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AN ODD PAIR
I
"It be queer to see them together. They be as thick as thieves," said Nat to his wife with a broad smile, as he sat down to table for the dish of tea he always looked for before he went up to see that all was in order with the lamp before the dusk fell. "As for me, I can't get a word out of him no how; but the little chap, he makes him talk as I never knew he could. I can't hear what they say. Bless you! if I so much as look that way, Jim shuts up his mouth like as if no power on earth would open it, and Pat he goes as red as a rose, as if he was half ashamed to be caught chattering; but so soon as my back's turned they're at it again. And glad I be that the poor chap has found somebody to love and tocare for him; for he's had a hard life of it, if all we hear of him be true."
"That's just what I think, Nat," answered Eileen. "I'm glad the boy has found the way to his heart. Sure it's a bad thing for any creature to be shut up against his fellow-men as he was. May be it's the blessed saints as have sent the child to him to show him a better way."
Eileen still spoke sometimes about the "blessed saints," as she had been used to do in her childhood, when she lived amongst those who used even to pray to them; but her husband would smile and shake his head when he heard the words, and to-day he answered slowly and thoughtfully—
"Nay, my lass; it's no doing of the saints above—not that I'm one to say they are not blessed, nor that they may not look down upon us poor creatures here below and think of us as their brethren; but it's the Lord as rules the world for us, and gives each one of us a work to do for Him somehow; and if our boy has been sent as a messenger to this poor chap—as like enough he has—it's the Lord's own doing, that's what it is; and we won't say aword to discourage him, not though it may seem as though he'd got a tough job before him if he's got to win back Jim."
The ready tears started to Eileen's eyes. She came over and put her hand on Nat's broad shoulder, bending to kiss him, though he was not a man who as a rule cared to receive caresses from even his own wife or child.
"It does me good to hear you talk like that. Sure and it's the children who are often the Lord's best messengers. I heard a holy man say once as the beautiful angels were God's messengers, and it does seem sometimes as though He used the children too—may be because they are most like the angels themselves—bless their innocent little hearts!"
But Pat never thought about being an angel. He only felt like a very happy little boy, whose life had suddenly become exceedingly interesting, and who had so much to do every day that the days never seemed quite long enough for all he wanted to put into them. There was so much to learn about the reef and the lighthouse, about the big lamp and its bigger reflectors, about the wonderful fog-horn which he had as yet never heard at work, and about theapparatus which kept all these wonders moving, that his head fairly swam sometimes in the effort to take in all that he saw. He had one of those inquiring minds which is not content just to see what is done, but must know the why and the wherefore of it all. Nat was content to know that certain results would follow certain actions on his part, and he followed his instructions, with intelligence and diligence, but without fully comprehending the mechanism of which he was the overseer. Jim was the man who more fully understood this. He could put to rights any small matter which had got out of gear, without any appeal to the mainland. He had been so long on the Lone Rock that he was familiar with every detail of the lighthouse apparatus, and Pat would watch him with awe as he climbed about the great lamp, and cleaned the wheels and the levers with the air of one who knew exactly what was the work of each. And then he and the child knew the secret about the creatures being alive, when everybody else thought it merely a machine. Jim always spoke of it as "her," and Pat learned to do the same, and to wonder sometimes why she never awoke by day, but was always so quiet and stillwhen the sun was shining, though when the dusk fell upon the land she would wake up and shine, and go round and round with that strange monotonous noise he had learned to heed as little as the ceaseless plash of the waves. That secret knowledge shared by both made another link between the man and the child. And then, if Jim could only find words, he could answer Pat's questions about the working of the creature far better than the child's father could do. Pat grew greatly impressed by the depth and profundity of his knowledge, and came secretly to the conclusion that Jim was a marvel of learning and skill. He was greatly flattered that he was allowed to be on terms of such intimacy with him, and grew to think his gruff speech and silent habits a grace, and a sign of learning and wisdom.
