OLD CONTRAIRY.
It was at the close of a sultry day in June, that the passenger vessel, ‘Star of the North,’ coasted the island of Martinique on her way to Barbadoes. The sea was calm as a summer lake, and an ominous stillness reigned in the surrounding atmosphere that made the words of a song, trolled out by a free, manly voice from the forecastle, distinctly heard in every part of the vessel,—
‘Wherever you be, by land or sea,Why, set your heart at rest;For you may be sure, come kill or cureWhatever is, is best!’
‘Wherever you be, by land or sea,Why, set your heart at rest;For you may be sure, come kill or cureWhatever is, is best!’
‘Wherever you be, by land or sea,Why, set your heart at rest;For you may be sure, come kill or cureWhatever is, is best!’
‘Wherever you be, by land or sea,
Why, set your heart at rest;
For you may be sure, come kill or cure
Whatever is, is best!’
‘Don’t believe it,’ grumbled an old seaman, who was seated on a coil of ropemending a sail. ‘I wish I’d had the ordering of my own life, any way. I’d have soon seen if it was best for me to be situated as I am at this here present!’
He was a fine old man, with rugged but well-cut features and muscular limbs. He had a clear blue eye, and silvery locks that showed he had been a handsome fellow in his day; but something or other had put him out of love with life, and his habitual mood was one of discontent. A passenger, who was pacing the quarter-deck, with a thoughtful countenance, turned at the old sailor’s words and confronted the speaker.
‘Don’t you believe in a Providence that overrules all our actions, Williams?’ he demanded abruptly.
‘Oh yes, Mr Egerton, I believe in Providence fast enough; but when I see want and misery and injustice on every side of me, I cannot help thinking as our actions might be ruled a little straighter for us.’
‘We are all apt to think the same, but that is because we cannot see the end of the beginning. Perhaps, too, you have never prayed that Providence might extend its fostering care over you?’
‘You’re mistaken, sir. No man ever prayed more than I used to do. I was areg’lar conwarted Christian at one time; and a morial example, but ’twarn’t no manner of use. No one never heard nor answered my prayers, and so I left off a saying ’em, and I don’t see as my troubles are a bit the wuss for it, neither. Everybody seems to get much of a muchness in this world, let ’em wear out their marrer bones or not.’
He re-applied himself to the patching of his sail, and the young man who had addressed him looked over the dark blue waters and sighed. He, too, had prayed for some weeks past that a certain blessing on which he had set his heart might be granted him, and his prayers had been returned upon his hands, as it were, unanswered. He was a very sad and disappointed man that evening, but his faith in Heaven was not one whit shaken by the trouble that had overtaken him. Even the clear, ringing laughter of Miss Herbert, as she sat on the poop and responded to thebadinageand compliments of the group of gentlemen by which she was surrounded, although it made Egerton’s brave heart quiver with pain, had not the power to cause it to despair.
‘Williams,’ he said, after a pause, ‘you are altogether wrong. Prayer may notbe answered at once, nor in the manner we anticipate, but it is always heard, and what that song says is true,—“Whateveris, is best.” It must be.’
But Williams still looked dubious.
‘It’s all very well for them, sir, as is rich and young, and got all their life before ’em, to think so. I dare say everything do seem best to them; but let ’em be sick and sorry and old, and obliged to work hard for their living, and I warrant they’d sing to a different sort of tune.’
‘Are you sick, Williams?’
‘Pretty middlin’, sir. I’ve done a deal of hard work in my time, and I has the rhoomatics that bad in my hands sometimes as makes every stitch I put a trouble to me.’
‘Are you sorry?’
‘Well, I’ve had my share of that lot, Mr Egerton; but as I’ve told you already, ’twas nothin’ to nobody what I suffered nor what I felt, and so I’ve larned to hold my tongue upon the matter.’
Richard Egerton looked at the old sailor’s rugged face, down which time or trouble had made many a furrow, and his heart went out to this fellow-creature, who had sorrowed perhaps as much as he was doing himself, and had no outward alleviation for the world’s injustice.
‘Did you ever watch two people play a game of chess, Williams?’ he asked, presently.
‘Do you mean them little figures as they move about on a black-and-white board, same as we use for draughts, sir?’
‘I do.’
‘Oh yes! I’ve watched the passengers playing that game many a time.’
