Esther Part 18

"He is happier up here, aren't you, Frankie boy?" returned Mr.

Lucas, cheerfully.

"Oh, but he will tire you," I faltered.

"Tire me, this little bundle of bones!" peeping at Dot over his shoulder; "why, I could walk miles with him. Don't trouble yourself about him, Miss Esther. We understand each other perfectly."

And then he left me, walking with long, easy strides over the uneven ground, with Flurry running to keep up with him.

They used to go on the downs after tea, and sit on the little green beach, while Miss Ruth and I went to church.

Miss Ruth never would use her pony carriage on Sunday. A boy used to draw her in a wheel-chair. She never stayed at home unless she was compelled to do so. I never knew any one enjoy the service more, or enter more fully into it.

No matter how out of tune the singing might be, she always joined in it with a fervor that quite surprised me. "Depend upon it, Esther,"

she used to say, "it is not the quality of our singing that matters but how much our heart joins with the choir. Perfect praise and perfect music cannot be expected here; but I like to think old Betty's cracked voice, when she joins in the hymns, is as sweet to angels' ears as our younger notes."

The children always waited up for us on Sunday evening, and afterward Miss Ruth would sing with them; sometimes Mr. Lucas would walk up and down the gravel paths listening to them, but oftener I could catch the red light of his cigar from the cliff seat.

I wonder what sad thoughts came to him as the voices floated out to him, mixed up with the low ripple of waves on the sand.

"Where loyal hearts and true"--they were singing that, I remember; Flurry in her childish treble. And Flurry's mother, lying in her quiet grave--did the mother in paradise, I wonder, look down from her starry place on her little daughter singing her baby hymn, and on that lonely man, listening from the cliff seat in the darkness?

CHAPTER XVI.

THE SMUGGLERS' CAVE.

The six weeks pa.s.sed only too rapidly, but Dot and I were equally delighted when Miss Ruth pet.i.tioned for a longer extension of absence, to which dear mother returned a willing consent.

A little note was enclosed for me in Miss Ruth's letter.

"Make your mind quite easy, my dear child," she wrote, "we are getting on very well, and really Jack is improving, and does all sorts of little things to help me; she keeps her room tidier, and I have not had to find fault with her for a week.

"We do not see much of Carrie; she comes home looking very pale and f.a.gged; your uncle grumbles sometimes, but I tell him words are wasted, the Smedley influence is stronger than ever.

"But you need not think I am dull, though I do miss my bright, cheery Esther, and my darling Frankie. Jack and I have nice walks, and Uncle Geoffrey takes me sometimes on his rounds, and two or three times Mr. Lucas has sent the carriage to take us into the country; he says the horses need exercise, now his sister is away, but I know it is all his kindness and thought for us. I will willingly spare you a little longer, and am only thankful that the darling boy is deriving so much benefit from the sea air."

Dear, unselfish mother, always thinking first of her children's interest, and never of her own wishes; and yet I could read between the lines, and knew how she missed us, especially Dot, who was her constant companion.

But it was really the truth that the sea air was doing Dot good. He complained less of his back, and went faster and faster on his little crutches; the cruel abscesses had not tried him for months, and now it seemed to me that the thin cheeks were rounding out a little. He looked so sunburned and rosy, that I wished mother could have seen him. It was only the color of a faintly-tinged rose, but all the same it was wonderful for Dot. We had had lovely weather for our holiday; but at the beginning of September came a change. About a week after mother's letter had arrived, heavy storms of wind and rain raged round the coast.

Miss Ruth and Dot were weather-bound, neither of them had strength to brave the boisterous wind; but Flurry and I would tie down our hats with our veils and run down the parade for a blow. It used to be quite empty and deserted; only in the distance we could see the s.h.i.+ny hat of the Preventive man, as he walked up and down with his telescope.

I used to hold Flurry tightly by the hand, for I feared she would be blown off her feet. Sometimes we were nearly drenched and blinded with the salt spray.

The sea looked so gray and sullen, with white curling waves leaping up against the sea wall; heaps of froth lay on the parade, and even on the green enclosure in the front of the houses. People said it was the highest tide they had known for years.

Once I was afraid to take Flurry out, and ran down to the beach alone. I had to plant my feet firmly in the s.h.i.+ngles, for I could hardly stand against the wind. What a wild, magnificent scene it was, a study in browns and grays, a strange colorless blending of faint tints and uncertain shading.

As the waves receded there was a dark margin of heaped-up seaweed along the beach, the tide swept in ma.s.ses of tangled things, the surge broke along the sh.o.r.e with a voice like thunder, great foamy waves leaped up in curling splendor and then broke to pieces in the gray abyss. The sky was as gray as the sea; not a living thing was in sight except a lonely seagull. I could see the gleam of the firelight through one of the windows of the cottage. It looked so warm and snug. The beach was high and dry round me, but a little beyond the Brambles the tide flowed up to the low cliffs. Most people would have s.h.i.+vered in such a scene of desolation, for the seagull and I had it all to ourselves, but the tumult of the wind and waves only excited me. I felt wild with spirits, and could have shouted in the exuberance of my enjoyment.

