for mortar, resembling on the outside two ancient seamen shoving
shoulders together against the weather, and on the inside two tiny
bird cages.

And having no one now to stand to her, or seem to stand, in the place
of bread-winner, she set herself to such poor work as she could do
and earn a scanty living by. This was cleaning the down of the eider
duck, by passing it through a sieve made of yarn stretched over a
hoop. By a deft hand, with extreme labor, something equal to sixpence
a day could be made in this way from the English traders. With such
earnings Rachel lived in content, and if Jorgen Jorgensen had any
knowledge of his daughter's necessities he made no effort to relieve
them.

Her child lived--a happy, sprightly, joyous bird in its little
cage--and her broken heart danced to its delicious accents. It
sweetened her labors, it softened her misfortunes, it made life more
dear and death more dreadful; it was the strength of her arms and the
courage of her soul, her summons to labor and her desire for rest.
Call her wretched no longer, for now she had her child to love. Happy
little dingy cabin in the fishing quarter, amid the vats for sharks'
oil and the heaps of dried cod! It was filled with heaven's own
light, that came not from above but radiated from the little cradle
where her life, her hope, her joy, her solace lay swathed in the
coverlet of all her love.

And as she worked through the long summer days on the beach, with the
child playing among the pebbles at her feet, many a dream danced
before her of the days to come, when her boy would sail in the ships
that came to their coast, and perhaps take her with him to that
island of the sea that had been her mother's English home, where men
were good to women and women were true to men. Until then she must
live where she was, a prisoner chained to a cruel rock; but she would
not repine, she could wait, for the time of her deliverance was near.
Her liberator was coming. He was at her feet; he was her child, her
boy, her darling; and when he slumbered she saw him wax and grow, and
when he awoke she saw her fetters break. Thus on the bridge of hope's
own rainbow she spanned her little world of shame and pain.

The years went by, and Jason grew to be a strong-limbed, straight,
stalwart lad, red-haired and passionate-hearted, reckless and
improvident as far as improvidence was possible amid the conditions
of his bringing up. He was a human waterfowl, and all h