‘Didn’t it puzzle you at first to understand why the players should sometimes allow their men to be taken from them, or even place them in positions of danger where they could not possibly escape being captured?’
‘Yes, sir!’ cried old Williams, brightening up with intelligence. ‘I remember there was one gentleman that crossed with us last year to Trinidad, and he used to boast that there was no one on board could beat him at that game. And no more there was, and his play was always to let the other sweep near half his men off the board afore he’d begin in arnest at all. Lord! I’ve stood and watched ’em when I was off duty, many and many a time, and been as near as possible a-crying out to him to take care; but he had got the game, sir, at his fingers’ end, and always came off victor, whoever sat down with him.’
‘Just so. That gentleman’s plan musthave seemed inexplicable to anyone who was ignorant of the rules of chess, but those who knew them and watched them to the end, would have understood that he allowed his knights and pawns to be taken only, that he might preserve his queen and his castle, and win the game for them all. Do you follow me?’
‘I think I can, sir, though I don’t know where the dickens you’re a leading me to.’
‘Only to this point—that you must try and think in the same way of the dealings of Providence with men. We cannot tell why one of us is rich and the other poor; why one has blessings in this life and the other nothing but troubles. But God does. We only see the effect; He knows the cause. He is the player of the game, Williams, and does not allow one piece to be taken captive by the enemy, except with a view to final victory.’
‘Well, sir, that’s all very clever argumentation, but it don’t convinceme. It’s sorry work listenin’ to reason for comfort. He’s swept away all my pieces, one arter another—there’s no question about that—and left me alone in the world, and I can’t see the mercy of it nor the justice either,’ replied the old man in a discontented tone.
‘But it is not only to the sick and the old and the poor that He deals out His judgments,’ continued Egerton sadly. ‘We all have our troubles, in whatever position we may be placed.’
At this moment the man up on the forecastle shouted again at the top of his voice, ‘Whatever is, is best.’
‘I wish that Ben’s tongue was a little shorter,’ exclaimed Williams hastily. ‘He’s always a bawlin’ out them cheerful songs, as makes a feller feel twice as downhearted as he did afore.’
‘’Twould be all the same to you, “Old Contrairy,” whatever he sung,’ remarked another sailor in passing; ‘for the song ain’t written yet as would giveyouany satisfaction to listen to.’
‘Well, I likes to hear sense, whatever it be,’ shouted “Old Contrairy” after him. ‘Look at that bank of clouds, rolling up from leeward. We shall have a squall before long, as sure as I sits here. However, I suppose that fool Ben would go on shoutin’ “Whatever is, is best,” if the “Star of the North” was split into fifty pieces, and he was just goin’ under water with his mouth choke full of weed.’
‘Heaven forbid!’ exclaimed Egerton, as he turned away to seek his cabin. Hisconversation with the old seaman had had the effect of increasing his depression, and he felt as if he could not trust himself to argue with him any longer. He would have much preferred on this sultry evening to take up his usual quarters on the poop, where the rest of the passengers were assembled; but he had not the courage to go there. So the poor young fellow left the deck, and, entering his cabin threw himself down upon the sofa, which served him for a bedstead, and abandoned himself to the luxury of grief. He was altogether too young and too good-looking to feel so utterly bereft of hope. His bright brown curls covered a brow which was full of intellect, and bore upon its broad expanse the best sign of an honourable man—the impress of frankness and truth. His deep blue eyes, now so dull and troubled with disappointment, were generally bright and mirthful, and his athletic limbs, although but the growth of four-and-twenty years, gave promise of an unusual acquisition of manly strength and power.
And Richard Egerton had other heritages besides those of youth and beauty. He was the possessor, as the old seaman had intimated, of wealth and influence. He had been adopted in his infancy by a richrelation, who had lately died, leaving him the whole of his fortune and his large estates in Barbadoes, on the condition that he assumed the name of Egerton, instead of that which had been his by birth. But what did all these advantages avail the poor lad to-day?—this day which had dawned so full of hope, and was now about to set upon the heaviest heart he had ever carried in his bosom. And pretty Amy Herbert, whose laughter still reached his ear at times, even where he lay, was the cause of all this trouble. They were not entirely new acquaintances. He had met her in England some months before, and had taken his passage to Barbadoes by the “Star of the North” only because he heard that she was going to travel in it to join her father, who was a civilian of some repute in Trinidad. He had admired her from the first moment of their acquaintance, and the weeks they had spent on board had ripened his admiration into love, and made him hope, as he had had every reason to do, that she was not indifferent to himself. He believed that his position as owner of considerable property in the West Indies would have ensured a favourable reception at the hands of her father, and had approached the subject of marriage with her,if not with the certainty of being met halfway, at least with a modest hope that she could not think him presumptuous. And Amy Herbert had refused his offer—point-blank and without hesitation—unequivocally and decidedly refused it. It had fallen upon him as an unmitigated blow. How lovely she had looked that morning when he found her sitting in her basket-chair in a corner of the poop, shading her sweet, soft eyes from the glaring light with a rose-lined parasol. How confidently he had believed that he should see the long lashes lowered over those beautiful eyes, and the maiden flush of combined shyness and pleasure mount to that delicate cheek, as he poured forth his tale of love to her.
