A FAMILY SCENE.—THE SISTERS.—THE HORRIBLE ALARM.
In the course of two hours more, the young men were so close in shore
that they could see the lights flashing along the coast, and they even
fancied they could catch a glimpse of human forms moving along with
torches; and if such were the case, they doubted not but that these
people were sent to serve as a guide to them should they with their
little bark be hovering near the coast.
“Look, Edwin,” said Charles, “we are expected, are we not?”
“Yes, yes.”
“I am certain that those lights are meant as guides for us.”
“They may spare themselves the trouble, for do you not see that the
clouds are wearing away, and that in a few minutes more we shall have
the undimmed lustre of a full moon looking down upon us.”
“It will be so.”
The boat had now got so far within a large natural inlet of the ocean
that but very little wind caught its gently flapping sail, so that the
brothers bent manfully to their oars, and got the boat through the
water at a rapid rate.
Oh, how very different their sensations were now to what they had been
when they were beating about at the mercy of the winds and waves, but
a few short hours since, and when it certainly was but an even chance
with death whether they would ever see their home again.
If a gale had sprung up, accompanied by anything in the shape of a very
heavy sea, they must have been lost.
Soon they saw that their boat was descried, and at a particular portion
of the coast there stood a complete cluster of men with torches,
inviting them there to land, and they knew that such landing place was
upon their father’s property, and that in a few minutes they would be
safe on shore.
Neither of them spoke, but reflection was busy in the hearts of both.
There was a loud and thoroughly English shout, as the boat grated upon
the sandy beach, and Edwin and Charles jumped on shore. They were in
another moment pressed in their father’s arms.
“Why, why, boys,” he said, “what a fright you have given us all;
there’s Clara and Emma have been forced—I say forced, for nothing but
force would do it—to go home, and the whole country has been in an
uproar. You were blown out to sea, I suppose?”
“Yes, father, but we have not been in any danger.”
“Not in any danger with such a cockle-shell of a boat fairly out
into the German Ocean. But we will say no more about it, lads. Not
another word, come home at once, and make all hearts glad at the old
Grange-house.”
“There’s something in the boat,” cried one of the men who held a light.
“Good God, yes!” exclaimed Charles.
“We had forgotten,” said Edwin, “we met with a little adventure at sea,
and picked up a dead body.”
“A dead body?”
“Yes, father, we could not find it in our hearts to let it be, so we
brought it on shore that it might have the rites of Christian burial in
the village church-yard. Somebody who loved the man may yet thank us
for it, and feel a consolation to know that such had been done.”
“You are right boys, you are right,” said the father, “you have done in
that matter just as I would wish you; I will give orders for the body
to be taken to the dead house by Will Stephens, and to-morrow it shall
be decently interred.”
This being settled, the father, accompanied by his two sons, who were
not a little pleased to be safe upon _terra firma_ again, walked
together up a sloping pathway, which led to the Grange-house, as it was
called.
The joy that the return of the brothers caused in the family, our
readers may well imagine. The sisters Clara and Emma wept abundantly,
and the mother, who had let her fears go further than any one else, was
deeply affected.
[Illustration: Charles and Edwin are reunited with their mother.]
But it is time that we should inform the reader who these people were,
whom we have introduced upon the scene of our eventful history.
Sir George Crofton, for such was the name of the father of Edwin and
Charles, was a wealthy warm-hearted country gentleman, and constantly
resided upon his own estate all the year round, being a good landlord
to his tenantry, and a good father to his four children, who have
already been to some extent presented to the reader.
The mother was a kind-hearted, but rather weak woman, with an
evangelical bias that at times was rather annoying to the family.
This, however, was perhaps the good lady’s only fault, for with that
one exception, she was fond of her children to excess, notwithstanding,
as Sir George sometimes jestingly said he verily believed, she in her
heart considered they were all on the high road to a nameless abode.
The night was so far advanced when the young men got home that, of
course, not much was said or done, and among other things that were put
off until the following morning, was the story of the finding of the
body.
“There is no occasion,” whispered Sir George, “to say anything to your
mother about it.”
“Certainly not, father.”
“At least not till to-morrow, for if you do, I shall not get a wink of
sleep for her reflections on the subject.”
The two young men knew very well that this was no exaggeration, and
that their mother would, like any divine, eagerly seize the opportunity
of what is called “improving the occasion” by indulging in a long
discourse upon the most dismal of all subjects that the mind of any
human being can conceive, namely, the probability of everybody going to
eternal perdition unless they believe in a particular set of doctrines
that to her seem orthodox.
The consequence of this was that the dead body was quietly taken out
of the boat by men who did not possess the most refined feelings in the
world, and carried to the bone house.
“He seems a decent sort of chap,” said one, as he looked at the very
respectable habiliments of the corpse.
“Ah! look at the gould rings.”
“Yes, you may, look, Abel, but eyes on, hands off.”
“Why?”
“Why, you gowk, do you think as young Master Charles and Edwin don’t
know of ’em, and more besides, who would touch dead man’s gold off of
his fingers?”
“Is it unlucky?”
“Horrid!”
“Then I’ll have nought to do with un.”
The body was placed on the ground, for there was no coffin of any sort
to put it in, and the door was shut upon it in the dead house, and then
the party who had brought it there thought it a part of their duty
to wake up Will Stephens the sexton, to tell him that there was such
a thing as a dead body placed in his custody, as it were, by being
put into the dead house, which was not above a hundred yards from the
cottage occupied by Will.
They hammered away rather furiously at his door, and no wonder that he
felt a little, or perhaps not a little, alarmed upon the occasion.
In a few moments a casement was opened and out popped a head.
“Hilloa! you ragamuffins, what do you mean by hammering away at an
honest man’s door at this rate, eh? Am I to have any sleep?”
“Ragamuffin yourself,” cried one; “there’s a dead body of a drowned
man in the bone-house. All you have got to do is to look after it, and
there’s a lot of gold rings on its fingers with diamonds in them, for
all we know, worth God knows how much. You may make the most of it now
that you know it.”
“A dead man! Who is he?”
“Ah, that’s more than we can tell. Good night, or rather good morning,
old crusty.”
“Stop! stop!—tell me——”
The men only laughed, for they had no desire to protract a conversation
with the sexton, and he called in vain after them to give him some
further information upon the subject of this rather mysterious
information.
“A drowned man,” he pondered to himself, “a drowned man, and with
fingers loaded with gems, and brought to the bone-house! Oh, pho! pho!
It’s a hoax, that’s what it is, and I won’t believe it. It’s done to
get me up in the cold, that’s all, and then there will be some trick
played off upon me safe, and I shall be only laughed at for my pains.”
Full of this idea, the sexton turned into his bed again, and hoped that
by speedily going to sleep, he should get the laugh of his tormentors,
instead of they getting it of him, as well as lose the shivering that
had come on him through standing at the open window, exposed to the
night air so very indifferently clad.