The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations

CHAPTER XVII.

Do not fear: Heaven is as near, By water, as by land.--LONGFELLOW.

The fifth of May was poor Harry's eighteenth birthday, and, as usual, was a holiday. Etheldred privately thought his memory more likely to be respected, if Blanche and Aubrey were employed, than if they were left in idleness; but Mary would have been wretched had the celebration been omitted, and a leisure day was never unwelcome.

Dr. Spencer carried off Blanche and Aubrey for a walk, and Ethel found Mary at her great resort--Harry's cupboard--dusting and arranging his books, and the array of birthday gifts, to which, even to-day, she had not failed to add the marker that had been in hand at Christmas. Ethel entreated her to come down, and Mary promised, and presently appeared, looking so melancholy, that, as a sedative, Ethel set her down to the basket of scraps to find materials for a tippet for some one at Cocksmoor, intending, as soon as Margaret should be dressed, to resign her morning to the others, invite Miss Bracy to the drawing-room, and read aloud.

Gertrude was waiting for her walk, till nurse should have dressed Margaret, and was frisking about the lawn, sometimes looking in at the drawing-room window at her sisters, sometimes chattering to Adams at his work, or laughing to herself and the flowers, in that overflow of mirth, that seemed always bubbling up within her.

She was standing in rapt contemplation of a pear-tree in full blossom, her hands tightly clasped behind the back, for greater safety from the temptation, when, hearing the shrubbery gate open, she turned, expecting to see her papa, but was frightened at the sight of two strangers, and began to run off at full speed.

"Stop! Blanche! Blanche, don't you know me?" The voice was that tone of her brother's, and she stood and looked, but it came from a tall, ruddy youth, in a shabby rough blue coat, followed by a grizzled old seaman. She was too much terrified and perplexed even to run.

"What's the matter! Blanche, it is I! Why, don't you know me-- Harry?"

"Poor brother Harry is drowned," she answered; and, with one bound, he was beside her, and, snatching her up, devoured her with kisses.

"Put me down--put me down, please," was all she could say.

"It is not Blanche! What? the little Daisy, I do believe!"

"Yes, I am Gertrude, but please let me go;" and, at the same time, Adams hurried up, as if he thought her being kidnapped, but his aspect changed at the glad cry, "Ha! Adams' how are you? Are they all well?"

"'Tisn't never Master Harry! Bless me!" as Harry's hand gave him sensible proof; "when we had given you up for lost!"

"My father well?" Harry asked, hurrying the words one over the other.

"Quite well, sir, but he never held up his head since he heard it, and poor Miss Mary has so moped about. If ever I thought to see the like--"

"So they did not get my letter, but I can't stop. Jennings will tell you. Take care of him. Come, Daisy--" for he had kept her unwilling hand all the time. "But what's that for?" pointing to the black ribbons, and, stopping short, startled.

"Because of poor Harry," said the bewildered child.

"Oh, that's right!" cried he, striding on, and dragging her in a breathless run, as he threw open the well-known doors; and, she escaping from him, hid her face in Mary's lap, screaming, "He says he is Harry! he says he is not drowned!"

At the same moment Ethel was in his arms, and his voice was sobbing, "Ethel! Mary! home! Where's papa?" One moment's almost agonising joy in the certainty of his identity! but ere she could look or think, he was crying, "Mary! oh, Ethel, see--"

Mary had not moved, but sat as if turned to stone, with breath suspended, wide-stretched eyes, and death-like cheeks--Ethel sprang to her, "Mary, Mary dear, it is Harry! It is himself! Don't you see? Speak to her, Harry."

He seemed almost afraid to do so, but, recovering himself, exclaimed, "Mary, dear old Polly, here I am! Oh, won't you speak to me?" he added piteously, as he threw his arm round her and kissed her, startled at the cold touch of her cheek.

The spell seemed broken, and, with a wild hoarse shriek that rang through the house, she struggled to regain her breath, but it would only come in painful, audible catches, as she held Harry's hand convulsively.

"What have I done?" he exclaimed, in distress.

"What's this! Who is this frightening my dear?" was old nurse's exclamation, as she and James came at the outcry.

"Oh, nurse, what have I done to her?" repeated Harry.

