Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

when I was lyin' awake, I heard one of them praying. Besides, sir, they almost stopped swearing in the fo castle and on deck.

"Well, sir, after our fair winds had turned to foul, we kept the brig close hauled, trying our best to beat to windward. It is hard and tedious kind of work, wanting to get over the road and make a quick run, all the time knowing you are slipping sideways almost as fast as you are going ahead. However, if the wind was ahead the weather was fine, and the nights was just glorious with the moonlight, and the captain, he was carrying all the canvas she would bear.

[blocks in formation]

Let go the main braces, and haul your yards flat aback.'

[ocr errors]

I looked up, and there was a great big steamer. Her deck was higher than our fore-yard. Then, before I could think or move, came an awful crash that made the brig quiver from stem to stern, and from keelson to truck. Would you believe it, sir? That steamer had run us down, and we close hauled on a wind. She cut right through us just by the cat-heads, carrying away all our head-gear and breaking off our foretopgallant-mast at the cap, and making an ugly hole in our bow. In a minute everyone was on deck, and everyone thought we must go right to the bottom.

"The people of the steamer did not stop to see how much damage they had done, nor to ask if they could help us. I may as well tell you now, sir, as at any time, that about four years afterwards I was in a boarding house in Montreal, and got talking about the collision, giving the date and latitude and longitude of the place where it happened,

when a man who was listening spoke up. He says:

"I was steering that steamer when she ran you down. We thought you would all be lost, and the captain, when I rang the bell to stop the engines, and tried to bring the ship round, swore at me and told me to keep the ship on her course. You know I could not do anything else.'

"It was then for the first time I found out the name of the steame From other things the captain of th. brig had had a suspicion about it but could not tell for sure; but we knew that two years after she struck us that same boat must have struck a big iceberg and went down with all hands-leastways that is what everyone thought happened to her.

But I am before my story. With the rest, the parson came on deck just as he got out of his bunk. He saw everyone was frightened, and that just then he could do nothing to help, so be quietly went down into his room again, and kneeled down by the side of his bunk and began to pray. I heard him myself, for the captain sent me below to get an axe out of the cabin, and I listened a minute while the parson prayed for his wife and babies at home, and for the captain and crew of the sinking brig.

But, sir, wonderful to say, she did not sink. She was, as I said, loaded with oil. The shock had started some of the casks to leak, and the water coming from our pump was full of oil. That oil just spread all around the brig, and we were in water without a ripple.

"The captain, as soon as he found out we would not sink at once, sent men over the bows with old canvas and sealskins, and some pieces of board to try to stop up the ugly hole in the bow. He sent another man down into the fore-peak with an axe to break in the heads of some casks that were stowed there, so that the brig's bow might be raised

higher out of the water. While we were all busy, the wind came round from the sou'west-just the wind we wanted. I believed then, and I believe still, that wind came to us in answer to the parson's prayer, and more than me believed the same thing.

"I made up my mind that night that I would be a Christian, and next day I told the parson so, and, sir, from that day to this I have tried hard to serve my Saviour. It takes a good deal to save some men. It took that collision in the middle of the Atlantic to save me. sir, there is no one else of that brig's crew now alive. The captain was lost on Sable Island a year or two

No,

after the steamer ran us down, and in one way or another I have heard that all the rest are gone.

"I saw in a paper about four years ago that the parson had died somewhere in Nova Scotia. He was well known, sir, in all parts hereabouts, and a good many of the oldest members of the Methodist Church in this place were converted in a revival he had here over forty years ago. Every day I live I thank God for that trip to Liverpool, for the collision and for the parson-for it was all three together that brought me to Jesus. That's the whole story, sir, and I'm obliged to you for listening to an old man's yarn."

BURLINGTON, N.S.

"MY FATHER IS THE HUSBANDMAN.”

BY REV. MARK GUY PEARSE.

GOD compass thee with favour as a shield,

Through all the season's changeful days and hours,

The changes be as to some fruitful field,

Where sun is shaded but for gracious showers,

His favour by thy strength to serve and yield,

As earth serves heaven by yielding fruits and flowers.

If biting frosts come from the bitter north,
'Tis but to fray the earth to readier mould,
'Neath leaden skies the sower goeth forth,

And fills the furrows with a weight of gold,

Though wild winds sweep and howl in threatening wrath, The seed corn sleeps within thy heart; be bold.

