Sturdy and Strong Part 28

"'Why should mamma be glad, little one?' I asked.

"'Mamma will be glad,' she said positively. 'I know she will be glad when I tells her.'

"We'd sat down by this time, and I began to talk to them about their mamma. Mamma very good, very kind, very pretty, they both agreed; and then they went on telling me about their home in London, and their carriage and amus.e.m.e.nts. Presently they stopped, and I could see the eldest wanted to say something particular, for she puckered up her forehead as she always did when she was very serious; and then she said, with her hands folded before her, almost as if she was saying a lesson:

"'Mamma very happy woman. She's got two little girls and baby-brother, and papa love her so much; but there's one thing keeps her from being quite happy.'

"'Is there, missy?' I asked. 'She ought to be happy with all these things. What is it?'

"'Mamma once had someone do a great thing for her. If it hadn't been for him Nina and sissy and little baby-brother could never have been born, and papa would never have had dear mamma to love; but it cost the man who did it a great deal--all he cared for; and now he won't let mamma and papa and us love him and help him; and it makes mamma unhappy when she thinks of it.'

"Here she had evidently finished what she had heard her mamma say, for her forehead got smooth again, and she began to fill my pockets with sand.

"'It don't sound likely, missy, that doesn't,' I says. 'It don't stand to reason nohow. You can't have understood what mamma said.'

"'Mamma said it over and over again, lots of time,' Nina said. 'Nina quite sure she said right.'

"We didn't say no more about it then, though after the children had gone I wondered to myself how a chap could go on so foolish as that.

Well, sir, three days after come round from Whitby this very boat, the _Grateful Mary_. She was sent care of Joe Denton; and as that was me, I had her hauled up on the beach till I should hear whose she was.

Several visitors that had been out with me had said, promiscuous like, that they should like to have a boat of their own, and I supposed they had bought her at Whitby and sent her down, though why they should have sent her to my care I couldn't quite see.

"Two days afterwards them children come down, and says:

"'We want you to go through the town to the other cliff with us, Joe.'

"'I can't,' says I. 'I'm all right talking to you here, missies; but I shouldn't be a credit to you in the town, and your pa wouldn't be best pleased if he was to see you walking about in the streets with a boatman.'

"'Papa said we might ask you, Joe.'

"I shook my head, and the little ladies ran off to their nurse, who come back with them and says:

"'Master told me to say he should be pertickler glad if you would go with the young ladies.'

"'Oh, very well,' I says; 'if their pa don't object, and they wishes it, I'd go with 'em anywheres. You wait here a quarter of an hour, while I goes and cleans myself, and I'll go with you.'

"When I comes back the youngest takes my hand, and the oldest holds by my jacket, and we goes up into High Street, and across to the other cliff. We goes along till we comes to a pretty little cottage looking over the sea. There was a garden in front, new planted with flowers.

"'Are you sure you are going right?' says I, when they turned in.

"They nodded, and ran up to the door and turned the handle.

"'Come in, Joe,' they said; and they dragged me into a parlor, where a lady and gentleman was sitting.

"The gentleman got up.

"'My little girls have spoken so much to me about you, Joe, that I feel that we know each other already.'

"'Yes, sir, surely,' says I.

"'Well, Joe, do you know that I owe you a great deal as to these little girls?'

"'Bless you, sir, it's I as owe a great deal to the little missies; they have made a changed man of me, they have; you ask anyone on the sh.o.r.e.'

"'I hope they have, Joe; for had they not got round your heart, and led you to your better self, I could never have done what I have done, for you would have rendered it useless.'

"I didn't say nothing, sir, for I could make neither head nor tail of what he was saying, and, I dessay, looked as surprised as might be.

Then he takes a step forward, and he puts a hand on my shoulder, and says he:

"'Joe, have you never guessed who these little girls were?'

"I looked first at the children, and then at him, and then at the lady, who had a veil down, but was wiping her eyes underneath it. I was downright flummuxed.

"'I see you haven't,' the gentleman went on. 'Well, Joe, it is time you should know now. I owe to you all that is dear to me in this world, and our one unhappiness has been that you would not hear us, that you had lost everything and would not let us do anything to lighten your blow.'

"Still, sir, I couldn't make out what he meant, and began to think that I was mad, or that he was. Then the lady stood up and threw back her veil, and come up in front of me with the tears a-running down her face; and I fell back a step, and sits down suddenly in a chair, for, sure enough, it was that gal. Different to what I had seen her last, healthy-looking and well--older, in course; a woman now, and the mother of my little ladies.

"She stood before me, sir, with her hands out before her, pleading like.

"'Don't hate me any more, Joe. Let my children stand between us. I know what you have suffered, and, in all my happiness, the thought of your loneliness has been a trouble, as my husband will tell you. I so often thought of you--a broken, lonely man. I have talked to the children of you till they loved the man that saved their mother's life. I cannot give you what you have lost, Joe--no one can do that; but you may make us happy in making you comfortable. At least, if you cannot help hating me, let the love I know you bear my children weigh with you.'

"As she spoke the children were hanging on me; and when she stopped the little one said:

"'Oh, Joe, oo must be dood; oo mustn't hate mamma, and make her cry!'

"Well, sir, I know as I need tell you more about it. You can imagine how I quite broke down, like a great baby, and called myself every kind of name, saying only that I thought, and I a'most think so now, that I had been somehow mad from the moment the squall struck the _Kate_ till the time I first met the little girls.

"When I thought o' that, and how I'd cut that poor gal to her drowning heart with my words, I could ha' knelt to her if she'd ha' let me. At last, when I was quiet, she explained that this cottage and its furniture and the _Grateful Mary_ was all for me; and we'd a great fight over it, and I only gave in when at last she says that if I didn't do as she wanted she'd never come down to Scarborough with the little ladies no more; but that if I 'greed they'd come down regular every year, and that the little girls should go out sailing with me regular in the _Grateful Mary_.

"Well, sir, there was no arguing against that, was there? So here I am; and next week I expect Miss Mary that was, with her husband, who's a Parliament man, as she was engaged to be married to at the time of the upset, and my little ladies, who is getting quite big girls too.

And if you hadn't been going away I'd ha' sailed round the castle tower, and I'd ha' pointed out the cottage to you. Yes, sir, I see what you are going to ask. I found it lonely there; and I found the widow of a old mate of mine who seemed to think as how she could make me comfortable; and comfortable I am, sir--no words could say how comfortable I am; and do you know, sir, I'm blest if there aint a Joe up there at this identical time, only he's a very little one, and has got both arms. So you see, sir, I have got about as little right as has any chap in this mortial world to the name of Surly Joe."

A FISH-WIFE'S DREAM.

Falmouth is not a fas.h.i.+onable watering-place. Capitalists and speculative builders have somehow left it alone, and, except for its great hotel, standing in a position, as far as I know, unrivaled, there have been comparatively few additions to it in the last quarter of a century. Were I a yachtsman I should make Falmouth my headquarters: blow high, blow low, there are shelter and plenty of sailing room, while in fine weather there is a glorious coast along which to cruise--something very different from the flat sh.o.r.es from Southampton to Brighton. It is some six years since that I was lying in the harbor, having sailed round in a friend's yacht from Cowes.

Upon the day after we had come in my friend went into Truro, and I landed, strolled up, and sat down on a bench high on the seaward face of the hill that shelters the inner harbor.

An old coastguardsman came along. I offered him tobacco, and in five minutes we were in full talk.

"I suppose those are the pilchard boats far out there?"

"Aye, that's the pilchard fleet."

"Do they do well generally?"