Opening a Chestnut Burr Part 55

"Now your argument is lame," said the captain, laughing. "We have plenty of good machinery, system, and rules aboard, but if I wasn't around, looking after everything all the time, as a special Providence, I'm afraid you'd find salt water before Liverpool."

A general laugh followed this sally, and Gregory said: "And so I believe that the Divine Providence superintends His own laws and system. I think my friend the captain has given a most happy ill.u.s.tration of the truth, and I had no idea he was so good a theologian."

"That's not an argument," said the man, considerably crestfallen.

"That's only a joke."

"By the way, Mr. Gregory, it seems to me that your views have changed since you crossed with me last," remarked the captain.

"I frankly admit they have," was the prompt reply. "Perhaps I can explain myself by the following question: If you find, by a careful observation, that you are heading your ship the wrong way, what do you do?"

"Put her about on the right course."

"That is just what I have tried to do, sir. I think my meaning is plain?"

"Nothing could be clearer, and I'd rather be aboard now than when you were on the old tack."

Annie gave Gregory a glance of glad, grateful approval that warmed his heart like sunshine.

Hunting said, enviously, _sotto voce_, "I think such conversation at a public table wretched taste."

"I cannot agree with you," said Annie, decidedly; "but, granting it, Mr. Gregory did not introduce the subject, and I wish you had spoken as he did when every Christian at the table was insulted."

He colored deeply, but judiciously said nothing.

With increasing pain she thought, "He who says he is not a Christian acts more like one than he who claims the character."

But she now had the strongest hopes for Gregory, and longed for a private talk with him.

The next day it blew quite a gale, and Hunting and Miss Eulie were helplessly confined to their staterooms. But Annie had become a sailor, and having done all she could for her aunt, came upon deck, where she saw Gregory walking back and forth with almost the steadiness of one of the ship's officers.

She tried to go to him, but would have fallen had he not seen her and reached her side almost at a bound. With a gentleness and tenderness as real as delicate, he placed her in a sheltered nook where she could see the waves in their mad sport, and said, "Now you can see old ocean in one of his best moods. The wind, though strong, is right abaft, filling all the sails they dare carry, and we are making grand progress."

"How wonderful it is!" cried Annie, looking with a child's interest upon the scene. "Just see those briny mountains, with foam and spray for foliage. If our own Highlands with their mingled evergreens and snow were changed from granite to water, and set in this wild motion, it could hardly seem more strange and sublime. Look at that great monster coming so threateningly toward us. It seems as if we should be engulfed beyond a chance."

"Now see how gracefully the ship will surmount it," said Gregory, smiling.

"O dear!" said she, sighing, "if we could only rise above our troubles in the same way!" Then, feeling that she had touched on delicate ground, she hastened to add, "This boundless waste increases my old childish wonder how people ever find their way across the ocean."

"The captain is even now ill.u.s.trating your own teaching and practice in regard to the longer and more difficult voyage of life," said Gregory, meaningly. "He is 'looking up'--taking an observation of the heavens, and will soon know just where we are and how to steer."

Annie looked at him wistfully, and said, in a low tone, "I was so glad to learn, last evening, that you had taken an observation also, and I was so very grateful, too, that you had the courage to defend our faith."

"I have to thank you that I could do either. It was really you who spoke."

"No, Mr. Gregory," she said, gently, "my work for you reached its limit. G.o.d is leading you now."

"I try to hope so," he said; "but it was your hand that placed in mine that by which He is leading me. He surely must have put it into your heart to give me that Bible. When I reached my cheerless rooms in New York I felt so lonely and low-spirited that I had not the courage to go a single step further. But your Bible became a living, comforting presence from that night. What exquisite tact you showed in giving me that little worn companion of your childhood, instead of a new gilt-leaved one, with no a.s.sociations. I first hoped that you might with it give me also something of your childhood's faith. But that does not come yet. That does not come."

"It will," said she, earnestly, and with moistened eyes.

"That, now, is one of my dearest hopes. But after what I have been, I am not worthy that it should come soon. But if I perish myself I want to try to help others."

Then he asked, in honest distrustfulness, "Do you think it right for one who is not a Christian to try to teach others?"

"Before I answer that question I wish to ask a little more about yourself;" and she skilfully drew him out, he speaking more openly in view of the question to be decided than he would otherwise have done.

