Stood up one night, among the gleaming nets Was called The Cottage of the Kindly Light. One night there came a storm up from the wild Rang through the fishing village; and brave men Over the crash of seas that shook the world But braver men than those who fought the sea The gleaming colours, the little rainbow pools And wrinkled coats, like patches of the sea. "Lost? My boy lost?" she smiled. "Nay, he will come! To-morrow, or the next day, or the next The Kindly Light will bring him home again." And so, whate'er they answered, she would say- She had not wept. And ere that week was over, came the girl Her boy had loved. With tears and a white face Of mourning and the girl saw, shrinking back, But all in white she stood; and like a flash The girl thought, "God, she wears her wedding-dress! Her grief has made her mad"! And all that year The widow lit the little Kindly Light And placed it in the window. All that year She went in white, though through the village streets For all had lost some man; but all that year She said to her friends and neighbours, "He will come; He is delayed; some ship has picked him up And borne him out to some far-distant land! Why should I mourn the living?" And, at dusk, As if it were indeed the Kindly Light Of faith and hope and love, she lit the lamp The year passed; Beneath the last faint colours of the sun And the increasing kisses of the moon, A hymn came on a waft of evening wind We lose ourselves in heaven above." And when she passed the pink thrift by the gate, ALFRED NOYES. THE GRIP OF THE LAND. ROBERT CORSCADDEN was an Ulster farmer who owned the farm that he strove to live by. There were thirty acres of it, cold sour land, and a third part of the whole barren moor. The screen of trees which Robert had raised about the row of buildings-double cottage, byre, barn, and stable grew starved and twisted, yet there was a shelter in the homestead for folk and beasts. The beasts, for they were part of the farm, were well fed there, the folk were underfed. Yet the human beings, hardiest of animals, lived, if they did not thrive; the beasts died sometimes. Then the pinch would come. A year before this Robert lost two cows, and after that, worse than all, the stout mare that had stood well to him since he reared her. Another horse had to be bought; the instalments of purchase-money due to Government must be paid punctually in hard cash; and, as the least ruinous way to raise it, young Johnny, a boy now man - big, who had wrought beside his father for seven or eight years, was sent to the labour in Scotland. The money was earned, the boy came back, decent, quiet, industrious, but changed. That was how trouble began. One cold sunless morning in May, Robert and his son stood outside the door, coming out I. from their mid-day meal of tea and potatoes, and preparing to go back to weeding in the drills. They were looking at three men who tramped along the road from which a short cart - track led, through waste moor, to the house. Each man carried a bundle and was dressed in dark clothes. "Yon will be some of the Glendoe fellows," said Johnny, who watched them with a curious eagerness. "Ay," his father answered, "they're early off. They're easy spared from the kind of farms they have in the low country." Johnny did not notice the farmer's contemptuous reference to the patches of ground on which migratory labourers make their dwelling. "Work should be plenty in Scotland the year, when them ones is going now," he said. As he spoke, he pulled a pipe from his pocket and began to fill it. His father spoke roughly. "What matter about Scotland? That's a trick you got there, any way. Why must you be for ever with a pipe in your mouth?" "I can't be wanting it," the boy answered sullenly. "You can't be wanting it! An' how do I do, then? I have no patience with you, wasting good money on the dirty stuff." Johnny took the pipe out of his mouth and turned to go into the house. "What are you looking now?" Robert asked sharply. "I was thinking I would. write a letter to Mr Guthrie to see would he be wanting me this harvest." Robert swung round with a gesture of angry impatience, as if refusing to argue with a troublesome child. "Ach, go to pot!" he said; and with that he strode away down the lane. Johnny did not follow, but paused for a space looking at the retreating figure. His face was dour and stubborn. Then he turned again to enter; and, as he did, his mother came out of the house with food for the pigs. "Give me the key of the box," he said. an Manners are curt in Ulster; Annie Corscadden was active bustling woman, and, without more words, she handed him the key of the chest in which were kept all the household's less often used possessions. When she came back, after a quarter of an hour spent in byre and pigstye, she found Johnny dressed in his Sunday clothes, tying up a bundle in a red and green handkerchief. "Save us, Johnny, what are you doing with them on you?" she said. The boy did not turn his face to her. "I'm for Scotland," he answered. Annie put down suddenly the bucket which she carried, and caught her hand to her breast. Then she recovered herself. "For Scotland! Ah, nonsense! What notion is this you took? Put back the things this minute, now." She ran over to him and tried to snatch away the bundle. But the boy thrust her aside, and, knotting the ends of the handkerchief, he lifted it in his hand. "Quit talking," he said. "I'm for Scotland this day." "And did you tell Robert this?" she asked, her voice still pitched to scolding. "Never mind Robert," the boy answered, sullen as a snarling dog. Quickly Annie's tone changed. "Sure, I know all about it now. You and your father had some fall-out. Ah, be sensible now, Johnny. You wouldn't do the like of that—to ask to go away and leave us with the throng time coming. Who's to help Robert? Sure you know old John can't do a hand's turn." "How did he do before? Didn't you send me to Scotland the other time? And didn't I send back the money I earned?" Johnny's eyes were flaming, and stubborn lines showed about his mouth. His mother's face was written over with a conflict of feelings. Unable to command, unable to let him go, she tried persuasion, yet with little confidence. "You did so, Johnny," she said. "No boy could do more than you did, when we asked you. But why would you go now, and vex us?" "It's because I'm a man there and I'm a slave here, and that's the long and the short |