The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands by Robert Michael Ballantyne (classic novels txt) 📖

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, and bedding belong to the landlord."

"Come then, my own poor lamb," said the young sailor tenderly, "let us go."

Nora rose and glanced slowly round the room. Few rooms in Ramsgate could have looked more poverty-stricken and cheerless, nevertheless, being associated in her mind with those whom she had lost, she was loath to leave it. Falling suddenly on her knees beside the bed, she kissed the old counterpane that had covered the dead form she had loved so well, and then went hastily out and leaned her head against the wall of the narrow court before the door.

Jim lifted the chest, placed it on his broad shoulders and followed her. Locking the door behind him and putting the key in his pocket, he gave his disengaged arm to Nora, and led her slowly a way.


CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.


TELLS OF AN UNLOOKED-FOR RETURN, AND DESCRIBES A GREAT FEAST.

If, as we have elsewhere observed in this narrative, time and tide wait for no man, it is not less true that time and tide work wonderful changes in man and his affairs and fortunes. Some of those changes we will now glance at, premising that seven years have passed away since the occurrence of the events recorded in our last chapter.

On the evening of a somewhat gloomy day in the month of sunny showers, four men of rough aspect, and clad in coarse but not disreputable garments, stopped in front of a public-house in one of the lowest localities of London, and looked about them. There was something quite peculiar in their aspect. They seemed to be filled with mingled curiosity and surprise, and looked somewhat scared, as a bird does when suddenly set free from its cage.

Two of the men were of an extremely low type of humanity--low-browed and scowling--and their language betokened that their minds were in keeping with their faces. The other two were better-looking and better-spoken, one of them having evidently been a handsome man in his day. His hair was blanched as white as snow although it still retained the curls of youth. His figure was much bent, and he appeared like one who had been smitten with premature old age.

"Well, uncommon queer changes bin goin' on here," said one of the men, gazing round him.

One of the others admitted that there certainly had been wonderful changes, and expressed a fear that if the change in himself was as great, his old pals wouldn't know him.

"Hows'ever," observed he who had spoken first, "they won't see such a difference as they would have seen if we'd got the whole fourteen. Good luck to the ticket-of-leave system, say I."

The others laughed at this, and one of them suggested that they should enter the public-house and have a glass of grog in memory of old times. Three of the men at once agreed to this proposal, and said that as it would not be long before they were in the stone jug again it behoved them to make the most of their freedom while it lasted. The man with white hair, however, objected, and it was not until his companions had chaffed and rallied him a good deal that he consented to enter the house, observing, as he followed them slowly, that he had not tasted a drop for seven years.

"Well, well," replied one of the others, "it don't matter; you'll relish it all the more now, old feller. It'll go down like oil, an' call up the memory of old times--"

"The memory of old times!" cried the white-haired man, stopping short, with a sudden blaze of ferocity which amazed his companions.

He stood glaring at them for a few moments, with his hands tightly clenched; then, without uttering another word, he turned round and rushed from the house.

"Mad!" exclaimed one of the other three, looking at his companions when they had recovered from their surprise, "mad as a March hare. Hows'ever, that don't consarn us. Come along, my hearties.--Hallo! landlord, fetch drink here--your best, and plenty of it. Now, boys, fill up and I'll give 'ee a toast."

Saying this the man filled his glass, the others followed his example-- the toast was given and drunk--more toasts were given and drunk--the three men returned to their drink and their old ways, and haunts and comrades, as the sow returns to her wallowing in the mire.

Meanwhile the white-haired man wandered away as if he had no settled purpose. Day after day he moved on through towns and villages and fields, offering to work, but seldom being employed, begging his bread from door to door, but carefully avoiding the taverns; sleeping where he could, or where he was permitted--sometimes in the barn of a kindly farmer, sometimes under a hay-stack,