Others had watched the young couple sitting so close together on the poop that morning, and guessed what was going on. Others had seen Richard Egerton bending lower and lower over his pretty fellow-passenger, and gazing into her eyes as though he would read her very soul, as he whispered his hopes to her. The poor young fellow had been very modest over it, but he had made so sure that Amy Herbert’s looks and actions could not have deceived him, that he had almost thanked her beforehand for the answer he expectedto receive. And she had listened to his proposal with well-feigned surprise, and rejected it with ill-advised haste. She had thought in her silly, girlish inexperience that it was more correct and womanly to appear horrified at the first idea of marriage, and she had been almost as despairing as himself as she saw Richard Egerton take her at her word and turn away without a second appeal, to hide his wounded pride below. She was deeply repenting her abrupt dismissal of him as she flirted on the poop with Captain Barrington, who was returning from leave to join his regiment in Barbadoes. But how was poor Egerton to know that, as he cast himself dejectedly upon his narrow berth and lay, face downwards, with his eyes pressed upon the pillow, lest the hot tears that scorched them should overflow and betray his weakness? The sound of her voice tortured him. He believed that she must be in earnest in showing a preference for Captain Barrington, and he was not yet strong enough to watch her fair face smiling on another man. So he delivered himself over to melancholy, and tried hard to believe that he would not have things other than they were.
‘Whatever is, is best,’ he kept on repeatinginwardly. ‘It will not do for me to preach a lesson to another man that I am unable to apply to myself. Besides, it is true. I know it to be so. My whole existence has proved it hitherto.’
Yet the smiling, sunlit pastures and cane fields, to which he was taking his way, and which had seemed so beautiful in prospect when he had hoped to secure fair Amy Herbert to reign over them as mistress, appeared to afford him but dull anticipation now.
‘How shall I ever get through the work?’ he thought, ‘and my heavy heart and sluggish spirit will lay me open to the worst influences of the country. But I will not despair. My wants and my weakness are not unknown, and a way will be found for me even out of this “Slough of Despond.”’
He was suddenly roused from his love-sick reverie by the sound of a low moaning, which seemed to pervade the surrounding atmosphere. Starting up on his couch, Egerton now perceived through the porthole that the sky had become dark, and the noise of the captain of the vessel shouting his orders through a speaking-trumpet, and the sailors rushing about to execute them, made him aware that somethingwas wrong. He was not the man to keep out of the way of danger. Brave as a lion and intrepid as an eagle, Richard Egerton, from a boy, had ever been the foremost in any emergency or danger. Now, as the warning sounds reached his ear, he rushed at once on deck. He remembered ‘Old Contrairy’s’ prophecy of a squall, and his first thoughts were for the comfort and safety of Miss Herbert. But as he issued from the passengers’ saloon a fearful sight awaited him. One of those sudden hurricanes, for which the West Indies are famous, and which will sometimes swamp the stoutest vessel in the course of a few seconds, had arisen, and the whole ship’s company was in confusion. As Egerton sprang upon deck he could distinctly see what appeared to be a black wall of water advancing steadily to meet the unfortunate ‘Star of the North.’ With the exception of the noise consequent on attempting to furl the sails in time to receive the shock of the approaching storm, there was but little tumult upon deck, for everyone seemed paralysed with terror.
