RUTH REDEGAR;

OR, CLOUDS AND SUNSHINE.

BY MARY SHERWOOD.

CHAP. I.-WAITING FOR THE DAYLIGHT.

PENGARVA is an odd-looking little village, almost as odd-looking as its name. It is on the rugged Cornwall coast, and consists chiefly of one long straggling line of whitewashed cottages, built on the strip of land that lies between the sea line and the high cliffs which shelter them from the northern blasts. Above, quite high on the cliffs, stands the church, a grey, time-battered edifice, which has weathered the storms of full five hundred years, and looks as if it might weather as many more. Around it lies the churchyard, darkened by ancient yews, and set thick with gravestones, some mossed and crumbling, the names once graven on them long since worn away, and others telling of the old men and children, the wives and mothers of Pengarva, who sleep below. Some telling, alas ! of strong men-husbands, brothers, fathers who are sleeping, not under the green turf in the still churchyard, but "tossed with tangle and with shells," away under the great heaving waves which are ever surging restlessly around that rock-bound coast.

For Pengarva is a fishing village, and nearly every man in it gets a living for himself and his family by his boat and nets; or if he has them not of his own, by going out with those who have. It is a pretty sight, on a fine summer's day, to see the rippling sunlit sea dotted over with the little craft, rising and curtseying on the waves, their brown sails set, and the wind carrying them lightly on; while the fishermen, brave, hardy-looking fellows as they are, throw out their nets and wait for the draught, or drop deep into the sea the trap-like baskets, which they bring up presently heavy with the crabs and lobsters which, once having found their way within those treacherous wickers, only come out to die.

It is a pretty sight, I say, on a still summer's day, to watch the little brown-sailed craft dancing out to sea, away and away; for sometimes the boats will be out for several days together, and go some miles from the shore, coming back with heavy loads of fish, which are sent away at once to the markets of the nearer towns. But in the winter time, when seas are rough and winds are high

and yet wife and children must be fed-then it is not always a pleasant sight to see the little brown-sailed craft putting out. There are stormy nights sometimes, when mothers and wives lie quaking in their beds, listening to the roaring of the winds and waves, and praying God to keep safe those who are out upon the deep. And sometimes, if the storms run high and have risen suddenly, as those Atlantic storms often do, before the boats which are far out have had time to make for land, then one or other of them will go down before its fury, or be dashed in pieces on the rocks, and one brave man and another will go down with it, leaving his children fatherless and his wife a widow.

That is how it comes to pass that there are so many stones in Pengarva churchyard with no graves beside them, only upon them the names of the dead who are lying coldly elsewhere, fathoms deep beneath the salt sea waves.

It is on a dull March day that my story begins; a dull, wild day, and towards sundown. The sky had been clear enough the evening before, and the wind not much more than would serve to fill the sails of the boats as they put out to sea, each carrying its little crew of hardy fishermen, who had said good-bye to wife and child, and sailed away, taking with them two or three days' provisions, for mackerel are scarce this season, and the boats have to go out some distance from the land sometimes before they can make up their full “take” of fish. A whole fleet of these small craft had put out, as I have said, from Pengarva the evening before; and the Pengarva women had watched them away, standing in their cottage doors, straining their eyes after those they loved, until the brown sails became only like so many brown specks upon the foam-flecked heaving sea, as the dusk deepened and the night fell. And then they had gone in and shut the door, and set the candle on the sill of the uncurtained window, and put their children snug and warm into their beds, and had şat down alone by the bit of blinking fire, to wish that the boats were safe at home again.

They had wished then without many anxious fears; for, as I have said, the western wind was no more than the fishermen had wanted to fill their sails. But it had risen in the night, and towards morning it had chopped round suddenly to south-west, and clouds had rolled up and gathered thickly overhead; and through the wild March day until now there are all the signs of a stormy night at hand, and the ground-swell is widening on the beach, with sullen, stifled thunder,