Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 December 1908 — BY THE SEA. [ARTICLE]

BY THE SEA.

One summer moonlight night I was by the waves. I would rather be near them on moonlight nights than at any other time, especially when broken douds give the sky and the waters variety. I never go to the hotels. I get as far away, from them as I can, Stepping usually at some fisherman’s oottage. On this occasion I had pitched a tent an the beach and inhabited It alone. I was lying under my canopy, the flaps thrown aside so that from my bed —blankets only—l ■could look out on the ocean. There was the sky, light clouds slowly drifting across the face of the moon, the line of the horizon dividing the lighter from the darker hemisphere. The ocean plane met the path of moonlight broadening toward me from afar, the waves lazily rolling in and bursting on the Bhore. I have wondered since ts the music of the waters put me to sleep and I awakened or whether I did not sleep. At any rate, my attention was arrested by something white, at least lighter than the sand, down near the verge. I watched it. There was an occasional fluttering about it, like a woman’s skirts gently moved by a breeze. It appeared to be about the height of a human figure, though really in my perception of it there was no such thing as size, and was gently swaying like a very young tree shaken by the wind. Presently it moved. Then I was conscious that it was coming toward me. I had no superstitious fear. I was simply curiouß. As the thing approached it came gradually out of nebula Into the form of a woman. There was a certain grace of movement, a lightness which, mingled with,a slight rising and falling, was confusing. Had the figure appeared on the water surface I should have, thought my eyes were transfiguring a sail that was rising and falling on the waves. It was only when it came near that I distinguished the outline of a girl’s figure—not a summer visitor, one of plainer mold, doubtless a fisher lassie. She stopped a few yards from me, turned and looked out on the ocean. Then, turning again without appearing to notice or care who was in the tent, she asked: “Is that a boat out there?”

“What are you doing out here at this time of night? Do you know what time it is?” “No.” "I drew my watch from my vest pocket. I slept in my clothes. It’s half past one.” “Is it?” She manifested no Interest at the hour. She stood looking out at sea, apparently watching for another sight at the boat. “There it is. Heavens, how they bend to the work!” I raised myself on my elbows and strained my eyes to discern if I could see what the girl saw. Surely there was no boat out where she was looking. The dark face of the ocean was expressionless except where the moonlight trailed over it. “I see no boat,” I said. “It’s in the trough of the sea now.” “There Is but a slight trough. Even If a boat were lost to sight between the waves It would reappear in a few moments." She stood peering out on the ocean. A cloud floated over the moon. She said with a moan, a note of despair, rather, It seemed to me: “Oh, how black!” - The cloud was denser than any that had obscured the moon before. The last words I heard spoken by the girl were, "They’re coming,” and she began to move toward the ocean, fading away in the shadow of the cloud. When it passed I looked for her, but ■he was nowhere to be seen. I lay thinking, wondering, for awhile, then, lulled by the waves, fell asleep. When-1 awoke the sun was rising out of the ocean, while the waves were splashing languidly. The first thing I thought of was the girt of the night before. I drifted between many opinions. Possibly 1 may have dreamed it all. But never before had I dreamed about one a stranger to me whose face and figure I could remember, while hers I remembered distinctly. Was she not Borne girl who had been demented by misfortune? I went to breakfast at a fisherman’s cabin. The fisherman was preparing to go out in his boat while his wife waited on me. I was full of my dream, or whatever it was, and related it The man stopped his preparations and listened with a look of horror, making the sign of the cross, while his wife turned and covered her eyes with her hands. I looked at them wonderingly. It was plain that I had struck some blight In their lives. Should I probe it by questions or spare them? What had I to gain by forcing a recital that would give them Infinite pain? If there was any connection between them and my apparition It needed no strong in.agination to replace It. Lying la my tent during that day I wove the story, I saw a ship out on the bar, the watn beating furiously against it. The shore was lined with people. Presently a boat was lowered, and a crew from the wreck made an attempt for their lives. It rose and fell on the waves. Us pointing to the sky, its stern now sliding down oAt-«f sight Then it hung for one instant on the seething line of foam and was hurled bottom upward. Perhaps it contained the girl’s lovST.— F. A. Mitchell. N