Chapter XI.

Starres are poore books and oftentimes do misse;This book of starres lights to eternall blisse.

George Herber.

The voyage across the Atlantic was not, in itself, at all notable. The first half of the passage was extremely unquiet, and most of the passengers uncomfortable to match. Then the weather cleared; and the rest of the way, though lengthened out a good deal by the tricks of the wind, was very fair and pleasant.

Fifteen days of tossing and sea-sickness had brought little Fleda to look like the ghost of herself. So soon as the weather changed and sky and sea were looking gentle again, Mr. Carleton had a mattress and cushions laid in a sheltered corner of the deck for her, and carried her up. She had hardly any more strength than a baby.

"What are you looking at me so for, Mr. Carleton?" said she, a little while after he had carried her up, with a sweet serious smile that seemed to know the answer to her question.

He stooped down and clasped her little thin hand, as reverentially as if she really had not belonged to the earth.

"You are more like a sprite than I like to see you just now," said he, unconsciously fastening the child's heart to himself with the magnetism of those deep eyes.--"I must get some of the sailors' salt beef and sea biscuit for you--they say that is the best thing to make people well."

"O I feel better already," said Fleda, and settling her little face upon the cushion and closing her eyes, she added,--"thank you, Mr. Carleton!"

The fresh air began to restore her immediately; she was no more sick, her appetite came back; and from that time, without the help of beef and sea-biscuit, she mended rapidly. Mr. Carleton proved himself as good a nurse on the sea as on land. She seemed to be never far from his thoughts. He was constantly finding out something that would do her good or please her; and Fleda could not discover that he took any trouble about it; she could not feel that she was a burden to him; the things seemed to come as a matter of course. Mrs. Carleton was not wanting in any shew of kindness or care, and yet, when Fleda looked back upon the day, it somehow was Guy that had done everything for her; she thought little of thanking anybody but him.

There were other passengers that petted her a great deal, or would have done so, if Fleda's very timid retiring nature had not stood in the way. She was never bashful, nor awkward; but yet it was only a very peculiar, sympathetic, style of address that could get within the wall of reserve which in general hid her from other people. Hid, what it could; for through that reserve a singular modesty, sweetness, and gracefulness of spirit would shew themselves. But there was much more behind. There were no eyes however on board that did not look kindly on little Fleda, excepting only two pair. The Captain shewed her a great deal of flattering attention, and said she was a pattern of a passenger; even the sailors noticed and spoke of her and let slip no occasion of shewing the respect and interest she had raised. But there were two pair of eyes, and one of them Fleda thought most remarkably ugly, that were an exception to the rest; these belonged to her cousin Rossitur and Lieut. Thorn. Rossitur had never forgiven her remarks upon his character as a gentleman and declared preference of Mr. Carleton in that capacity; and Thorn was mortified at the invincible childish reserve which she opposed to all his advances; and both, absurd as it seems, were jealous of the young Englishman's advantage over them. Both not the less, because their sole reason for making her a person of consequence was that he had thought fit to do so. Fleda would permit neither of them to do anything for her that she could help.

They took their revenge in raillery, which was not always good-natured. Mr. Carleton never answered it in any other way than by his look of cold disdain,--not always by that; little Fleda could not be quite so unmoved. Many a time her nice sense of delicacy confessed itself hurt, by the deep and abiding colour her cheeks would wear after one of their ill mannered flings at her. She bore them with a grave dignity peculiar to herself, but the same nice delicacy forbade her to mention the subject to any one; and the young gentlemen contrived to give the little child in the course of the voyage a good deal of pain. She shunned them at last as she would the plague. As to the rest Fleda liked her life on board ship amazingly. In her quiet way she took all the good that offered and seemed not to recognise the ill.

Mr. Carleton had bought for her a copy of The Rape of the Lock, and Bryant's poems. With these, sitting or lying among her cushions, Fleda amused herself a great deal; and it was an especial pleasure when he would sit down by her and read and talk about them. Still a greater was to watch the sea, in its changes of colour and varieties of agitation, and to get from Mr. Carleton, bit by bit, all the pieces of knowledge concerning it that he had ever made his own. Even when Fleda feared it she was fascinated; and while the fear went off the fascination grew deeper. Daintily nestling among her cushions she watched with charmed eyes the long rollers that came up in detachments of three to attack the good ship, that like a slandered character rode patiently over them; or the crested green billows, or sometimes the little rippling waves that shewed old Ocean's placidest face; while with ears as charmed as if he had been delivering a fairy tale she listened to all Mr. Carleton could tell her of the green water where the whales feed, or the blue water where Neptune sits in his own solitude, the furtherest from land, and the pavement under his feet outdoes the very canopy overhead in its deep colouring; of the transparent seas where the curious mysterious marine plants and animals may be clearly seen many feet down, and in the North where hundreds of feet of depth do not hide the bottom; of the icebergs; and whirling great fields of ice, between which if a ship gets she had as good be an almond in a pair of strong nut crackers. How the water grows colder and murkier as it is nearer the shore; how the mountain waves are piled together; and how old Ocean, like a wise man, however roughened and tumbled outwardly by the currents of Life, is always calm at heart. Of the signs of the weather; the out-riders of the winds, and the use the seaman makes of the tidings they bring; and before Mr. Carleton knew where he was he found himself deep in the science of navigation, and making a star-gazer of little Fleda. Sometimes kneeling beside him as he sat on her mattress, with her hand leaning on his shoulder, Fleda asked, listened, and looked; as engaged, as rapt, as interested, as another child would be in Robinson Crusoe, gravely drinking in knowledge with a fresh healthy taste for it that never had enough. Mr. Carleton was about as amused and as interested as she. There is a second taste of knowledge that some minds get in imparting it, almost as sweet as the first relish. At any rate Fleda never felt that she had any reason to fear tiring him; and his mother complaining of his want of sociableness said she believed Guy did not like to talk to anybody but that little pet of his and one or two of the old sailors. If left to her own resources Fleda was never at a loss; she amused herself with her books, or watching the sailors, or watching the sea, or with some fanciful manufacture she had learned from one of the ladies on board, or with what the company about her were saying and doing.