It was with great satisfaction one day that Pat heard that he and Jim were to be left in charge of the lighthouse for a whole day, whilst his father and mother went ashore to lay in stores against the coming autumn and winter. The summer was waning now. Before very long the fierce equinoctial gales might be any time expected, and Nat was anxious to getashore before this present calm broke up, and thoroughly victual the rock against the winter. Eileen, too, had many things to think of, both for herself and the child, before the winter should set in. They had been in rather low water, owing to Pat's long illness, just before they came here, and had not any supply of warm clothing with them. Now that Nat had been drawing his pay all these months, there was plenty of money to purchase what was needed. Only she felt she must go ashore herself for the purpose; but she thought the expedition would be too fatiguing for the boy, and Pat was more than content to be left behind with Jim, to take care of the home and the lighthouse in his father's short absence.
It was a beautiful hot September morning when the boat put off from the rock, and Pat stood holding Jim's hand and waving his little cap to his parents, as Nat hoisted the sail to the light breeze, and the boat began to cut its way through the sparkling water in the direction of the shore.
"The top of the morning to ye!" shouted the child, who loved to air his little bits of Irish phrases when he was in high spirits. "Sureit's a lovely day for a sail. Come back again safe and sound, and we'll be waiting for you here. Good-bye, mother dear. Take care of yourself, mavourneen. It's meself as will be thinking of you every hour of the day till the boat brings you back safe again!"
The mother waved her hand, and Pat stood looking till his eyes were too dazzled to see clearly any longer, and then he drew Jim back towards the house. His small face was full of importance and gravity. He plainly felt himself his father's deputy for the day, and the sense of his position and the burden of his responsibilities weighed upon him rather heavily.
"We shall have to watch her very carefully all day, Jim," he remarked. "Because you see she may know that father has gone, and try to take advantage. We had a dog who used to do that once. Mother always said he took advantage when father had gone off for the day. It wouldn't do for things to go wrong before he came back. You and I will have to be very careful. Shall we go up and look how she seems now?—and whether she is all asleep and quiet?"
Jim grinned in his queer way, but assented at once.
"All right, little master, we'll go. I've got to clean her up. But I think she'll be quiet like all day. She's a wonderful one for sleeping so long as the sun shines—that she is!"
"Yes, rather like a bat, isn't it, Jim? I read a tale once in a book about a big bat with a funny name. I think it was called a vampire. I know it was very big indeed, and rather fierce. Perhapsshe'sa kind of vampire; only you've made her tame, and she doesn't hurt people now. Did she ever hurt you, Jim? You don't seem afraid of her a bit."
"Nay, she's never hurt I," answered Jim. "She don't hurt them as know how to humour her. She did break the arm of one man once; but he was a rare fool and deserved what he got. You've got to be a bit careful of her when she's going; but if you mind her well she won't hurt nobody."
They were mounting the stairs now, and Pat seated himself to watch Jim at his mysterious duties about the great She, as he had come to call her in his own mind. He had seen everything done a dozen times before; but the interest and fascination was always new. To-day he was permitted to help Jim a littleby holding his leathers and rubbers from time to time; and he felt that he should soon be able to climb about and clean himself, so familiar did he grow with all his companion's evolutions.
It took the best part of the morning to do all that was needed to make things ship-shape for night, and Pat presently went downstairs to get ready the simple mid-day meal his mother had prepared for them. He thought that it would be pleasant to eat it down on the rocks, for the tide was out, and as it was a spring tide there was more rock than usual uncovered. He carried everything carefully down, and presently Jim joined him, and they sat down together. Pat thought it was quite the nicest dinner he had ever tasted, down in the cool shadow of the rocks, with the waves washing up and down only a few feet away. He got Jim to light his pipe by-and-by, and to tell him some of his sailor stories (Jim, he noticed, always talked better when he was smoking), and after an hour had passed like that, Jim suggested to him that it was his turn to tell a tale.
Now Pat was very willing to take his turn, but he had not any big store of stories, and such as his mother had told him had all been relatedto Jim before—all but the Bible stories, of which, to be sure, there were plenty left to tell. Pat sat nursing his knees and thinking. At last he looked up into his companion's face and asked reflectively—
"I don't think I've ever told you about Jesus, have I? We've not got to Him yet in reading out of the Book. But there's lots and lots of stories about Him—real pretty ones, too. I could tell you some of them, if you liked. I don't think you know about Jesus yet; do you, Jim?"
