A Singer from the Sea, Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr [best story books to read TXT] 📗

a pitifully frequent opening of cottage doors, and the sudden flashes of fire and candle light that followed revealed always some white, fearful face thrust out into the black night, in the hope of hearing the shouts of the home-coming men. Joan could not keep away from the door; and the yawning of Denas, her shifting movements, her uncontrolled sleepiness, irritated Joan. In great anxiety, companionship not perfectly sympathetic is irritating; mere mortals quiver under its infliction. For Denas could not perceive any special reason for unusual fear; she longed to go to bed and sleep, as she had done many a time before under the same circumstances. She laid the Bible on the table before Joan and said: "Won't you read a psalm and lie down a bit, mother?"

"No. Read for yourself, and to bed then if you want to go."

Denas opened the book. Her father's mark was in the psalms, and she began to read to herself.

Joan's face was beneath her blue apron. David's words did not interpret her at this hour; only her own lips could speak for her own sorrow and fear. There was a deep stillness in the house. Outside the tempest raged wildly. It seemed to Joan as if hours passed in that interval of heart-trembling; she was almost shocked when the old clock gave its long whirring warning and then struck only one. Her first look was to the fire. It wanted replenishing. Her next was at Denas. The girl was fast asleep. Her hands were across the open Bible, her face was dropped upon them. Joan touched her and said not unkindly:

"A little bit of Bible-reading do send people to sleep quick, don't it, Denas?"

"I was so tired, mother."

"Aw, my dear, you be no worse than Christian in the 'Pilgrim's Progress.' He did go to sleep, too, when he was reading his roll. Come, my girl, it is your time for bed. Sitting up won't help you to bear trouble."

"Mother, won't it be time enough to bear trouble when it is really here to be borne?"

"It do seem as if it would. Love be a fearful looker-forward. Go to bed, my girl; maybe you will sleep sorrow away."

So Denas went to bed and did not awake until the grey light of the stormy morning was over everything. She could hear the murmur of voices in the living-room, and she dressed quickly and went there. John Penelles sat by the fire drinking hot tea. His hair had yet bits of ice in it, his face still had the awful shadow that is cast by the passing-by of death. Denas put her arms around his neck and kissed him; she kissed him until she began to sob, and he drew her upon his knee, and held her to his breast, and said in a whisper to her:

"Ten men drowned, my dear, and three frozen to death; but through God's mercy father slipped away from an ugly fate."

"Oh, father, how could you bear it?"

"God help us, Denas, we must bear what is sent."

"What a night it has been! How did you live through it?"

"It's dogged as does it and lives through it. It's dogged as does anything, my dear, all over the world. I stuck to the boat and the boat stuck to me. God Almighty Himself can't help a coward."

The storm continued all day, but began to slacken in intensity at sunset. There was of course no service at Pendree. John, even if he had not been so worn out, could not have reached the place in such a storm, either by land or sea. But the neighbours, without seeming premeditation, gathered in John's cottage at night, and he opened his Bible and read aloud:

"Terrors take hold on him, as waters; a tempest stealeth him away in the night. The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth; and as a storm hurleth him out of his place."

And it was to these words, with their awful application to the wicked, that Denas listened the last night she intended to spend under her father's roof. John's discourses were nearly always like his nature, tender and persuasive; and this terrible sermon wove itself in and out of her wandering thoughts like a black scroll in a gay vesture. It pained and troubled her, though she did not consider why it should do so. After the meeting was over John was very weary; but he would not go to bed until he had eaten supper. He "wanted his little maid to sit near him for half-an-hour," he said. And he held her hand in his own hand, and gave her such looks of perfect love and blessed her so solemnly and sweetly when at length he left her that she began to sob again and to stand on tiptoe that she might throw her arms around his neck and touch his lips with hers once more.

Her kisses were wet with her tears, and they made John's heart soft and gentle as a baby's. "She be the fondest little maid," he said to his wife. "She be the fondest little maid! I could take a whole year to praise her, Joan, and then I could not say enough."

