Grandmother Elsie Part 40

Max made no reply, but sat there before her, looking very guilty and miserable.

"You must be hungry," she said presently, "and it is not easy to be brave and strong on an empty stomach. Suppose you go to your room and make yourself neat, then come into the other house and join me and the little folks in a nice luncheon."

The proposal was accepted with thankfulness.

Max looked several degrees less miserable after satisfying his appet.i.te, yet all the afternoon seemed restless and unhappy.

Elsie said little to him, but many times silently lifted up her heart on his behalf, asking that he might have strength given him to do the duty he felt to be so difficult and painful.

As the time drew near when the pleasure-seekers might be expected to return, he slipped away out of her sight.

Presently the carriages drove up and deposited their load. Max stood waiting in the veranda, his heart beating very fast and loud, as his father, Violet, and Lulu came up the path that led from the garden-gate.

All three greeted him affectionately, expressing their regret that he had missed the pleasure of the excursion; then Vi and Lulu pa.s.sed into the house and on upstairs.

The captain was about to follow when Max, stepping close to his side, said, with a slight tremble in his voice, "Papa, I--want to speak to you."

"Very well, my son, say on," answered the captain, stopping and turning toward him.

"It's something I want to tell you, sir," and Max hung his head, his cheeks flus.h.i.+ng hotly.

His father gave him a searching look, took his hand, and led him into the parlor.

"Don't be afraid of your father, Max," he said kindly, "why should you?"

"Because I've been a bad boy, sir, deserving of a flogging, and expect you to give it to me," Max burst out desperately.

"Tell me all about it, my son," the captain said in a moved tone, "and tell it here," seating himself and drawing the boy to his knee. "Perhaps it will be easier."

"Oh, yes, papa, because it makes me know you love me even if I am bad; but it makes me more ashamed and sorry for having disobeyed you," sobbed Max, no longer able to refrain from tears as he felt the affectionate clasp of his father's enfolding arm.

"Then it has a right effect. My boy, I think if you knew how much I love you, you would never disobey. It will be a sore trial to me, as well as to you, if I find it my duty to inflict any severe punishment upon you. But let me hear your story."

Max told it in broken accents, for he was full of remorse for having behaved so ill to so kind a parent.

When he had finished there was a moment of silence. It was the captain who broke it.

"My boy," he said, with emotion, "it was a really wonderful escape, and we must thank G.o.d for it. If you had been drowned, Max, do you know that it would have gone near to break your father's heart? To lose my first-born, my only son, and in the very act of disobedience--oh, how terrible!"

"Papa, I didn't, I really didn't think about its being disobedience when I got into the boat, because it didn't seem dangerous till we were fairly out among the waves."

"Do you think I ought to excuse you on that account?"

"No, sir; you've reproved me so often for not thinking, and for not being careful to obey your orders; and I know I deserve a flogging. But, O papa, please don't let Mamma Vi know about it, or anybody else. Can't you take me upstairs here when they are all in the other house?"

"I shall not use corporal punishment this time, Max," the captain said, in a moved tone. Dressing the boy closer to his side, "I shall try free forgiveness, for I think you are truly sorry. And then you have made so frank and full a confession of wrong-doing, that I might perhaps never have discovered in any other way."

"O papa, how good you are to me! I don't think I can ever be so mean and ungrateful as to disobey you again," exclaimed Max, feelingly. "But I don't deserve to be praised, or let off from punishment, because of confessing, for I shouldn't have done it if Grandma Elsie hadn't talked to me about the duty of it, and persuaded me to take courage to do it because it was right."

"Bless her for it! the dear, good woman!" the captain said, with earnest grat.i.tude. "But I think, Max, you do deserve commendation for taking her advice. I have something more to say to you, my son, but not now, for the call to dinner will come directly, and I must go and prepare for it."

There was a hearty embrace between them, and they separated, the captain going to his room to make his toilet and Max to the other house, where he soon managed to let Grandma Elsie into the secret of his confession and its happy result, thanking her with tears in his eyes for her kind, wise advice.

Elsie rejoiced with and for him, telling him he had made her heart glad and that she hoped he would always have courage to do right.

As Max prepared for bed that night he was wondering to himself what more his father had to say to him, when he heard the captain's step on the stairs, and the next moment he came in.

Max started a little apprehensively. Could it be that his father had changed his mind, and was about to give him the dreaded flogging after all?

But with one glance up into the grave yet kindly face looking down at him, all his fear vanished. He drew a long breath of relief.

"My boy," the captain said, laying his hand on Max's shoulder, "I told you I had something more to say to you, and I have come to say it now. You are 'my first-born, my might and the beginning of my strength.' Never until you are a father yourself can you know or understand the tide of love, joy, and thankfulness that swept over me at the news of your birth. Nor do you know how often, on land and on sea, in storm and in calm, my thoughts dwell with deep anxiety upon the future of my son, not only for time, Max, but for eternity."

The captain paused for a moment, his emotions seemingly too big for utterance, and Max, throwing his arms around his neck, hid his face on his breast.

"Papa," he sobbed, "I didn't know you loved me so much! Oh, I wish I'd always been a good boy!"

The captain sat down and drew him to his knee.

"My dear son," he said, "I have no doubt that you are sorry for every act of disobedience toward me, and I fully and freely forgive them all; but what I want you to consider now is your sinfulness toward G.o.d, and your need of forgiveness from him. You are old enough to be a Christian now, Max, and it is what I desire for you more than anything else. Think what blessedness to be made a child of G.o.d, an heir of glory! to have Jesus, the sinner's Friend, for your own Saviour, your sins all washed away in his precious blood, his righteousness put upon you."

"Papa, I don't know how."

"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved,' the Bible says. It tells us that we have all broken G.o.d's holy law, that we all deserve his wrath and curse forever, and cannot be saved by anything that we can do or Buffer; but that 'G.o.d so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.' He offers this salvation to us as his free gift, and so we are to take it, for we can have it in no other way. Go to G.o.d, my son, just as you have come to me, with confession of your sins and acknowledging that you deserve only punishment; but pleading for pardon through the blood and merits of Jesus Christ. Accept the salvation offered you by the Lord Jesus, giving yourself to him to be his, his only forever.

'Him hath G.o.d exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins,' and he will give them to you if you ask for them with all your heart. He says, 'Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out.' My son, my dear son, will not you come now? G.o.d's time is always _now_, and only the present is ours."

"Papa, I will try; I am sorry for my sins against G.o.d, and I do want to belong to him. Papa, won't you pray for me?"

They knelt down together, and with his son's hand in his the captain poured out a fervent prayer on the boy's behalf, of confession and entreaty for pardon and acceptance in the name and for the sake of Him "who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification."

Then, with a silent, tender embrace he left him.

CHAPTER XXIV.

"Home again, home again, from a foreign sh.o.r.e, And oh it fills my soul with Joy to see my friends once more."

The rest of the summer and early fall pa.s.sed delightfully to our sojourners by the sea; though the happiness of the captain and Violet was somewhat marred by the knowledge that soon they must part for a season of greater or less duration, he to be exposed to all the dangers of the treacherous deep.

But they did not indulge in repining or lose the enjoyment of the present in vexing thoughts concerning the probable trials of the future.

It was necessary, however, to give it some consideration, and make arrangements in regard to his children.

Thinking of the guidance and control they all needed, the temper and stubbornness Lulu had shown, the watchful care requisite for Gracie in her feeble state, he hesitated to ask Mrs. Dinsmore and Elsie if they still felt inclined to undertake the charge of them.