He told of the long evenings spent over her Bible; of his mission work, and of his honest effort to deal justly with all; at the same time dwelling strongly on his doubts and spiritual darkness, and the unspent influences of his old evil life.

The answer was different from what he expected; for she said: "Mr.

Gregory, why do you say that you are not a Christian?"

"Because I feel that I am not."

"Does feeling merely make a Christian?" she asked. "Is not action more than feeling? Do not trusting, following, serving, and seeking to obey, make a Christian? But suppose that even with your present _feeling_ you were living at the time of Christ's visible presence on earth, would you be hostile or indifferent, or would you join His band even though small and despised?"

"I think I would do the latter, if permitted."

"I know you would, from your course last night. And do you think Jesus would say, 'Because you are not an emotional man like Peter, you are no friend of mine'? Why, Mr. Gregory, He let even Judas Iscariot, though with unworthy motive, follow Him as long as he would, giving him a chance to become true."

"Miss Walton, do not mislead me in this matter. You know how implicitly I trust you."

"And I would rather cast myself over into those waves than deceive you," she said; "and if I saw them swallowing you up I should as confidently expect to meet you again, as my father. How strange it is you can believe that Jesus died for you and yet will not receive you when you are doing just that which He died to accomplish."

He took a few rapid turns up and down the deck and then leaned over the railing. She saw that he brushed more than one tear into the waves. At last he turned and gave his hand in warm pressure, saying, "I cannot doubt you, and I will doubt Him no longer. I see that I have wronged Him, and the thought causes me sorrow even in my joy."

"Now you are my brother in very truth," she said, gently, with glad tears in her own eyes. "All that we have pa.s.sed through has not been in vain. How wonderfully G.o.d has led us!"

It was a long time before either spoke again.

At last he said, with a strange, wondering smile, "To think that such as I should ever reach heaven! As Daddy Tuggar says, 'there will be good neighbors there.'"

She answered him by a happy smile, and then both were busy with their own thoughts again. Annie was thinking how best to introduce the subject so near her heart, his reconciliation with Hunting.

But that gentleman had become so tortured with jealousy and so alarmed at the thought of any prolonged conference between Annie and Gregory, that he dragged himself on deck. As he watched them a moment before they saw him, he was quite rea.s.sured. Gregory was merely standing near Annie, and both were looking away to sea, as if they had nothing special to say to each other. Annie was pained to see that Gregory's manner did not change toward Hunting. He was perfectly polite, but nothing more; soon he excused himself, thinking they would like to be alone.

In the afternoon she found a moment to say, "Mr. Gregory, will you never become reconciled to Mr. Hunting? You surely cannot hate him now?"

He replied, gravely, "I do not hate him any longer. I would do him any kindness in my power, and that is a great deal for me to say. But Mr.

Hunting has no real wish for reconciliation."

In bitter sorrow she was compelled to admit to herself the truth of his words. After a moment he added, "If he does he knows the exact terms on which it can be effected."

She could not understand it, and reproached herself bitterly that so many doubts in regard to her affianced would come unbidden, and force themselves on her mind. The feeling grew stronger that there was wrong on both sides, and perhaps the more on Hunting's.

That was a memorable day to Gregory. It seemed to him that Annie's hand had drawn aside the sombre curtain of his unbelief, and shown the path of light shining more and more unto the perfect day. Though comparatively lonely, he felt that his pilgrimage could not now be unhappy, and that every sorrow would at last find its cure. In regard to her earthly future he could only hope and trust. It would be a terrible trial to his faith if she were permitted to marry Hunting, and yet he was sure it would all be well at last; for was it not said that G.o.d's people would come to their rest out of "great tribulation"? She had given him the impression that, under any circ.u.mstances, her love for him could only be sisterly in its character.

But he was too happy in his new-born hope to think of much else that day; and, finding a secluded nook, he searched Annie's Bible for truths confirmatory of her words. On every side they glowed as in letters of light. Then late that night he went on deck, and in his strong excitement felt as if walking on air in his long, glad vigil.

At last, growing wearied, he leaned upon the railing and looked out upon the dark waves--not dark to him, for the wanderer at last had seen the light of his heavenly home, and felt that it would cheer his way till the portals opened and received him into rest.