Fritz and Eric.
by John Conroy Hutcheson.
CHAPTER ONE.
"GOOD-BYE!"
"Time is getting on, little mother, and we"ll soon have to say farewell!"
"Aye, my child. The parting is a sad one to me; but I hope and trust the good G.o.d will hold you in His safe keeping, and guide your footsteps back home to me again!"
"Never you fear, little mother. He will do that, and in a year"s time we shall all meet again under the old roof-tree, I"m certain. Keep your heart up, mother mine, the same as I do; remember, it is not a "Farewell" I am saying for ever, it is merely "Auf wiedersehen!""
"I hope so, Eric, surely; still, we cannot tell what the future may bring forth!" said the other sadly.
Mother and son were wending their way through the quaint, old-fashioned, sleepy main street of Lubeck that led to the railway station--a bran-new modern structure that seemed strangely incongruous amidst the antique surroundings of the ancient town. Although it was past the midday hour, hardly a soul was to be seen moving about; and the western sun lighted up the green spires of the churches and red-tiled pointed roofs of the houses, glinting from the peculiar eye-shaped dormer windows of some of the cottages with the most grotesque effect and making them appear as if winking at the onlooker. It seemed like a scene of a bygone age reproduced on the canvas of some Flemish artist; and, but that Eric and his mother were accustomed to it, they must have rubbed their eyes, like Rip Van Winkle when he came down from the goblin-haunted mountain into the old village of his youth, in doubt whether all was real, thinking it might be a dream. Presently, however, they were at the railway station, and they would have been convinced, if they had felt inclined to believe otherwise, that they were living in the present. But, even here, amid all the hissing of steam, and creaking of carriages, and whirr of moving machinery, the queer old-world costumes of the peasantry, with their quaint hats and mantles, which more resembled the stage properties of a Christmas pantomime than the known dress of any people of the period, all spoke of the past--a past when the great Barbarossa reigned in Central Europe, and when there were "Robbers of the Rhine," and "Forty thousand virgins," in company with Saint Ursula, canonising the sainted and scented city of Cologne. Ah, those days of long ago!
"Here we are at last, mother," said Eric, slinging the bag containing his sea kit on to the railway platform. "The old engine is getting its steam up, and we"ll soon be off. Cheer up, little mother! As I"ve told you, it is not a good-bye for ever!"
"So you say, my son. The young ever look forward; but old people like myself look back, and it makes us reflect how few of the n.o.ble aspirations and longing antic.i.p.ations of our youth are ever realised!"
"Old people like yourself indeed, little mother!" said Eric indignantly, tossing up his lion-like head, and looking as if he would like to see any one else who would dare to make such an a.s.sertion, the next moment throwing his arms round her neck, and hugging her fondly. "I won"t have you calling yourself old, you dear little mother, with your nice glossy brown hair, and beautiful bright blue eyes and handsome face--a face which I fail not to see Burgher Jans gaze on with eloquent expression every Sunday when we go to the Dom Kirche. Ah, I know--"
"Fie, my son!" exclaimed Madame Dort, interrupting him by placing her hand across his mouth, a process which soon stopped his indiscreet impetuosity, a warm blush the while mantling her comely countenance; for she was yet in the bloom of middle-aged womanhood. "Suppose, now, any one were to overhear you, audacious child!"
"Ah, but I know, though," repeated the boy triumphantly, when he had again regained his freedom of speech. "I won"t tell, little mother; still, I must make a bargain with you, as I don"t intend that fusty old Burgher Jans to have my handsome young mutterchen, that"s poz! But, to change the subject, why are you so despondent about my leaving you now, dear mother? I"ve been already away from you two voyages, and yet have returned safe and sound to Lubeck."
"You forget, my child, that the pitcher sometimes goes once too often to the well. The ocean is treacherous, and the perils of the sea are great, although you, in boy-like fashion, may laugh at them. Strong men have but too often to acknowledge the supremacy of the waves when they bear them down to their watery grave, leaving widows and orphans, alas!
to mourn their untimely fate with sad and bitter tears! Don"t you remember your poor father"s end, my son?"
"I do, mother," answered the boy gravely; "still, all sailors are not drowned, nor is a seafaring life always dangerous."
"Granted, my child," responded his mother to this truism; "but, those who go down to the sea in ships, as the Psalmist says, see the perils of the deep, and lead a venturesome calling! Besides, Eric, I must tell you that I--I do not feel myself so strong as I was when you first left home and became a sailor boy; and, although I have no doubt a good Providence will watch over you, and preserve you in answer to my heartfelt prayers, yet you are now starting on a longer voyage than you have yet undertaken, and perchance I may not live to greet you on your return!"