"It is joy--it is sudden joy!" said Ethel. "See, she is better now--"

"Master Harry! Well, I never!" and James, "with one wring of the hand, retreated, while old nurse was nearly hugged to death, declaring all the time that he didn't ought to have come in such a way, terrifying every one out of their senses! and as for poor Miss May--

"Where is she? " cried Harry, starting at the sight of the vacant sofa.

"Only upstairs," said Ethel; "but where's Alan? Is not he come?"

"Oh, Ethel, don't you know?" His face told but too plainly.

"Nurse! nurse, how shall we tell her?" said Ethel.

"Poor dear!" exclaimed nurse, sounding her tongue on the roof of her mouth. "She'll never abear it without her papa. Wait for him, I should say. But bless me, Miss Mary, to see you go on like that, when Master Harry is come back such a bonny man!"

"I'm better now," said Mary, with an effort. "Oh, Harry! speak to me again."

"But Margaret!" said Ethel, while the brother was holding Mary in his embrace, and she lay tremulous with the new ecstasy upon his breast-- "but Margaret. Nurse, you must go up, or she will suspect. I'll come when I can; speak quietly. Oh! poor Margaret! If Richard would but come in!"

Ethel walked up and down the room, divided between a tumult of joy, grief, dread, and perplexity. At that moment a little voice said at the door, "Please, Margaret wants Harry to come up directly."

They looked one upon another in consternation. They had never thought of the child, who, of course, had flown up at once with the tidings.

"Go up, Miss Ethel," said nurse.

"Oh! nurse, I can't be the first. Come, Harry, come."

Hand-in-hand, they silently ascended the stairs, and Ethel pushed open the door. Margaret was on her couch, her whole form and face in one throb of expectation.

She looked into Harry's face--the eagerness flitted like sunshine on the hillside, before a cloud, and, without a word, she held out her arms.

He threw himself on his knees, and her fingers were clasped among his thick curls, while his frame heaved with suppressed sobs, "Oh, if he could only have come back to you."

"Thank God," she said; then slightly pushing him back, she lay holding his hand in one of hers, and resting the other on his shoulder, and gazing in silence into his face. Each was still--she was gathering strength--he dreaded word or look.

"Tell me how and where;" she said at last.

"It was in the Loyalty Isles; it was fever--the exertions for us. His head was lying here," and he pointed to his own breast. "He sent his love to you--he bade me tell you there would be meeting by and by, in the haven where he would be. --I laid his head in the grave-- under the great palm--I said some of the prayers--there are Christians round it."

He said this in short disconnected phrases, often pausing to gather voice, but forced to resume, by her inquiring looks and pressure of his hand.

She asked no more. "Kiss me," she said, and when he had done so, "Thank you, go down, please, all of you. You have brought great relief. Thank you. But I can't talk yet. You shall tell me the rest by and by."

She sent them all away, even Ethel, who would have lingered.

"Go to him, dearest. Let me be alone. Don't be uneasy. This is peace--but go."

Ethel found Mary and Harry interlaced into one moving figure, and Harry greedily asking for his father and Norman, as if famishing for the sight of them. He wanted to set out to seek the former in the town, but his movements were too uncertain, and the girls clung to the newly-found, as if they could not trust him away from them. They wandered about, speaking, all three at random, without power of attending to the answers. It was enough to see him, and touch him; they could not yet care where he had been.

Dr. May was in the midst of them ere they were aware. One look, and he flung his arms round his son, but, suddenly letting him go, he hurst away, and banged his study door. Harry would have followed.

"No, don't," said Ethel; then, seeing him disappointed, she came nearer, and murmured, "'He entered into his chamber and--'"

Harry silenced her with another embrace, but their father was with them again, to verify that he had really seen his boy, and ask, alas! whether Alan were with Margaret. The brief sad answer sent him to see how it was with her. She would not let him stay; she said it was infinite comfort, and joy was coming, but she would rather be still, and not come down till evening.

Perhaps others would fain have been still, could they have borne an instant's deprivation of the sight of their dear sailor, while greetings came thickly on him. The children burst in, having heard a report in the town, and Dr. Spencer waited at the door for the confirmation; but when Ethel would have flown out to him, he waved his hand, shut the door, and hurried away, as if a word to her would have been an intrusion.