The man had slowly taken his pipe from his lips whilst the child was speaking, and now sat staring out over the sea with a look on his face that somehow seemed new to Pat, and which made him all of a sudden look different; the little boy could not have said how or why.
"I used to hear tell of Him when I was little," came the reply, very slowly spoken. "My mother used to tell me of Him when I was a little chap no bigger than you. But I went off to sea when I couldn't have been much bigger, and since then there's been nobody to tell me of Him 'cept the gentleman in the prison; and I didn't take friendly to what hesaid, though I dare say he meant it all kind enough."
"Well, I'll tell you as well as I can," said Pat, settling himself to his task with some relish. "Perhaps you'll remember some of the things I forget, and mother could tell us it all afterwards, if we like. But I can remember a good lot—all the things that matter most. So I'll begin."
And Pat did begin, in rather a roundabout fashion, it is true, and with a good many repetitions and harkings back to things he had forgotten, but still with a zest and good-will that atoned for many defects in style, and with the perfect faith in the truth of what he was saying, that gave a reality to the narrative which nothing else could have done. When it came to the story of the Crucifixion and the Garden of Gethsemane, Pat found, rather to his surprise, that the tears came into his eyes, and that once or twice he could hardly get on with the tale. He remembered that his mother had sometimes cried in telling it to him; but he had never quite understood why. He began to feel as though he did understand now. When he was telling it himself to somebody who was listening,like Jim, it all seemed so much more real. He wanted Jim to understand it all—just as his mother wanted him to understand; and that made him enter into the meaning of the story as perhaps he had hardly ever done before. He was glad when it came to the joyful part, about how the Lord rose again, and showed Himself to His doubting and mourning followers. Jim never spoke the whole time, but sat with his face turned out towards the sea, never moving, and looking sometimes as though he scarcely heard what the child said; yet Pat was convinced that he was listening to every word. It was only when the story had been finished for several minutes that he slowly turned his head round, and Pat saw with surprise that there was a moisture in his eyes that looked exactly as though it were tears.
"That's the story as my mother used to tell it me," he said, in a husky voice. "Do you think as it's all true, little master?"
"Why, of course it's true!" answered Pat, with perfect confidence. "Almost everybody in the world believes it—everybody except the heathen!" (And Pat quite believed this was so.) "Some folks forget, as you did, Jim, and somedon't care as they should. But it's every word true. He did die."
"Yes, but why? Why did He die if He needn't have done? Why did He let them nail Him on the cross like that, if He could have had as many angels as He liked to come and take Him away out of their hands?"
"Oh, because, you know, He came to die for us," answered Pat, wrinkling up his forehead, and trying to remember how his mother had answeredhisquestions on this very point. "He was the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world—your sins, Jim, and mine, and everybody's. God could not have forgiven everything if it hadn't been for Jesus, because He is so just as well as so kind. Somebody had to be punished—somebody had to die for us. We couldn't have died for ourselves—not like that, you know, because we are all wicked. It had to be somebody good—like the lamb in the Passover, without blemish—and that could only be Jesus. I don't know if I can explain it right; but it's something like that. There was nobody else, and God loved us so, He sent His own Son. Oh, Jim, itwasgood of Him! I don't think we love Him, or Jesus, half enough!"
Jim passed his horny hand over his eyes. He didn't speak for some time.
"It doesn't hardly seem as though Hecouldhave done it for us—for you and me," continued the child, filled with his own thought. "But He did, I know He did; mother says so, and it's all in the Bible, for she can find the places.
"I mean to try and think about it oftener, for it doesn't seem as though we ought ever to forget it. Mother says it ought to make us try and do things for Him; but I don't know what I can do, except to love Him, and try to be good. Perhaps till I'm bigger He'll let that count."
"And when you're bigger what will you do, little master?" asked Jim.
Pat sat and pondered the question a good while with his chin in his hand.
"I don't quite know," he answered slowly. "I mightn't ever have the chance; but I think I know what I should like to do if I could."
"And what is that?" asked Jim, with sudden and very evident interest.