One evening she had been some time alone, looking out upon the restless little waves that were tossing and tumbling in every direction. She had been afraid of them at first and they were still rather fearful to her imagination. This evening as her musing eye watched them rise and fall her childish fancy likened them to the up-springing chances of life,--uncertain, unstable, alike too much for her skill and her strength to manage. She was not more helpless before the attacks of the one than of the other. But then--that calm blue Heaven that hung over the sea. It was like the heaven of power and love above her destinies; only this was far higher and more pure and abiding. "He knoweth them that trust in him." "There shall not a hair of your head perish."

Not these words perhaps, but something like the sense of them was in little Fleda's head. Mr. Carleton coming up saw her gazing out upon the water with an eye that seemed to see nothing.

"Elfie!--Are you looking into futurity?"

"No,--yes,--not exactly," said Fleda smiling.

"No, yes, and not exactly!" said he throwing himself down beside her.--" What does all that mean?"

"I wasn't exactly looking into futurity," said Fleda.

"What then?--Don't tell me you were 'thinking;' I know that dready. What?"

Fleda was always rather shy of opening her cabinet of thoughts. She glanced at him, and hesitated, and then yielded to a fascination of eye and smile that rarely failed of its end. Looking off to the sea again, as if she had left her thoughts there, she said,

"I was only thinking of that beautiful hymn of Mr. Newton's."

"What hymn?"

"That long one, 'The Lord will provide.'"

"Do you know it?--Tell it to me, Elfie--let us see whether I shall think it beautiful."

Fleda knew the whole and repeated it.

"Though troubles assail,And dangers affright,Though friends should all fall,And foes all unite;Yet one thing secures usWhatever betide,The Scripture assures us'The Lord will provide.'

"The birds without barnOr storehouse are fed;From them let us learnTo trust for our bread.His saints what is fittingShall ne'er be denied,So long as 'tis written,'The Lord will provide.'

"His call we obey,Like Abraham of old,Not knowing our way,But faith makes us bold.And though we are strangers,We have a good guide,And trust in all dangers'The Lord will provide.'

"We may like the shipsIn tempests be tossedOn perilous deeps,But cannot be lost.Though Satan enragesThe wind and the tide,The promise engages'The Lord will provide.'

"When Satan appearsTo stop up our path,And fills us with fears,We triumph by faith.He cannot take from us,Though oft he has tried,This heart-cheering promise,'The Lord will provide.'

"He tells us we're weak,Our hope is in vain,The good that we seekWe ne'er shall obtain;But when such suggestionsOur spirits have tried,This answers all questions.'The Lord will provide.'

"No strength of our own,Or goodness we claim;But since we have knownThe Saviour's great nameIn this, our strong tower,For safety we hide;The Lord is our power!'The Lord will provide.'

"When life sinks apace,And death is in view,This word of his graceShall comfort us through.No fearing nor doubting,With Christ on our side,We hope to die shouting,'The Lord will provide.'"

Guy listened very attentively to the whole. He was very far from understanding the meaning of several of the verses, but the bounding expression of confidence and hope he did understand, and did feel.

"Happy to be so deluded!" he thought.--"I almost wish I could share the delusion!"

He was gloomily silent when she had done, and little Fleda's eyes were so full that it was a little while before she could look towards him and ask in her gentle way, "Do you like it, Mr. Carleton?"

She was gratified by his grave, "Yes!"

"But, Elfie," said he smiling again, "you have not told me your thoughts yet. What had these verses to do with the sea you were looking at so hard?"

"Nothing--I was thinking," said Fleda slowly,--"that the sea seemed something like the world,--I don't mean it was like, but it made me think of it; and I thought how pleasant it is to know that God takes care of his people."

"Don't he take care of everybody?"

"Yes--in one sort of way," said Fleda; "but then it is only his children that he has promised to keep from everything that will hurt them."

"I don't see how that promise is kept, Elfie. I think those who call themselves so meet with as many troubles as the rest of the world, and perhaps more."

"Yes," said Fleda quickly, "they have troubles, but then God won't let the troubles do them any harm."

A subtle evasion, thought Mr. Carleton.--"Where did you learn that, Elfie?"

"The Bible says so," said Fleda.

"Well, how do you know it from that?" aid Mr. Carleton, impelled, he hardly knew whether by his bad or his good angel, to carry on the conversation.

"Why," said Fleda, looking as if it were a very simple question and Mr. Carleton were catechising her,--"you know, Mr. Carleton, the Bible was written by men who were taught by God exactly what to say, so there could be nothing in it that is not true."

"How do you know those men were so taught?"

"The Bible says so."

A child's answer!--but with a child's wisdom in it, not learnt of the schools. "He that is of God heareth God's words." To little Fleda, as to every simple and humble intelligence, the Bible proved itself; she had no need to go further.

Mr. Carleton did not smile, for nothing would have tempted him to hurt her feelings; but he said, though conscience did not let him do it without a twinge,

"But don't you know, Elfie, there are some people who do not believe the Bible?"

"Ah but those are bad people," replied Fleda quickly;--"all good people believe it."

A child's reason again, but hitting the mark this time. Unconsciously, little Fleda had brought forward a strong argument for her cause. Mr. Carleton felt it, and rising up that he might not be obliged to say anything more, he began to pace slowly up and down the deck, turning the matter over.

Was it so? that there were hardly any good men (he thought there might be a few) who did not believe in the Bible and uphold its authority? and that all the worst portion of society was comprehended in the other class?--and if so, how had he overlooked it? He had reasoned most unphilosophically from a few solitary instances that had come under his own eye; but applying the broad principle of induction it could not be doubted that the Bible was on the side of all that is sound, healthful, and hopeful, in this disordered world. And whatever might be the character of a few exceptions, it was not supposable that a wide system of hypocrisy should tell universally for the best interests of mankind. Summoning history to produce her witnesses, as he went on with his walk up and down, he saw with increasing interest, what he had never seen before, that the Bible had come like the breath of spring upon the moral waste of mind; that the ice-bound intellect and cold heart of the world had waked into life under its kindly influence and that all the rich growth of the one and the other had come forth at its bidding. And except in that sun-lightened tract, the world was and had been a waste indeed. Doubtless in that waste, intellect had at different times put forth sundry barren shoots, such as a vigorous plant can make in the absence of the sun, but also like them immature, unsound, and groping vainly after the light in which alone they could expand and perfect themselves; ripening no seed for a future and richer growth. And flowers the wilderness had none. The affections were stunted and overgrown.