The brothers had been summoned by a headlong apparition of Will Adams in Cocksmoor school, shouting that Master Harry was come home; and Norman's long legs out-speeding Richard, had brought him back, flushed, and too happy for one word, while, "Well, Harry," was Richard's utmost, and his care for Margaret seemed to overpower everything else, as he went up, and was not so soon sent away.

Words were few downstairs. Blanche and Aubrey agreed that they thought people would have been much happier, but, in fact, the joy was oppressive from very newness. Ethel roamed about, she could not sit still without feeling giddy, in the strangeness of the revulsion. Her father sat, as if a word would break the blest illusion; and Harry stood before each of them in turn, as if about to speak, but turned his address into a sudden caress, or blow on the shoulder, and tried to laugh. Little Gertrude, not understanding; the confusion, had taken up her station under the table, and peeped out from beneath the cover.

There was more composure as they sat at dinner, and yet there was very little talking or eating. Afterwards Dr. May and Norman exultingly walked away, to show their Harry to Dr. Spencer and Mr. Wilmot; and Ethel would gladly have tried to calm herself, and recover the balance of her mind, by giving thanks where they were due; but she did not know what to do with her sisters. Blanche was wild, and Mary still in so shaky a state of excitement, that she went off into mad laughing, when Blanche discovered that they were in mourning for Harry.

Nothing would satisfy Blanche but breaking in on Margaret, and climbing to the top of the great wardrobe to disinter the coloured raiment, beseeching that each favourite might be at once put on, to do honour to Harry. Mary chimed in with her, in begging for the wedding merinos--would not Margaret wear her beautiful blue?

"No, my dear, I cannot," said Margaret gently.

Mary looked at her and was again in a flood of tears, incoherently protesting, together with Ethel, that they would not change.

"No, dears," said Margaret. "I had rather you did so. You must not be unkind to Harry. He will not think I do not welcome him. I am only too glad that Richard would not let my impatience take away my right to wear this."

Ethel knew that it was for life.

Mary could not check her tears, and would go on making heroic protests against leaving off her black, sobbing the more at each. Margaret's gentle caresses seemed to make her worse, and Ethel, afraid that Margaret's own composure would be overthrown, exclaimed, "How can you be so silly? Come away!" and rather roughly pulled her out of the room, when she collapsed entirely at the top of the stairs, and sat crying helplessly.

"I can't think what's the use of Harry's coming home," Gertrude was heard saying to Richard. "It is very disagreeable;" whereat Mary relapsed into a giggle, and Ethel felt frantic.

"Richard! Richard! what is to be done with Mary? She can't help it, I believe, but this is not the way to treat the mercy that--"

"Mary had better go and lie down in her own room," said Richard, tenderly and gravely.

"Oh, please! please!" began Mary, "I shall not see him when he comes back!"

"If you can't behave properly when he does come," said Richard, "there is no use in being there."

"Remember, Ritchie," said Ethel, thinking him severe, "she has not been well this long time."

Mary began to plead, but, with his own pretty persuasive manner, he took her by the hand, and drew her into his room; and when he came down, after an interval, it was to check Blanche, who would have gone up to interrupt her with queries about the perpetual blue merino. He sat down with Blanche on the staircase window-seat, and did not let her go till he had gently talked her out of flighty spirits into the soberness of thankfulness.

Ethel, meanwhile, had still done nothing but stray about, long for loneliness, find herself too unsteady to finish her letters to Flora and Tom; and, while she tried to make Gertrude think Harry a pleasant acquisition, she hated her own wild heart, that could not rejoice, nor give thanks, aright.

By and by Mary came down, with her bonnet on, quite quiet now. "I am going to church with Ritchie," she said. Ethel caught at the notion, and it spread through the house. Dr May, who just then came in with his two sons, looked at Harry, saying, "What do you think of it? Shall we go, my boy?" And Harry, as soon as he understood, declared that he should like nothing better. It seemed what they all needed, even Aubrey and Gertrude begged to come, and, when the solemn old minster was above their heads, and the hallowed stillness around them, the tightened sense of half-realised joy began to find relief in the chant of glory. The voices of the sanctuary, ever uplifting notes of praise, seemed to gather together and soften their emotions; and agitation was soothed away, and all that was oppressive and tumultuous gave place to sweet peace and thankfulness. Ethel dimly remembered the like sense of relief, when her mother had hushed her wild ecstasy, while sympathising with her joy. Richard could not trust his voice, but Mr. Wilmot offered the special thanksgiving.

