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Read books online » Fiction » A Sailor's Lass by Emma Leslie (online e reader txt) 📖

Book online «A Sailor's Lass by Emma Leslie (online e reader txt) 📖». Author Emma Leslie



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of grog to meet the additional expense of his household: he rather increased the allowance, that he might be able to work [Pg. 86]the boat better, as he fancied, and so catch more fish. When he forgot his bottle and left it at Fellness, it struck him as something all but marvellous that he should be able to work the next day without his usual drams, but it had not convinced him that he could do without it all together. Of its effect upon himself, in making him sullen, morose, and disagreeable, he was in absolute ignorance, and so the children's talk about it came upon him as a revelation. He knew that Tiny sometimes shrank from and avoided him; but he had considered it a mere childish whim, not to be accounted for by anything in himself; and so to hear that she was absolutely afraid of him sometimes was something to make him think more deeply than he had ever done in his life before.

But he did not say a word to Tiny about this. When he had done rubbing his gun he carried it home, and Tiny was left free to make acquaintance with the farm children.

She walked shyly up to where they were [Pg. 87]sitting—Polly reading, and Harry throwing sand at Dick, who had seated himself at a short distance, and was returning the salute.

"Would—wouldn't you like to tell me about these letters, please?" said Tiny, holding out her paper to Polly.

"Well, that's a rum way of asking," said Harry, with a laugh. "Suppose she wouldn't now, little 'un," he added.

"Then she mustn't," said Tiny, stoutly; though the tears welled up to her eyes at the thought of all her hopes being overthrown just when they seemed about to be realised.

"Don't, Harry; what a tease you are!" said his sister. "I should like to tell you, dear," she added, in a patronising tone. "Come and sit down here, and tell me what you want."

"It's what you want; don't forget that, Polly, else she'll get her back up, and go off again," laughed her brother; but he was not sorry the embargo had been taken off their intercourse with the fisherman's family; for although he had had surreptitious dealings with [Pg. 88]boys sometimes, they had to be so watchful lest they should be discovered that the play was considerably hindered. Now he understood that this advance on Tiny's part was a direct concession from Coomber himself, for he and the boys had long ago agreed to try and draw the little girl into some intimacy as the only way of breaking down the restrictions laid upon them. But Tiny had proved obstinate. She had been asked again and again, but she had always returned the same answer: "Daddy would let her some day, and then she would play with them." So Harry Hayes was perfectly aware that she had won the fisherman's consent at last, although no word had been said about it.

When the girls were left to themselves, Polly took up the picture and looked at it, then turned it over and read, "God is good to all: He loves both boys and girls." At this point Tiny interrupted her by laying her hand on her arm, and saying eagerly: "Are you quite sure that is what it says?"

[Pg. 89] "Why, don't you think I can read?" said Polly, in a half-offended tone. But the subject was new to her, and so she was anxious to read further, and turned to the page again and read on. At the bottom was a line or two in smaller print, and Polly read these longer words with a touch of pride: "Jesus said, Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God."

"Then this must be Jesus, and these are the little children," concluded Polly, as she turned over the paper to look at the picture again.

The two girls sat and looked at it and talked about it for a few minutes, and then Tiny said wistfully: "Will you show me now how you make up them nice words?"

"Oh, it's easy enough if you know the letters; but you must learn the letters first," said Polly; and she proceeded to tell Tiny the name of each; and the little girl had the satisfaction of knowing now that she had remembered them quite correctly, and that G O D did spell God, as she had surmised.

[Pg. 90]She was not long now in putting other words together; and before she went home she was able to spell out the first two lines of the printed page, for they were all easy words, and intended for beginners.

What a triumph it was to Tiny to be able to read out to the fisherman's family what she had learned on the sands that day. She was allowed to have the candle all to herself after supper, and they sat round the table looking at each other in wondering amazement as her little finger travelled along the page, and she spelt out the wonderful news, "'God is good to all: He loves both boys and girls.' It's true, Dick, what I told you, ain't it?" she said, in a tone of delighted satisfaction.

Dick scratched his head, and looked round at his father, wondering what he would think or say. For a minute or two the fisherman smoked his pipe in silence. At length, taking it from his mouth, he said, in a slow, meditative fashion: "Well, little 'un, I s'pose if it's printed that way it's true; and if it is, why I [Pg. 91]s'pose we've all got a share in that 'Star of Peace' we was talking about to-day."

Tiny did not quite follow his train of thought; but she nodded her head, and then proceeded to tell them what she had heard about the picture, and the conclusion she and Polly had arrived at upon the subject—that Jesus, the kind, loving man of the picture, had come to show them how kind God was to them.

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 [Pg. 92]

decoration CHAPTER VI.

BAD TIMES.

Winter around Bermuda Point was at all times a dreary season, and the only thing its few inhabitants could hope for was that its reign might be as short as possible. A fine, calm autumn was hailed as a special boon from heaven by the fisher-folk all round the coast, and more especially by the lonely dwellers at the Point.