"Oh, mother, don"t say that, don"t say that!" exclaimed Eric in a heart- broken voice; "you are not ill, you are not ailing, mother dear?" and he peered anxiously with a loving gaze into her eyes, to try and read some meaning there for the sorrowful presage that had escaped thus inadvertently from her lips, drawn forth by the agony of parting.
"No, my darling, nothing very alarming," she said soothingly, wishing to avoid distressing him needlessly by communicating what might really be only, as she hoped, a groundless fear on her part. "I do not feel exactly ill, dear. I was only speaking about the natural frail tenure of this mortal life of ours. This saying "Good-bye" to you too, my darling, makes me infected with morbid fear and nervous anxiety. Fancy me nervous, Eric--I whom you call your strong-minded mother, eh?" and the poor lady smiled bravely, so as to encourage the lad, and banish his easily excited fears on her account. It was but a sickly smile, however, for it did not come genuinely from the heart, prompted though the latter was with the fullest affection. Still, Eric did not perceive this, and the smile quickly dismissed his fears.
"Ha, ha," he laughed in his light-hearted, ringing way. "The idea of your being nervous, like I remember old grandmother Grimple was when I used to jump suddenly in at the door or fire my popgun! I would never believe it, not even if you yourself said it. Ah, now you look better already, and like my own dear little mother who will keep safe and well, and welcome me back next year, surely; and then, dear one, we"ll have no end of a happy time!"
"I hope so, Eric; I hope so with all my heart," said she, pressing the eager lad to her bosom in a fond embrace; "and you may be sure that none will be so glad to welcome you back as I!"
"Think, mother," said Eric presently, after a moment"s silence, in which the feelings of the two seemed too great to find expression in words of common import. "Why, by that time I will have nearly sailed round the world; for in my voyage to Java and back I will have to "double the Cape," as sailors say!"
"Yes, that you will, my boy," chimed in his mother, anxious to sustain this buoyant change in his humour, and drive away the somewhat melancholy tone she had unwittingly introduced into their last parting conversation. "You"ll be a regular little travelled monkey, like the one belonging to the Dutchman that we were reading about the other day which could do everything almost but speak, although I don"t think anybody would accuse you of any want of ability on the latter score, you chatterbox!"
"No, no, little mother; I think not likewise," chuckled Eric complacently. "I"m not one of your silent ones, not so! But, hurrah!-- There comes Fritz turning in under the old gateway. He said he would try and get away for half an hour in the afternoon from the counting- house to wish me another good-bye and see me off, if Herr Grosschnapper could spare him. Ah ha, Master Fritz," shouted out the sailor lad, as his brother drew nigh, "you"re just in time to see the last of me. I thought the worthy Herr would not let you come, you are so very late."
"Better late than never," said the other, smiling, coming up beside the pair, who were standing in front of one of the railway carriages, into which Eric had already bundled his bag. "The old man did growl a bit about my "idling away the afternoon," as he called it; but when I impressed him with the fact that you were going away to sea, he relented and let me come, saying that it was a good job such a circ.u.mstance did not occur every day!"
"Much obliged to him, I"m sure!" said Eric, with that usual toss of his head which threw back his mane-like locks of yellow hair. "He would have been a fine old curmudgeon to have refused you leave to wish good- bye to your only brother!" And he put one of his arms round Fritz"s neck as he spoke.
"Hush, my son," interposed Madame Dort. "You must not speak ill of the good merchant who has been such a kind friend to Fritz and given him regular employment in his warehouse!"
"All right, mutterchen, I won"t mention again the name of the old cur--, I mean dear old gentleman, little mother, there!" And then catching the twinkling eye of Fritz, the two burst into a simultaneous laugh at the narrow escape there had been of his repeating the obnoxious epithet; while Madame Dort could not help smiling too, as she gazed fondly into the merry face of the roguish boy, standing by his brother"s side and clinging to him with that deep fraternal affection which is so rarely seen, alas! in members of the same family.
Truly, they were sons of whom any mother might have been proud.
Fritz was tall and manly, by virtue of his two-and-twenty years and a small fringe of dark down that covered his upper lip; Eric was shorter by some inches, but more thick-set and with broader shoulders, predicting that he would be the bigger of the two as time rolled on.
The firstborn, Fritz, with his closely cropped hair and swarthy complexion, took after his dead father, who had been a Holsteiner--a mariner by profession, who had sailed his ship from the Elbe some years before for the last time, and left his wife to bring up her fatherless boys by the sweat of her brow and her own exertions; for Captain Dort had left but little worldly goods behind him, his all being embarked with himself in his ship, which was lost, with all hands on board, in the North Sea. Fritz and Eric had both been too young at the time to appreciate the struggles of their mother to support herself and them, until she had achieved a comfortable competency by teaching music and languages in several rich Hanoverian families; and now she had no longer to battle for her bread.