All this was so,--how had he overlooked it? His unbelief had come from a thoughtless, ignorant, one-sided view of life and human things. The disorder and ruin which he saw, where he did not also see the adjusting hand at work, had led him to refuse his credit to the Supreme Fabricator. He thought the waste would never be reclaimed, and did not know how much it already owed to the sun of revelation; but what was the waste where that light had not been!--Mr. Carleton was staggered. He did not know what to think. He began to think he had been a fool.

Poor little Fleda was meditating less agreeably the while. With the sure tact of truth she had discerned that there was more than jest in the questions that had been put to her. She almost feared that Mr. Carleton shared himself the doubts he had so lightly spoken of, and the thought gave her great distress. However, when he came to take her down to tea, with all his usual manner, Fleda's earnest look at him ended in the conviction that there was nothing very wrong under that face.

For several days Mr. Carleton pondered the matter of this evening's conversation, characteristically restless till he had made up his mind. He wished very much to draw Fleda to speak further upon the subject, but it was not easy; she never led to it. He sought in vain an opportunity to bring it in easily, and at last resolved to make one.

"Elfie," said he one morning when all the rest of the passengers were happily engaged at a distance with the letter-bags,--"I wish you would let me hear that favourite hymn of yours again,--I like it very much."

Fleda was much gratified, and immediately with great satisfaction repeated the hymn. Its peculiar beauty struck him yet more the second time than the first.

"Do you understand those two last verses?" said he when she had done.

Fleda said "Yes!" rather surprised.

"I do not," he said gravely.

Fleda paused a minute or two, and then finding that it depended on her to enlighten him, said in her modest way,

"Why it means that we have no goodness of our own, and only expect to be forgiven and taken to heaven for the Saviour's sake."

Mr. Carleton asked, "Howfor his sake?"

"Why you know, Mr. Carleton, we don't deserve to go there, and if we are forgiven at all it must be for what he has done."

"And what is that, Elfie?"

"He died for us," said Fleda, with a look of some anxiety into Mr. Carleton's face.

"Died for us!--And what end was that to serve, Elfie?" said he, partly willing to hear the full statement of the matter, and partly willing to see how far her intelligence could give it.

"Because we are sinners," said Fleda, "and God has said that sinners shall die."

"Then how can he keep his word and forgive at all?"

"Because Christ has diedfor us," said Fleda eagerly;--"instead of us."

"Do you understand the justice of letting one take the place of others?"

"He was willing, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, with a singular wistful expression that touched him.

"Still, Elfie," said he after a minute's silence,--"how could the ends of justice be answered by the death of one man in the place of millions?"

"No, Mr. Carleton, but he was God as well as man," Fleda said, with a sparkle in her eye which perhaps delayed her companion's rejoinder.

"What should induce him, Elfie," he said gently, "to do such a thing for people who had displeased him?"

"Because he loved us, Mr. Carleton."

She answered with so evident a strong and clear appreciation of what she was saying that it half made its way into Mr. Carleton's mind by the force of sheer sympathy. Her words came almost as something new.

Certainly Mr. Carleton had heard these things before, though perhaps never in a way that appealed so directly to his intelligence and his candour. He was again silent an instant, pondering, and so was Fleda.

"Do you know, Elfie," said Mr. Carleton, "there are some people who do not believe that the Saviour was anything more than a man?"

"Yes I know it," said Fleda;--"it is very strange!"

"Why is it strange?"

"Because the Bible says it so plainly."

"But those people hold I believe that the Bible does not say it?"

"I don't see how they could have read the Bible," said Fleda. "Why he said so himself."

"Who said so?"

"Jesus Christ. Don'tyoubelieve it, Mr. Carleton?"

She saw he did not, and the shade that had come over her face was reflected in his before he said "No."

"But perhaps I shall believe it yet, Elfie," he said kindly. "Can you shew me the place in your Bible where Jesus says this of himself?"

Fleda looked in despair. She hastily turned over the leaves of her Bible to find the passages he had asked for, and Mr. Carleton was cut to the heart to see that she twice was obliged to turn her face from him and brush her hand over her eyes, before she could find them. She turned to Matt. xxvi. 63, 64, 65, and without speaking gave him the book, pointing to the passage. He read it with great care, and several times over. "You are right, Elfie," he said. "I do not see how those who honour the authority of the Bible and the character of Jesus Christ can deny the truth of his own declaration. If that is false so must those be."

Fleda took the Bible and hurriedly sought out another passage.

"Grandpa shewed me these places," she said, "once when we were talking about Mr. Didenhover--hedidn't believe that. There are a great many other places, grandpa said; but one is enough;"--

She gave him the latter part of the twentieth chapter of John.--

"You see, Mr. Carleton, he let Thomas fall down and worship him and call him God; and if he hadnotbeen, you know----God is more displeased with that than with any thing.'

"With what, Elfie?"

"With men's worshipping any other than himself. He says he 'will not give his glory to another.'"

"Where is that?"

"I am afraid I can't find it," said Fleda,--"it is somewhere in Isaiah, I know"--

She tried in vain; and failing, then looked up in Mr. Carleton's face to see what impression had been made.

"You see Thomas believed when hesaw" said he, answering her;--"I will believe too when I see."

"Ah if you wait for that--" said Fleda.

Her voice suddenly checked, she bent her face down again to her little Bible, and there was a moment's struggle with herself.

"Are you looking for something more to shew me?" said Mr. Carleton kindly, stooping his face down to hers.

"Not much," said Fleda hurriedly; and then making a great effort she raised her head and gave him the book again.

"Look here, Mr. Carleton,--Jesus said, 'Blessed are they that havenotseen and yet have believed.'"

Mr. Carleton was profoundly struck, and the thought recurred to him afterwards and was dwelt upon.--"Blessed are they that havenotseen, and yet have believed." It was strange at first, and then he wondered that it should ever have been so. His was a mind peculiarly open to conviction, peculiarly accessible to truth; and his attention being called to it he saw faintly now what he had never seen before, the beauty of the principle offaith;--how natural, how reasonable, hownecessary, how honourable to the Supreme Being, how happy even for man, that the grounds of his trust in God being established, his acceptance of many other things should rest on that trust alone.