Harry was, indeed, "at home," and his tears fell fast over his book, as he heard his father's "Amen," so fervent and so deep; and he gazed up and around, with fond and earnest looks, as thoughts and resolutions, formed there of old, came gathering thick upon him. And there little Gertrude seemed first to accept him. She whispered to her papa, as they stood up to go away, that it was very good in God Almighty to have sent Harry home; and, as they left the cloister, she slipped into Harry's hand a daisy from the grave, such a gift as she had never carried to any one else, save her father and Margaret, and she shrank no longer from being lifted up in his arms, and carried home through the twilight street.

He hurried into the drawing-room, and was heard declaring that all was right, for Margaret was on the sofa; but he stopped short, grieved at her altered looks. She smiled as he stooped to kiss her, and then made him stand erect, and measure himself against Norman, whose height he had almost reached. The little curly midshipman had come back, as nurse said, "a fine-growed young man," his rosy cheeks, brown and ruddy, and his countenance--

"You are much more like papa and Norman than I thought you would be," said Margaret.

"He has left his snub nose and yellow locks behind," said his father; "though the shaggy mane seems to remain. I believe lions grow darker with age. So there stand June and July together again!"

Dr. May walked backwards to look at them. It was good to see his face.

"I shall see Flora and Tom to-morrow!" said Harry, after nodding with satisfaction, as they all took their wonted places.

"Going!" exclaimed Richard.

"Why, don't you know?" said Ethel; "it is current in the nursery that he is going to be tried by court-martial for living with the King of the Cannibal Islands."

"Aubrey says he had a desert island, with Jennings for his man Friday," said Blanche.

"Harry," said little Gertrude, who had established herself on his knee, "did you really poke out the giant's eye with the top of a fir- tree?"

"Who told you so, Daisy?" was the general cry; but she became shy, and would not answer more than by a whisper about Aubrey, who indignantly declared that he never said so, only Gertrude was so foolish that she did not know Harry from Ulysses.

"After all," said Ethel, "I don't think our notions are much more defined. Papa and Norman may know more, but we have heard almost nothing. I have been waiting to hear more to close up my letters to Flora and Tom. What a shame that has not been done!"

"I'll finish," said Mary, running to the side-table.

"And tell her I'll be there to-morrow," said Harry. "I must report myself; and what fun to see Flora a member of Parliament! Come with me, June; I'll be back next day. I wish you all would come."

"Yes, I must come with you," said Norman. "I shall have to go to Oxford on Thursday;" and very reluctant he looked. "Tell Flora I am coming, Mary."

"How did you know that Flora was a married lady?" asked Blanche, in her would-be grown-up manner.

"I heard that from Aunt Flora. A famous lot of news I picked up there!"

"Aunt Flora!"

"Did you not know he had been at Auckland?" said Dr. May. "Aunt Flora had to nurse him well after all he had undergone. Did you not think her very like mamma, Harry?"

"Mamma never looked half so old!" cried Harry indignantly.

"Flora was five years younger!"

"She has got her voice and way with her," said Harry; "but you will soon see. She is coming home soon."

There was a great outcry of delight.

"Yes, there is some money of Uncle Arnott's that must be looked after, but he does not like the voyage, and can't leave his office, so perhaps Aunt Flora may come alone. She had a great mind to come with me, but there was no good berth for her in this schooner, and I could not wait for another chance. I can't think what possessed the letters not to come! She would not write by the first packet, because I was so ill, but we both wrote by the next, and I made sure you had them, or I would have written before I came."

The words were not out of his mouth before the second post was brought in, and there were two letters from New Zealand! What would they not have been yesterday? Harry would have burned his own, but the long closely-written sheets were eagerly seized, as, affording the best hope of understanding his adventures, as it had been written at intervals from Auckland, and the papers, passing from one to the other, formed the text for interrogations on further details, though much more was gleaned incidentally in tete-a-tetes, by Margaret, Norman, or his father, and no one person ever heard the whole connectedly from Harry himself.

"What was the first you knew of the fire, Harry?" asked Dr. May, looking up from the letter.