"I think," answered the child, slowly andreverently, "that I should like best to lay down my life for somebody else—like as He laid it down for us. Some people have done that, you know—brave men who have died doing their duty—to try and save other people from death. I think God must love them for it. I think Jesus must smile at them, for He did just the same for us; and if He knows that they do it because they want to be like Him and do something for Him, I think He would be pleased. People don't always die because they are willing to; sometimes they are saved too. But Jesus would know that they were willing to die for Him. I think, when I grow to be a man, if I might choose, I should like best to serve Him like that."
Whilst Pat was speaking, Jim's eyes had been fixed earnestly upon his face. Now they roved back again over the sea, and suddenly the man gave a great start. He rose to his feet, and stood looking over the sea, shading his eyes with his hand.
"What is it?" asked Pat, coming and standing beside him, and imitating his gesture. "Can you see anything, Jim? I can't seem to see nothing."
"That's just it," answered the man. "Wecan't see half as far as we did an hour ago. Seems like as if there was a thick sea-fog coming on. I was thinking only this morning what a time we had been without one. That's a fog-bank and no mistake, and drifting right down upon us, too. I must go and see to the horn. We must start that if it comes over us; else your father might never find his way back—to say nothing of the ships running aground here. You'll hear her voice, and no mistake, little master, before another hour is over; and a mighty queer voice it is, I can tell you. You'll not forget it easy, once you've heard it!"
Pat was immensely interested. He followed Jim up into the upper room, and went out upon the gallery to watch the great fog-bank creep slowly down upon them. The sun was so bright and clear that it seemed impossible that that slowly moving white mass should ever obscure it; but soon a few little light vapour wreaths drifted up against the rocks, and very quickly the sun looked dull and red, and little by little the sky and the sea seemed all to be blotted out, and Pat could not tell which way he was looking, nor where the land lay. He seemed to be up alone in some high place, floating in mid-air,in a world of vapour. He would have been frightened if he had not heard Jim moving about close at hand.
And then, all in a moment, a most fearful and extraordinary noise just above his head made Pat clap his hands to his ears, as though his head would come off with the vibration if he did not. He knew what it was.Shehad been awakened from sleep, and was lifting up that great voice of hers, as he had heard she could do when it was wanted; and in great amazement, Pat ran indoors to see how she did it. He felt that such a wonderful creature as this had surely never lived before!
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LONE ROCK IN FOG AND STORM
B
But strange and fascinating as was the voice of the great She, Pat could not be quite happy till his father and his mother had got back safe to the rock again. He could not imagine how they could find their way in all the thick wreaths of darkness which shut the Lone Rock in; but Jim told him that very likely it was quite clear a little way off, and that the noise of the horn, which sounded every three minutes, would guide his father safely to the right place. The sea was quite smooth and still; he could approach without any trouble. Jim knew that Nat would not be easy away from his post, more especially now that this fog had come on, which would entail extra care and extra work. There was a mechanical apparatus worked by steam, whichcould keep the horn blowing at intervals for a certain number of hours; but that required attention too, and for the present, Jim preferred to work it by the bellows, remaining up aloft, and bidding Pat keep watch for the boat below, if he liked, but to be very careful not to lose his footing on the rocks, as there would be nobody to come to his help.
Pat was not afraid of that now. He always ran about barefoot, and was as sure of foot as a goat by this time.
He stationed himself upon the great square rock overlooking the little creek where the boat usually lay moored, and watched the thick wreaths of vapour as they drifted and circled round him. Sometimes, for a few moments, they would clear away for a while, and he would be able to look out over the grey waters for some little distance. Then they would close over again, and shut out even the sight of the waves not ten feet below him, and Pat would feel as though he were quite, quite alone in a world of fog, with only the great horn overhead for company. But it was company, and kept him in mind that Jim was not far away, and so he was not frightened, although verymuch surprised and perplexed by this strange new experience.
It might have been an hour that he had been watching, when he heard the plash of oars, sounding a long way off, though in reality they were quite close, and almost immediately afterwards he saw the outline of the boat looming large against the background of fog, and uttered a joyful shout.