There cometh soon a time when storms are still,
When all the earth is arched with sunny blue,
When thou shalt find the end of good and ill,
And how through all the harvest ripened grew;
Thy Father is the husbandman. His will

Is ever good who maketh all things new.

Since blackened roots and shapeless, withered seeds
By patient skill he brings to fairest flowers:
Since He can meet a whole world's hungry needs
By sunshine and soft winds and passing showers;

Up to what beauty and what service leads
His love, when we are His and He is ours.

AFTERWARDS.*

BY IAN MACLAREN.

HE received the telegram in a garden when he was gazing on a vision of blue, set in the fronds of a palm, and listening to the song of the fishers as it floated across the bay.

"You look so utterly satisfied," said his hostess, in the high, clear voice of English women, "that I know you are tasting the luxury of a contrast. The Riviera is charming in December; imagine London, and Cannes is paradise."

As he smiled assent in the grateful laziness of a hard-worked man, his mind was stung with the remembrance of a young wife swathed in the dreary fog, who, above all things, loved the open air and the shining of the sun.

Her plea was that Bertie would weary alone, and that she hated travelling; but it came to him quite suddenly that this was always the programme of their holidays-some Mediterranean villa full of clever people for him, and the awful dulness of that Bloomsbury street for her; or he went north to a shootinglodge, where he told his best stories in the smoking-room, after a long day on the purple heather; and she did her best for Bertie at some watering-place, much frequented on account of its railway facilities and economical lodgings. Letters of invitation had generally a polite reference to his wife-"If Mrs. Trevor can accompany you, I shall be still more delighted; "—but it was understood that she would not accept.

"We have quite a grudge against Mrs. Trevor, because she will never come with her husband; there is some beautiful child who monopolizes her," his hostess would explain on his arrival; and Trevor allowed

#

it to be understood that his wife was quite devoted to Bertie, and would be miserable without him.

When he left the room it was explained, "Mrs. Trevor is a hopelessly quiet person, what is called a good wife,' you know.

"What can you do with a woman like that? Nothing remains but religion and the nursery. Why do clever men marry those impossible women?"

Trevor was gradually given to understand, as by an atmosphere, that he was a brilliant man wedded to a dull wife, and there were hours his worst hours when he agreed.

"Cara mia, cara mia," sang the sailors; and his wife's face, in its perfect refinement and sweet beauty, suddenly replaced the Medi

terranean.

Had he belittled his wife, with her wealth of sacrifice and delicate nature, beside women in spectacles who wrote on the bondage of marriage, and leaders of fashion who could talk of everything, from horse-racing to palmistry?

He had only glanced at her last letter; now he read it carefully:

"The flowers were lovely, and it was so mindful of you to send them, just like my husband. Bertie and I amused ourselves arranging and rearranging them in glasses, till we had made our tea-table lovely. But I was just one little bit disappointed not to get a letter-you see how exacting 1 am, sir. I waited for every post, and Bertie said, 'Has father's letter come yet?' When one is on holiday, writing letters is an awful bore; but just a line to Bertie and me. have a map of the Riviera, and found out all the places you had been at in the yacht; and we tried to imagine you sailing on that azure sea, and landing among those silver olives. I am so grateful to everyone for being kind to you,

* Abridged from McClure's Magazine.

We

and I hope you will enjoy yourself to the full. Bertie is a little stronger, I'm sure; his cheeks were quite rosy to-day for him. It was his birthday on Wednesday, and I gave him a little treat. The sun was shining brightly in the forenoon, and we had a walk in the Gardens, and made believe that it was Italy! Then we went to Oxford Street, and Bertie chose a regiment of soldiers for his birthday present. He wished some guns so much that I allowed him to have them as a present from you. They only cost oneand-sixpence, and I thought you would like him to have something. Jane and he had a splendid game of hide-and-seek in the evening, and my couch was the den, so you see we have our own gaiety in Bloomsbury.

"Don't look sulky at this long scribble and say,What nonsense women write!' for it is almost the same as speaking to you, and I shall imagine the letter all the way till you open it in the sunshine.

'So smile and kiss my name, for this comes with my heart's love from

"Your devoted wife,

"MAUD TREVOR.

"P.S.-Don't be alarmed because I have to rest; the doctor does not think that there is any danger, and I'll take great care."

"A telegram.” It was the shattering of a dream. "How wicked of some horrid person!"