"Owen shaking me awake; and I thought it was a hoax," said Harry. "But it was true enough, and when we got on deck, there were clouds of smoke coming up the main hatch-way."

Margaret's eyes were upon him, and her lips formed the question, "And he?"

"He met us, and told us to be steady--but there was little need for that! Every man there was as cool and collected as if it had been no more than the cook's stove--and we should have scorned to be otherwise! He put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'Keep by me,' and I did."

"Then there was never much hope of extinguishing the fire?"

"No; if you looked down below the forecastle it was like a furnace, and though the pumps were at work, it was only to gain time while the boats were lowered. The first lieutenant told off the men, and they went down the side without one word, only shaking hands with those that were left."

"Oh, Harry! what were you thinking of?" cried Blanche.

"Of the powder," said Harry.

Ethel thought there was more in that answer than met the ear, and that Harry, at least, had thought of the powder to-night at church.

"Mr. Ernescliffe had the command of the second cutter. He asked to take me with him; I was glad enough; and Owen--he is mate, you know-- went with us."

As to telling how he felt when he saw the good ship Alcestis blown to fragments, that was past Harry, and all but Blanche were wise enough not to ask. She had by way of answer, "Very glad to be safe out of her."

Nor was Harry willing to dwell on the subsequent days, when the unclouded sun had been a cruel foe; and the insufficient stores of food and water did, indeed, sustain life, but a life of extreme suffering. What he told was of the kindness that strove to save him, as the youngest, from all that could be spared him. "If I dropped asleep at the bottom of the boat, I was sure to find some one shading me from the sun. If there was an extra drop of water, they wanted me to have it."

"Tell me their names, Harry!" cried Dr. May. "If ever I meet one of them--"

"But the storm, Harry, the storm?" asked Blanche. "Was that not terrible?"

"Very comfortable at first, Blanche," was the answer. "Oh, that rain!"

"But when it grew so very bad?"

"We did not reck much what happened to us," said Harry. "It could not be worse than starving. When we missed the others in the morning, most of us thought them the best off."

Mary could not help coming round to kiss him, as if eyes alone were not enough to satisfy her that here he was.

Dr. May shuddered, and went on reading, and Margaret drew Harry down to her, and once more by looks craved for more minute tidings.

"All that you can think," murmured Harry; "the very life and soul of us all--so kind, and yet discipline as perfect as on board. But don't now, Margaret--"

The tone of the don't, the reddening cheek, liquid eye, and heaving chest, told enough of what the lieutenant had been to one, at least, of the desolate boat's crew.

"Oh, Harry, Harry! I can't bear it!" exclaimed Mary. "How long did it last? How did it end?"

"Fifteen days," said Harry. "It was time it should end, for all the water we had caught in the storm was gone--we gave the last drop to Jones, for we thought him dying; one's tongue was like a dry sponge."

"How did it end?" repeated Mary, in an agony.

"Jennings saw a sail. We thought it all a fancy of weakness, but 'twas true enough, and they saw our signal of distress!"

The vessel proved to be an American whaler, which had just parted with her cargo to a homeward bound ship, and was going to refit, and take in provisions and water at one of the Milanesian islands, before returning for further captures. The master was a man of the shrewd, hard money-making cast; but, at the price of Mr. Ernescliffe's chronometer, and of the services of the sailors, he undertook to convey them where they might fall in with packets bound for Australia.

The distressed Alcestes at first thought themselves in paradise, but the vessel, built with no view, save to whales, and, with a considerable reminiscence of the blubber lately parted with, proved no wholesome abode, when overcrowded, and in the tropics! Mr. Ernescliffe's science, resolution, and constancy, had saved his men so far; but with the need for exertion his powers gave way, and he fell a prey to a return of the fever which had been his introduction to Dr. May.

"There he was," said Harry, "laid up in a little bit of a stifling cabin, just like an oven, without the possibility of a breath of air! The skin-flint skipper carried no medicine; the water--shocking stuff it was--was getting so low, that there was only a pint a day served out to each, and though all of us Alcestes clubbed every drop we could spare for him--it was bad work! Owen and I never were more glad in our lives than when we heard we were to cast anchor at the Loyalty Isles! Such a place as it was! You little know what it was to see anything green! And there was this isle fringed down close to the sea with cocoa-nut trees! And the bay as clear!--you could see every shell, and wonderful fishes swimming in it! Well, every one was for going ashore, and some of the natives swam out to us, and brought things in their canoes, but not many; it is not encouraged by the mission, nor by David--for those Yankee traders are not the most edifying society--and the crew vowed they were cannibals, and had eaten a man three years ago, so they all went ashore armed."

