A Century Too Soon Part 12

The boat at last was completed, and he rigged a sail for it, and together they set out for the distant islands. They glided over the water, catching a glimpse of a man-eating shark, which made them shudder with dread.

With fair wind and tide they reached the nearest island that day. It was nearly as large as their own, and the sh.o.r.e was fully as dangerous. The next was smaller, and both were wooded, with low hills, but poorly watered. They found goats and foxes abounding on each, but no indication that a human being had ever been there. All about on every side was the vast ocean, stretching as far as the eye could reach, with the eternal wash of waves on the rocks.

Spreading their tent on the sh.o.r.e, they pa.s.sed the night on the island nearest their own, and were greatly annoyed by foxes and mosquitoes, so that with early dawn they were glad to return home.

One never knows how to appreciate home until they have been away, and John seemed to take a new interest in his house, fields and the tame goats of his island.

Yet in the night, when slumber had sealed his eyelids, he saw in that far-away home his wife's pale face, and felt his baby's soft arms once more about his neck, and in his agony he cried out:

"G.o.d send some s.h.i.+p to deliver me!"

Day by day as the years rolled on, John Stevens saw more and more to admire in the companion with whom his lot was cast. When he was sick or tired she watched over him with all the tender care of a sister or mother. When he was saddest she whispered words of hope and cheer in his ear. In fact Blanche was an ideal woman, a comforter and a helper.

"How could I live here without you, Blanche?" he said one day.

"Heaven tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," she answered. "Nothing is so bad that it could not be worse." Blanche was a pure Christian girl.

No influence on earth could swerve her from a course marked out for her by her intellect and approved by her conscience. She was a devout Christian, and when her companion, in the bitterness of his soul, was rebellious, her sweet Christian influence led him back to G.o.d.

In the stillness of life, talent is formed; but in the storm and stress of adverse circ.u.mstances character is fas.h.i.+oned. Had Blanche returned to London she might have become a society lady; but here she was a consoler, binding up the broken heart. She would sit for hours by John's side talking with him about his wife and children in far-off Virginia, and she never went to sleep without praying Heaven by some means to take the father and husband back to his loved ones.

"I went to the cliff this morning," she said, "thinking I might see a sail, but I was disappointed."

"Why did you think to see a sail, Blanche?" he asked.

"I dreamed last night that a s.h.i.+p came for you and took you home. Oh, how glad I was, when I saw you happy again with your dear wife and the baby on your knee, its little warm hands on your face!"

After a long silence, he asked:

"Blanche, how long have we been here?"

"Ten years," she answered.

Blanche not only had kept a complete journal since the day of their s.h.i.+pwreck, but had written a faithful description of the island, giving its resources and describing the coast. To John it seemed but yesterday since he kissed the tender cheek of his babe, bade his wife a farewell and sailed away.

Ten years had made their impress on him. His hair was growing gray, and his beard was quite frosty. It was not age that whitened his hair so much as it was his ten years of suffering. Ten years had developed Blanche from a beautiful girl to a glorious woman of twenty-eight, more beautiful at twenty-eight than eighteen.

"Blanche, would ten years change a baby?" John asked.

"Yes."

"Then my baby is a baby no longer," sighed the father.

"No; she is a pretty little girl now."

"And has no recollection of her father?"

"How could she?"

"But my little boy?"

"He was five when you left home?"

"No, not quite; four and some months."

"Then he would remember you."

"He is a good-sized boy."

"Almost fifteen," she answered.

"Heaven grant I may yet see them!"

"Amen!" replied Blanche. "G.o.d has not forgotten you; our prayers will be heard."

John made no answer. He arose, took his gun and went out among the hills.

"When he talks of them," Blanche thought, "he always goes to the hills.

G.o.d grant he does not die of despair, for then I would be all alone on this island of desolation."

Tears gathered in her eyes and, falling on her knees, she breathed a fervent prayer.

CHAPTER VII.

IN WIDOW'S WEEDS.

Go; you may call it madness, folly; You may not chase my gloom away.

There's such a charm in melancholy, I would not, if I could, be gay.

--ROGERS.

Dorothe Stevens was not a woman to take misfortune much to heart. She watched the s.h.i.+p in which her husband sailed until it vanished from sight, shed a few tears, heaved a few sighs and went home to see if the negro slave had prepared breakfast. She smiled next day, and before the week was past she was quite gay. She said she was not going to repine and languish in sorrow.

Her conduct shocked the staid Puritans, and her fine apparel was unG.o.dly in their eyes.

Weeks rolled on, and no news came from the good s.h.i.+p _Silverwing_; but they might not hear from her for months, and Mrs. Stevens did not borrow trouble. She did not dream that the s.h.i.+p could possibly be lost, or that her husband's voyage could be other than prosperous, so she plunged into a course of extravagance and pleasure that would have ruined a wealthier man than poor John Stevens.

"I must do something," she declared, "to relieve my mind from thoughts of my poor, dear, absent husband, for whom I grieve continually."

Once John's mother and sister came to see her; but she was entertaining some ladies from Greensprings and wholly neglected her visitors. The grandmother held the baby on her knee, kissed the face, while her tears fell on it; then silently the two unwelcome visitors departed for their home, while Mrs. Stevens was so busily engaged with the ladies from Greensprings that she did not even bid them adieu.

Dark days were in store for Dorothe Stevens. She heeded not the constant reduction of her money until it was gone. Then she reasoned that her husband would soon return with a goodly supply, and she began to use her credit, which had always been good; but she found that the merchants who once had smiled on her frowned when she came to ask for credit.

"Have you heard from your husband, Dorothe Stevens?" one asked, when she applied to him for credit.

"No."

"He has been a long time gone."