Mr. Carleton now became more reserved and unsociable than ever. He wearied himself with thinking. If be could have got at the books, he would have spent his days and nights in studying the evidences of Christianity, but the ship was bare of any such books, and he never thought of turning to the most obvious of all, the Bible itself. His unbelief was shaken; it was within an ace of falling in pieces to the very foundation; or rather he began to suspect how foundationless it had been. It came at last to one point with him;--If there were a God, he would not have left the world without a revelation,--no more would he have suffered that revelation to defeat its own end by becoming corrupted or alloyed, if there was such a revelation it could be no other than the Bible;--and his acceptance of the whole scheme of Christianity now hung upon the turn of a hair. Yet he could not resolve himself. He balanced the counter-doubts and arguments, on one side and on the other, and strained his mind to the task;--he could not weigh them nicely enough. He was in a maze; and seeking to clear and calm his judgment that he might see the way out, it was in vain that he tried to shake his dizzied head from the effect of the turns it had made. By dint of anxiety to find the right path reason had lost herself in the wilderness.

Fleda was not, as Mr. Carleton had feared she would be, at all alienated from him by the discovery that had given her so much pain. It wrought in another way, rather to add a touch of tender and anxious interest to the affection she had for him. It gave her however much more pain than he thought. If he had seen the secret tears that fell on his account he would have been grieved; and if he had known of the many petitions that little heart made for him--he could hardly have loved her more than he did.

One evening Mr. Carleton had been a long while pacing up and down the deck in front of little Fleda's nest, thinking and thinking, without coming to any end. It was a most fair evening, near sunset, the sky without a cloud except two or three little dainty strips which set off its blue. The ocean was very quiet, only broken into cheerful mites of waves that seemed to have nothing to do but sparkle. The sun's rays were almost level now, and a long path of glory across the sea led off towards his sinking disk. Fleda sat watching and enjoying it all in her happy fashion, which always made the most of everything good, and was especially quick in catching any form of natural beauty.

Mr. Carleton's thoughts were elsewhere; too busy to take note of things around him. Fleda looked now and then as he passed at his gloomy brow, wondering what he was thinking of, and wishing that he could have the same reason to be happy that she had. In one of his turns his eye met her gentle glance; and vexed and bewildered as he was with study there was something in that calm bright face that impelled him irresistibly to ask the little child to set the proud scholar right. Placing himself beside her, he said,

"Elfie, how do you know there is a God?--what reason have you for thinking so, out of the Bible?"

It was a strange look little Fleda gave him. He felt it at the time, and he never forgot it. Such a look of reproach, sorrow, andpity, he afterwards thought, as an angel's face might have worn. Thequestiondid not seem to occupy her a moment. After this answering look she suddenly pointed to the sinking sun and said,

"Who made that, Mr. Carleton?"

Mr. Carleton's eyes, following the direction of hers, met the long bright rays whose still witness-bearing was almost too powerful to be borne. The sun was just dipping majestically into the sea, and its calm self-assertion seemed to him at that instant hardly stronger than its vindication of its Author.

A slight arrow may find the joint in the armour before which many weightier shafts have fallen powerless. Mr. Carleton was an unbeliever no more from that time.

He borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay him again when he was able.--Merchant of Venice.

One other incident alone in the course of the voyage deserves to be mentioned; both because it served to bring out the characters of several people, and because it was not,--what is?--without its lingering consequences.

Thorn and Rossitur had kept up indefatigably the game of teasing Fleda about her "English admirer," as they sometimes styled him. Poor Fleda grew more and more sore on the subject. She thought it was very strange that two grown men could not find enough to do to amuse themselves without making sport of the comfort of a little child. She wondered they could take pleasure in what gave her so much pain; but so it was; and they had it up so often that at last others caught it from them; and though not in malevolence yet in thoughtless folly many a light remark was made and question asked of her that set little Fleda's sensitive nerves a quivering. She was only too happy that they were never said before Mr. Carleton; that would have been a thousand times worse. As it was, her gentle nature was constantly suffering from the pain or the fear of these attacks.

"Where's Mr. Carleton?" said her cousin coming up one day.

"I don't know," said Fleda,--"I don't know but he is gone up into one of the tops."

"Your humble servant leaves you to yourself a great while this morning, it seems to me. He is growing very inattentive."

"I wouldn't permit it, Miss Fleda, if I were you," said Thorn maliciously. "You let him have his own way too much."

"I wish you wouldn't talk so, cousin Charlton!" said Fleda.

"But seriously," said Charlton, "I think you had better call him to account. He is very suspicious lately. I have observed him walking by himself and looking very glum indeed. I am afraid he has taken some fancy into his head that would not suit you. I advise you to enquire into it."

"I wouldn't give myself any concern about it!" said Thorn lightly, enjoying the child's confusion and his own fanciful style of backbiting,--"I'd let him go if he has a mind to, Miss Fleda. He's no such great catch. He's neither lord nor knight--nothing in the world but a private gentleman, with plenty of money I dare say, but you don't care for that;--and there's as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. I don't think much of him!"

He is wonderfully better thanyou, thought Fleda as she looked in the young gentleman's face for a second, but she said nothing.

"Why, Fleda," said Charlton laughing, "it wouldn't be a killing affair, would it? How has this English admirer of yours got so far in your fancy?--praising your pretty eyes, eh?--Eh?" he repeated, as Fleda kept a dignified silence.

"No," said Fleda in displeasure,--"he never says such things."

"No?" said Charlton. "What then? What does he say? I wouldn't let him make a fool of me if I were you. Fleda!--did he ever ask you for a kiss?"

"No!" exclaimed Fleda half beside herself and bursting into tears;--"I wish you wouldn't talk so! How can you?"

They had carried the game pretty far that time, and thought best to leave it. Fleda stopped crying as soon as she could, lest somebody should see her; and was sitting quietly again, alone as before, when one of the sailors whom she had never spoken to came by, and leaning over towards her with a leer as he passed, said,

"Is this the young English gentleman's little sweetheart?"

