The Twa Miss Dawsons Part 16

"There are few things in our town museum at home so rare or so beautiful as several of these. I have been through ours scores of times. I like it."

Rather to Jean's surprise and much to her delight, her father took up the idea as a good one, and entered into the discussion of the different kinds of cases required, with interest. The cabinet-maker was sent for, and by the help of Hugh's description of the arrangements made for such things in the museum of his native town, they succeeded in settling all things in a satisfactory manner. The long hall extending from one side of the house to the other was the place to receive them. Therefore the cases must be handsome as furniture as well as convenient for the reception of the articles to be arranged in them; and in a shorter time than would have at first seemed possible, John Helvie finished the work in a way which pleased himself and his employers.

In the mean time May was written to for books about sh.e.l.ls and minerals, and all such things; and Hugh, and even Jean, grew enthusiastic over them. And so the last months of winter pa.s.sed more quickly than the first had done. May's visit was prolonged beyond the six weeks which had been at first stipulated for, and the third month was nearly at an end before any thing was said about her return. She was well and happy, and her friend was happy in her company. She was not especially needed at home, and neither her father nor her sister cared to shorten her holiday, as she called it. But if Jean had known what was to be the end of it all, the chances are that she would have been speedily recalled.

As Hugh grew better and the weather became milder, a new means of pleasure and health was presented to him by Mr Dawson in the shape of a small Shetland pony. He was one trained to gentleness and past his youth, so that there was no risk in riding, when the doctor's permission had been obtained. It could hardly be called riding for some time. It was slowly creeping along, with some one at his side, to make sure that no stumble should harm the still painful knee; but it was a source of much enjoyment to the lad who had been a prisoner so long.

Jean was most frequently his companion, and at such times their favourite course was along the sands when the tide was out, or by the path which led over the rocks. They lingered often on their way, to talk to the old sailors who remembered the lad's father and grandfather, and who had much to tell about his grandfather's goodness, and his father's wild exploits as a lad. They talked with the fishwives also in the town, and made friends with the bairns, who, as the days grew milder, came in flocks to their favourite playground, the sands above the town. All this was good for the lad, who caught a little healthy colour from the fresh sea breezes, and day by day, Mr Dawson thought, grew more like his companion and chief friend in the days when they were both young.

But it was not so good for Jean. For their talk with the old sailors, and the fishwives, and indeed their talk together, was mostly of the sea and its dangers, the treasures which it hid, and the far lands that lay beyond it. She told him tales of the sea, and repeated songs and ballads made about sea kings and naval heroes of all times, and sang them in the gloaming, with their wild refrains, which look like nonsense written down, but which sung, as Jean could sing them, deepened the pathos of the sad and sometimes terrible tales which were told; and the lad was never weary of listening.

And all this was not good for Jean. It stirred up again the old fears and doubts and questionings as to whether she had done right to keep silence about her brother, and whether she ought even now to speak. The wistful, far-away look which her father could not bear to see, came back to her eyes, now and then; and on stormy nights, when the moan of the wind was in the trees, and the sound of the sea came up like a sigh, the old restlessness, which in her father's presence she could only quiet by constant and determined devotion to work of some kind, came upon her.

She could not read at such times or even listen. Her "white seam," on which her father used to remark, was her best resource. He remarked on it still, and not always pleasantly, and Jean began to be aware that his eyes now followed her movements as they had done in the first part of the winter, and that even when he occupied himself with a book, or with his papers, he listened to the talk into which she and Hugh sometimes fell. She did her best to be cheerful, and with the lad's help it was easier than it had once been; and she comforted and strengthened herself with the thought that the year was nearly over, and that it could not now be long before the "John Seaton" came home.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

NORTHERN SEAS.

"Do ye ken what ye are doing, Jean? Ye're doing your best to mak' a sailor o' the lad; and ye'll do him an ill turn and get him into trouble if that happens. His father has other plans for him."

Her father had come in to find Jean singing songs in the gloaming. It could hardly be said that she was singing to Hugh. She would very likely have been singing at that hour, if she had been quite alone; but she would not have been singing,--

"The Queen has built a navy of ships, And she has sent them to the sea,"

in a voice that rang clear and full in the darkness, and she would not have followed it with the ballad of "Sir Patrick Spens," which Mr Dawson was just in time to hear. He was not sure about all this singing of sea songs; but he said nothing at the time, and sat down to listen.

