The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands, R. M. Ballantyne [polar express read aloud .txt] 📗

of her being so well married was the only thing as would comfort him w’en he was gone, that she gave in at last.”

“Sure then she’ll have to make up her mind,” said Jerry, “to live on air, which is too light food intirely for any wan excep’ hummin’-birds and potes.”

“She’ll do better than that, mate,” returned Dick, “for Jim ’as got appointed to be assistant-keeper to a light’ouse, through that fust-rate gen’leman Mr Durant, who is ’and an’ glove, I’m told, wi’ the Elder Brethren up at the Trinity ’Ouse. It’s said that they are to be spliced in a week or two, but, owin’ to the circumstances, the weddin’ is to be kep’ quite priwate.”

“Good luck to em!” cried Jerry. “Talkin’ of the Durants, I s’pose ye’ve heard that there’s goin’ to be a weddin’ in that family soon?”

“Oh, yes, I’ve heard on it,” cried Dick; “Miss Durant—Katie, they calls her—she’s agoin’ to be spliced to the young doctor that was wrecked in the Wellington. A smart man that. They say ’ee has stepped into ’is father’s shoes, an’ is so much liked that ’ee’s had to git an assistant to help him to get through the work o’ curin’ people—or killin’ of ’em. I never feel rightly sure in my own mind which it is that the doctors does for us.”

“Och, don’t ye know?” said Jerry, removing his pipe for a moment, “they keeps curin’ of us as long as we’ve got any tin, an’ when that’s done they kills us off quietly. If it warn’t for the doctors we’d all live to the age of Methoosamel, excep’, of coorse, w’en we was cut off by accident or drink.”

“Well, I don’t know as to that,” said Jack Shales, in a hearty manner; “but I’m right glad to hear that Miss Durant is gettin’ a good husband, for she’s the sweetest gal in England, I think, always exceptin’ one whom I don’t mean for to name just now. Hasn’t she been a perfect angel to the poor—especially to poor old men—since she come to Ramsgate? and didn’t she, before goin’ back to Yarmouth, where she b’longs to, make a beautiful paintin’ o’ the lifeboat, and present it in a gold frame, with tears in her sweet eyes, to the coxswain o’ the boat, an’ took his big fist in her two soft little hands, an’ shook an’ squeezed it, an’ begged him to keep the pictur’ as a very slight mark of the gratitude an’ esteem of Dr Hall an’ herself—that was after they was engaged, you know? Ah! there ain’t many gals like her,” said Jack, with a sigh, “always exceptin’ one.”

“Humph!” said Dick Moy, “I wouldn’t give my old ’ooman for six dozen of ’er.”

“Just so,” observed Jerry, with a grin, “an’ I’ve no manner of doubt that Dr Hall wouldn’t give her for sixty dozen o’ your old ’ooman. It’s human natur’, lad,—that’s where it is, mates. But what has come o’ Billy Towler? Has he gone back to the what’s-’is-name—the Cavern, eh?”

“The Grotto, you mean,” said Jack Shales.

“Well, the Grotto—’tan’t much differ.”

“He’s gone back for a time,” said Dick; “but Mr Durant has prowided for him too. He has given him a berth aboord one of his East-Indiamen; so if Billy behaves hisself his fortin’s as good as made. Leastwise he has got his futt on the first round, an’ the ladder’s all clear before him.”

“By the way, what’s that I’ve heard,” said Jack Shales, “about Mr Durant findin’ out that he’d know’d Billy Towler some years ago?”

“I don’t rightly know,” replied Dick. “I’ve ’eerd it said that the old gentleman recognised him as a beggar boy ’e’d tuck a fancy to an’ putt to school long ago; but Billy didn’t like the school, it seems, an’ runn’d away—w’ich I don’t regard as wery surprisin’—an’ Mr Durant could never find out where ’e’d run to. That’s how I ’eerd the story, but wot’s true of it I dun know.”

“There goes the dinner-bell!” exclaimed Jack Shales, rising with alacrity on hearing a neighbouring clock strike noon.

Jerry rose with a sigh, and remarked, as he shook the ashes out of his pipe, and put it into his waistcoat pocket, that his appetite had quite left him; that he didn’t believe he was fit for more than two chickens at one meal, whereas he had seen the day when he would have thought nothing of a whole leg of mutton to his own cheek.

“Ah,” remarked Dick Moy, “Irish mutton, I s’pose. Well, I don’t know ’ow you feels, but I feels so hungry that I could snap at a ring-bolt; and I know of a lot o’ child’n, big an’ small, as won’t look sweet on their daddy if he keeps ’em waitin’ for dinner, so come along, mates.”

Saying this, Dick and his friends left the buoy-store, and walked smartly off to their several places of abode in the town.