At the first alarm, Miss Herbert, with the remainder of the passengers from the poop, had attempted to go below, but, having reached the quarter-deck, wascrouching at the foot of the companion-ladder, too terrified by the violence of the tornado to proceed further. As for Egerton, he had to hold on fast to the bulwarks to prevent himself being washed overboard. His head was bare, and as he stood there, with the wind blowing his curls about in the wildest disorder, and his handsome face knit with anxiety and pain, Amy Herbert looked up and saw him, and registered a vow, in the midst of her alarm, that if they ever came safely out of that fearful storm she would humble her pride before him and confess that she had been in the wrong. The moaning of the tempest increased to a stunning roar, and then the huge wall of water broke upon the ‘Star of the North’ with a violence to which no thunder can bear comparison.
All hands were aghast, and the men were dashed about the deck hither and thither as the wind caught the vessel on her broadside. The awful noise of the hurricane rendered all communication by speech impossible, but the captain, by setting the example, stimulated his men to cut away the masts in order to right the ship, which had been thrown almost on her beam-ends.
In a moment Egerton perceived thedanger to which Amy Herbert would be exposed by the fall of the crashing timber. She was crouching in the most exposed part of the quarter-deck, her lovely eyes raised upwards, full of the wildest fear.
‘There! there! Go there!’ he exclaimed frantically, though his voice had no power to reach her, as he pointed to a more sheltered position under the companion-ladder. ‘Get under there, for Heaven’s sake!’
She saw the warning gesture of his hand, the agony depicted in his face, and understood the meaning of them, just as the huge mast bowed itself towards the sea. Egerton continued his efforts to make her see the necessity of moving, and she was just about to take advantage of the hint, when Captain Barrington crawled on all fours into the place himself. The little man was not too brave by nature, and fear had driven all thoughts of chivalry out of his head. For the moment the girl did not see who had forestalled her intention; she only perceived that she had lost her chance of safety, and waited the event in trembling anxiety. Down came the topmast with a crashing shock that threatened to sink the vessel. Yet Amy Herbert was sheltered from possible injury,for, with a mighty effort, Richard Egerton had quitted his stronghold and flung his body upon the deck before her. For one moment he was conscious—happily conscious—that she was safe, and he had saved her; the next, he had fainted from a blow on the head and the pain of a large splinter of wood that had been broken from the falling mast and driven with violence into his arm. He did not hear the scream with which Amy Herbert viewed the accident, nor see the agonised face which bent above his prostrate form. He heard, and saw, and knew nothing, until he opened his eyes in his own cabin and perceived, with the dazed wonder of returning consciousness, that the old sailor, Williams, and the ship’s doctor, Mr French, were bending over him.
‘You’ll do now,’ remarked the doctor as he held a cordial to his lips.
‘Is she safe?’ was all Richard Egerton said in reply, as he looked at his splintered arm. They thought he meant the ‘Star of the North.’
‘Oh yes, she’s safe enough now, sir,’ replied the old seaman; ‘but we’ve had an awful time of it, and no mistake. We’ve lost our top-gallant mast, and our sparsand hen-coops have been washed overboard, and one of the boats got adrift in the squall, and the poor “Star” is stript of half her toggery.’
‘But are any of the passengers injured?’
‘No one but yourself, sir; but two of our best men went over with the mast, and Ralph White has broke his leg, and there’ll be a tidy little bill for some one to pay when we gets into port again.’
‘And that reminds me, Williams, that I must go and look after poor White,’ said the doctor. ‘I think I may leave my patient in your care now. All you have got to do is to see that he lies there till I come back again.’
‘I’ll look after the gentleman, doctor, never you fear,’ replied the old seaman as Mr French left the cabin.
‘It was an awful hurricane, Williams,’ remarked Egerton, with a sigh of remembrance, as he turned uneasily upon his pillow.
‘You may well say that, sir; and it’s just a miracle as we’re still afloat.’
‘How little we thought, as we talked together on deck an hour or two ago, that death was so close at hand for some of us.’
‘Ay, indeed, and with that smiling, burning, treacherous blue sky above us.You have seen some of the dangers now, sir. I suppose you ain’t going, in the face of this storm, to hold to Bill’s song, that “Whatever is, is best.”’
‘Yes, I am, Williams,’ replied the young man firmly.
‘What! with our tight little ship knocked to pieces in this fashion, and your arm broken in two places?’
‘Just so, Williams. Heaven sent both the storm and the accident. Theymustbe for the best.’
‘Well, I’m blowed!’ exclaimed the old sailor in sheer amazement. The announcement seemed to have taken all the wind out of his sails, and he sat staring at the wounded man as if he had charge of a lunatic.