Poor Fleda! She had got more than she could bear. She jumped up and ran down into the cabin; and in her berth Mrs. Carleton found her some time afterwards, quietly crying, and most sorry to be discovered. She was exceeding unwilling to tell what had troubled her. Mrs. Carleton, really distressed, tried coaxing, soothing, reasoning, promising, in a way the most gentle and kind that she could use.

"Oh it's nothing--it's nothing," Fleda said at last eagerly,--"it's because I am foolish--it's only something they said to me."

"Who, love?"

Again was Fleda most unwilling to answer, and it was after repeated urging that she at last said,

"Cousin Charlton and Mr. Thorn."

"Charlton and Mr. Thorn!--What did they say? What did they say, darling Fleda?"

"O it's only that they tease me," said Fleda, trying hard to put an end to the tears which caused all this questioning, and to speak as if they were about a trifle. But Mrs. Carleton persisted.

"What do they say to tease you, love? what is it about?--Guy, come in here and help me to find out what is the matter with Fleda."

Fleda hid her face in Mrs. Carleton's neck, resolved to keep her lips sealed. Mr. Carleton came in, but to her great relief his question was directed not to her but his mother.

"Fleda has been annoyed by something those young men, her cousin and Mr. Thorn, have said to her;--they tease her, she says, and she will not tell me what it is."

Mr. Carleton did not ask, and he presently left the state-room.

"O I am afraid he will speak to them!" exclaimed Fleda as soon as he was gone.--"O I oughtn't to have said that!"--

Mrs. Carleton tried to soothe her and asked what she was afraid of. But Fleda would not say any more. Her anxious fear that she had done mischief helped to dry her tears, and she sorrowfully resolved she would keep her griefs to herself next time.

Rossitur and Thorn were in company with a brother officer and friend of the latter when Mr. Carleton approached them.

"Mr. Rossitur and Mr. Thorn," said he, "you have indulged yourselves in a style of conversation extremely displeasing to the little girl under my mother's care. You will oblige me by abandoning it for the future."

There was certainly in Mr. Carleton's manner a sufficient degree of the cold haughtiness with which he usually expressed displeasure; though his words gave no other cause of offence. Thorn retorted rather insolently,

"I shall oblige myself in the matter, and do as I think proper."

"I have a right to speak as I please to my own cousin," said Rossitur sulkily,--"without asking anybody's leave. I don't see what you have to do with it."

"Simply that she is under my protection and that I will not permit her to be annoyed."

"I don't see how she is under your protection," said Rossitur.

"And I do not see how the potency of it will avail in this case,' said his companion.

"Neither position is to be made out in words," said Mr. Carleton calmly. "You see that I desire there be no repetition of the offence. The rest I will endeavour to make clear if I am compelled to it."

"Stop, sir!" said Thorn, as the young Englishman was turning away, adding with an oath,--"I won't bear this! You shall answer this to me, sir!"

"Easily," said the other.

"And me too," said Rossitur. "You have an account to settle with me, Carleton."

"I will answer what you please," said Carleton carelessly,--"and as soon as we get to land--provided you do not in the mean time induce me to refuse you the honour."

However incensed, the young men endeavoured to carry it off with the same coolness that their adversary shewed. No more words passed. But Mrs. Carleton, possibly quickened by Fleda's fears, was not satisfied with the carriage of all parties, and resolved to sound her son, happy in knowing that nothing but truth was to be had from him. She found an opportunity that very afternoon when he was sitting alone on the deck. The neighbourhood of little Fleda she hardly noticed. Fleda was curled up among her cushions, luxuriously bending over a little old black Bible which was very often in her hand at times when she was quiet and had no observation to fear.

"Reading!--always reading?" said Mrs. Carleton, as she came up and took a place by her son.

"By no means!" he said, closing his book with a smile;--"not enough to tire any one's eyes on this voyage, mother."

"I wish you liked intercourse with living society," said Mrs. Carleton, leaning her arm on his shoulder and looking at him rather wistfully.

"You need not wish that,--when it suits me," he answered.

"But none suits you. Is there any on board?"

"A small proportion," he said, with the slight play of feature which always effected a diversion of his mother's thoughts, no matter in what channel they had been flowing.

"But those young men," she said, returning to the charge,--"you hold yourself very much aloof from them?"

He did not answer, even by a look, but to his mother the perfectly quiet composure of his face was sufficiently expressive.

"I know what you think, but Guy, you always had the same opinion of them?"

"I have never shewn any other."

"Guy," she said speaking low and rather anxiously,--"have you got into trouble with those young men?"

"Iam in no trouble, mother," he answered somewhat haughtily; "I cannot speak for them."

Mrs. Carleton waited a moment.

"You have done something to displease them, have you not?"

"They have displeased me, which is somewhat more to the purpose.

"But their folly is nothing to you?"

"No,--not their folly."

"Guy," said his mother, again pausing a minute, and pressing her hand more heavily upon his shoulder, "you will not suffer this to alter the friendly terms you have been on?--whatever it be,--let it pass."

"Certainly--if they choose to apologize and behave themselves."

"What, about Fleda?"

"Yes."

"I have no idea they meant to trouble her--I suppose they did not at all know what they were doing,--thoughtless nonsense,--and they could have had no design to offend you. Promise me that you will not take any further notice of this!"

He shook off her beseeching hand as he rose up, and answered haughtily, and not without something like an oath, that hewould.

Mrs. Carleton knew him better than to press the matter any further; and her fondness easily forgave the offence against herself, especially as her son almost immediately resumed his ordinary manner.

It had well nigh passed from the minds of both parties, when in the middle of the next day Mr. Carleton asked what had become of Fleda?--he had not seen her except at the breakfast table. Mrs. Carleton said she was not well.

"What's the matter?"

"She complained of some headache--I think she made herself sick yesterday--she was crying all the afternoon, and I could not get her to tell me what for. I tried every means I could think of, but she would not give me the least clue--she said 'no' to everything I guessed--I can't bear to see her do so--it makes it all the worse she does it so quietly--it was only by a mere chance I found she was crying at all, but I think she cried herself ill before she stopped. She could not eat a mouthful of breakfast."