"Father! dear daddy! Mother, is that you? I was so afraid you would never find your way home; but Jim said you would. Did you hear her blow the horn? Doesn't she do it well? Isn't it nice that she can wake up when she's wanted? She woke up and blew directly Jim told her there was a fog. Isn't it queer to be all thick like this? It isn't dark, but we can't hardly see anything. Daddy, did you ever see anything quite so funny before? Mother, did you?"
"I've seen plenty of sea-fogs in my time, my little son," answered Nat, as he brought in the boat, and moored it safely in its niche; "and I am always glad to see them go, for they do more ill to ships, I take it, than storms and tempests. I'm glad to find myself here;for it's ill being at sea in such thickness as this. However, I think it will lighten a bit soon. The bank isn't a deep one, so far as I can see, and it must have pretty nigh drifted over us by now—not but what it may come back again a dozen times before the day is over. There is no telling what a fog will do. It's more capricious than a woman—eh, wifie?"
Eileen smiled as she stepped ashore. Her face was rather pale.
"I know more of women than of fogs, Nat. I don't know if they be much alike. Pat, darling, it's glad I am to see you safe and sound again. I'll not have to go ashore for a long while now. I've brought everything we shall want for many a month to come."
Almost as she spoke the fog began to lift, and in a few moments, to the astonishment of Pat, the sun was shining again quite brightly. A breeze sprang up and drove the floating vapours away, dispersing them hither and thither, and making the waves dance and foam round the rocks. The great horn ceased to make its doleful cry, and Jim came down from above to help to unload the boat.
"Have you gotmyparcel, mother?" askedPat, edging up to her, and speaking in a whisper, as thing after thing was brought in by the two busy men. The mother smiled and nodded, and presently she opened a big square package, and drew forth a small parcel tied up in brown paper, at sight of which Pat's face kindled all over.
"Is it a nice one, mother? And did you spend my bright half-crown?" And on being satisfied upon these points, Pat vanished with his treasure into an inner room, and proceeded to untie the string and carefully open the mysterious parcel.
When he had removed the two wrappings of paper, his eyes brightened and glowed with delight. He saw a beautiful book, with red-gold edges, in a soft black morocco cover, and he turned the leaves with reverent, loving fingers, and placed the book-mark in the place where he had been planning to read next to Jim—the place where the story of Jesus began that they had been talking over this very day.
"It's a prettier Bible than mine," thought the child; "but mother gave me mine, so, of course, I like it best, and I shall always keepit as long as I live. But Jim will like this, I know; and he hasn't got any Bible, though he says he can read, and used to like to read once. I'm sure he'll like it. I'll go up to-night and give it him when he has his watch. He can read it up there in the tower when he's not attending to her. There's plenty of light, and in the winter he says the nights do seem long. It'll be nice for him to read about Jesus, and all the stories that are in the Bible."
So as soon as supper was over, whilst his father and mother were still busy putting away the ample stores of provisions and clothing that they had brought from the mainland, Pat stole upstairs with his treasure in his hands, and came and took his favourite seat by Jim's side, still keeping the book safely hidden beneath his jacket.
"Jim, don't you never read of a night up here alone?" he asked.
"I don't often now. I did use to read the paper a bit, whenever I get a few sent over from shore; but one gets out of the habit of it, and sometimes there's nothing to read for days and weeks together."
"I like reading," said Pat; "and I thoughtyou'd perhaps like it too if you had something interesting to read. I've brought you a book. Mother got it for me to-day. It's yours now, for I've written your name inside, so that nobody can't ever take it away from you; and I think it would be nice if you would read it sometimes in the night. I'm almost sure you'll like it, if once you begin." And with a red but happy face, Pat pulled out his treasure, and presented it shyly to Jim.
The man took it and looked at it, and then at the child, as though he didn't know what to make of so strange a thing as a present. Perhaps it was a dozen years since he had received a gift of any kind.
"Be it for me, little master?" he asked in a puzzled voice.
"Yes, to be sure it is," answered Pat, beaming. "I got mother to choose it for you, because she always chooses so well. It's a Bible, Jim. It's got all the stories in that we like to talk about, and all the story of Jesus—what we talked about to-day, and you liked. I've put the mark in one of the places where it begins about Him. You can read it yourself, if you like, whilst you're watching her."
