THE LONELY ROCK.
of more successful labor. Little, indeed, of the 'midnight oil' consumed during the last half century so worthily deserved the trimming. Happy woman—and but for the dreaded rock her great charity might never have been called into exercise!
But what do the boatmen and the boatmen's wives think of this? Do they pay the woman?
No; they are very poor; but poor or rich, they know better than that.
Do they thank her?
No. Perhaps they feel that thanks of theirs would be inadequate to express their obligations, or, perhaps, long years have made the lighted casement so familiar, that they look on it as a matter of course.
Sometimes the fishermen lay fish on her threshold, and set a child to watch it for her till she wakes; sometimes their wives steal into her cottage, now she is getting old, and spin a hank or two of thread for her while she slumbers; and they teach their children to pass her hut quietly, and not to sing and shout before her door, lest they should disturb her. That is all. Their thanks are not looked for—scarcely supposed to be due. Their grateful deeds are more than she expects, and as much as she desires.
How often, in the far distance of my English home, I have awoke in a wild winter night, and while the wind and storm were rising, have thought of that northern bay, with the waves dashing against the rock, and have pictured to myself the casement, and the candle nursed by that bending, aged figure! How delightful to know that through her untiring charity the rock has long lost more than half its terrors, and