He had heard the ballad scores of times, and sung it too; but he felt himself "creep" and "thrill," as Jean--her voice now rising strong and clear, now falling into mournful tones like a wail--went through the whole seven and twenty verses. She said it rather than sung it, giving the refrain, not at every verse, but only now and then; the pathos deepening in her tones as she went on towards the end, when--

"The lift was black, and the wind blew loud, And gurly grew the sea."

and there were "tears in her voice" as she ended--

"And lang, lang may the ladies sit Wi' their fans into their hands, Before they see Sir Patrick Spens Come sailing to the strand!

"And lang, lang may the maidens sit Wi' the gowd (gold) kames in their hair, Awaiting for their ain true loves, For them they'll see nae mair--"

and then the refrain--which cannot be written down--repeated once and again, each time more softly, till it seemed to die away and be lost in the moan of the wind among the trees. No one spoke for a minute or two.

"I think you might give us something mair cheerfu' than that, Jean, my la.s.sie," said her father, inclined to resent his own emotion and the cause of it. "And in the gloaming too!"

"The gloaming is just the time for such ballads, papa. But I didna ken ye were come in. Shall I ring for lights now?" said Jean rising.

"There's nae haste. It's hardly dark yet."

Jean crossed the room to the window that looked out to the sea, and leaning on it, as she had a fashion of doing, softly sang the refrain of her song again.

Her father could not see her face, but he knew well the look that was on it at the moment,--a look which always pained him, and which sometimes made him angry; and the chances are he would have spoken sharply to her, if Hugh had not said after a little while, "But sailors don't go to sea now to bring home king's daughters, or even to fight battles with their foes. They go for wages, as the navvies do on railways, and the factory people in the towns. It is just the common work of the world with them as it is with others--buying and selling--fetching and carrying. There is nothing heroic in that."

"Of course--just the common work of the world. But I would not think less, but more, of the courage and endurance needed to do it, because of that," said Jean gravely, turning round to look at him. "It is just like the navvies, as you say, that they may live and bring up their families; and I think it is grand to leave their homes, and face danger, just because it is their duty, and with no thought beyond."

"They get used to the danger, and it is nothing to them, I suppose. And it must be fine to be going here and there, and seeing strange countries, and all sorts of people. I should like that I would like to have gone with Sir Humphrey Gilbert, or Sir Walter Raleigh in the old times. That must have been grand."

"Yes," repeated Jean, as she came forward and sat down by the fire.

"That must have been grand--the sailing away over unknown seas to unknown lands. They had hope, but they could have had no knowledge of what was before them."

"What did they care for danger or hardship, or even death! They were opening the way to a new world."

"Yes. If they could only have had a glimpse of all that was to follow!

I dare say they did too--some of them."

"Yes; Walter Raleigh looked forward to great things. It was worth a man's while to live as those men lived. It was not just for wages that they sailed the sea."

Mr Dawson laughed.

"That is the way you look at it, is it? And how many--even among their leaders--thought about much except the gold they were to find, and the wealth and glory they were to win! It was as much work for wages then as now. It is a larger world than it was in those days, but the folk in it ha'e changed less than ye think; in that respect at least."

There was a good deal more talk of the same sort, Jean putting in a word now and then, and what she said, for the most part, went to show, that in doing just the common work of the world, the buying and selling, the fetching and carrying, of which she thought Hugh had spoken a little scornfully, there were as many chances for the doing of deeds of courage and patience, as there could have been in the old times which he regretted. There were such deeds done daily, and many of them, and the men who did them were heroes, though their names and their deeds might never be known beyond the town in which they had been born.

She told of some things done by Portie men, and her father told of more, having caught the spirit of the theme from Jean's thrilling tones and shining eyes, and from one thing they went on to another, till at last Jean said,--

"I was reading a book not long since--" And when she had got thus far Hugh surprised Mr Dawson by suddenly rising from the sofa on which he had been lying all this time, and still more by hopping on one foot, without the help of crutch or cane, to the fireside and then laying himself down on the hearth-rug.

"My lad, I doubt the wisdom of that proceeding," said he gravely.

