The Twa Miss Dawsons Part 46

Jean grew very white.

"Well?" said she sitting down.

"Is it good news, George, man?" said his aunt hastily.

"It is just such news as one would expect to hear from Willie Calderwood. Yes, I call it good news, whatever may come next."

And then he told them how another of the "Ben Nevis'" boats had been heard from. After much suffering from anxiety and exhaustion, they who left the s.h.i.+p in it had landed somewhere on the West African coast, and had, after some delay, been taken from thence in a Portuguese vessel to Lisbon. And now some of them at least had reached England. And this was the news they brought.

When those who were to go in the second boat were about to take their places in it, Captain Calderwood had, to their utter amazement, declared his intention of remaining with the s.h.i.+p for that night at least. The vessel was new and strongly built, and within the hour he had seen some tokens that led him to believe that, during the storm, it had not gone so hardly with her as had been at first feared.

The cargo was a valuable one, and his duty to his employers demanded that, while there was a chance of saving it and the s.h.i.+p, he should remain on board. At the same time he acknowledged, that as far as could now be judged, there was but a chance in ten, that he could do this, while by taking to the boats at once, there was a fair prospect of their being picked up by one of the many homeward bound vessels which at that season followed the course which they had taken.

Then he called for volunteers to remain with him. Not a man among the sailors but would have stayed at his bidding. But an able crew was placed in the departing boat, and he was left with just men enough to work the s.h.i.+p, among them three pa.s.sengers, should all go well. Should they find when the night was over, that chances were against saving the s.h.i.+p, they also were to take to the boat and do what might be done to escape with the rest.

They who were in the second boat had stayed in the vicinity of the s.h.i.+p that night and the next day and night, but when the second morning dawned she was no longer to be seen. Whether she had sunk or whether she had sailed away out of their sight they had no means of knowing, nor could they form any conjecture as to the fate of those who remained on board. They might have betaken themselves to the boat at the last moment, or they might have gone down with the s.h.i.+p.

But whatever had happened this was sure--No braver man or better sailor than Captain Calderwood had ever commanded a s.h.i.+p. This was all that was to be told about the "Ben Nevis."

"And what do you gather from it all?" said Miss Jean in a little. "Ye dinna give up all hope?"

"We can only wait patiently a little longer. If the bringing home of the disabled s.h.i.+p was a thing to be done, Captain Calderwood was the man to do it. No, I by no means give up hope. He may come any day now."

They had said this many times before, and now none of them had the courage to say that he should have been home long ago if all had been well.

"I fear it was an unwise courage that led him to undertake an impossible work," said Miss Jean sadly.

"No, aunt. You must not say that. He must have seen more than a possibility, or he would never have risked life. It was his simple duty as he saw it, neither more nor less. We may be sure of that, knowing him as we do."

"But, oh! George, what is a s.h.i.+p's cargo, or even the s.h.i.+p itself, in comparison with a young strong life like his?"

"Ay, aunt. But duty is the first thought with a true man like Captain Calderwood. And he has all the resources that strength and patience and skill and courage can give to a man, and I cannot but hope that he'll come safe home yet."

"He is in G.o.d's hands," said Miss Jean.

"Ay, is he. And G.o.d bless him wherever he is," said George with a break in his voice.

Jean had sat in silence, turning her eyes from one to the other as each had spoken.

"Have you told his mother?" said Miss Jean.

"Yes, she has heard all. It seems two of the sailors have reported themselves to the owners in London, and she thinks she must see them, though I fear it will do little good."

"It will give her something to do anyway," said Miss Jean. "But she is quite worn out with anxiety, though she has said so little about it, and I doubt she ought not to go alone."

"No, I shall go with her," said George. "It would make Marion miserable to think of her mother with her sore heart solitary in London. We need not stay long."

"And after a day or two she will think of her daughter's need of her, and come home. If only the suspense were over one way or another--"

"No, aunt, don't say that. We have hope yet--strong hope of seeing him again. If you only heard the tales I hear on the pier about the wonderful escapes that skill and courage have won. Hope! Yes, I have hope."

"My dear, I have heard all that could be told before you were born. But all the same there has many a s.h.i.+p gone down since then, and many a sore heart has waited and hoped in vain. But I'm no' goin' to say all that to Willie Calderwood's mother, true though it be."

"And, George," said Jean speaking for the first time, "you may be quite at peace about Marion."

"Yes. I leave her with you. She will keep herself quiet."

"We will take her to Saughleas. That will please my father."

And so it was settled, and the long days went on. Jean busied herself with her father and her sister, and went out and in just as usual, giving no time when other eyes were upon her to her own thoughts. But she welcomed the night. Sitting in the darkness, with only the grey gleam of the sea for her eyes to rest upon, she gave herself up to thoughts of her friend.

She called him her friend, but she knew that he was more than a friend to her; and she had at least this comfort now, that she was no longer angry or ashamed to care for him still, although he had forgotten her.