A fine autumn enabled Coomber to go out in his boat until the time for shooting wild fowl began, and the children could play on the sands, or gather samphire, instead of being penned up in the house half the time. But when the weather was wild and wet, and the salt marshes lay under water, that meant little [Pg. 93]food and much discomfort, frequent quarrels, and much bitterness to the fisherman's family.

This autumn the weather was more than usually boisterous; and long before the usual time the old boat had to be drawn up on to the bank, for fear the waves should dash it to pieces. The fisherman sometimes went to Fellness, on the chance of picking up a stray job, for it was only the state of his boat, and his anxiety to keep it together as long as possible, that prevented him braving the perils of the sea; and so he sometimes got the loan of another boat, or helped another fisherman with his; and then, rough though they might be, these fisher-folk were kind and helpful to each other, and if they could not afford to pay money for a job, they could pay for it in bread or flour, or potatoes, perhaps, and so they would generally find Coomber something to do, that they might help him, without hurting him.

But there was little work that could be done in [Pg. 94]such bad weather as this, and he knew it, and his proud, independent spirit could not brook to accept even a mouthful of bread that he had not earned; and so there were many weary days spent at home, or sauntering round the coast with his gun, on the look-out for a stray wild fowl. Tiny often went to bed hungry, and woke up feeling faint and sick; and although she never forgot to say her prayers, she could not help thinking sometimes that God must have forgotten her. She read her paper to Dick, and he and Tom had both learned to spell out some of the words, and she read to herself again and again the Divine assurance, "God is good to all: He loves both boys and girls;" but then, as Dick said sometimes, Bermuda Point was such a long way from anywhere, and He might forget there were any boys and girls living there.

When she was very hungry, and more than usually depressed, Tiny thought Dick must be right, but even then she would not admit such a thought to others. When she saw Mrs. [Pg. 95]Coomber in tears, because she had no food to prepare for her hungry children, she would steal up to her, pass her little arm round the poor woman's neck, and whisper, "God is good; He'll take care of us, mammy; He'll send us some supper, if He can't send us any dinner;" and the child's hopeful words often proved a true prophecy, for sometimes when Coomber had been out all day without finding anything that could be called food, he would, when returning, manage to secure a wild duck, perhaps, or a couple of sea magpies, or a few young gulls. Nothing came amiss to the young Coombers at any time, and just now a tough stringy gull was a dainty morsel.

It threatened to be an unusually hard and long winter, and at last Mrs. Coomber ventured to suggest that Tiny should be taken to the poorhouse, at least until the spring, when she could come back again.

"Look at her poor little white face," said the woman, with her apron to her eyes; "I'm [Pg. 96]afraid she'll be ill soon, and then what can we do?"

"Time enough to talk about that when she is ill," said Coomber, gruffly, as he took up his gun and went out. They were generally able to keep a good fire of the drift-wood and wreckage that was washed ashore, for unfortunately there was scarcely a week passed but some noble vessel came to grief on the perilous bar sands during the more boisterous weather. Once, when they were at their wits' end for food, and Bob had begged his mother to boil some samphire for supper, Tiny was fortunate enough to discover an unopened cask which the sea had cast up the night before, and left high and dry behind the ridge of sandhills. She was not long fetching Bob and the boys to see her treasure trove; all sorts of wild speculations passing through her mind as to what it could contain as she ran shouting—

"Bob! Bob! Dick! Dick! Come and see what I've found."

[Pg. 97]

Illustration

"'DICK, DICK, COME AND SEE WHAT I'VE FOUND.'" [See page 96.

[Pg. 98]

[Pg. 99]

The boys were not long in making their appearance, and Bob fetched a hatchet, and soon broke open the cask; and oh! what joy for the starving children—it was full of ship biscuits!

"Oh, Dick, didn't I tell you this morning God hadn't forgotten us?" said Tiny, in a quavering voice, when Bob announced what the cask contained.

"Oh, yes," said Dick, "so you did;" but he was too hungry to think of anything but the biscuits now—too hungry even to shout his joy, as he would have done at another time. As soon as they could be got at, he handed one to Tiny, and then Tom and Dick helped themselves, filling their pockets and munching them at the same time; but Tiny, though she nibbled her biscuit as she went, ran at once to tell Mrs. Coomber of her wonderful discovery; and she, scarcely daring to believe that such good news could be true, ran out at once to see for herself, and met the boys, who confirmed Tiny's tale. But she must see the cask for [Pg. 100]herself, and then she ate and filled her apron, and shed tears, and thanked God for this wonderful gift all at the same time. Then she told the boys to come and fetch some baskets at once, to carry them home in, and she would sort them over, for some were soaked with sea-water, but others near the middle were quite dry. Bob took a bagful and went in search of his father along the coast, and everybody was busy carrying or sorting or drying the biscuits, for

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