Mr. Carleton said nothing and with a changed countenance went directly down to the cabin. The stewardess, whom he sent in to see how she was, brought back word that Fleda was not asleep but was too ill to speak to her. Mr. Carleton went immediately into the little crib of a state-room. There he found his little charge, sitting bolt upright, her feet on the rung of a chair and her hands grasping the top to support herself. Her eyes were closed, her face without a particle of colour, except the dark shade round the eyes which bespoke illness and pain. She made no attempt to answer his shocked questions and words of tender concern, not even by the raising of an eyelid, and he saw that the intensity of pain at the moment was such as to render breathing itself difficult. He sent off the stewardess with all despatch after iced water and vinegar and brandy, and himself went on an earnest quest of restoratives among the lady passengers in the cabin, which resulted in sundry supplies of salts and cologne; and also offers of service, in greater plenty still, which he all refused. Most tenderly and judiciously he himself applied various remedies to the suffering child, who could not direct him otherwise than by gently putting away the things which she felt would not avail her. Several were in vain. But there was one bottle of strong aromatic vinegar which was destined to immortalize its owner in Fleda's remembrance. Before she had taken three whiffs of it her colour changed. Mr. Carleton watched the effect of a few whiffs more, and then bade the stewardess take away all the other things and bring him a cup of fresh strong coffee. By the time it came Fleda was ready for it, and by the time Mr. Carleton had administered the coffee he saw it would do to throw his mother's shawl round her and carry her up on deck, which he did without asking any questions. All this while Fleda had not spoken a word, except once when he asked her if she felt better. But she had given him, on finishing the coffee, a full look and half smile of such pure affectionate gratitude that the young gentleman's tongue was tied for some time after.

With happy skill, when he had safely bestowed Fleda among her cushions on deck, Mr. Carleton managed to keep off the crowd of busy inquirers after her well-doing, and even presently to turn his mother's attention another way, leaving Fleda to enjoy all the comfort of quiet and fresh air at once. He himself, seeming occupied with other things, did no more but keep watch over her, till he saw that she was able to bear conversation again. Then he seated himself beside her and said softly,

Then he seated himself beside her.Then he seated himself beside her.

"Elfie,--what were you crying about all yesterday afternoon?"

Fleda changed colour, for soft and gentle as the tone was she heard in it a determination to have the answer; and looking up beseechingly into his face she saw in the steady full blue eye that it was a determination she could not escape from. Her answer was an imploring request that he would not ask her. But taking one of her little hands and carrying it to his lips, he in the same tone repeated his question. Fleda snatched away her hand and burst into very frank tears; Mr. Carleton was silent, but she knew through silence that he was only quietly waiting for her to answer him.

"I wish you wouldn't ask me, sir," said poor Fleda, who still could not turn her face to meet his eye;--"It was only something that happened yesterday."

"What was it, Elfie?--You need not be afraid to tell me."

"It was only--what you said to Mrs. Carleton yesterday,--when she was talking--"

"About my difficulty with those gentlemen?"

"Yes," said Fleda, with a new gush of tears, as if her grief stirred afresh at the thought.

Mr. Carleton was silent a moment; and when he spoke there was no displeasure and more tenderness than usual in his voice.

"What troubled you in that, Elfie? tell me the whole."

"I was sorry, because,--it wasn't right," said Fleda, with a grave truthfulness which yet lacked none of her universal gentleness and modesty.

"What wasn't right?"

"To speak--I am afraid you won't like me to say it, Mr. Carleton."

"I will, Elfie,--for I ask you."

"To speak to Mrs. Carleton so, and besides,--you know what you said, Mr. Carleton--"

"It wasnotright," said he after a minute,--"and I very seldom use such an expression, but you know one cannot always be on one's guard, Elfie?"

"But," said Fleda with gentle persistence, "one can always do what is right."

The deuce one can!--thought Mr, Carleton to himself. "Elfie,--was that all that troubled you?--that I had said what was not right?"

"It wasn't quite that only," said Fleda hesitating,--"What else?"

She stooped her face from his sight and he could but just understand her words.

"I was disappointed--"

"What, in me!"

Her tears gave the answer; she could add to them nothing but an assenting nod of her head.

They would have flowed in double measure if she had guessed the pain she had given. Her questioner heard her with a keen pang which did not leave him for days. There was some hurt pride in it, though other and more generous feelings had a far larger share. He, who had been admired, lauded, followed, cited, and envied, by all ranks of his countrymen and countrywomen;--in whom nobody found a fault that could be dwelt upon amid the lustre of his perfections and advantages;--one of the first young men in England, thought so by himself as well as by others;--this little pure being had beendisappointedin him. He could not get over it. He reckoned the one judgment worth all the others. Those whose direct or indirect flatteries had been poured at his feet were the proud, the worldly, the ambitious, the interested, the corrupted;--their praise was given to what they esteemed, and that, his candour said, was the least estimable part of him. Beneath all that, this truth-loving, truth-discerning little spirit had found enough to weep for. She was right and they were wrong. The sense of this was so keen upon him that it was tea or fifteen minutes before he could recover himself to speak to his little reprover. He paced up and down the deck, while Fleda wept more and more from the fear of having offended or grieved him. But she was soon reassured on the former point. She was just wiping away her tears, with the quiet expression of patience her face often wore, when Mr. Carleton sat down beside her and took one of her hands.

"Elfie," said he,--"I promise you I will never say such a thing again."

He might well call her his good angel, for it was an angelic look the child gave him. So purely humble, grateful, glad,--so rosy with joyful hope,--the eyes were absolutely sparkling through tears. But when she saw that his were not dry, her own overflowed. She clasped her other hand to his hand and bending down her face affectionately upon it, she wept,--if ever angels weep,--such tears as they.

"Elfie," said Mr. Carleton, as soon as he could,--"I want you to go down stairs with me; so dry those eyes, or my mother will be asking all sorts of difficult questions."

Happiness is a quick restorative. Elfie was soon ready to go where he would.

They found Mrs. Carleton fortunately wrapped up in a new novel, some distance apart from the other persons in the cabin. The novel was immediately laid aside to take Fleda on her lap and praise Guy's nursing.

"But she looks more like a wax figure yet than anything else, don't she, Guy?"

"Not like any that ever I saw," said Mr. Carleton gravely. "Hardly substantial enough. Mother, I have come to tell you I am ashamed of myself for having given you such cause of offence yesterday."

