And seems she mid deep silence to a strain
To listen, which the soul alone can know,
Saying: “Fear naught, for Jesus came on earth,
Jesus of endless joys the wide, deep sea,
To ease each heavy load of mortal birth.
His waters ever clearest, sweetest be
To him who in a lonely bark drifts forth
On His great deeps of goodness trustfully.”
From Vittoria Colonna
Codrington was one of the very few sea-side places within fairly easy
reach of London which had not been vulgarized into an ordinary watering
place. It was a primitive little place with one good, old-established
hotel, and a limited number of villas and lodging houses, which only
served as a sort of ornamental fringe to the picturesque little fishing
town.
The fact was that it was just midway between two large and deservedly
popular resorts, and so it had been overlooked, and to the regret of the
thrifty inhabitants and the satisfaction of the visitors who came there
for quiet, its peaceful streets and its stony beach were never invaded
by excursionists. No cockneys came down for the Sunday to eat shrimps;
the shrimps were sent away by train to the more favored watering places,
and the Codrington shop keepers shook their heads and gave up expecting
to make a fortune in such a conservative little place. Erica said it
reminded her of the dormouse in “Alice In Wonderland,” tyrannized
over by the hatter on one side and the March hare on the other, and
eventually put head foremost into the teapot. Certainly Helmstone on the
east and Westport on the west had managed to eclipse it altogether, and
its peaceful sleepiness made the dormouse comparison by no means inapt.
It all looked wonderfully unchanged as she walked from the station that
summer afternoon with her father. The square, gray tower of St. Oswald's
Church, the little, winding, irregular streets, the very shop windows
seemed quite unaltered, while at every turn familiar faces came into
sight. The shrewd old sailor with the telescope, the prim old lady at
the bookseller's, who had pronounced the “Imitation of Christ” to be
quite out of fashion, the sturdy milkman, with white smock-frock, and
bright pails fastened to a wooden yoke, and the coast-guardsman, who was
always whistling “Tom Bowling.”
The sea was as calm as a mill pond; Raeburn suggested an hour or two on
the water and Erica, who was fond of boating, gladly assented. She had
made up her ind not to speak to her father that evening; he had a very
hard day's work before him on the Sunday; they must have these few hours
in peace. She did not in the least dread any subject coming up which
might put her into difficulty, for, on the rare days when her father
allowed himself any recreation, he entirely banished all controversial
topics from his mind. He asked no single question relating to the work
or to business of any kind, but gave himself up to the enjoyment of a
much-needed rest and relaxation. He seemed in excellent spirits, and
Erica herself would have been rapturously happy if she had not been
haunted by the thought of the pain that awaited him. She knew that this
was the last evening she and her father should ever spend together in
the old perfect confidence; division the most painful of all divisions
lay before them.
The next day she was left to herself. She would not go to the old
gray-towered church, though as an atheist she had gone to one or two
churches to look and listen, she felt that she could not honorably go as
a worshiper till she had spoken to her father. So she wandered about on
the shore, and in the restful quiet learned more and grew stronger, and
conquered the dread of the morrow. She did not see her father again that
day for he could not get back from Helmstone till a late train, and she
had promised not to sit up for him.
The morning of her twenty-third birthday was bright and sunshiny; she
had slept well, but awoke with the oppressive consciousness that a
terrible hard duty lay before her. When she came down there was
a serious look in her eyes which did not escape Raeburn's keen
observation. He was down before her, and had been out already, for he
had managed somehow to procure a lovely handful of red and white roses
and mignonette.
“All good wishes for your birthday, and 'sweets to the sweet' as some
one remarked on a more funereal occasion,” he said, stooping to kiss
her. “Dear little son Eric, it is very jolly to have you to myself for
once. No disrespect to Aunt Jean and old Tom, but two is company.” “What
lovely flowers!” exclaimed Erica. “How good of you! Where did they come
from?”
“I made love to old Nicolls, the florist, to let me gather these myself;
he was very anxious to make a gorgeous arrangement done up in white
paper with a lace edge, and thought me a fearful Goth for preferring
this disorderly bunch.”