It was so long since Jim had ever received such a thing as a present that he scarcely knew how to thank the child, but kept turning the book over and over in his hands with a sheepish look on his face. However, Pat was easily satisfied, and he knew that Jim was more pleased than he showed; so he slipped down the stairs again in a happy frame of mind, and found his father examining the weather-glass below—a mysterious object in the child's eyes, which he always regarded with awe.
"A good thing we went ashore to-day, wife," Pat heard his father say. "For if I don't mistake me, we'll have a spell of rough weather on us soon. The glass is going down steady and fast. By to-morrow morning, I take it, it'll be blowing half a gale of wind."
Pat looked wonderingly at the glass, and could not see that it had moved from its niche. He never could understand why his father would say that it was higher some days than it was on others; but it was one of those things that he never asked about—one of those mysteries that he pondered over in secret with a sense of wonder and rather fascinating awe.
Next morning he was not awakened, as hehad been of late, by a bar of sunshine slanting across his bed and touching his face. He awoke later than his wont to a sound of moaning and splashing which he had not heard before; and when he jumped up and ran to the window he saw that there were heavy banks of cloud scudding across the sky, whilst the sea had turned from blue to grey, and was dashing itself against the rocks with greater vehemence than he had ever seen before. There was a moaning sound all around the walls of his home, rising sometimes to a mournful shriek. The little boy was glad to get on his clothes, and find a glowing fire burning in the living room. There had come a chilliness into the air, and it seemed as if summer had suddenly taken flight. His mother looked up at him as he came, and greeted him with a smile.
"Well, Pat; so father is right after all, and here are the gales come upon us all sudden-like at the last. We shall have to make up our minds to a deal of moaning and tossing and tumbling if we are to live all the winter in a lighthouse! You'll be a brave boy, my little son, and not mind the wind and the rain and the dashing of the waves? It'll not frightenyou to hear it day after day and week after week, will it, honey?"
"Frighten me?" asked Pat, almost indignantly. "Why, mother, no! I'm almost a man now, and men aren't frightened by noises. I shall help father and Jim to take care of the lighthouse, and I'll help you down here when I'm not too busy upstairs with her. Jim says there's a deal more to do in winter than in summer, and sometimes they'll be very glad of a third man to help. I shall be the third man here. I shall have lots to do and think about!" And Pat looked for all the world like an important little turkey-cock, and went running up the stairs to see what was going on there, whilst his mother looked after him with a smile, and breathed a thankful prayer to God for giving back her child such full measure of health and strength.
The next weeks were very interesting and exciting ones to Pat. The wind blew strongly and steadily, and the sea ran higher and higher. He used to go out daily into the balcony round the lamp-house, and stand "to le'ward," as Jim used to call it, whilst he watched the great crested waves come racing along, and breakinginto sheets of spray at the foot of the reef—spray which sometimes rose almost as high as he was standing, and would often make the mackintosh coat in which he was always wrapped fairly run down with water.
Jim would stand beside him sometimes, and tell him how in winter storms the spray would dash not only as far as the gallery, but right over the top of the lighthouse. Pat found it hard to believe this at first, but as he came to learn more and more of the marvellous power of the sea, he disbelieved nothing; and used sometimes to say with awe to Jim, when he had finished one of his stories of shipwreck and peril—
"It do seem wonderful that the sea obeyed Jesus when He was here, and went down and got still just when He told it to. Mother says God holds the sea in the hollow of His hand. Jim, I think God's hand must be very wonderful; don't you?"
Perhaps nothing so helped those two to understand the mighty power of God as their lonely life in the lighthouse during those stormy autumn days. If any story in the Bible reading seemed too marvellous for belief, it only neededPat to point over the sea with his little hand, and remark reflectively, "But you see, Jim, He made allthat!" to convince them both that nothing was too hard for the Lord. The story of Peter's attempt to walk on the sea was one of their favourite readings, when once they had come across it. Jim was wonderfully taken by the tale, and would have the mark kept in the place for a long time.