Mrs. Carleton's quick look, as she laid her hand on her son's arm, said sufficiently well that she would have excused him from making any apology rather than have him humble himself in the presence of a third person.

"Fleda heard me yesterday," said he; "it was right she should hear me to-day."

"Then my dear Guy," said his mother with a secret eagerness which she did not allow to appear,--"if I may make a condition for my forgiveness, which you had before you asked for it,--will you grant me one favour?"

"Certainly, mother,--if I can."

"You promise me?"

"As well in one word as in two."

"Promise me that you will never, by any circumstances, allow yourself to be drawn into--what is calledan affair of honour."

Mr. Carleton's brow changed, and without making any reply, perhaps to avoid his mother's questioning gaze, he rose up and walked two or three times the length of the cabin. His mother and Fleda watched him doubtfully.

"Do you see how you have got me into trouble, Elfie?" said he, stopping before them.

Fleda looked wonderingly, and Mrs. Carleton exclaimed, "What trouble?"

"Elfie," said he, without immediately answering his mother, "what would your conscience do with two promises both of which cannot be kept?"

"What such promises have you made?" said Mrs Carleton eagerly.

"Let me hear first what Fleda says to my question."

"Why," said Fleda, looking a little bewildered,--"I would keep the right one."

"Not the one first made?" said he smiling.

"No," said Fleda,--"not unless it was the right one."

"But don't you think one ought to keep one's word, in any event?"

"I don't think anything can make it right to do wrong," Fleda said gravely, and not without a secret trembling consciousness to what point she was speaking.

He left them and again took several turns up and down the cabin before he sat down.

"You have not given me your promise yet, Guy," said his mother, whose eye had not once quitted him. "You said you would."

"I said, if I could."

"Well?--you can?"

"I have two honourable meetings of the proscribed kind now on hand, to which I stand pledged."

Fleda hid her face in an agony. Mrs. Carleton's agony was in every line of hers as she grasped her son's wrist exclaiming, "Guy, promise me!" She had words for nothing else. He hesitated still a moment, and then meeting his mother's look he said gravely and steadily,

"I promise you, mother, I never will."

His mother threw herself upon his breast and hid her face there, too much excited to have any thought of her customary regard to appearances; sobbing out thanks and blessings even audibly. Fleda's gentle head was bowed in almost equal agitation; and Mr. Carleton at that moment had no doubt that he had chosen well which promise to keep.

There remained however a less agreeable part of the business to manage. After seeing his mother and Fleda quite happy again, though without satisfying in any degree the curiosity of the former, Guy went in search of the two young West Point officers. They were together, but without Thorn's friend, Capt. Beebee. Him Carleton next sought and brought to the forward deck where the others were enjoying their cigars; or rather Charlton Rossitur was enjoying his, with the happy self satisfaction of a pair of epaulettes off duty. Thorn had too busy a brain to be much of a smoker. Now, however, when it was plain that Mr. Carleton had something to say to them, Charlton's cigar gave way to his attention; it was displaced from his mouth and held in abeyance; while Thorn puffed away more intently than ever.

"Gentlemen," Carleton began,--"I gave you yesterday reason to expect that so soon as circumstances permitted, you should have the opportunity which offended honour desires of trying sounder arguments than those of reason upon the offender. I have to tell you to-day that I will not give it you. I have thought further of it."

"Is it a new insult that you mean by this, sir?" exclaimed Rossitur in astonishment. Thorn's cigar did not stir.

"Neither new nor old. I mean simply that I have changed my mind."

"But this is very extraordinary!" said Rossitur. "What reason do you give?"

"I give none, sir."

"In that case," said Capt. Beebee, "perhaps Mr. Carleton will not object to explain or unsay the things which gave offence yesterday."

"I apprehend there is nothing to explain, sir,--I think I must have been understood; and I never take back my words, for I am in the habit of speaking the truth."

"Then we are to consider this as a further, unprovoked, unmitigated insult for which you will give neither reason nor satisfaction!" cried Rossitur.

"I have already disclaimed that, Mr. Rossitur."

"Are we, on mature deliberation, considered unworthy of thahonouryou so condescendingly awarded to us yesterday?"

"My reasons have nothing to do with you, sir, nor with your friend; they are entirely personal to myself."

"Mr. Carleton must be aware," said Capt. Beebee, "that his conduct, if unexplained, will bear a very strange construction."

Mr. Carleton was coldly silent.

"It never was heard of," the Captain went on,--"that a gentleman declined both to explain and to give satisfaction for any part of his conduct which had called for it."

"It never was heard that agentlemandid," said Thorn, removing his cigar a moment for the purpose of supplying the emphasis which his friend had carefully omitted to make.

"Will you say, Mr. Carleton," said Rossitur, "that you did not mean to offend us yesterday in what you said?"

"No, Mr. Rossitur."

"You will not!" cried the Captain.

"No, sir; for your friends had given me, as I conceived, just cause of displeasure; and I was, and am, careless of offending those who have done so."

"You consider yourself aggrieved, then, in the first place?" said Beebee.

"I have said so, sir."

"Then," said the Captain, after a puzzled look out to sea, "supposing that my friends disclaim all intention to offend you in that case--"

"In that case I should be glad, Capt. Beebee, that they had changed their line of tactics--there is nothing to change in my own."

"Then what are we to understand by this strange refusal of a meeting, Mr. Carleton? what does it mean?"

"It means one thing in my own mind, sir, and probably another in yours; but the outward expression I choose to give it is that I will not reward uncalled-for rudeness with an opportunity of self-vindication."

"You are," said Thorn sneeringly, "probably careless as to the figure your own name will cut in connection with this story?"

"Entirely so," said Mr. Carleton, eying him steadily.

"You are aware that your character is at our mercy?"

A slight bow seemed to leave at their disposal the very small portion of his character he conceived to lie in that predicament.

"You will expect to hear yourself spoken of in terms that befit a man who has cowed out of an engagement he dared not fulfil?"

"Of course," said Carleton haughtily, "by my present refusal I give you leave to say all that, and as much more as your ingenuity can furnish in the same style; but not in my hearing, sir."

"You can't help yourself," said Thorn, with the same sneer. "You have rid yourself of a gentleman's means of protection,--what others will you use?