They sat down to breakfast; afterward the morning papers came in, and
Raeburn disappeared behind the “Daily Review,” while the servant cleared
the table. Erica stood by the open French window; she knew that in a few
minutes she must speak, and how to get what she had to say into words
she did not know. Her heart beat so fast that she felt almost choked. In
a sort of dream of pain she watched the passers-by happy looking girls
going down to bathe, children with spades and pails. Everything seemed
so tranquil, so ordinary while before her lay a duty which must change
her whole world.
“Not much news,” said Raeburn, coming toward her as the servant left the
room. “For dullness commend me to a Monday paper! Well, Eric, how are
we to spend your twenty-third birthday? To think that I have actually
a child of twenty-three! Why, I ought to feel an old patriarch, and, in
spite of white hair and life-long badgering, I don't, you know. Come,
what shall we do. Where would you like to go?”
“Father,” said Erica, “I want first to have a talk with you. I--I have
something to tell you.”
There was no longer any mistaking that the seriousness meant some kind
of trouble. Raeburn put his arm round her.
“Why, my little girl,” he said, tenderly. “You are trembling all over.
What is the matter?”
“The matter is that what I have to say will pain you, and it half kills
me to do that. But there is no choice tell you I must. You would not
wish me not to be true, not to be honest.”
Utter perplexity filled Raeburn's mind. What phantom trouble was
threatening him? Had she been commissioned to tell him of some untoward
event? Some business calamity? Had she fallen in love with some one he
could not permit her to marry? He looked questioningly at her, but her
expression only perplexed him still more; she was trembling no longer,
and her eyes were clear and bright, there was a strong look about her
whole face.
“Father,” she said, quietly, “I have learned to believe in Jesus
Christ.”
He wrenched away his arm; he started back from her as if she had stabbed
him. For a minute he looked perfectly dazed.
At last, after a silence which seemed to each of them age-long, he spoke
in the agitated voice of one who has just received a great blow.
“Do you know what you are saying, Erica? Do you know what such a
confession as you have made will involve? Do you mean that you accept
the whole of Christ's teaching?
“Yes,” she replied, firmly, “I do.”
“You intend to turn Christian?”
“Yes, to try to.”
“How long have you and Mr. Osmond been concocting this?”
“I don't know what you mean,” said Erica, terribly wounded by his tone.
“Did he send you down here to tell me?”
“Mr. Osmond knows nothing about it,” said Erica. “How could I tell any
one before you, father?”
Raeburn was touched by this. He took several turns up and down the room
before speaking again, but the more he grasped the idea the deeper grew
his grief and the hotter his anger. He was a man of iron will, however,
and he kept both under. When at length he did speak, his voice was quiet
and cold and repressed.
“Sit down,” he said, motioning her to a chair. “This is not a subject
that we can dismiss in five minutes' talk. I must hear your reasons. We
will put aside all personal considerations. I will consider you just as
an ordinary opponent.”
His coldness chilled her to the heart. Was it always to be like this?
How could she possibly endure it? How was she to answer his questions
how was she to vindicate her faith when the mere tone of his voice
seemed to paralyze her heart? He was indeed treating her with the cold
formality of an opponent, but never for a single instant could she
forget that he was her father the being she loved best in the whole
world.
But Erica was brave and true; she knew that this was a crisis in their
lives, and, thrusting down her own personal pain, she forced herself to
give her whole heart and mind to the searching and perplexing questions
with which her father intended to test the reality of her convictions.
Had she been unaccustomed to his mode of attack he would have hopelessly
silenced her, as far as argument goes in half an hour; but not only was
Erica's faith perfectly real, but she had, as it were, herself traversed
the whole of his objections and difficulties. Though far from imagining
that she understood everything, she had yet so firmly grasped the
innermost truth that all details as yet outside her vision were to her
no longer hindrances and bugbears, but so many new possibilities other
hopes of fresh manifestations of God.