He would always be her friend now, whether he lived or died. She might grieve for those who loved him, and whom he loved, and for the young strong life lost to the world which needed such as he to do its best work, but he would still be hers in memory, and more in death than in life.

And yet she had a vague dread of the dreariness and emptiness of a world in which he no longer lived and moved, and doubted her power to adapt herself to its strangeness. She knew, or she tried to believe, that good would come out of it all even to her, and when she came to this she always remembered her aunt.

It had been by "kissing the rod" under such discipline as this that her aunt, after long, patient years, had grown to be the best, the most unselfish woman that she knew; yes, and the wisest with the highest wisdom.

Sometimes she had said to herself and to others, that she meant to grow to be such a woman as her aunt, and so take up her work in the world when it should be time for her to lay it down. And now, perhaps, the Lord was taking her at her word, and was about to prepare her for His own work, in His own way, which must be best; and she tried to be glad that it should be so. But when she looked on to the life that lay before her, her heart sank at the length of the way.

"I am not like Aunt Jean. I am not good enough to get her work to do, and to take pleasure in it. Maybe after long years I might be able to do it. If I only had the heart to care for any thing any more!

"But I must be patient. The pain is new and sore yet, but time heals most wounds, and as auntie says, 'The Lord is ay kind.'"

This was her last thought most nights; but there were times when she could not get beyond the darkness, and lay lost and helpless till the morning. Then she put aside her own pain, and grew cheerful and hopeful for the sake of others. If she came to the task with white cheeks and heavy eyes, as happened now and then, no one wondered, or indeed noticed it much, for she was none the less ready with cheerful words and kindly deeds for the comfort of them all.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

SAFETY.

And so the nights pa.s.sed and the long days, and even Jean's heart sprang up to meet the next news that came.

The s.h.i.+p "Ben Nevis," Captain Calderwood, supposed to be lost, had been spoken at sea by a vessel homeward bound. Her lat.i.tude and longitude were given, and it was said that considering her condition, she had made good progress since the time her boats had left her. She lay low in the water and laboured heavily, but her captain and crew were in good heart, and with fair wind and such weather as they might hope for now, they were sure soon to reach an English harbour.

So hopes were raised and courage renewed. Mrs Calderwood would fain have remained in London to meet her son when he came; but the time of his coming was uncertain, and he might even put in to some nearer port, and her daughter needed her. So she returned home to Portie with George again.

And when they came it was to find Marion the joyful mother of a son.

The news had been duly telegraphed to London as soon as possible after the event, but they had left before that time. It was Mr Dawson himself who met them at the station with the news, and pa.s.sing by George without a word, it was to Mrs Calderwood that he told it with a trembling but triumphant voice. There were tears in the eyes that she had always thought so cold and hard, and these tears washed away the last touch of pained and angry feeling from the heart of the mother of poor dead Elsie.

If any thing could have added to the old man's pride and delight in his grandson, the fact that he had drawn his first breath in Saughleas would have done so. Not that either his pride or his delight was made very evident to the world in general. He answered inquiries and accepted congratulations with as much composure as was compatible with the satisfaction that the occasion warranted, it was thought, and perhaps with rather more. But even the world in general began to acknowledge that he was growing to have gender and more kindly ways than he had once had, and folk agreed with Mrs Cairnie, that it had done him good to get his own will.

As for George, he took his new happiness soberly enough to all outward appearance. There was still so much anxiety as to the fate of the "Ben Nevis" as to temper the joy of the young father and mother over their firstborn, and to make them quiet and grave in the midst of it. But their hopes for their brother and those who had stayed with him were stronger than their fears, and even Mrs Calderwood took heart and did not shrink from the hearing of her son's name. Her care for her daughter and her grandson left her little time to brood over her fears, and she felt that to do so, would be "to sin against her mercies," since her daughter had been spared to her and was growing stronger every day.

As Marion grew strong, and Mrs Calderwood devoted herself to her, Jean had more time for herself, spent much of it in the wood or on the sh.o.r.e, or in her aunt's parlour, which, during those days, she found to be as good a place as either the wood or the sh.o.r.e for the indulgence of her own thoughts. For Miss Jean troubled her with few words; but sat silent, seeing without seeming to see, that all was not well with her niece.

It was a rest for Jean to sit there in the quiet room, and it is not to be wondered at that there were times when she forgot to keep guard over her face, as even before her aunt she had done of late. At such times her aunt regarded her anxiously. She had become thin and white, and her eyes had grown large and wistful; as her mother's eyes had been, before she had resigned herself to the knowledge that she must leave them all.

"A word or two might do her good, if I could ken the right word to say,"

thought Miss Jean, as she sat one day watching the stooping figure and averted face. The suspense about the "Ben Nevis" would soon be over, but Miss Jean's thought was that the ending of this suspense would not be the ending of her bairn's troubles. However her first words turned that way.