"You stayed with him," said Margaret.

"Ay, it was my turn, and I was glad enough to have some fresh fruit and water for him, but he could not take any notice of it. Did not I want you, papa? Well, by and by, Owen came back, in a perfect rapture with the place and the people, and said it was the only hope for Mr. Ernescliffe, to take him on shore--"

"Then you did really go amongst the cannibals!" exclaimed Blanche.

"That is all nonsense," said Harry. "Some of them may once have been, and I fancy the heathens might not mind a bit of 'long pig' still; but these have been converted by the Samoans."

The Samoans, it was further explained, are the inhabitants of the Navigator Islands, who, having been converted by the Church Missionary Society, have sent out great numbers of most active and admirable teachers among the scattered islands, braving martyrdom and disease, never shrinking from their work, and, by teaching and example, preparing the way for fuller doctrine than they can yet impart. A station of these devoted men had for some years been settled in this island, and had since been visited by the missions of Newcastle and New Zealand. The young chief, whom Harry called David, and another youth, had spent two summers under instruction at New Zealand, and had been baptised. They were spending the colder part of the year at home, and hoped shortly to be called for by the mission-ship to return, and resume their course of instruction.

Owen had come to an understanding with the chief and the Samoans, and had decided on landing his lieutenant, and it was accordingly done, with very little consciousness on the patient's part. Black figures, with woolly mop-heads, and sometimes decorated with whitewash of lime, crowded round to assist in the transport of the sick man through the surf; and David himself, in a white European garb, met his guests, with dignified manners that would have suited a prince of any land, and conducted them through the grove of palms, interspersed with white huts, to a beautiful house consisting of a central room, with many others opening from it, floored with white coral lime, and lined with soft shining mats of Samoan manufacture. This, Harry learned, had been erected by them in hopes of an English missionary taking up his abode amongst them.

They were a kindly people, and had shown hospitality to other Englishmen, who had less appreciated it than these young officers could. They lavished every kindness in their power upon them, and Mr. Ernescliffe, at first, revived so much, that he seemed likely to recover.

But the ship had completed her repairs, and was ready to sail. The two midshipmen thought it would be certain death to their lieutenant to bring him back to such an atmosphere; "and so," continued Harry's letter to his father, "I thought there was nothing for it but for me to stay with him, and that you would say so. I got Owen to consent, after some trouble, as we were sure to be fetched off one time or another. We said not a word to Mr. Ernescliffe, for he was only sensible now and then, so that Owen had the command. Owen made the skipper leave me a pistol and some powder, but I was ashamed David should know it, and stowed it away. As to the quarter-master, old Jennings, whose boy you remember we picked up at the Roman camp, he had not forgotten that, and when we were shaking hands and wishing good-bye, he leaped up, and vowed 'he would never leave the young gentleman that had befriended his boy, to be eaten up by them black savage niggers. If they made roast-pork of Mr. May, he would be eaten first, though he reckoned they would find him a tougher morsel.' I don't think Owen was sorry he volunteered, and no words can tell what a blessing the good old fellow was to us both.