"I read it every night up here alone," he said once to Pat, "and I can't help wondering if I could ever walk on the sea if I asked Him to help me."
"Perhaps He would if you were going to Him," said Pat reflectively. "I don't know if He would for anything else. You see, He'd said 'Come' to Peter, and so he could do it, until he got frightened and forgot the Lord had called him. Mother says that was why he began to sink—because he'd begun to think about himself, instead of trusting it all to Jesus. If he were to say 'Come' to you, Jim, and you were to go out to meet Him, I expect it would be all right. But He don't seem to call folks in that sort of way now."
New experiences were becoming commonenough in Pat's life now, but he never forgot one curious sight which he was once called up from his bed to see in the middle of the night. He had gone to bed amid an unusual tumult of sound—moaning wind and dashing spray, and sometimes such a bang as a great wave struck the wall of the tower—that for some time he could scarcely get off to sleep, seasoned though he was to such sounds.
Then, in the middle of the night, he was awakened by Jim coming to fetch him, and when he was once fairly awake, he was delighted to hurry into his warm suit of weather-proof clothes, and follow Jim upstairs, for he thought that the time had surely come when the services of the third man were required, and very grand and important he felt to occupy that proud position.
But it was not quite what he thought, after all; for though his father was on watch as well as Jim whilst the storm raged round the lighthouse, there was nothing very much to be done, save to see that the light burned brightly, and Pat wondered for a moment why he had been summoned.
"Jim said you'd like to see the birds, sonny,"said his father, taking him in his strong arms, and holding him up near to the glass: "so I said he could fetch you. Look! do you see them flying against the glass? It's the light as brings them these stormy nights. They know they'll get perching-room somewhere round, if they get nothing else. See their white wings flitting to and fro, Pat? Jim says in the morning we shall pick up a score or so of dead birds in the gallery, as have dashed their lives out flying straight against the glass."
Pat looked and began to see, for at first his eyes were dazzled. It was just as his father had said: outside the glass house were multitudes of wild sea birds, flitting to and fro like ghosts in the black darkness, and every now and then dashing themselves against the strong dome of glass with a noise which told of the violence of the effort. There seemed to the child to be an endless myriad of white and grey birds circling round his sea-girt home, and he looked at them in wonder and awe, for he had never before seen so strange a sight.
"Do they want to get in, father?" he asked softly. "Oh, let us open the door and take them in. They are frightened at the storm.Why should we not let them come in and warm themselves here?"
"They would only be worse scared than they are, Pat," answered his father, "and would fly into the lamp and hurt themselves and it. Poor foolish things! they don't know what they come for themselves; it's just the light attracts them. We'll get feathers enough to stuff a pillow for your mother to-morrow, if Jim is right about what we shall find outside."
But Pat was quite unhappy about the poor foolish wild birds driven seawards by the gale, and coming to the lighthouse, as it were, for shelter.
"Let me go outside and see them there," he said; and Jim wrapped him up warmly and carried him out for a few minutes.
It was a still stranger sight out there to see the strange antics of the bewildered birds, and to hear their cries and screams, which made Pat shiver in spite of himself, remembering the stories his mother sometimes told him on winter evenings of the "banshee" and its wailing cry. He was dreadfully sorry for the birds, but they would not let him come near them, and he saw that nothing could be done for them.
"I suppose God knows about them," he said at last, with a great sigh. "If He cares for sparrows, I suppose He cares for sea-gulls, too. If He knows, I suppose we need not mind very much. But I should have liked to take them in and feed them, and make them warm and comfortable. They sound so very sad; but perhaps God will comfort them best."
And then Jim carried the child down to his warm bed again, and he fell asleep, thinking of the birds and their strange noises and ways.
He awoke with the same strange noise in his ears. He was sure it was a voice like that of a sea-bird. He started up and looked about him, and then the sound came again. It was broad daylight now, and the noise seemed to proceed from the adjoining living room. Pat jumped up, and ran in without troubling to put on his clothes till his curiosity was satisfied.
"Mother, what is it? What is that queer noise?" he asked; and then he saw a basket standing in a corner of the room, and the noise seemed to proceed out of that.
