Mr. Driesen grinned a cynical smile at the turns taken by the woman's emotion; but the eyes of Lucy Effingham, she could not tell why, filled with tears, ay, and overflowed. She felt a little ashamed of being so much moved, and, having no other refuge but a jest, she laid her hand upon Charles's arm, saying, "Pray come home, Mr. Tyrrell, and change your clothes as fast as possible! You have been quite selfish enough, according to Mr. Driesen's opinion, already." And her eye lighted up with a gay smile, though not enough to dry up the tears through which it shone. Charles Tyrrell thought her very lovely indeed at that moment; but though he was not only wet, but suffering great pain from a bleeding gash on his knee, he did not follow her counsel of returning home till he had asked several questions of the fisherman's wife. He found that her husband was partner in the fishing boats with the master of the next cottage and his son, and that they had gone away early that morning to try their fortune, with other boats, at some distance. They had at first proposed to go in the boat which had now drifted out, and had pushed her down nearly into the water, when some circumstance, which the wife did not know, had caused them to change their mind and take the larger boat. By some carelessness they had forgotten to moor the boat they left to anything; and while the little boy who was saved played about at the door, as she thought, the poor woman had remained within, nursing the child at her breast, and tending an elder child than either, who was sick in the cottage. By the time that he had learned these particulars, Charles Tyrrell had resumed the clothes he had cast off and was ready again to mount his horse. "I am sorry, my good woman," he said, seeing her eyes turn with a look of hopeless and bewildered anxiety towards the little bark, "that there is no other boat near, to enable me to bring back the one that is drifting out; but it is too far, I am afraid, for me to attempt to swim to it. There are other boats, however, at those cottages about half a mile on, and we saw men near the doors as we passed about an hour ago. As I ride by now I will tell them to put out after your boat, and I dare say they will do it willingly." "Oh, that they will, sir," answered the woman. "My husband's brother lives in the second cottage, and he is at home, I know." Charles then mounted his horse, though with difficulty; and riding on with Lucy and Mr. Driesen along the seashore, they came to the cottage, where they found plenty of people willing to put out immediately after the boat that had gone adrift. They then returned home as fast as they could.