How still the night is! Not a breath of wind now; not a sound save the distant melancholy hooting of an owl as he flies low across the fields, the champ-champing of the horse in the stable, and an occasional plash in the ca.n.a.l as some great frog leaps off the bank.
Nothing more.
But high above shine G.o.d"s holy stars. There may be melancholy in the old sailor"s heart as he gazes skywards, but there is hope as well, for these little points of dazzling light bear his thoughts away to better worlds than this.
It is early morning again, and soon the barge is well on its way.
But when it is stopped in the middle of a somewhat lonesome moor, and Tandy takes his children on sh.o.r.e, the boy knows right well where they are going, though innocent little Babs doesn"t.
"Father," he says presently, as they are near to a clump of tall trees, "isn"t it just _here_ where mother was laid?"
The rough weather-beaten old sailor uncovers his head.
He points to a spot of the ca.n.a.l that is gleaming bright in the rays of the morning sun.
"Just down there, dear boy," he says. "The coffin was leaded; it could never rise."
The last words are spoken apparently to himself, as he turns sadly away towards the trees.
Still holding Ransey"s hand, and with Babs in his arms, he points to the tallest, strongest tree of all. It is a beautiful beech.
And there, about eight feet from the ground, and evidently let deeply into the tree, is a small and lettered slab of marble.
The bark has begun to curl in a rough lip over its edge all round as if to hold it more firmly in its place.
POOR MARY.
She has gone on.
_Feby. 19th--82_.
The letters were not over-well formed. Perhaps they were cut by Tandy"s own hand. What mattered it? The little tablet was meant but for _his_ eyes. Simplicity is best.
"Poor Mary! She has gone on."
And the words are written not only there upon the marble, but upon the honest sailor"s heart.
End of Book One.
Book 2--CHAPTER ONE.
"JUST THREE YEARS SINCE RANSEY WENT TO SEA."
"O father," said Babs one autumn evening, "aren"t _you_ frightened at the roaring of the sea?"
Tandy and his child were sitting together, that autumn evening, in the best parlour. They were waiting for the postman to come round the corner; and as the waves were making a clean breach over the black, smooth rocks down yonder, and the spray was dashing high over the road and rattling like hail upon the panes of gla.s.s in the little cottage window, the postman would be wearing his waterproof cape to-night to keep the letters dry.
Babs had been watching for a man in a glittering oilskin, very anxiously, too, with her little face close to the gla.s.s, when a bigger wave than any she had yet seen rolled green and spumy and swiftly across the boulders, till meeting the resistance offered by the cliff it rose into the air for twenty feet at least, then broke like a waterfall on the asphalt path which was dignified by the name of esplanade.
No wonder she rushed back from the window, and now stood trembling by her father"s side.
He took her gently on his knee.
Though five years have elapsed since the night they had visited mother"s tree, and she is now eight years of age, she is but a little thing. Ay, and fragile.
As she sits there, with one arm about his neck, he looks at her, and talks to her tenderly. She has her mother"s eyes.
But how lonely he would be, he cannot help thinking, if anything happened to his little Nelda--to Babs. The thought causes him to shiver as he sits there in his easy-chair by the fire, for chill is the breeze that blows from off the sea to-night.
"Daddy!"
"Yes, dear."
"To-morrow, when it comes, will make it just three years since Ransey went to sea."
"Three years? Yes, Babs, so it will. Oh, how quickly the time has flown! And how good your memory is, darling!"
"Flown quickly, father? Oh, I think every one of those years has been much, much longer than the other. And I think," she added, "lazy postie will never come to-night. But I dreamt, daddy, we would have a letter from Ransey, and it is sure to come."
Three years. Yes, and years do fly fast away when men or women get elderly.
Those years though--ay, and the whole five--had been very busy ones with Ransey Tansey, very eventful, I might almost say.
Old Captain Weathereye had proved a right good friend to Ransey. Nor did he take the least degree of credit to himself for being so.
"The boy has got the grit in him," he told Miss Scragley, "and just a spice of the devil; and without that, I can a.s.sure you, madam, no boy is going to get well on in this world."
Miss Scragley didn"t care to swallow this doctrine quite; but Eedie, whom Ransey looked upon as a kind of fairy, or G.o.ddess, immeasurably better than himself, took the captain"s view of the matter.
"Oh, yes," she astonished Miss Scragley by exclaiming, "the devil is everywhere, auntie. Mr Smith himself said so in the church. He is in roaring lions and in lambs when they lie down together, and in little boys, and then they are best and funniest."
Miss Scragley sighed.
"It is a world of sin and sorrow," she murmured.
"A world of fiddlesticks, madam!" cried Weathereye. "I tell you, it is a splendid world, a grand old world; but you"ve got to learn how to take your own part in it. Take my word for it, Miss Scragley, the world wasn"t made for fools. Fools have got to take a back seat, and just look on, while men of grit do the work and enjoy the reward. Ahem!"
"I"ve got to make a man of that lad," he went on, "and, what"s more, I"m doing it. He needs holy-stoning--I"m holy-stoning him. He may want a little polishing after, but rubbing against the world will do that."
"You"re very good, Captain Weathereye; you will be rewarded, if not in this world, in the next--"
"Tut--tut--tut," cried the old sailor impatiently, and it must be admitted somewhat brusquely, "women folks will talk, especially when they don"t know what to say; but pray keep such sentiments and plat.i.tudes as these for your next Dorcas meeting, madam. Reward, indeed! Next world, forsooth! I tell you that I"m having it in _this_.
I live my own early days over again in the boy"s youth. It is moral meat and drink for the old--well, the middle-aged, like myself, ahem!-- to mingle with the young and get interested, not so much in their pursuits, because one"s joints are too stiff for that, but in their hopes and aspirations for the future which is all before them. Ever hear these lines, Miss Scragley?
""In the lexicon of youth That fate reserves for a bright manhood, There is no such word as fail."
"I"d have them printed on the front page of every copybook laid before a child in school, and I"d have him to learn them as soon as he can lisp."