IT

OF TER

ing to say. It doubtless challenges a superior incredulity. Yet the last example of the art of Terry Lute was a very great picture. Incredible? Not at all. It is merely astonishing. Other masters, and of all sorts, have em

oo, was astounded. But-"It is the w

bden is given to the encouragement of an?mic aspiration. Cobden's errors, if any, have been of severity. It is maintained by those who do not love him that he has laughed many a promising youngster into a sour obscurity. And this

it must then be believed upon his word that when the Stand By went down off Dusty Reef of the False Frenchman a great picture perished with her-a great picture done in crayon on manila paper in Tom Lute's kitchen at Out-of-the-

having read some moving and tragical tale of those parts, to look upon a grim sea and a harsh coast. He had found both, and had been inspired to convey a consciousness of both to a gentler world, touched with his own philosophy, in Cobden's way. But here al

lose, stared into the appalling depths of wind, mist, and the sea, backed off, cocked his astonished

that?" he

"jus' my young feller." He was apologetic; but h

g?" Cobde

fourteen when

!" Cobde

ewhat puzzled by Cobden's agitation; "he w

the picture; he stood i

the skipper

ly. "That's a great picture, by he

r Tom

t. "She sort o' scares me by times. But she were mean

nother," s

withdrew his inter

d he, curtly. "That

den exclaim

no. He've gone an' growed up." He w

rely. He surveyed the genial

a genius of rarely exampled quality should have entered the world in the neighborhood of Out-of-the-Way Tickle, there abandoned to chance discovery of the most precarious sort. And there was no doubt about

n, who had damned so much in his day, could not question

ainter's wistful gravity. "W

aughed h

Afterward, when I have spoken with this-this young master, then, perhaps. But I may surely say that the fame of Terry Lute will soon be very great." His voice rose; he spoke with intense emphasis. "It will continue, it will grow. Terry L

ows it well enough." He added absently, with d

arn what I c

n' off, sir?" There wa

im now to be a moment. He was profoundly moved.

ested, his face in an anxious twist

of him!" cried

he mused. "Oh, well, now," he drawled, "I'd not trouble t' do it an I was you. You're not knowin', anyhow, that he've not made a man of hisself. 'Tis five year' sinc

ashed. "Already

ted; "but-well, God knows I'd not like t' see a

is mind, in a mere flash, that Skipper Tom had spoken with a deal of feeling. What cou

declared more heartily, "t

rbed in a critical ecstasy. Skipper Tom, too, was by this time staring out upon the

d, a place to shrink from in terror. The sea reached for it; the greater waves boiled over and sucked it bare. It was wet, slimy, overhanging death

says he, tritely. There was the illusion of noise-of the thud and swish of breaking water and of the gallop of the wind. So complete was the illusion, and

ul interest. That lay a little beyond. It was a black ledge and a wave. The ledge still dripped the froth of a deluge which had broken and swept on,

ow where the mist had thinned. Fog had broken over the cliff and was streaming down with the wind. Obscurity was imminent; but light yet came from the w

f-the-Way. The point is this, Cobden says, that the wind was rising, the sea working up, the ice running in, the fog spreading, thickening, obscuring the

rned to S

rry Lute call

thi

t bear a name. A great picture done

s it jus' '

led 'The Fang,

d Skipper Tom. "'Tis a picture

back, and much to his delight they called him a limb o' the devil, and they spread his fame and his sketches from Out-of-the-Way and Twillingate Long Point to Cape Norman and the harbors of the Labrador. Caricatures, of course, engaged him-the parson, the schoolmaster, Bloody Bill Bull, and the

conviction could bring him to speak. Terry Lute was startled. In the weakness of contrition he was moved to promise that he would draw their faces no more, and thereafter he confined his shafts of humor to their backs; but as most men are vulnerable to ridicule from behi

l; "you is a sure-enough, clever

water from the well by the Needle, discouraged the joy of life. He scolded, he begged, he protested that he was ailing, and so behaved in the cleverest fashion; but nothing availed him until after hours of toil he achieved a woeful picture of a little lad at work on the flake

y Lute's mother, "t

ipper Tom

rry's mother, bursting i

te ran foot-loose and joyous over

y Lute!" thinks h

y-no eyes so keen for such weather as the eyes of Out-of-the-Way-that Bill Bull was coming under conviction of his conscience; and when this great news got abroad, Terry Lute, too, attended upon Parson Down's preaching with regularity, due wholly, however