"Go and get dressed, dear," answered his mother, "and then Jim, may be, will be down again. It's a wild bird that has hurt itselfthat he's got there. He thought you might like to have it to take care of till it got well, but it's so wild and fierce, and bites so, that I daren't open the basket till he comes. Jim says they fly at folks' eyes sometimes; but he seems to know how to manage it. Get you dressed, honey, and then he'll show it you."
Pat was not long dressing that morning, and as soon as Jim could be got down from the tower, the basket was opened, and the treasure inside displayed to the child's admiring eyes. It was a young gull, whose wing was badly broken—so badly, that Jim declared it would never fly again, and was of opinion that the most merciful thing to do would be to pinion it—since it was the end of the wing that was broken—and bring it up to be a tame bird upon the rock, living there and catching fish in the pool, but kept from swimming away altogether by a light fetter round its foot. He had kept birds on the rock before now that had hurt themselves against the glass, though when they had grown quite strong and well they had usually taken themselves off. Still, he had sometimes kept pets for some considerable time; and Pat was all on fire to tame thisgull, and make a playmate of it. It was not a very promising playmate at first, for it was wild and fierce, almost past management, and Pat thought it would have died under Jim's hands when he performed with skill and rapidity the operation which was soon seen to be a wonderful relief to the suffering bird. It refused food for two days, and the child feared it would certainly die; but his patience and care were unwearied, and at last, on the third day, it began to feed from his hand, being too weak to fear him; and after a few mouthfuls of fish greedily swallowed, it rewarded its friend by a vigorous peck on the hand, which nearly drew blood. Pat, however, was not at all discouraged, but looked upon it as a sign of returning health; and by slow degrees, as the days and weeks wore away, a certain confidence and friendship grew up between the wild bird and the little boy who tended him so faithfully and regularly.
Jim contrived a little aviary for the bird—if so grand a word could be applied to the wire erection down among the rocks, where the bird could get salt-baths at high water, and fish in the pools left by the retiring tide—by the sideof which Pat spent hours every day teaching the gull to come and take food from his hands, and gradually establishing a freemasonry between them, which developed at last into a real friendship, so that the little boy could go fearlessly into the cage at the wider and taller end against the house, and call the gull to perch upon his knee, and take bits of fish even from between his lips, and take any liberties he chose with his captive without fear of a rebuff.
This new pastime was a source of immense pleasure to the little boy through the long dreary days of winter. He never felt dull in his strange home; and with Jim to talk to, the lamp to watch, and his bird to teach and tame, the days flew by all too fast, and he could scarcely believe when Christmas was actually upon them.
It was a queer Christmas, spent amongst the sounds and sights of the Lone Rock, with the wild waves lashing the walls of his home, and the moaning of the wind for the only music. But Pat was growing used to the life, and did not call it queer now. It seemed far stranger to think of going back to the crowded court, where they never saw or heard the sea, and where even the sky and the air seemed quite different.
"At last, on the third day, it began to feed from his hand."—Page 79.
"At last, on the third day, it began to feed from his hand."—Page 79.
But it was interesting to explain to Jim about Christmas Day being Jesus's birthday; and the child discovered to his great satisfaction and surprise that it was Jim's own birthday, too. He had been born on Christmas Day, just as Pat had been born on Patrick's Day, to the great satisfaction of his Irish mother; and so the festival of Christmas was kept as brightly as it was possible, and neither Nat nor his wife could fail to remark how changed in many ways Jim was from what he had been in the spring, when first they had come to the rock.
"I believe it's the love of the Lord coming into his heart that's doing it," said Nat, as he sat over the fire with his Bible, when Pat had gone to bed, and Jim was up aloft. "He took first to the child, and the child has led him to the Lord. It's often the way with us poor frail human creatures. We seem as though we must have some human hand to lead us, though the Lord is holding out His wounded hand all the while, and bidding us take that. It's wonderful true those words of His aboutthe babes and sucklings. It seems to me that the heart of a little child is coming in place of the hard heart Jim seemed to have before. May be the Lord has a work for him to do yet. It may be we were sent here partly for him. One never knows where the work will meet one in the vineyard; but we must try to be ready for it when it comes."