, and, without any manifestation of the fact, every ear was tuned to catch the wandering whispers of the \vind;swept waters, and every eye wide open for its sights.

From Duddon Mouth to Moricambe the Water Lily revelled in a reputation gloriously her own. Not another lugger on the coast could show such a clean pair of heels, and it was openly vaunted that she would never be taken so long as Tom Galbraith was entered on her log as skipper. Around Galbraith the years had naturally gathered a mantle of seafaring glory, and yet, as with lumbering roll he paces the little deck, while his craft bores its way through the night, his exterior presents nothing of heroic suggestiveness. He is just a bushy-bearded, broad-shouldered, squat little sailerman, and it is only his gleaming eyes that reveal his alert intellect, to which he owes his smugglingsupremacy.

Like the rest of his class, moreover, he is utterly unconscious of any offence against the moral code underlying his profession, and on shore he is one of the most pious of mortals, and would sooner go without his Sunday supper than his prayer-meeting. Thus the man with whose capture jack Elliott has been entrusted.

On reach" ag a point about a j league from his goal the skipper j growled a few words of command, j and a lantern was fished up the cuddy and held over the bows, and in a few seconds a responsive flash gleamed from the point. Twice the signal was repeated, then the helm was put down, and the vessel headed for the narrow entrance to the bay. Few words were wasted in welcome, and! in a few minutes the barrels, ready roped for the men who were in waiting on the shore to bear them away to their hidie-holes, were being slung overboard. Half-an-hour had passed when the shrill shriek of a warning whistle rang from one of the sand-, hills;.in a -trice the C?.b!?S JKid bee:: slii^;^, "and,' wVihlc-rjr'^OS .n'pnfuiiy plied, the Water Lily - | heading for the sea, As she j reached the point, the drip, drip, of muffled oars fell upen'the skipper's ears; but his vessel r.ow1 hac the wind, sail was clapped on, the sweeps 'hid aboard, and with the1 first 'forward surge Tom Galbraith chuck bd grimly, for c-ncc more he felt that 'he had outwitted the enemy. Five minutes pass, ten, fifteen, the iugjrcr is holding well on.her sci;-ir.vr>rd course, the Revenue boat left far astern, whon suddenly there is a hoarse shout from the man hi the bows—-the Kittiwake seems to literally leap from the screening shadow of the night, and Jack Elliott's voice makes an insistent demand for surrender. ;

Surrender! Tom Galbraith surrender! In defiance of his peril the smuggler chuckles again. The man who gets the Water Lily will have to take her. Already he has tnken in all the possibilities of the situation—one boat astern, a wellarmed cutter across his bows, prcTbably the coastguard now in possession of the shore. There is no child's play before him this time; he has now to deal with a foe as crafty as himself. There is only one thing to be attempted—a bcld dash for the open, and if that fails —well !

■ 'Smartly'yielding to her helm, the Water Lily comes round, but ns her sails arc-again brailed up Jack Elliott's voice once more rings out in a warning of sterner portent:

"Heave to, or I fire."

•A defiant yell from the smuggling crew; then, as their vessel points up into the wind, there is a/Hash.,-and a. roar—a ball from the-Kittiwake's bow-chaser ploughs its way over their heads, and splashes intb the sea. Another follows, a third, and then at last the Water Xily's cruise is ended, her mast hanging a tangled mass of wreckage over the side,1 and Galbraith overwhelmed in the crash. A flying splinter of jagged timber has pierced his side, and Galbraith's call has come.

Paralysed by the double disaster, the fall of their leader, and the wrecking of their craft, the smuggling crew offered but a half-heart-ed resistance to the boarding party that leaped, cutlass in hand, upon them when the Kittiwake ran alongside, and in a little more than an hour the Water Lily had been hauled up on the sand, there to be sawn into three sections, whilst the men who had run the gauntlet of so many perils were safe under lock and key—all but Tom Galbraith, who lay under.his own roof tree, waiting for the rising of the tide to carry him across the bar of Life's last port.

To his fate the smuggling captain manifested.a supremely stoical indifference. He had gone through the years with his life in his hands? he had never lost sight of the peril that his profession involved. He had gloried in its triumphs and its profits, and he. was mest assuredly not going to \vhihe because; of its penalties. This indifference1 was manifested even in his attitude towards the man who had struck the blow. Outside in the village men and women scowled at Jack Elliott whenever he passed them, and hatred rankled deep in: many hearts, but to the dying smuggler the young lieutenant was merely a man ■A-ho had done his duty, and he bore him no grudge.

Before the end came his attitude underwent a sweeping change; his indifference quickened into a vital, resolute interest. , Little did Madge Mortimer dream that in playing the part of ministering angel to the dying man she was. forging golden links in the chain of her own life.

It was only a whisper, a little bit of sick-room.gossip among his womenfolk, but it opened Galbraith's eyes to Madge's romance,., and set his brain hard at work, and the result was forthcoming that same night, when he amazed his wife with a request that she would send for Elliott.

Greatly wondering, Jack responded to the call.

"Ah've nut sent for ye to blackguard ye, Lieutenant," the smuggler, with a wan smile, assured him, "an' if it's any comfort till ye ah diwent mind telling ye that I'se willin' to co' t'account square. Eh. man, yo've dune yer wark well I Ye'il be thinkin' I's a meddlesome body, bit ah just want to ax ye a question or two, an' ye munna git mad till ah've.dune. Will ye promise?" ■;. '

"Promise what?" Jack inquired in some bewilderment

"That whativver ah say yell keep yore temper and tell me what ah want to know. Remember I'se a dying man, anI—m'appen1—m'appen it's fur yore own good." To this Jack readily yielded assent, and thereupon the smuggler submitted him to a rigid cross-ex-amination regarding his Jove for Madge and Richard Mortimer's reception of his suit; and Jack, remembering his promise, and impressed by the mystery of the whole proceedings, stifled his scruples and laid bare his heart.

For some minutes Galbraith, his questions ended, lay with dosed eyes and deeply^-laboured breathing, and by-and-by, when he looked again at Elliott, there was that in his face which amounted to positive agony

"Lieutenant Elliott," he said. "I'se gane. to do that which ah .flivver thowt ah'd oppen me lips -boot. It's' hurtin' me badly this talku;', but ah mun ,gahg oir till *'*mcl, .. ,'■ ■■.■■■•■,■

"Yance- ah'd a.teal lass"—after another pause—-"an' she wer just t!ic leet o' me li.V, ~n' me? kct v.'Cflt cot. She wer bad a lang time, bit nut too long for Miss-Mortimer to bide by he:*; -he wes here mcrnin', noon, an' ncet, an' it wcr yan o't' bonniest sights on Gcd's earth to sec her wid her angel ways makkin' my b.'j.irn's days-brighter —an 1 It: r slipnin' away easier. An' ah'u do owt ip repay a wee bit o' me debt o' gratitude5.

''Nco she's gone owcr tVaki roond fur me. Why, man, dc-dn's nowt wid her smooihb' yore pillow, an' coolin' you're burnin' broo. an' smilin' scab peaceful and comfortin' like intil vo're face.

"An' nco, to mek up for it a bit, I'se ganc to leave her a legacy—a legacy o' joy, if yore as good a man as c.h tak' ye to- be. Will ye oppen yon drawer?"

(To be Continued.)

Every .why hath a wherefore

Idleness travels leisurely, and poverty soon -overtakes her.

Every man has within himrelf something he holds sacred and divine.

Life, to be worthy of a rational being", must be ahvriys in progression ; we must nlwayVi propose to do more or better than in times past. —

Johnson