She held her ground well, and every minute Raeburn realized more keenly
that whatever hopes he had entertained of reconvincing her were futile.
What made it all the more painful to him was that the thoroughness
of the training he had given her now only told against him, and the
argument which he carried on in a cold, metallic voice was really
piercing his very heart, for it was like arguing against another self,
the dearest part of himself gone over to the enemy's side.
At last he saw that argument was useless, and then, in his grief and
despair, he did for a time lose his self-control. Erica had often felt
sorry for the poor creatures who had to bear the brunt of her father's
scathing sarcasm. But platform irony was a trifle to the torrent which
bore down upon her today. When a strong man does lose his restraint upon
himself, the result is terrific. Raeburn had never sufficiently
cared for an adversary as to be moved beyond an anger which could be
restricted and held within due bounds; he of course cared more for the
success of his cause and his own dignity. But now his love drove him to
despair; his intolerable grief at the thought of having an opponent in
his own child burst all restraining bonds. Wounded to the quick, he who
had never in his life spoken a harsh word to his child now poured forth
such a storm of anger, and sarcasm, and bitter reproach, as might have
made even an uninterested by-stander tremble.
Had Erica made any appeal, had she even begun to cry, his chivalry would
have been touched; he would have recognized her weakness, and regained
his self control. But she was not weak, she was strong she was his other
self gone over to the opposite side; that was what almost maddened him.
The torrent bore down upon her, and she spoke not a word, but just
sat still and endured. Only, as the words grew more bitter and more
wounding, her lips grew white, her hands were locked more tightly
together. At last it ended.
“You have cheated yourself into this belief,” said Raeburn, “you have
given me the most bitter grief and disappointment of my whole life. Have
you anything else you wish to say to me?”
“Nothing,” replied Erica, not daring to venture more; for, if she had
tried to speak, she knew she must have burst into tears.
But there was as much pain expressed in her voice as she spoke that one
word as there had been in all her father's outburst. It appealed to
him at once. He said no more, but stepped out of the French window, and
began to pace to an fro under the veranda.
Erica did not stir; she was like one crushed. Sad and harassed as
her life had been, it yet seemed to her that she had never known such
indescribably bitter pain. The outside world looked bright and sunshiny;
she could see the waves breaking on the shore, while beyond, sailing
out into the wide expanse was a brown-sailed fishing boat. Every now
and then her vision was interrupted by a tall, dark figure pacing to
and fro; every now and then the sunlight glinted on snow-white hair, and
then a fresh stab of pain awoke in her heart.
The brown-sailed fishing boat dwindled into a tiny dark spot on the
horizon, the sea tossed and foamed and sparked in the sunshine. Erica
turned away; she could not bear to look at it, for just now it seemed to
her merely the type of the terrible separation which had arisen between
herself and her father. She felt as if she were being borne away in the
little fishing boat, while he was left on the land, and the distance
between them slowly widened and widened.
All through that grievous conversation she had held in her hand a little
bit of mignonette. She had held it unconsciously; it was withered
and drooping, its sweetness seemed to her now sickly and hateful. She
identified it with her pain, and years after the smell of mignonette was
intolerable to her. She would have thrown it away, but remembered that
her father had given it her. And then, with the recollection of her
birthday gift, came the realization of all the long years of unbroken
and perfect love, so rudely interrupted today. Was it always to be like
this? Must they drift further and further apart?
Her heart was almost breaking; she had endured to the very uttermost,
when at length comfort came. The sword had only come to bring the higher
peace. No terrible sea of division could part those whom love could bind
together. The peace of God stole once more into her heart.
“How loud soe'er the world may roar, We know love will be conqueror.”
Meanwhile Raeburn paced to and fro in grievous pain The fact that his
pain could scarcely perhaps have been comprehended by the generality of
people did not make it less real or less hard to bear. A really honest
atheist, who is convinced that Christianity is false and misleading,
suffers as much at the sight of what he considers a mischievous belief
as a Christian would suffer while watching a service in some heathen
temple. Rather his pain would be greater, for his belief in the gradual
progress of his creed is shadowy and dim compared with the Christian's
conviction that the “Saviour of all men” exists.