I could have danced in my glee, as the foamy snowflakes fell round me, and my face grew stiff and wet with the briny air. The white manes of the sea-horses arched themselves as they swept to their destruction. How the wind whistled and raved, like a hunted thing!

"They that go down to the sea in s.h.i.+ps, and do their business in the deep waters," those words seemed to flash to me across the wild tumult, and I thought of all the wonders seen by the mariners of old.

"Oh, Esther, how can you be so adventurous?" exclaimed Miss Ruth, as I thrust a laughing face and wet waterproof into the room; she and the children were sitting round the fire.

"Oh, it was delicious," I returned. "It intoxicated me like new wine; you cannot imagine the mighty duet of the sea and wind, the rolling sullen ba.s.s, and the shrill crescendo."

"It must have been horrible," she replied, with a little s.h.i.+ver. The wild tempestuous weather depressed her; the loud discordance of the jarring elements seemed to fret the quiet of her spirit.

"You are quite right," she said to me as we sat alone that evening, "this sort of weather disturbs my tranquillity; it makes me restless and agitates my nerves. Last night I could not sleep; images of terror blended with my waking thoughts. I seemed to see great s.h.i.+ps driving before the wind, and to hear the roaring of breakers and cras.h.i.+ng of timbers against cruel rocks; and when I closed my eyes, it was only to see the whitened bones of mariners lying fathoms deep among green tangled seaweed."

"Dear Miss Ruth, no wonder you look pale and depressed after such a night. Would you like me to sleep with you? the wind seems to act on me like a lullaby. I felt cradled in comfort last night."

"You are so strong," she said, with a little sadness in her voice.

"You have no nerves, no diseased sensibilities; you do not dread the evils you cannot see, the universe does not picture itself to you in dim terrors."

"Why, no," I returned, wonderingly, for such suggestions were new to me.

"Sleep your happy sleep, my dear," she said, tenderly, "and thank G.o.d for your perfect health, Esther. I dozed a little myself toward morning, before the day woke in its rage, and then I had a horrible sort of dream, a half-waking scare, bred of my night-terrors.

"I thought I was tossing like a dead leaf in the gale; the wind had broken bounds, and carried me away bodily. Now I was lying along the margin of waves, and now swept in wide circles in the air.

"The noise was maddening. The air seemed full of shrieks and cries, as though the universe were lost and bewailing itself, 'Lamentation and mourning and woe,' seemed written upon the lurid sky and sea. I thought of those poor lovers in Dante's 'Inferno,' blown like spectral leaves before the infernal winds of h.e.l.l; but I was alone in this tumultuous torrent.

"I felt myself sinking at last into the dim, choking surge--it was horribly real, Esther--and then some one caught me by the hair and drew me out, and the words came to me, 'for so He bringeth them to the haven where they would be.'"

"How strange!" I exclaimed in an awed tone, for Miss Ruth's face was pale, and there was a touch of sadness in her voice.

"It was almost a vision of one's life," she returned, slowly; "we drift hither and thither, blown by many a gust of pa.s.sion over many an unseen danger. If we be not engulfed, it is because the Angel of His Providence watches over us; 'drawn out of many waters,' how many a life history can testify of that!"

"We have our smooth days as well," I returned, cheerfully, "when the sun s.h.i.+nes, and there are only ripples on the waters."

"That is in youth," she replied; "later on the storms must come, and the wise mariner will prepare himself to meet them. We must not always be expecting fair weather. Do you not remember the lines of my favorite hymn:

"'And oh, the joy upon that sh.o.r.e To tell our s.h.i.+pwrecked voyage o'er.'

"Really, I think one of the great pleasures in heaven will be telling the perils we have been through, and how He has brought us home at last."

Miss Ruth would not let me sleep with her that night; but to my great relief, for her pale, weary looks made me anxious, the wind abated, and toward morning only the breaking surge was heard das.h.i.+ng along the sh.o.r.e.

"I have rested better," were the first words when we met, "but that one night's hurly-burly has wrecked me a little," which meant that she was only fit for bed.

But she would not hear of giving up entirely, so I drew her couch to the fire, and wrapped her up in shawls and left Dot to keep her company, while Flurry and I went out. In spite of the lull the sea was still very unquiet, and the receding tide gave us plenty of amus.e.m.e.nt, and we spent a very happy morning. In the afternoon, Miss Ruth had some errands for me to do in the town--wools to match, and books to change at the library, after which I had to replenish our exhausted store of note-paper.

It was Sat.u.r.day, and we had decided the pony carriage must go alone to the station to meet Mr. Lucas. He generally arrived a little before six, but once he had surprised us walking in with his portmanteau, just as we were starting for our afternoon's walk.