In reality, the last two days, with their excess of vital emotions, had worn Denas out. Never before had the life into which she was born looked so unlovely to her. She preferred the twitter and twaddle of Priscilla's workroom to the intense realities of an existence always verging on eternity. She dared to contrast those large, heroic fishers, with their immovable principles and their constant fight with all the elemental forces for their daily bread, with Roland Tresham; and to decide that Roland's delicate beauty, pretty, persuasive manners, and fashionable clothing were vastly superior attributes. So she was glad when the morning came, for she was weary of enduring what need no longer be endured.

It still rained, but she put on her best clothing, and Joan was not pleased at her for doing so. She thought she might come home some night when the rain was over and change her dress for the visit to Burrell Court. This difference of opinion made their last meal together a silent one; for John was in a deep sleep and Joan would not have him disturbed. Denas just opened the door and stood a moment looking at the large, placid face on the white pillow. As she turned away, it seemed as if she cut a piece out of her heart; she had a momentary spasm of real physical pain.

Joan had not yet recovered from her night of terror. Her face was grey, her eyes heavy, her heart still beating and aching with some unintelligible sense of wrong or grief. And she looked at her child with such a dumb, sorrowful inquiry that Denas sat down near her and put her head on her mother's breast and asked: "What is it, mother? Have I done anything to grieve you?"

"Not as I know by, dear. I wish you hadn't worn your best dress--dresses do cost money, don't they now?"

"Yes, they do, mother. There then! Shall I take it off? I will, to please you, mother."

"No, no! The will be as good as the deed from my little girl. Maybe you are right, too. Dress do go a long way to pleasing."

"Then good-bye. Kiss me, mother! Kiss me twice! Kiss me again, for father!"

So Joan kissed her child. She smoothed her hair, and straightened her collar, and put in a missed button, and so held her close for a few moments, and kissed her again; and when Denas had reached the foot of the cliff, she was still watching her with the look on her face--the look of a mother who feels as if she still held her child in her arms.

O love! love! love! Is there any sorrow in life like loving?


FOOTNOTE:

[3] Family, race.



CHAPTER VIII.


A SEA OF SORROW.

"Time the shuttle drives; but we
Give to every thread its hue
And elect our destiny."
--BURLEIGH.

"Life does not make us, we make life."

"He gave me trust, and trust has given me means
Once to be false for all."
--DRYDEN.

"He at the news
Heart-struck, with chilling gripe of sorrow, stood,
That all his senses bound."
--MILTON.

It had been raining a little when Denas bade her mother farewell, but by the time she reached the top of the cliff the rain had become fog. She stood still awhile and turned her face to the sea, and saw one drift after another roll inland, veiling the beach, and the boats, and the cottages, and leaving the whole scene a spectacle of desolation.

It affected her painfully. The love and hope in her heart did not lift her above the depressing influence of that mournful last view of her home. Was the thing that she was going to do worth while? Was anything in life worth while? The little town had a half-awakened Monday-morning look. Every one seemed to be beginning another week with an "Oh, dear me!" sort of feeling. Miss Priscilla was just dressing her shop window, and as cross as crossed sticks over her employment. She said that Denas was late, and wondered "for goodness' sake why she was so dressed up."

It gave Denas a kind of spiteful pleasure to answer: "She was dressed to go to Burrell Court and spend a day with Mrs. Burrell. When she sent Mr. Burrell word the day she would come the carriage would call for her."

"If you mean the day I can spare you best, I cannot spare you at all this week. There now!"

"I am not thinking of you sparing me, Priscilla. I am waiting for a fine day."

"Upon my word! Am I your mistress or are you mine? And what is more, that Roland Tresham is not coming here again. I have some conscience, thank goodness! and I will not sanction such ways and such carryings on any longer. He is a dishonourable young man."

"Has he not paid you, Priscilla?"

Before Priscilla could find the scathing words she required, an hostler from the Black Lion entered the shop and put a letter into the hand of Denas.

Priscilla turned angrily on the man and ordered him to leave her shop directly. Then she said: "Denas Penelles, you are a bad girl! I am going to write to Mrs. Burrell this day, and to your father and mother also."

"I would not be a fool if I was you,