An hour later Trevor was in the Paris express, and for thirty hours he prayed one petition, that she might live till he arrived. He twice changed his carriage, once when an English party would not cease from badinage that mocked his ears, and again because a woman had brown eyes with her expression of dog-like faithfulness. The darkness of the night after that sunlit garden, and the monotonous roar of the train, and the face of smiling France of smiling France covered with snow, and the yeasty waters of the Channel, and the moaning of the wind, filled his heart with dread.

Will that procession of luggage at Dover never come to an end? A French seaman-a fellow with earrings and a ruddy face-appears and reappears with maddening re

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

"Guard, is this train never to start? We're half an hour late already."

"Italian mail very heavy, sir; still bringing up bags; so many people at Riviera in winter, writing home to their friends."

How cruel everyone is! He had not written for ten days. Something always happened, an engagement of pleasure. There was half-finished letter; he had left it to join a Monte Carlo party.

[ocr errors]

a

Had she been expecting that letter from post to post, calculating the hour of each delivery, identifying the postman's feet in that quiet street, holding her breath when he rang, stretching her hand for a letter, to let it drop unopened, and bury her face in the pillow? Had she waiting for a letter that never came? Those letters that he wrote from the Northern Circuit in that first sweet year, a letter a day, and one day two-it had given him a day's advantage. Careful letters, too, though written between cases, with bits of description and amusing scenes. Some little sameness towards the end, but she never complained of that, and even said those words were the best. And that trick he played-the thought of the postman must have brought it up-how pleasant it was, and what a success! He would be his own letter one day, and take her by surprise. by surprise. "A letter, ma'am," the girl said quite a homely girl, who shared their little joys and anxieties -and then he showed his face with apologies for intrusion. The flush

of love in her face, will it be like that to-night, or What can Is this

be keeping the train now? a conspiracy to torment a miserable man?

A husband and wife returning from a month in Italy, full of their experiences: the Corniche Road, the palaces of Genoa, the pictures in the Pitti, St. Peter's at Rome. Her first visit to the Continent, evidently; it reminded them of a certain tour round the Lakes in 1880, and she withdrew her hand from her husband's as the train came out from the tunnel. They were not smart people-very pronounced middleclass-but they were lovers, after fifteen years.

They forgot him, who was staring on the bleak landscape with white, pinched face.

"How kind to take me this trip. I know how much you denied yourself, but it has made me young again;" and she said "Edward." Were all these coincidences ranged? Had his purgatorio begun already?

ar

"Have you seen the Globe, sir? Bosworth, M.P. for Pedlington, has been made a judge, and there's to be a keen contest.

"Trevor, I see, is named as the Tory candidate-a clever fellow, I've heard. Do you know about him? He's got on quicker than any man of his years.

"Some say that it's his manner; he's such a good sort, the juries cannot resist him, a man told mea kind heart goes for something even in a lawyer. Would you like to look.

"Very sorry; would you take a drop of brandy? No? The passage was a little rough, and you don't look quite up to the mark."

Then they left him in peace, and he drank his cup to the dregs.

It was for Pedlington he had been working and saving, for a seat meant society and the bench, perhaps. What did it matter now?

She was to come and sit within the cage when he made his first speech, and hear all the remarks.

"Of course it will be a success, for

you do everything well, and your wife will be the proudest woman in London.

"Sir Edward Trevor, MP. I know it's foolish, but it's the foolishness of love, dear, so don't look cross you are everything to me, and no one loves you as I do."

What are they slowing for now? There's no station. Did ever train drag like this one?

If

Off again, thank God. . . she only were conscious, and he could ask her to forgive his selfishness.

Some vision was ever coming up; and now he saw her, kneeling on the floor and packing his portmanteau, the droop of her figure, her thin, white hands.

He was so busy that she did these offices for him-tried to buckle the straps even; but he insisted on doing that. It gave him half an hour longer at the club. What a brute he had been! .

Huddled in a corner of the hansom so that you might have thought he slept, this man was calculating every foot of the way, gloating over a long stretch of open, glistening asphalt, hating unto murder the immovable drivers whose huge vans blocked his passage. If they had known, there was no living man but would have made room for him... but he had not known himself. Only one word to

tell her he knew now.

As the hansom turned into the street he bent forward, straining his eyes to catch the first glimpse of home. Had it been daytime the blinds would have told their tale; now it was the light he watched. Dark on the upper floors; no sick light burning. have mercy

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

. . then the blood came back to his heart with a rush. How could he have forgotten?

Their room was at the back for quietness, and it might still be well. Someone had been watching, for the door was instantly opened, but he could not see the servant's face.

« ПредишнаНапред »