is a pestilent fellow," said the community. "He troubles us
overmuch with this vision that he has knowledge of. Come, let us kill
him!"

And they smote him, and he died.

THE UNCHRISTENED CHILD.

"_Thee_ shaan't christen un, ef he's never christened!" said the father.
"I've no faith in'ee: not a dinyun.[L] Go to Halifax to shoot gaanders:
tha's all thee'rt fit for!"

"He'll suffer for it, both here and hereafter," said the parson.

"Doan't believe it!" said the man.

"Wherever he dies, whether on land or on water, he will become a
creature of that element instead of going to his rest," said the
parson, with an angry light in his eyes.

"Doan't believe it!" said the man: "an' thee doan't nayther."

The parson marched off, disdaining to reply.

The infant grew into a bright little lad, but there was always a certain
oddity about him, and he saw and understood more than he ought.

One day he was out fishing with a companion, in a tiny punt they had
borrowed for the purpose, when he leaned overboard too far and fell into
the sea.

His little companion was so paralysed with terror that he could do
nothing but set up a shrill screaming, clinging to the boat with both
his hands.

Silas rose once--and twice--with wildly-pleading eyes: his mouth full of
water: his hair plastered against his head: then sank; and a third time
emerged just above the surface; so close to the boat that his companion,
leaning over, could see him sinking down slowly into the crystalline
depths, with his hands stretched up and the hair on his head tapering to
a point like the flame of a candle.

"Silas! Silas!" the little lad shrieked.

But Silas sank down; and ever down: lower and lower beneath the
translucent waters, the vast flood deepening its tint above him, till at
last he was hopelessly buried out of sight.

When John Penberthy heard the terrible news he took the blow as a man
might take a sentence of death--in grim silence, and with a sullen
despair which nothing might henceforth banish or relieve. The roof-tree
of his hopes was broken irretrievably, and he gazed down blankly at the
ruin around his feet.

About three days after Silas was drowned, John was one afternoon out
fishing for bait, and happened to be keeping rather close to the
cliff-line, when he perceived a little seal emerge from a zawn[M] and
come swimming, as with a settled purpose, towards the boat.

There was something so melancholy and so pathetica