In a darkened apartment of that same town sat Nora Jones, the very personification of despair, on a low stool, with her head resting on the side of a poor bed. She was alone, and perfectly silent; for some sorrows, like some thoughts, are too deep for utterance. Everything around her suggested absolute desolation. The bed was that in which not long ago she had been wont to smooth the pillow and soothe the heart of her old grandmother. It was empty now. The fire in the rusty grate had been allowed to die out, and its cold grey ashes strewed the hearth. Among them lay the fragments of a black bottle. It would be difficult to say what it was in the peculiar aspect of these fragments that rendered them so suggestive, but there was that about them which conveyed irresistibly the idea that the bottle had been dashed down there with the vehemence of uncontrollable passion. The little table which used to stand at the patient’s bedside was covered with a few crumbs and fragments of a meal that must, to judge from their state and appearance, have been eaten a considerable time ago; and the confusion of the furniture, as well as the dust that covered everything, was strangely out of keeping with the character of the poor girl, who reclined by the side of the bed, so pale and still that, but for the slight twitching movement of her clasped hands, one might have supposed she had already passed from the scene of her woe. Even the old-fashioned timepiece that hung upon a nail in the wall seemed to be smitten with the pervading spell, for its pendulum was motionless, and its feeble pulse had ceased to tick.

A soft tap at the door broke the deathlike silence. Nora looked up but did not answer, as it slowly opened, and a man entered. On seeing who it was, she uttered a low wail, and buried her face in the bed-clothes. Without speaking, or moving from her position, she held out her hand to Jim Welton, who advanced with a quick but quiet step, and, going down on his knees beside her, took the little hand in both of his. The attitude and the silence were suggestive. Without having intended it the young sailor began to pray, and in a few short broken sentences poured out his soul before God.

A flood of tears came to Nora’s relief. After a few minutes she looked up.

“Oh! thank you, thank you, Jim. I believe that in the selfishness of my grief I had forgotten God; but oh! I feel as if my heart was crushed beyond the power of recovery. She is gone” (glancing at the empty bed), “and he is gone—gone—for ever.”

Jim wished to comfort her, and tried to speak, but his voice was choked. He could only draw her to him, and laying her head on his breast, smooth her fair soft hair with his hard but gentle hand.

“Not gone for ever, dearest,” he said at length with a great effort. “It is indeed along long time, but—”

He could not go further, for it seemed to him like mockery to suggest by way of comfort that fourteen years would come to an end.

For some minutes the silence was broken only by an occasional sob from poor Nora.

“Oh! he was so different once,” she said, raising herself and looking at her lover with tearful, earnest eyes; “you have seen him at his worst, Jim. There was a time,—before he took to—”

She stopped abruptly, as if unable to find words, and pointed, with a fierce expression, that seemed strange and awful on her gentle face, to the fragments of the broken bottle on the hearth. Jim nodded. She saw that he understood, and went on in her own calm voice:—

“There was a time when he was kind and gentle and loving; when he had no drunken companions, and no mysterious goings to sea; when he was the joy as well as the support of his mother, and so fond of me—but he was always that; even after he had—”

Again Nora paused, and, drooping her head, uttered the low wail of desolation that went like cold steel to the young sailor’s heart.

“Nora,” he said earnestly, “he will get no drink where he is going. At all events he will be cured of that before he returns home.”

“Oh, I bless the Lord for that,” said Nora, with fervour. “I have thought of that before now, and I have thought, too, that there are men of God where he is going, who think of, and pray for, and strive to recover, the souls of those who—that is; but oh, Jim, Jim, it is a long, long, weary time. I feel that I shall never see my father more in this world—never, never more!”

“We cannot tell, Nora,” said Jim, with a desperate effort to appear hopeful. “I know well enough that it may seem foolish to try to comfort you with the hope of seein’ him again in this life; and yet even this may come to pass. He may escape, or he may be forgiven, and let off before the end of his time. But come, cheer up, my darling. You remember what his last request was?”

“How can you talk of such a thing at such a time?” exclaimed Nora, drawing away from him and rising.

“Be not angry, Nora,” said Jim, also rising. “I did but remind you of it for the purpose of sayin’ that as you agreed to what he wished, you have given me a sort of right or privilege, dear Nora, at least to help and look after you in your distress. Your own unselfish heart has never thought of telling me that you have neither money nor home; this poor place being yours only till term-day, which is to-morrow; but I know all this without requiring to be told, and I have come to say that there is an old woman—a sort of relation of mine—who lives in this town, and will give you board and lodging gladly till I can get arrangements made at the lighthouse for our—that is to say—till you choose, in your own good time, to let me be your rightful protector and supporter, as well as your comforter.”

“Thank you, Jim. It is like yourself to be so thoughtful. Forgive me; I judged you hastily. It is true I am poor—I have nothing in the world, but, thanks be to God, I have health. I can work; and there are some kind friends,” she added, with a sad smile, “who will throw work in my way, I know.”

“Well, we will talk about these things afterwards, Nora, but you won’t refuse to take advantage of my old friend’s offer—at least for a night or two?”

“No, I won’t refuse that, Jim; see, I am prepared to go,” she said, pointing to a wooden sea-chest which stood in the middle of the room; “my box is packed. Everything I own is in it. The furniture, clock,