"I will leave that to the suggestion of the moment. I do not doubt it will be found fruitful."

Nobody doubted it who looked just then on his steady sparkling eye.

"I consider the championship of yesterday given up of course," Thorn went on in a kind of aside, not looking at anybody, and striking his cigar against the guards to clear it of ashes;--"the champion has quitted the field; and the little princess but lately so walled in with defences must now listen to whatever knight and squire may please to address to her. Nothing remains to be seen of her defender but his spurs."

"They may serve for the heels of whoever is disposed to annoy her," said Mr. Carleton. "He will need them."

He left the group with the same air of imperturbable self-possession which he had maintained during the conference. But presently Rossitur, who had his private reasons for wishing to keep friends with an acquaintance who might be of service in more ways than one, followed him and declared himself to have been, in all his nonsense to Fleda, most undesirous of giving displeasure to her temporary guardian, and sorry that it had fallen out so. He spoke frankly, and Mr. Carleton, with the same cool gracefulness with which he had carried on the quarrel, waived his displeasure, and admitted the young gentleman apparently to stand as before in his favour. Their reconciliation was not an hour old when Capt. Beebee joined them.

"I am sorry I must trouble you with a word more on this disagreeable subject, Mr. Carleton," he began, after a ceremonious salutation,--"My friend, Lieut. Thorn, considers himself greatly outraged by your determination not to meet him. He begs to ask, by me, whether it is your purpose to abide by it at all hazards?"

"Yes, sir."

"There is some misunderstanding here, which I greatly regret.--I hope you will see and excuse the disagreeable necessity I am under of delivering the rest of my friend's message."

"Say on, sir."

"Mr. Thorn declares that if you deny him the common courtesy which no gentleman refuses to another, he will proclaim your name with the most opprobrious adjuncts to all the world, and in place of his former regard he will hold you in the most unlimited contempt, which he will have no scruple about shewing on all occasions."

Mr. Carleton coloured a little, but replied coolly,

"I have not lived in Mr. Thorn's favour. As to the rest, I forgive him!--except indeed he provoke me to measures for which I never will forgive him."

"Measures!" said the Captain.

"I hope not! for my own self-respect would be more grievously hurt than his. But there is an unruly spring somewhere about my composition that when it gets wound up is once in a while too much for me."

"But," said Rossitur, "pardon me,--have you no regard to the effect of his misrepresentations?"

"You are mistaken, Mr. Rossitur," said Carleton slightly;--this is but the blast of a bellows,--not the Simoom."

"Then what answer shall I have the honour of carrying back to my friend?" said Capt. Beebee, after a sort of astounded pause of a few minutes.

"None, of my sending, sir."

Capt. Beebee touched his cap, and went back to Mr. Thorn, to whom he reported that the young Englishman was thoroughly impracticable, and that there was nothing to be gained by dealing with him; and the vexed conclusion of Thorn's own mind, in the end, was in favour of the wisdom of letting him alone.

In a very different mood, saddened and disgusted, Mr. Carleton shook himself free of Rossitur and went and stood alone by the guards looking out upon the sea. He did not at all regret his promise to his mother, nor wish to take other ground than that he had taken. Both the theory and the practice of duelling he heartily despised, and he was not weak enough to fancy that he had brought any discredit upon either his sense or his honour by refusing to comply with an unwarrantable and barbarous custom. And he valued mankind too little to be at all concerned about their judgment in the matter. His own opinion was at all times enough for him. But the miserable folly and puerility of such an altercation as that in which he had just been engaged, the poor display of human character, the little low passions which bad been called up, even in himself, alike destitute of worthy cause and aim, and which had perhaps but just missed ending in the death of some and the living death of others,--it all wrought to bring him back to his old wearying of human nature and despondent eying of the everywhere jarrings, confusions, and discordances in the moral world. The fresh sea-breeze that swept by the ship, roughening the play of the waves, and brushing his own cheek with its health-bearing wing, brought with it a sad feeling of contrast. Free, and pure, and steadily directed, it sped on its way, to do its work. And like it all the rest of the natural world, faithful to the law of its Maker, was stamped with the same signet of perfection. Only man, in all the universe, seemed to be at cross purposes with the end of his being. Only man, of all animate or inanimate things, lived an aimless, fruitless, broken life,--or fruitful only in evil. How was this? and whence? and when would be the end? and would this confused mass of warring elements ever be at peace? would this disordered machinery ever work smoothly, without let or stop any more, and work out the beautiful something for which sure it was designed? And could any hand but its first Maker mend the broken wheel or supply the spring that was wanting?

Has not the Desire of all nations been often sought of eyes that were never taught where to look for him.

Mr. Carleton was standing still by the guards, looking thoughtfully out to windward to meet the fresh breeze, as if the Spirit of the Wilderness were in it and could teach him the truth that the Spirit of the World knew not and had not to give, when he became sensible of something close beside him; and looking down met little Fleda's upturned face, with such a look of purity, freshness, and peace, it said as plainly as ever the dial-plate of a clock thatthatlittle piece of machinery was working right. There was a sunlight upon it, too, of happy confidence and affection. Mr. Carleton's mind experienced a sudden revulsion. Fleda might see the reflection of her own light in his face as he helped her up to a stand where she could be more on a level with him; putting his arm round her to guard against any sudden roll of the ship.

"What makes you wear such a happy face?" said he, with an expression half envious, half regretful.

"I don't know!" said Fleda innocently. "You, I suppose."

He looked as bright as she did, for a minute.

"Were you ever angry, Elfie?"

"I don't know--" said Fleda. "I don't know but I have."

He smiled to see that although evidently her memory could not bring the charge, her modesty would not deny it.

"Were you not angry yesterday with your cousin and that unmannerly friend of his?"

"No," said Fleda, a shade crossing her face,--"I was notangry"--

And as she spoke her hand was softly put upon Mr. Carleton's; as if partly in the fear of what might have grown out ofhisanger, and partly in thankfulness to him that he had rendered it unnecessary. There was a singular delicate timidity and tenderness in the action.

"I wish I had your secret, Elfie," said Mr. Carleton, looking wistfully into the clear eyes that met his.

"What secret?" said Fleda smiling.

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