"So there we stayed, and, at first, Mr. Ernescliffe seemed mending. The delirium went off, he could talk quite clearly and comfortably, and he used to lie listening, when David and I had our odd sort of talks. I believe, if you had been there, or we could have strenthened him any way, he might have got over it; but he never thought he should, and he used to talk to me about all of you, and said Stoneborough had been the most blessed spot in his life; he had never had so much of a home, and that sharing our grief, and knowing you, had done him great good, just when he might have been getting elated. I cannot recollect it all, though I tried hard, for Margaret's sake, but he said Hector would have a great deal of temptation, and he hoped you would be a father to him, and Norman an elder brother. You would not think how much he talked of Cocksmoor, about a church being built there, as Ethel wished, and little Daisy laying the first stone. I remember one night, I don't know whether he was quite himself, for he looked full at me with his eyes, that had grown so large, till I did not know what was coming, and he said, 'I have seen a ship built by a sailor's vow; the roof was like the timbers of a ship--that was right. Mind, it is so. That is the ship that bears through the waves; there is the anchor that enters within the veil.' I believe that was what he said. I could not forget that--he looked at me so; but much more he said, that I dimly remember, and chiefly about poor dear Margaret. He bade me tell her- -his own precious pearl, as he used to call her--that he was quite content, and believed it was best for her and him both, that all should be thus settled, for they did not part for ever, and he trusted-- But I can't write all that." (There was a great tear-blot just here). "It is too good to recollect anywhere but at church. I have been there to-day, with my uncle and aunt, and I thought I could have told it when I came home, but I was too tired to write then, and now I don't seem as if it could be written anyhow. When I come home, I will try to tell Margaret. The most part was about her; only what was better seemed to swallow that up."

The narrative broke off here, but had been subsequently resumed.

"For all Mr. Ernescliffe talked as I told you, he was so quiet and happy, that I made sure he was getting well, but Jennings did not; and there came an old heathen native once to see us, who asked why we did not bury him alive, because he got no better, and gave trouble. At last, one night--it was the third of August--he was very restless, and could not breathe, nor lie easily; I lifted him up in my arms, for he was very light and thin, and tried to make him more comfortable. But presently he said, 'Is it you, Harry? God bless you;' and, in a minute, I knew he was dead. You will tell Margaret all about it. I don't think she can love him more than I did; and she did not half know him, for she never saw him on board, nor in all that dreadful time, nor in his illness. She will never know what she has lost."

There was another break here, and the story was continued.

"We buried him the next day, where one could see the sea, close under the great palm, where David hopes to have a church one of these days. David helped us, and said the Lord's Prayer and the Glory with us there. I little thought, when I used to grumble at my two verses of the psalms every day, when I should want the ninetieth, or how glad I should be to know so many by heart, for they were such a comfort to Mr. Ernescliffe.

"David got us a nice bit of wood, and Jennings carved the cross, and his name, and all about him. I should have liked to have done it, but I knocked up after that. Jennings thinks I had a sun-stroke. I don't know, but my head was so bad, whenever I moved, that I thought only Jennings would ever have come to tell you about it. Jennings looked after me as if I had been his own son; and there was David too, as kind as if he had been Richard himself--always sitting by, to bathe my forehead, or, when I was a little better, to talk to me, and ask me questions about his Christian teaching. You must not think of him like a savage, for he is my friend, and a far more perfect gentleman than I ever saw any one, but you, papa, holding the command over his people so easily and courteously, and then coming to me with little easy first questions about the Belief, and such things, like what we used to ask mamma. He liked nothing so well as for me to tell him about King David; and we had learned a good deal of each other's languages by that time. The notion of his heart--like Cocksmoor to Ethel--is to get a real English mission, and have all his people Christians. Ethel talked of good kings being Davids to their line; I think that is what he will be, if he lives; but those islanders have been dying off since Europeans came among them."

But Harry's letter could not tell what he confessed, one night, to his father, the next time he was out with him by starlight, how desolate he had been, and how he had yearned after his home, and, one evening, he had been utterly overcome by illness and loneliness, and had cried most bitterly and uncontrollably; and, though Jennings thought it was for his friend's death, it really was homesickness, and the thought of his father and Mary. Jennings had helped him out to the entrance of the hut, that the cool night air might refresh his burning brow. Orion shone clear and bright, and brought back the night when they had chosen the starry hunter as his friend. "It seemed," he said, "as if you all were looking at me, and smiling to me in the stars. And there was the Southern Cross upright, which was like the minster to me; and I recollected it was Sunday morning at home, and knew you would be thinking about me. I was so glad you had let me be confirmed, and be with you that last Sunday, papa, for it seemed to join me on so much the more; and when I thought of the words in church, they seemed, somehow, to float on me so much more than ever before, and it was like the minster, and your voice. I should not have minded dying so much after that."

At last, Harry's Black Prince had hurried into the hut with the tidings that his English father's ship was in the bay, and soon English voices again sounded in his ears, bringing the forlorn boy such warmth of kindness that he could hardly believe himself a mere stranger. If Alan could but have shared the joy with him!