resistance again. All this time Terry Lute sat watching. He gave no heed whatsoever to the words of Parson Down, with which, indeed, he had no concern. He heard nothing; he kept watch-close watch to remember. He opened his heart to the terror of poor Bill Bull; he sough

d in a fever, he destroyed in despair, he began anew with his teeth clenched. And then al

t?" his mot

Mot

ed. "I never knowed you t' quit

his father a rep

ul," said he, darkly, "les

together a reflection of Bill Bull's feeling, which he had observed, received, and memorized, and so possessed in the end that he had been overmastered by it, though he was ignorant of what had inspired it. And this, Cobden says, is a suffi

at after his conversion Terry Lu

ase of Terry Lute. When the northeasterly gales came down with fog, Terry Lute sat on the slimy, wave-lapped ledge overhanging the swirl of water, and watched the spent breaker, streaked with current and flecked with fragments; and he watched, too, the cowering ledge beyond, and the

; not to perceive and grasp it fleetingly, not to hold it for the

to the beholder of his work. It was an impish trick,

th to Skipper Tom, "that she'll s

r Tom

he scoffed, "when the s

grimly promised him, "till

rry Lute's temper went overboard. He sighed and shifted, pouted and whimpered while he worked; but he kept on, with courage equal to his impulse, toiling every evening of that summer until his impatient mother shooed him off to more laborious toil upon the task in his nightmare

blowing high and wet, when Terry Lute dropped his cr

ed, he

ays he, "confound h

, lad," Skipper

, indignantly. "I d

n the presence of this mons

" he g

, airily, "I jus'-sketche

Skipper Tom's glance ran t

air unable t' fathom"-pulling his bear

Lute g

n the making and a saucy wind were already jumping down from the northeast with a trail of disquieting fog. Terry Lute's spirit failed; he besought, he wept, to be taken ashore. "Oh, I'm woeful scared o' the sea!" he complained. Skipper Tom brought him in from the sea, a whimpering c

lutch it well, but to grasp in driven haste and sweep on. The boy sat snuggled to the fire for its consolation; he was covered with shame, oppressed, sore, and hopeless. He was disgraced: he was outcast, and now forever, from a world of manly endeavor wherein good cou

losed an abiding fear of the sea. He was not a coward by any act; no mere wanton folly had disgraced him, but the fallen nature of his own heart. He had failed; but he was only a lad, after all, and he must be helped to overcome. And there he sat, snuggl

med. He had been overtaken i

pper Tom, gently, "you

, s

m apologized, "that

n', sir," Ter

Tom admonished, "I'd not

ebegone

God help you!" S

, s

on the boy's knee. Hi

the sea," he said. "There's no work in the world for a c

din',

Terry? Wh

broo

amned pictu

, s

all incomprehensible to Skipper

od help you!' Skippe

look

eal!" h

a thing

o' fancy! 'Tis fancy

ou-a c

y si

" said he

ravely, now perceiving, "is you b

, s

horrified understanding. He

ar o' the sea?

, s

tch a p

began

no other way

ve you, wi

vercome

pper Tom, anguished, "you've no

over

ast the

ght his father

ather," he sobbed

in his arms, as though he

then, Terry Lute labored to fashion a man of himself after the standards of his world. Trouble? Ay, trouble-trouble enough at first, day by day, in fear, to confront the fabulous perils of his imagination. Trouble enough thereafter encountering the sea's real assault, to subdue the reasonable terrors of those parts. Trouble enough, too, by and by, to d

a great, grave boy, upstanding, sure-eyed, unafrai

robation, at any rate, had changed to the beginnings of reverence. That Terry Lute was a master-a master of magnitude, already, and of a promise so large that in generations the world had not known the like of it-James Cobden was gravely persuaded. And this meant much to James Cobden, clear, aspiring soul, a man in pure love with his art. And there was more: grown old now, a little, he dreamed new d

blowing over the sunlit moss, when Cobden, in fear of the issue, which must be challe

obden, smiling

sed from the extended

lushing. "I used t', thou

n bli

he eja

ne nothin'

evitably into Cobden's mind. He was somewh

a man's

n, wh

t o'-silly

ght, appalled. "The lad

te laugh

like mad with all them little brushes. An' you looked so sort o' funny, sir, that I jus' couldn't help-laughin'." Again

killed Jam