"Oh! there is no harm done. Miss Dawson is going to tell us about the book she has been reading lately, and I like to see her face when she is telling a story."

Mr Dawson laughed. He liked that himself. In her desire to withdraw her father from the silent indulgence of his own thoughts, into which he was inclined to fall, when left alone with her sister and herself, Jean, when other subjects of conversation failed them, had sometimes fallen back on the books she had been reading, and talked about them. She could give clearly and cleverly enough the outlines of a theory, or the chief points in an argument. She could tell a story graphically, using now and then effectively the gift of mimicry of which her aunt had been afraid. Mr Dawson's constant occupation had left him little time for general reading during the past, and had made the habit not easy to adopt now that he might have found leisure for it. But he enjoyed much having the "cream" of a book presented in this pleasant way by his daughter. So he also drew forward his chair, prepared to listen to what she might have to say, understanding quite well how the boy might like to see her face as she talked.

"Well," said Jean, "we need not have the lights, for I can knit quite as well in the dark. It is a sad book, rather. But I like no book that I have read for a long time, so well as this. It is about men who were willing, glad even, to take their lives in their hands, and sail away to northern seas, in hope of finding some trace of Sir John Franklin and his men.

"It was not for wages that they went, Hugh, my lad; at least it was not with most of them. It was with the hope--and it was only a hope, and not a certainty--of saving the lives of men who were strangers to them, who were not even their own countrymen. And they went, knowing that years might pa.s.s before they could see their homes again, and that some among them never might come home.

"It is a sad story, because they did not find the men, nor any trace of them. But it was worth all they suffered, and all that was sacrificed, just to show to the world that was looking on, so n.o.ble an example of courage and strength and patience as theirs. But I am beginning at the wrong end of the story."

Jean had read with intense interest the history so clearly and modestly written by the leader of the band, and she told it now with a power and pathos that made her father wonder. Of course there was much in the book on which she could not touch. She kept to the personal narrative, telling of the hope that had taken them from their homes, and that sustained them through the night of the Arctic winter, as they lay ice bound in the shelter of a mountain of ice on a desolate sh.o.r.e, when sickness came to most of their number, and death to more than one.

She told of long journeys made in the dimness of returning day, of the glad recognition of known landmarks, of the long, vain search for the lost men--of how hope fell back to patience, and patience to doubt and dread, as they waited for the sun and the summer winds to break the chains that bound their good ship in that world of ice, and set them free.

And then, when their doubt and dread became certainty, as the long Arctic day began to decline, and the choice lay between another winter in the ice-bound ship, and an endeavour to find their way over the frozen wastes that lay between them and the open sea, beyond which lay their homes, some of their number chose to go; but their leader would not forsake the ship, and a few of his men would not forsake him. And beside those brave souls who held their duty dearer than their thoughts of home, there were some who were sick, and some who were helpless through the bitter cold and the hardships they had borne, who had no choice but to stay and take what poor chance there might be of getting home with the ship, should the sun and the warm winds of a summer yet far before them set them free at last.

"And now," said Jean her voice falling low, "the time to test their courage had come."

She had told the story hitherto--in many more words than are written here--with eager gestures, and with eyes that challenged admiration for her heroes. But now her work fell on her lap, and her face was shaded from the firelight, and though she spoke rapidly still and eagerly, she spoke very softly, as she went on to tell how with a higher courage than had been needed yet, their leader looked the future in the face--seeing in it for himself, and for those for whom, as their commander, he was in a sense responsible, suffering from cold and hunger, from solitude and darkness, and from the wearing sickness of mind and body that these are sure to bring.

"'With G.o.d's help we may win through,' said this brave and patient spirit.

"And there were none who could turn cowardly under such a leadership as his," said Jean, with a sound that was like a sob, her father thought.

"And so they all fell to doing with a will what might be done to protect themselves from the bitter cold, and to provide against some evils that were possible, and against others that were certain to come upon them.

And surely they had G.o.d's help, as their leader had said; and those pain-worn men, in the darkness of that long night, saw in him what is not often seen--a glad and full obedience to our Lord's command, for the chief to become the servant of all. There was no duty of servant or nurse too mean for him to do. Not once or twice, but daily and hourly, as there was need, during all that time of waiting, when he only called himself well, because he was not utterly broken down and helpless, as almost all the others were.