Once, some years before, a very able man, one of his most devoted
followers, had “fallen back” into Christianity. That had been a bitter
disappointment; but that his own child whom he loved more than anything
in the world, should have forsaken him and gone over to the enemy, was a
grief well-nigh intolerable. It was a grief he had never for one moment
contemplated.
Could anything be more improbable than that Erica, carefully trained as
she had been, should relapse so strangely? Her whole life had been spent
among atheists; there was not a single objection to Christianity which
had not been placed before her. She had read much, thought much; she had
worked indefatigably to aid the cause. Again and again she had
braved personal insult and wounding injustice as an atheist. She had
voluntarily gone into exile to help her father in his difficulties.
Through the shameful injustice of a Christian, she had missed the last
years of her mother's life, and had been absent from her death bed.
She had borne on behalf of her father's cause a thousand irritating
privations, a thousand harassing cares; she had been hard-working, and
loyal, and devoted; and now all at once she had turned completely round
and placed herself in the opposing ranks!
Raeburn had all his life been fighting against desperate odds, and in
the conflict he had lost well-nigh everything. He had lost his home long
ago, he had lost his father's good will, he had lost the whole of his
inheritance; he had lost health, and strength, and reputation, and
money; he had lost all the lesser comforts of life; and now he said to
himself that he was to lose his dearest treasure of all, his child.
Bitter, hopeless, life-long division had arisen between them. For
twenty-three years he had loved her as truly as ever father loved child,
and this was his reward! A miserable sense of isolation arose in his
heart. Erica had been so much to him how could he live without her? The
muscles of his face quivered with emotion; he clinched his hands almost
fiercely.
Then he tortured himself by letting his thoughts wander back to the
past. That very day years ago, when he had first learned what fatherhood
meant; the pride of watching his little girl as the years rolled on;
the terrible anxiety of one long and dangerous illness she had passed
through how well he remembered the time! They were very poor, could
afford no expensive luxuries; he had shared the nursing with his wife.
One night he remembered toiling away with his pen while the sick child
was actually on his knee; he always fancied that the pamphlet he had
then been at work on was more bitterly sarcastic than anything he had
ever written. Then on once more into years of desperately hard work and
disappointingly small results, imbittered by persecution, crippled by
penalties and never-ending litigation; but always there had been the
little child waiting for him at home, who by her baby-like freedom from
care could make him smile when he was overwhelmed with anxiety. How
could he ever have endured the bitter obloquy, the slanderous attacks,
the countless indignities which had met him on all sides, if there had
not been one little child who adored him, who followed him about like a
shadow, who loved him and trusted him utterly?
Busy as his life had been, burdened as he had been for years with twice
as much work as he could get through, the child had never been crowded
out of his life. Even as a little thing of four years old, Erica
had been quite content to sit on the floor in his study by the hour
together, quietly amusing herself by cutting old newspapers into
fantastic shapes, or by drawing impossible cats and dogs and horses on
the margins. She had never disturbed him; she used to talk to herself in
whispers.
“Are you happy, little one?” he used to ask from time to time, with
a sort of passionate desire that he should enjoy her unconscious
childhood, foreseeing care and trouble for her in the future.
“Yes, very happy,” had been the invariable response; and generally Erica
would avail herself of the interruption to ask his opinion about some
square-headed cat, with eyes askew and an astonishing number of legs,
which she had just drawn. Then would come what she called a “bear's
hug,” after which silence reigned again in the study, while Raeburn
would go on writing some argumentative pamphlet, hard and clear as
crystal, his heart warmed by the little child's love, the remains of a
smile lingering about his lips at the recollection of the square-headed
cat.
