Page:Her Benny - Silas K Hocking (Warne, 1890).djvu/74

50 one would have believed that this anxious- faced man was the brutal drunkard who only on the previous night had punished his unoffending children without mercy.

Was it God that was working in his heart, bringing back to him the memories of other years, and awaking within him better thoughts? Who shall say it was not?

Still on he went, starting continually as he fancied he saw something white on the dark still water. "How nice it would be," he muttered, "to sleep for ever! to be free fra the worry an^ trouble." But how could he know that death was endless sleep? Might it not be, as his Mary said it was, the beginning of a life that should never end? He was now near the boat under which his children lay. It was his footstep that startled them just as they were dropping off to sleep. It was his voice that muttered the words, "Oh, Death! what dost thou mean?"

How near father and children had come to each other! but neither knew of the other^s presence: then they drifted apart, again, to meet no more on earth. There were only a few small vessels in the next dock, and all the lights were out. "There they be, sure enough," said Dick, as something white, floating on the surface of the water, caught his eye, and he went close up to the edge of the dock, forgetful of the fact that the huge damp coping-stones had, by the action of the frost, become as slippery as glass. He had scarcely planted his foot on one of the huge stones when it slipped from beneath him; a piercing shriek rang out on the startled