‘How comes it that you are attending on me?’ asked Egerton, as Williams handed him a glass of water.
‘Well, sir, I seem to have took a fancy to your way of talking; so when they wanted some one here to help the doctor with your arm I offered to come, that’s all.’
‘It was very good of you. You told me this morning that you had had troubles, and prayer had never availed to get you out them. Do you mind telling me what those troubles are?’
‘Not a bit, sir, if I sha’n’t tire you; but it is a long story. I had a sweetheart when I was a young chap—most young chaps have, you know, sir—I daresay you’ve had one yourself before now—and I had a school-mate, too, by name—well! we’ll call him Robert—and we both loved the girl dearly; but he got her, sir, and I had to go to the wall.’
‘That was very unlucky for you.’
‘Well, it was unfortunate, though he courted her above-board, and all was fair enough at the time. But the worst of it was that he turned out a regular bad ’un, and ill-treated his wife shamefully arter he’d married her. When I came home from sea, it used to make my blood reg’lar boil to hear poor Lottie tell how he’d beaten and kicked and starved her, for he’d taken to drink, you see, sir, and all his love had gone like a flash of lightning.’
‘Was he a sailor too?’
‘Yes, sir, and once, when I come off a long voyage to China and Australy, and round home by San Francisco, I heard that Lottie was a widder and in great distress, without hardly a bit of money. Well, I looked her up pretty sharp, as you may guess, and I found it was all true.’
‘And then you married her.’
‘No, I didn’t sir. I’ve never been married. I don’t deny I asked her, but she wouldn’t have me, nor no one. She said it was too late, and she was dyin’, which sure enough she was. But she had a child, sir—little Dickey—such a dear little chap, with blue eyes—just like her own—and pretty yeller curls; and when she died she left him on my hands, and lor’, how fond I was of that little creetur! He took his poor mammy’s place in my heart altogether.’
The old sailor stopped here, and drew his hand across his eyes.
‘Did he die too, Williams?’ inquired Egerton.
‘Not as I knows of, sir. He may be dead or livin’. It’s all the same to me now.Thatwas the time I used to pray, Mr Egerton, night and day, that the little feller I was so proud on might grow up a good man and a good son to me and a comfort to my old age, and when I lost him I chucked up religion altogether.’
‘How did you lose him?’
‘In the crudest of ways, sir. He had grow’d up beside me five years, and I had done everythink for him; and when he’d put his two little arms round my neck and kiss me, and look so like his poor mother—whowas the only sweetheart I ever had, Mr Egerton—I used to thank the Lord, with tears in my eyes, forHisgoodness to me. But it was all a delusion, sir.’
‘Tell me the end of it.’
‘The end of it was that, when my pretty Dickey was a smart little feller of about ten years old, I got him a place as ship-boy aboard the ‘Lady Bird,’ and we sailed for the Brazils together, as proud and ’appy as the days was long. And I was a teachin’ the boy everythink, Mr Egerton, and he was gettin’ that ’cute and handy—when, in an evil moment, that man whom we all thought dead and buried, turned up again somewhere down by Rio Janeiro, and claimed his boy of me.’
‘What! the father?’
‘Yes, sir. Of course he had the right to do it, and that’s what the skipper tried to make me understand; but it broke my heart entirely. He thought he’d make money out of the lad’s wages, and so he took him away from me, who was just like a father to him; and his screams, as we parted, have never left my ears since. And when I heard afterwards that the brute ill-treated Dickey, just as he’d done his poor mammy, I nearly went mad. The men calls me sulky, and “Old Contrairy,” andsich like names; but many’s the time when they think me cross, I’m only dreaming over that time ag’in and cursin’ them as brought me to sich a pitch. I shall never see my pretty Dickey ag’in, sir, till I meets ’im up above; and I shall owe Robert Hudson a grudge to the day of my death for robbin’ me of him in that there cruel manner.’
‘Whodid you say?’ cried Egerton, starting up in his berth.
‘Please to lie down, sir? The doctor will be arter me if I lets you knock about in that manner. The name slipped out unawares, for ’tain’t of no use raking it up ag’in. It has nothin’ to do with my story.’
‘But, pray, tell it me again?’
‘It was Robert Hudson, sir.’
‘But Robert Hudson was the name ofmyfather!’
‘Yourfather, sir! But, beggin’ your pardon, how can that be, when you’re called Egerton?’
