"I—I didn't know when you was coming to breakfast," said Mrs. Coomber, timidly, and still keeping close in the corner of the shed for fear her husband should knock her down; while [Pg. 23]the children stopped their mutual grumblings and complaints, and crept closer to each other behind their mother's skirts.

"Couldn't you ha' got it ready and waited wi' a bit o' fire to dry these duds?" exclaimed her husband.

"But the boat, Coomber, it wasn't safe," pleaded the poor woman. "We might ha' been adrift any minute."

"Didn't I tell yer she was safe, and didn't I ought to know when a boat's safe better nor you—a poor tool of a woman? Come out of it," he added, impatiently, turning away.

The children wondered that nothing worse than hard words fell to their share, and were somewhat relieved that the next question referred to Bob, and not to their doings.

"You say he ain't come home?" said Coomber.

"I ain't seen him since he went with you to Fellness. Ain't you just come from there?" said his wife, timidly.

"Of course I have, but Bob ought to have [Pg. 24]been back an hour or so ago, for I had something to do in the village. Come to the boat, and I'll tell you all about it," he added, in a less severe tone; for the thought of the child he had rescued softened him a little, and he led the way out of the washing-shed.

The storm had abated now, and the boat no longer rocked and swayed, so that the children waded back through the mud without fear, while their father talked of the little girl he had left with Dame Peters at Fellness. They listened to his proposal to bring her home and share their scanty meals with very little pleasure, and they wished their mother would say she could not have another baby; but instead of this Mrs. Coomber assented at once to her husband's plan