And the years passed on, and every year deepened and strengthened their
love. And by slow degrees he had watched the development of her mind;
had gloried in her quick perception, had learned to come to her for a
second opinion every now and then; had felt proud of her common sense,
her thoughtful judgments; had delighted in her enthusiastic, loving
help. All this was ended now. Strange that, just as he hoped most from
her, she should fail him! It was a repetition of his own early history
exactly reversed. His thoughts went back to his father's study in
the old Scottish parsonage. He remembered a long, fierce argument; he
remembered a storm of abusive anger, and a furious dismissal from the
house. The old pain came back to him vividly.
“And she loves me fifty thousand times more than I ever loved my
father,” he reflected. “And, though I was not abusive, I was hard on
her. And, however mistaken, she was very brave, very honest. Oh, I was
cruel to her harsh, and hateful! My little child! My poor little child!
It shall not it cannot divide us. I am hers, and she is mine nothing can
ever alter that.”
He turned and went back into the room. Never had he looked grander
than at that minute; this man who could hold thousands in breathless
attention this man who was more passionately loved by his friends, more
passionately hated by his enemies than almost any man in England! He was
just the ideal father.
Erica had not stirred, she was leaning back in her chair, looking very
still and white. He came close to her.
“Little son Eric!” he said, with a whole world of love in his tone.
She sprang up and wreathed her arms round his neck.
By and by, they began to talk in low tones, to map out and piece
together as well as they could the future life, which was inevitably
severed from the past by a deep gulf. They spoke of the work which they
could still share, of the interests they should still have in common. It
was very sad work for Erica infinitely sadder for Raeburn; but they were
both of them brave and noble souls, and they loved each other, and so
could get above the sadness. One thing they both agreed upon. They would
never argue about their opinions. They would, as far as possible, avoid
any allusion to the grave differences that lay between them.
Late in the afternoon, a little group of fishermen and idlers stood
on the beach. They were looking out seaward with some “anxiety, for a
sudden wind had arisen, and there was what they called 'an ugly sea.'”
“I tell you it was madness to let 'em go alone on such a day,” said the
old sailor with the telescope.
“And I tell you that the old gentleman pulls as good an oar as any of
us,” retorted another man, in a blue jersey and a sou'wester.
“Old gentleman, indeed!” broke in the coast guardsman. “Better say
devil at once! Why, man alive! Your old gentleman is Luke Raeburn, the
atheist.”
“God forbid!” exclaimed the first speaker, lowering his telescope for a
moment. “Why, he be mighty friendly to us fishermen.”
“Where be they now, gaffer? D'ye see them?” asked a keen-looking lad of
seventeen.
“Ay, there they be! There they be! God have mercy on 'em! They'll be
swamped sure as fate!”
The coast guardsman, with provoked sang-froid and indifference, began to
sing:
“For though his body's under hatches, His soul is gone alo-o-ft.”
And then breaking off into a sort of recitative.
“Which is exactly the opposite quarter to what Luke Raeburn's soul will
go, I guess.”
“Blowed if I wouldn't pull an oar to save a mate, if I were so mighty
sure he was going to the devil!” observed a weather-beaten seaman, with
gold earrings and a good deal of tattooing on his brawny arms.
“Would you now!” said the coast guardsman, with a superior and sardonic
smile. “Well, in my 'umble opinion, drowning's too good for him.”
With which humane utterance, the coast guardsman walked off, singing of
Tom who
“Never from his word departed,
Whose heart was kind and soft.”
“Well, I, for one, will lend a hand to help them. Now then, mates! Which
of you is going to help to cheat the devil of his due?” said the man
with the earrings.
Three men proffered their services, but the old seaman with the
telescope checked them.
“Bide a bit, mates, bide a bit; I'm not sure you've a call to go.” He
wiped the glasses of his telescope with a red handkerchief, and then
looked out seaward once more.
