The Smuggler's Ward: A Story of Ship and Shore

YEARS have passed--many years--since that day!

It was a poorly furnished chamber, dark and cramped, in that section of

the New England metropolis of America where the streets were narrowest

and most devious, and where the dwellings were most closely packed. The

shingles upon the time battered roof flapped with ghostly pattering in

the wintry wind; the biting blast crept in through many a crack and

cranny; and upon the stool of the low dormer window were tiny drifts,

like hoar-frost, that had been sifted in from the whirling snow that

eddied about the quaint old gables and stumpy chimneys.

Upon a scanty clothed bed lay a man, yet in the morning of life, pale,

wan, wasted--dying. The care-worn woman, beautiful still in all her

suffering, bending over and bathing the clammy brow with tears, was his

wife--fond, faithful, and devoted. And the two little ones--a

golden-haired girl, and a bright-eyed boy--were the offspring of a union

that had been cemented in warmest love, but shadowed by the lowering

clouds of dire and undeserved misfortune.

"O! my Malcolm!--dear, dear Malcolm!--can this be the death touch?"

"Yes, Barbara I am dying. But you should not weep. If I were alone--if I

had no wife and children to leave--'twould be sweet to die--to flee from

this cold, cruel earth to the bright, warm realms of the spirit land!

Some time--some time, my love--you will join me there. O! how happy the

thought--how blessed!--I shall wait for you, Barbara. God grant that it

may be mine to guide you up the starlit path that leads to the house of

the angels!--And our children!--Bless them! You will whisper to them

kindly of their dead father--as kindly as you can. Ah, how cruel I have

been----"

"Cruel, Malcolm?--You,--the kindest, the gentlest, and the most

enduring?"

"I was cruel--unjust--selfish--when I urged you to----"

"Hush! hush! No more of that. Think of brighter things."