‘I know I am; but I took the name from a relation who left me his money on condition that I did so. My real name is Richard Hudson, and I was brought up to the sea and adopted by my mother’s cousin, Henry Egerton, because my father treated me so brutally. He was had up by thepolice for thrashing me till I fainted, and then the magistrates gave me over to the guardianship of Mr Egerton——; and, Williams, can it possibly be?’
‘Sir, sir! don’t keep me in suspense. What was the maiden name of your mother?’
‘Charlotte Erskine, and she was born in Essex.’
‘At Pinfold?’
‘That is the place. My grandfather had the “Peartree Farm” there, and she is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. Mr Egerton used often to take me to see her grave.’
‘Oh, sir! this is very, very wonderful! Is it possible you can be my little Dickey?’
‘It is quite true that I am the son of Robert and Charlotte Hudson, and that if I had not changed my name, we should have recognised each other before now. Do not think I have forgotten you, Williams? I cannot remember the face of my sailor friend; but I have never forgotten all his kindness to me. But surely I used to call you “Caleb” in those days, and have always thought of you by that name since.’
‘True, enough, sir, that’s me—Caleb Williams, and I can hear your sweet littlevoice a-callin’ Caleb from the top of the house to the bottom now; you was never long out of my arms, Mr Egerton. Day and night you was on this bosom, as you may say, and my heart’s been as empty as a dried gourd since I lost sight of you. And so you’re my own boy—leastways, what I used to call my own—and I’ve been a nussin’ you again as I used to nurse you in the olden times. Oh, bless the Lord for all His mercies!’ cried the old seaman, as he fairly broke down, and sobbed with his face in his hands.
They talked for a long time over the past; Richard Egerton being scarcely less affected than old Williams, as, one by one, little incidents and reminiscences came to light to confirm their several identities, and make him see still more clearly how much he owed to the old man who sat beside him.
‘And now, Caleb,’ he said, when the evening shadows had deepened into dusk, ‘this will be your last voyage. I cannot let you work any more. You know that I have riches, and you must share them.’
‘Oh, sir, you are too good!’
‘Don’t call me “sir” again, please. Call me Richard, Caleb, or “Dickey,” or anythingthat pleases your fancy; but the man who acted as a father to me when I had worse than none, shall never address me as though I were his superior. What was it you prayed for me to become, Caleb, in those days when I used to sit on your knee with my little hands clasped about your neck?’
‘A good man and a good son, my dear, dear boy,’ quavered the old seaman.
‘Well, I will try, at all events, to fulfil the last clause. My cousin Egerton, who was a rich tradesman, has left me all his property. I have land and houses in Barbadoes, and I intend to settle there; at least, for the next few years. You must come and live with me. You will find plenty of work on the estate to employ your time, if you wish to work; and if you wish to rest, you shall be idle. My father has been dead in reality for many years past, so that we shall be left alone and in peace this time to end our days together.’
‘And there is no one else, my dear boy?’ inquired Williams anxiously.
‘How do you mean?’
‘You are not married, nor likely to be?’
‘I am not married, nor likely to be. There is no one else,’ repeated Richard Egerton, with a bitter sigh.
‘Don’t sigh like that, sir.’
‘Dickey, please, Caleb.’
‘Dickey, then—my little Dickey, as I loved so hearty. To think I should have found you again arter all these years—grow’d to such a fine man, too—and in that awful storm! It beats everythink I ever heard of.’
‘Whatever is, is best,’ replied Egerton. ‘You won’t grumble again, will you, Caleb, because the answer to your prayer may be delayed a little?’
‘Don’t mention it, my boy. I feels ashamed even to remember it.’
‘You see that even the hurricane has borne its good fruit as well as its evil. Without it we might never have been made known to each other.’
‘It’s bin a marciful interposition of Providence from beginning to end,’ said old Williams, wiping his eyes. ‘But I should like to see you a bit more cheerful, Dickey. There has been a sad look in your face the last four days, which I couldn’t help noticin’, and now that I knows you to be who you are, I sha’n’t rest satisfied till you smiles in the old way again.’
Egerton was just about to answer him, when a gentle knock sounded on the cabindoor, which stood ajar in consequence of the heat.
‘Who’s that?’ demanded the old sailor gruffly.
‘It is only I,’ responded a soft, trembling voice, which Egerton at once recognised as that of Amy Herbert. ‘I came to inquire how Mr Egerton is getting on, and if I can do anything for him.’
