“Thee shaan’t christen un, ef he’s never christened!” said the father. “I’ve no faith in’ee: not a dinyun. 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 and come swimming, as with a settled purpose, towards the boat.

There was something so melancholy and so pathetically human in the soft, liquid eyes of the animal, that John felt his heart touched unaccountably.

Forgetting the line, which he was just about to draw in, he sat staring at the seal with a fixed intensity, as if he were looking in the familiar eyes of some one with whom he had a world of memories to interchange.

And, meanwhile, the seal swam straight up to him, till it was so close to the boat that he could touch it with his hand.

John leaned over and looked straight at the animal: fixing his eyes hungrily on the eyes of the seal.

“Why dedn’ee ha’ me christened, faather?” asked the little seal, piteously.

“My God! are’ee Silas?” cried John, trembling violently.

“Iss, I’m Silas,” said the little seal.

John stared aghast at the smooth brown head and the innocent eyes that watched him so pathetically.

“Why, I thought thee wert drownded, Silas!” he ejaculated.

“I caan’t go to rest ’tell I’m christened,” said the seal.

“How can us do it now?” asked the father, anxiously.

“Ef anywan who’s christened wed change sauls weth me,” said the seal, “then I cud go to rest right away.”

“Thee shall ha’ my saul, Silas,” said the father, tenderly.

“Wil’ee put thy mouth to mine an’ braythe it into me, faather?”

“Iss, me dear, that I will!” said the father. “Rest thee shust have ef I can give it to’ee, Silas. Put thy haands or paws around me neck, wil’ee, soas?”

And John leaned over the side of the boat till his face touched that of the piteous little seal.

At that moment the boat which for the last few minutes had been allowed to drift at the mercy of the tide, owing to John’s pre-occupation was caught among the irregular currents near a skerry, and John was suddenly jerked, or tilted, overboard, plunging into the waters with a sullen splash.

When he rose to the surface, with a deadly chill in him the chill of his drear and imminent doom, even more than the grueing chill of the water his first thought, even in that perilous moment, was of dear little Silas and the promise he had given to him, or, at least, the promise he had given to the seal.

The quaint little creature was, however, nowhere visible; and John, with a sudden influx of strength an alarmed awakening and resurgence of his will made up his mind to save his life if it were possible, and quietly leave the settlement of the other affair to God.

But grey old Fate was stronger than he was. And the waves were here her obedient servants; doing her will blindly, without pity or remorse.

In a little while John was tossing among the seaweed into a bed of which his body had descended and what further dreams (if any) he dreamed there beneath the waters, must remain untold till the Judgment Day.