launch had suddenly become a glorified object, sacred to the relatives of the divinity of the workshop, and how and where the flotsam of the tides ensnared it was of colossal importance. Into solving the nautical enigma Robert Morton now threw every ounce of his energy and while at work artfully drew from his companion every detail he could obtain of Delight Hathaway's strange story. 

 He learned how the Michleen had been wrecked on the Wilton Shoals in the memorable gale of 1910; how the child's father had perished with the ship, leaving his little daughter friendless in the world; how Zenas Henry and the three aged captains had risked their lives to bring the little one ashore; and how the Brewsters had taken her into their home and brought her up. It was a simple tale and simply told, but the heroism of the romance touched it with an epic quality that gripped the listener's imagination and sympathies tenaciously. And now the waif snatched from the grasp of the covetous sea had blossomed into this exquisite being; this creature beloved, petted, and well-nigh spoiled by a proudly exultant community. 

 For although legally a member of the Brewster family, Willie explained, the girl had come to belong in a sense to the entire village. Had she not been cast an orphan upon its shores, and were not its treacherous shoals responsible for her misfortune? Wilton, to be sure, was not actually answerable for the crimes those hidden sand bars perpetrated, but nevertheless the fisherfolk could not quite shake themselves free of the shadow cast upon them by the tragedies ever occurring at their gateway. Too many of their people had gone down to the sea in ships never to return for them to become callous to the disasters they were continually forced to witness. The wreck of the Michleen had been one of the most pathetic of these horrors, and the welfare of the child who in consequence of it had come into the hamlet's midst had become a matter of universal concern. 

 "'Tain't to be wondered at the girl is loved," continued Willie.  "At first people took an interest in her, or tried to, from a sense of duty, for you couldn't help bein' sorry for the little thing. But 'twarn't long before folks found out 'twarn't no hardship to be fond of Delight Hathaway. She was livin' sunshine, that's what she was! Wherever she went, be it one end of town or t'other, she brought happiness. In time it got so that if you was to drop in where there was sickness or trouble an' spied a nosegay of flowers, you could be pretty sure Delight had been there. Why, Lyman Bearse's father, old Lyman, that's so crabbed with rhumatism that it's a cross to live under the same roof 

 Prev. P 52/181 next