‘No, miss, thank ye, you can’t do nothin’; he’s a-goin’ on very nicely, and I’m here,’ responded Williams.
‘May I speak to him for a minute?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Richard eagerly, raising himself to a sitting position.
The young lady pushed open the cabin door and stood on the threshold, blushing like a rose. She looked very beautiful, although her eyes were swollen with crying, and her dress and hair were in disorder.
‘I felt I could not sleep until I had thanked you for what you did for me, Mr Egerton,’ she uttered tearfully. ‘You endangered your own life to save mine, who have done nothing to deserve such a sacrifice on your part.’
‘Ay, that he did!’ interrupted Williams.
‘It is nothing—nothing,’ said Egerton faintly, for the sight of her had upset allhis courage. ‘You could not help it. It is not your fault if—if—’
‘If—what?’ demanded Amy Herbert.
He turned his eyes towards her, and a new hope ran through his veins like a reviving cordial. ‘Caleb, my dear old friend,’ he exclaimed tenderly, ‘leave me for five minutes to myself.’
‘What! all alone with the lady?’ returned Caleb, regarding Miss Herbert as though she were a dangerous animal.
‘Yes, for one moment only. I have something to say for her ear alone.’
He had sprung off the berth in his excitement, and was about to quit the cabin.
‘Don’t go out, then, my dear boy, for mercy’s sake,’ said Williams, ‘for you’ve lost a deal of blood, and are weaker than you think for. Will you promise me?’
‘I do promise, if you will only go.’
The old man shambled out of the cabin as he spoke, and the two were left alone.
‘I want so much to tell you,’ said Egerton, speaking with some difficulty, ‘what I had not the courage to say this morning, that I know it is not your fault. The blame rests entirely on me. It was my presumption—my madness, if you will—that led me on to speak to you as I did,and I acquit you of all blame. I know you feel for my disappointment now—and I thought it would make you easier to hear this—that is all.’
‘Oh, if I could only make you understand!’ she sobbed.
‘Pray don’t distress yourself. I do understand it all. How can you help it if you find it impossible to love me?’
‘But I do not—I mean, I can—that is to say, I did not mean—’ stammered the girl, colouring scarlet at the admission she had been betrayed into making.
‘Am I to understand that you did not mean what you said this morning?’ exclaimed the young man as he grasped her hand. ‘Amy, you have given me fresh life. Oh, do not take it back again! Say if you love me!’
Her maidenly bashfulness struggled for a moment with her probity, but the latter conquered.
‘Yes, I do love you! It was my egregious vanity and love of conquest that made me trifle with your feelings this morning. I have been very miserable ever since. I have hoped you would speak to me again, and when I saw you risk your life for my sake, I wished that I might have died for you instead.’
‘O Amy, Amy! Your words are opening heaven to me. Darling, is it possible that you will be my wife?’
‘If you can forgive my heartless rejection of you, Richard. If you can believe that I am true in saying that I hated each word even as I uttered it. If you still think me worthy of being your life-companion, I will give you a very different answer now.’
‘You have made me the very happiest man on earth,’ he cried exultantly, as he folded her in his arms.
‘Lor’, sir!—I mean my boy, Dickey—you mus’n’t be a-goin’ on like this!’ exclaimed old Caleb, appearing on the scene when least expected. ‘The doctor’s particular orders was that you were to keep quiet and not bounce about.’
‘Caleb, my dear friend, I will be as quiet as your heart can wish now, for mine is at rest. Don’t stare so. Come here, and sit down again, whilst I explain to this young lady all that you have been to me, and tell you all that I trust she will very soon be to me.’
‘Oh, we’re to have a missus arter all, then!’ cried the old sailor meaningly. ‘Why, I thought you told me just now, my boy, that you warn’t a-goin’ to be spliced!’
‘Ah, Caleb, the storm has sent me a wife as it brought you a son. Had it not been for that awful hurricane, and the peril in which it placed this precious life, I am not quite sure if we should ever have been so happy as we are this evening. Never mind my wounded arm and the gash upon my cheek; Miss Herbert says she shall like it all the better for a scar. The wound in my heart is healed, Caleb, and life looks very fair for us all henceforward. And yet you could not believe “Old Contrairy,”’ he added playfully, that ‘Whatever is, is best.’
THE END.