Eric took after her in face and expression, having the same light- coloured hair and bright blue eyes; but there the resemblance ceased, as hardly had he grown to boyhood than he evinced that desire for a sea life which he must have inherited with his father"s blood--he would, he must be a sailor!
Being the youngest, he naturally was her pet; and thus, although the recollection of her husband"s fate was ever before her, and Madame Dort had a dread of the sea which only those who have suffered a similar bereavement can fully understand, she could not resist the boy"s continual pleadings, backed up as they were by his evident and unaffected bias of mind towards everything connected with ships and shipping; for, Eric never seemed so happy as when frequenting the quays and talking with the sailors and sea-captains who came to the old port of Lubeck, where of late years the mother had taken up her residence, in order to be near Fritz, who had obtained a clerkship in a merchant"s house there, through the friendly offices of the parents of one of the music-teacher"s pupils.
Eric had already received his "sea-baptism," so to speak, having been on a trip to England in a Hamburgh cattle-boat, and on a cruise up the Baltic in a timber-ship; but he was now going away in a Dutch vessel to the East Indies, the voyage promising to occupy more than a year, so there is no wonder that his mother was anxious on his account, thinking she would never live to see him again. It seemed so terrible to her as she stood on the railway platform, surrounded by all the bustle and preparation of the train about to depart, to fancy, as she gazed with longing eyes at her brave and gallant Eric, with his lion-like head and curling locks of golden hair, that she might never look on her sailor laddie"s merry, loving face any more; and, tears dropped from the widow"s eyes as she drew him towards her, clasping him to her, as if she could not bear to let him go.
"Come, mother," said Fritz, after a moment"s interval. "Time is up!
The guard is calling out for the pa.s.sengers to take their seats. Eric, old fellow, good-bye, and G.o.d bless you! You will write to the mother and me from every port you touch at?"
"Aye, surely," said the boy, a sob breaking his voice and banishing the mannish composure which he had tried to maintain to the last. "Good- bye, Fritz; you"ll take care of mother?"
"Don"t you fear, that will I, brother!" was the answer in those earnest tones which Fritz always used when he was making a promise and giving his word to anything he undertook--a word which he never broke.
"And now, good-bye, mutterchen, my own darling little mother," said Eric, clasping his mother in a last clinging hug; "you"ll never forget me, but will keep strong and well till I come back."
"I will try, my child, with G.o.d"s help," sobbed out the poor lady.
"But, may He preserve you and bring you back safe to my arms! Good-bye, my darling. You must never forget Him or me; my consolation in your absence will be that your prayers will ascend to heaven along with mine."
"You may trust me, mother, indeed you may. Good-bye, little mother!
G.o.d bless you, mutterchen! Good-bye!" cried out the sailor lad from the carriage window; and then, the train moved off, puffing and panting out of the station, leaving Fritz and his mother standing on the platform, and waving their handkerchiefs in farewell to Eric, who was as busily engaged gesticulating, with his hat in one hand and in the other a newspaper that his brother had brought him, shouting out, "Lebewohl!"--a sobbing farewell it was--for the last time, and still waving adieux when his voice failed him!
"Never mind, my mother," said Fritz softly, giving his arm to the heart- stricken lady, and leading her away with tender care from the railway station to their now sadly bereaved home. "Cheer up, and hope, mutterchen! You have a son still left you, who will never desert you or quit his post of looking after you, till Eric, the dear boy, comes back."
"I know, my son, I know your love and affection," replied Madame Dort, pressing his arm to her side affectionately; "but, who can tell what the future may have in store for us? Ah, it"s a wise proverb that, dear son, which reminds us that "man proposes, but G.o.d disposes!""
"It is so," murmured Fritz, more to himself than to her; "still, I trust we"ll all meet again beneath the old roof-tree."
"And I the same, from the bottom of my heart!" said his mother, in cordial sympathy with his wish, as she began to ascend the steps leading up to her dwelling; while Fritz returned to the counting-house of his employer, Herr Grosschnapper, to finish those duties which had been interrupted by his having to see Eric off.
CHAPTER TWO.
A THUNDERCLAP!
It was late in the autumn when Eric left Lubeck on his way to Rotterdam, where he was to go on board the good ship _Gustav Barentz_, bound on a trading voyage to the eastern isles of the Indian Ocean; and, as the year rolled on, bringing winter in its train--a season which the Dort family had hitherto always hailed with pleasure on account of its festive a.s.sociations--the hours lagged with the now sadly diminished little household in the Gulden Stra.s.se; for, the merry Christmas-tide reminded them more than ever of the absent sailor boy, who had always been the very life and soul of the home circle, and the eagerly sought- for guest at every neighbourly gathering.