In the meantime, while their fate was being discussed on the shore,
Raeburn and Erica were face to face with death. They were a long way
from land before the wind had sprung up so strongly. Raeburn, who in his
young days had been at once the pride and anxiety of the fishermen round
his Scottish home, and noted for his readiness and daring, had now lost
the freshness of his experience, and had grown forgetful of weather
tokens. The danger was upon them before he had even thought of it. The
strong wind blowing upon them, the delicious salt freshness, even
the brisk motion, had been such a relief to them after the pain and
excitement of the morning. But all at once they began to realize that
their peril was great. Their little boat tossed so fearfully that Erica
had to cling to the seat for safety; one moment they were down in the
hollow of a deep green wave, the next they would be tossed up upon its
crest as though their boat had been a mere cockle shell.
“I'm afraid we've made a mistake, Eric,” said Raeburn. “I ought to have
seen this storm coming up.”
“What?” cried Erica, for the dashing of the waves made the end of the
sentence inaudible.
He looked across the boat at her, and an almost paralyzing dread filled
his heart. For himself he could be brave, for himself death had no
terrors but for his child!
A horrible vision rose before him. He saw her lying stiff and cold,
with glazed eyes and drenched hair. Was there to be a yet more terrible
separation between them? Was death to snatch her from him? Ah, no that
should never be! They would at least go down together.
The vision faded; he saw once more the fair, eager face, no longer
pallid, but flushed with excitement, the brave eyes clear and bright,
but somewhat anxious. The consciousness that everything depended on him
helped him to rise above that overmastering horror. He was once more his
strongest self.
The rudder had been left on the beach, and it was only possible to steer
by the oars. He dismissed even the thought of Erica, and concentrated
his whole being on the difficult task before him. So grand did he look
in that tremendous endeavor that Erica almost forgot her anxiety; there
was something so forceful in his whole aspect that she could not be
afraid. Her heart beat quickly indeed, but the consciousness of danger
was stimulating.
Yet the waves grew more and more furious, rolling, curling, dashing up
in angry, white foam “raging horribly.” At length came one which broke
right over the little boat, blinding and drenching its occupants.
“Another like that will do for us,” Said Raeburn, in a quiet voice.
The boat was half full of water. Erica began to bale out with her
father's hat, and each knew from the other's face that their plight was
hopeless.
Raeburn had faced death many times. He had faced it more than once on a
sick bed, he had faced it surrounded by yelling and furious mobs, but he
had never faced it side by side with his child. Again he looked at the
angry gray-green waves, at the wreaths of curling white foam, again that
awful vision rose before him, and, brave man as he was, he shuddered.
Life was sweet even though he was harassed, persecuted, libeled. Life
was sweet even though his child had deserted his cause, even though she
had “cheated herself into a belief.” Life was infinitely worth
living, mere existence an exquisite joy, blank nothingness a hideous
alternative.
“Bale out!” he cried, despair in his eyes, but a curve of resoluteness
about his lips.
A few more strokes warily pulled, another huge wave sweeping along,
rearing itself up, dashing down upon them. The boat reeled and
staggered. To struggle longer was useless. Raeburn threw his oars
inboard, caught hold of Erica, and held her fast. When they could see
once more, they found the boat quite three parts full.
“Child!” he said, “child!” But nothing more would come. For once in his
life words failed him; the orator was speechless. Was it a minute or an
eternity that he waited there through that awful pause waited with his
arm round Erica, feeling the beating of her heart, the heart which must
soon cease beating forever, feeling her warm breath on his cheek alas!
How few more breaths would she draw! How soon would the cold water grave
close over all that he--
His thoughts were abruptly checked. That eternal minute of waiting was
over. It was coming death was coming riding along with mocking scorn
on the crest of a giant wave. Higher and higher rose the towering,
sea-green wall, mockingly it rushed forward, remorselessly swooped down
upon them! This time the boat was completely swamped.
“I will at least die fighting!” thought Raeburn, a despairing, defiant
courage inspiring him with almost superhuman strength.
“Trust to me!” he cried. “Don't struggle!” And Erica who would naturally
have fallen into that frantic and vain convulsion which seizes most
people when they find themselves in peril of drowning, by a supreme
effort of will made no struggle at all, but only clung to her father.