He was carried down to the boat in the cool of the evening, and paused on the way, for a last farewell to the lonely grave under the palm tree-one of the many sailors' graves scattered from the tropics to the poles, and which might be the first seed in a "God's acre" to that island, becoming what the graves of holy men of old are to us.

A short space more of kind care from his new friends and his Christian chief, and Harry awoke from a feverish doze at sounds that seemed so like a dream of home, that he was unwilling to break them by rousing himself; but they approved themselves as real, and he found himself in the embrace of his mother's sister.

And here Mrs. Arnott's story began, of the note that reached her in the early morning with tidings that her nephew had been picked up by the mission-ship, and how she and her husband had hastened at once on board.

"They sent me below to see a hero," she wrote. "What I saw was a scarecrow sort of likeness of you, dear Richard; but, when he opened his eyes, there was our Maggie smiling at me. I suppose he would not forgive me for telling how he sobbed and cried, when he had his arms round my neck, and his poor aching head on my shoulder. Poor fellow, he was very weak, and I believe he felt, for the moment, as if he had found his mother.

"We brought him home with us, but when the next mail went, the fever was still so high, that I thought it would be only alarm to you to write, and I had not half a story either, though you may guess how proud I was of my nephew."

Harry's troubles were all over from that time. He had thenceforth to recover under his aunt's motherly care, while talking endlessly over the home that she loved almost as well as he did. He was well more quickly than she had ventured to hope, and nothing could check his impatience to reach his home, not even the hopes of having his aunt for a companion. The very happiness he enjoyed with her only made him long the more ardently to be with his own family; and he had taken his leave of her, and of his dear David, and sailed by the first packet leaving Auckland.

"I never knew what the old Great Bear was to me till I saw him again!" said Harry.

It was late when the elders had finished all that was to be heard at present, and the clock reminded them that they must part.

"And you go to-morrow?" sighed Margaret.

"I must. Jennings has to go on to Portsmouth, and see after his son."

"Oh, let me see Jennings!" exclaimed Margaret. "May I not, papa?"

Richard, who had been making friends with Jennings, whenever he had not been needed by his sisters that afternoon, went to fetch him from the kitchen, where all the servants, and all their particular friends, were listening to the yarn that made them hold their heads higher, as belonging to Master Harry.

Harry stepped forward, met Jennings, and said, aside, "My sister, Jennings; my sister that you have heard of."

Dr. May had already seen the sailor, but he could not help addressing him again. "Come in; come in, and see my boy among us all. Without you, we never should have had him."

"Make him come to me," said Margaret breathlessly, as the embarrassed sailor stood, sleeking down his hair; and, when he had advanced to her couch, she looked up in his face, and put her hand into his great brown one.

"I could not help saying thank you," she said.

"Mr. May, sir!" cried Jennings, almost crying, and looking round for Harry, as a sort of protector--"tell them, sir, please, it was only my duty--I could not do no less, and you knows it, sir," as if Harry had been making an accusation against him.

"We know you could not," said Margaret, "and that is what we would thank you for, if we could. I know he--Mr. Ernescliffe--must have been much more at rest for leaving my brother with so kind a friend, and--"

"Please, miss, don't say no more about it. Mr. Ernescliffe was as fine an officer as ever stepped a quarter-deck, and Mr. May here won't fall short of him; and was I to be after leaving the like of them to the mercy of the black fellows--that was not so bad neither? If it had only pleased God that we had brought them both back to you, miss; but, you see, a man can't be everything at once, and Mr. Ernescliffe was not so stout as his heart."

"You did everything, we know--" began Dr. May.

"'Twas a real pleasure," said Jennings hastily, "for two such real gentlemen as they was. Mr. May, sir, I beg your pardon if I say it to your face, never flinched, nor spoke a word of complaint, through it all; and, as to the other--"

"Margaret cannot bear this," said Richard, coming near. "It is too much."

The sailor shook his head, and was retreating, but Margaret signed him to come near again, and grasped his hand. Harry followed him out of the room, to arrange their journey, and presently returned.

"He says he is glad he has seen Margaret; he says she is the right sort of stuff for Mr. Ernescliffe."

Harry had not intended Margaret to hear, but she caught the words, smiled radiantly, and whispered, "I wish I may be!"