before. Up on the hill rustled the wood through which the happy
party were wandering to the Chasm. On the rocks she still saw the
crowd all busy with their own affairs, unconscious of her danger.
Here and there artists were sketching in picturesque spots, and in
one place an old gentleman sat fishing peacefully. Jill called and
waved her handkerchief, but he never looked up, and an ugly little
dog barked at her in what seemed to her a most cruel way.
“Nobody sees or hears or cares, and those horrid boys will never
catch up!” she cried in despair, as the boat began to rock more and
more, and the loud swash of water dashing in and out of the
Chasm drew nearer and nearer. Holding on now with both hands
she turned and looked straight before her, pale and shivering,
while her eyes tried to see some sign of hope among the steep
cliffs that rose up on the left. No one was there, though usually at
this hour they were full of visitors, and it was time for the walkers
to have arrived.
“I wonder if Gerty and Mamie will be sorry if I’m drowned,”
thought Jill, remembering the poor girl who had been lost in the
Chasm not long ago. Her lively fancy pictured the grief of her
friends at her loss; but that did not help or comfort her now, and as
her anxious gaze wandered along the shore, she said aloud, in a
pensive tone,
“Perhaps I shall be wrecked on Norman’s Woe, and somebody will
make poetry about me. It would be pretty to read, but I don’t want
to die that way. Oh, why did I come! Why didn’t I stay safe and
comfortable in my own boat?”
At the thought a sob rose, and poor Jill laid her head down on her
lap to cry with all her heart, feeling very helpless, small, and
forsaken alone there on the great sea. In the midst of her tears
came the thought, “When people are in danger, they ask God to
save them”; and, slipping down upon her knees, she said her prayer
as she had never said it before, for when human help seems gone
we turn to Him as naturally as lost children cry to their father, and
feel sure that he will hear and answer them.
After that she felt better, and wiped away the drops that blinded
her, to look out again like a shipwrecked mariner watching for a
sail. And there it was! Close by, coming swiftly on with a man
behind it, a sturdy brown fisher, busy with his lobster-pots, and
quite unconscious how like an angel he looked to the helpless little
girl in the rudderless boat.
“Hi! hi! Oh, please do stop and get me! I’m lost, no oars, nobody to
fix the sail! Oh, oh! please come!” screamed Jill, waving her hat
frantically as the other boat skimmed by and the man stared at her
as if she really was a mermaid with a fishy tail.
“Keep still! I’ll come about and fetch you!” he called out; and Jill
obeyed, sitting like a little image of faith, till with a good deal of
shifting and flapping of the sail, the other boat came alongside and
took her in tow,
A few words told the story, and in five minutes she was sitting
snugly tucked up watching art unpleasant mass of lobsters flap
about dangerously near her toes, while the boat bounded over the
waves with a delightful motion, and every instant brought her
nearer borne. She did not say much, but felt a good deal; and when
they met two boats coming to meet her, manned by very anxious
crews of men and boys, she was so pale and quiet that Jack was
quite bowed down with remorse, and Frank nearly pitched the
bicycle boy overboard because he gayly asked Jill how she left her
friends in England. There was great rejoicing over her, for the
people on the rocks had heard of her loss, and ran about like ants
when their hill is disturbed. Of course half a dozen amiable souls
posted off to the Willows to tell the family that the little girl was