Raeburn was a very strong man, and an expert swimmer, but it was a
fearful sea. They were dashed hither and thither, they were buffeted,
and choked, and blinded, but never once did he lose his presence of
mind. Every now and then he even shouted out a few words to Erica. How
strange his voice sounded in that chaos, in that raging symphony of
winds and waves.
“Tell me when you can't hold any longer,” he cried.
“I can't leave go,” returned Erica.
And even then, in that desperate minute, they both felt a momentary
thrill of amusement. The fact was, that her effort of will had been so
great when she had obeyed him, and clung with all her might to him, that
now the muscles of her hands absolutely would not relax their hold.
It seemed endless! Over the cold green and white of the waves Raeburn
seemed to see his whole life stretched out before him, in a series
of vivid pictures. All the long struggles, all the desperate fights
wreathed themselves out in visions round this supreme death struggle.
And always there was the consciousness that he was toiling for Erica's
life, struggling, agonizing, straining every fiber of his being to save
her.
But what was this paralyzing cold creeping over his limbs? What this
pressure at his heart? This dimness of his eyes? Oh! Was his strength
failing him? Was the last hope, indeed, gone? Panting, he struggled on.
“I will do thirty more strokes!” he said to himself. And he did them.
“I will do ten more!”
And he forced himself to keep on.
“Ten more!”
He was gasping now. Erica's weight seemed to be dragging him down, down,
into nothingness.
Six strokes painfully made! Seven! After all nothingness would mean
rest. Eight! No pain to either, since they were together. Nine! He
should live on in the hearts of his people. Ten! Agony of failure! He
was beaten at last!
What followed they neither of them knew, only there was a shout, an
agony of sinking, a vision of a dark form and a something solid which
they grasped convulsively.
When Erica came to herself they were by no means out of danger, but
there was something between them and the angry sea. She was lying down
at the bottom of a boat in close proximity to some silvery-skinned
fishes, and her father was holding her hand.
Wildly they tossed for what seemed to her a very long time; but at
length fresh voices were heard, the keel grated on the shore, she felt
herself lifted up and carried on to the beach. Then, with an effort,
she stood up once more, trembling and exhausted, but conscious that mere
existence was rapture.
Raeburn paused to reward and thank the men who had rescued them in his
most genial manner, and Erica's happiness would have been complete had
not the coast guardsman stepped up in an insolent and officious way, and
observed:
“It is a pity, Mr. Luke Raeburn, that you don't bring yourself to offer
thanks to God almighty!”
“Sir,” replied Raeburn, “when I ask your opinion of my personal and
private matters, it will be fitting that you should speak not before!”
The man looked annihilated, and turned away.
Raeburn grasped the rough hands of his helpers and well-wishers, gave
his arm to Erica, and led her up the steep beach.
Later on in the evening they sat over the fire, and talked over their
adventure. June though it was, they had both been thoroughly chilled.
“What did you think of when we were in the water?' asked Erica.
“I made a deep calculation,” said Raeburn, smiling, “and found that the
sale of the plant and of all my books would about clear off the last of
the debts, and that I should die free. After that I thought of Cicero's
case of the two wise men struggling in the sea with one plank to rescue
them sufficient only for one. They were to decide which of their lives
was most useful to the republic, and the least useful man was to drop
down quietly into the deep. It struck me that you and I should hardly
come to such a calculation. I think we would have gone down together,
little one! What did you think of?”
But Erica's thoughts could not so easily be put into words.
“For one thing,” she said, “I thought we should never be divided any
more.”
She sighed a little; for, after all, the death they had so narrowly
escaped would have been so infinitely easier than the life which lay
before her.
“Clearly we are inseparable!” said Raeburn. “In that sense, little son
Eric, we can still say, 'We fear nae foe!'”
Perhaps the gentle words, and the sadness which he could not entirely
banish from his tone, moved Erica almost more than his passionate
utterances in the morning.
The day was no bad miniature of her whole life. Very sad, very happy,
full of danger, conflict and strife, warmed by outside sympathy, wounded
by outside insolence.