energy of one who lived in
constant fear lest it should be suddenly snatched from him. It was
January when Abe Verity had met with his fatal accident, and all through
the next six months Job toiled like a galley-slave.

It was the practice of the Heskeths to spend the first ten days of
August at the seaside. It was their annual holiday, long talked of and
long prepared, and it was invariably spent at Bridlington. There Job
could indulge to the full in his favourite holiday pastime of swimming,
and there he was in close touch with the undulating wold country where
his boyhood had been spent. He could renew old acquaintances, lend a
hand to the farmers, or wander at will along the chalk beds of the
_gipsies_ or dry water-courses which wind their way from the hills to
the sea. Years ago he and his wife had given a trial to Scarborough,
Blackpool and Morecambe as seaside resorts, but they felt like
foreigners there and had come back to Bridlington as to an old home.

"There's nowt like Bridlington sands," he would say, in self-defence.
"I'm noan sayin' but what there's a better colour i' t' watter at
Blackpool, but there's ower mich wind on' t sea. Sea-watter gits into
your mouth when you're swimmin' and then you've to blow like a grampus.
Scarborough's ower classy for t' likes o' Mary an' me; it's all reight
for bettermy-bodies that likes to dizen theirselves out an' sook cigars
on church parade. But me an' t' owd lass allus go to Bridlington. It's
homely, is Bridlington, an' you're not runnin' up ivery minute agean
foreign counts an' countesses that ought to bide wheer they belang, an'
keep theirsens to theirsens."

There had been no improvement in Job's state of mind during the long
summer days that preceded his holiday. In his most robust days inquiries
as to his health always elicited the answer that he was "just middlin',"
which is the invariable answer that the cautious Yorkshireman vouchsafes
to give. Now, with a shrunken frame, and fever in his eye, he was still
"just middlin'," and, only when hard pressed would he acknowledge the
carking fear that was gnawing at his heart. I was, however, not without
hope that change of air and sea-bathing, for which Job had a passion
almost equal to that for fox-hunting, would restore him to health and
tranquillity of mind.

The Heskeths started for Bridlington on a Friday, and on the following
Sunday the news reached me that my old friend had been drowned while
bathing. I wa