[Illustration: THE GIRL’S OWN PAPER]
VOL. XX.—NO. 1030.] SEPTEMBER 23, 1899. [PRICE ONE PENNY.
[Illustration: SOLITUDE.
[_From photo: By Photographic Union, Munich._]
_All rights reserved._]
SOLITUDE.
BY W. T. SAWARD.
The wind is singing a lonely song,
Down in the forest deep!
And I watch and watch the whole day long,
Till the evening shadows creep.
O flowers of the dying autumn day,
How can you bloom when my love’s away!
The golden grain of the harvest falls
Under the sickle’s breath;
And along the wood a spirit calls,
Telling there is no death!
For be it autumn, or be it spring,
Some flowers will bloom, and some birds will sing!
The night falls dark o’er the Fatherland,
Down to the stretching sea!
O Star of Hope! with your silver wand,
Guide him to home and me!
That the morning may find us hand in hand
In the light of the well-loved Fatherland.
THE HOUSE WITH THE VERANDAH.
BY ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO, Author of “Other People’s Stairs,” “Her Object
in Life,” etc.
CHAPTER XXVI.
DESIRE FULFILLED.
The great joy grew more credible when all its story was told.
The glad tidings had been brought in by an Atlantic liner. It appeared
that when the _Slains Castle_ had got well over half of her Pacific
voyage, she had encountered a great storm, and had foundered upon
the reefs among a small group of islands, all her boats being lost
or destroyed. The captain, disabled, with his crew and the solitary
passenger, had however managed to land on one of the larger islands,
whose simple natives received them kindly, and put them into the way
of subsisting after their own fashion. There they had lived, roughly
and hardly indeed, and cut off from all communication with home, or
with civilisation, upheld only by the hope that some ship, in some way
diverted from its course, might eventually discover them and take them
off. Instead of such a ship, however, their party was reinforced by a
solitary white man, who made his way to them from his own refuge on
one of the smaller islands. How had he got there? they asked eagerly.
He told them the truth: he was “a bad character”—a man who had done
desperate deeds of many sorts, and he was there because he was “a
castaway” from an American ship—he could scarcely tell whether by
accident or design. He seemed to think the latter the most likely and
the most natural alternative in his case. Hunger and solitude on a bare
rock in the wide ocean, had somewhat tamed him, and the consciousness
of a common fate soon absorbed him into the little brotherhood of the
_Slains Castle_.
He had been with them some months when some of the party secured a
half-broken empty open boat, which seemed to have been washed off
from a passing schooner. This they patched up, and then they began
to think whether some of them might not make one last dash for the
release of themselves and the rest. The “castaway” was quite ready to
take to the sea again; he did not seem to know fear, or he believed he
held a charmed life. He was an expert seaman, and of really powerful
physique. Another must go with him, and another only. The captain’s arm
being still disabled, the man selected as fittest for the expedition
was the first mate. Despite all dangers their wild voyage was safely
accomplished; a civilised port was reached, and a little steamer was at
once despatched to the island to bring off the rest of the shipwrecked
party. The ship owners had determined not to be premature in giving
this good news. They had waited till every report was verified. Now,
any hour might bring telegrams from Captain Grant and Charlie that they
were safe on American soil, and hastening across the continent to take
their Atlantic passage home.[1]
Of course there was wild and glad excitement in the little house with
the verandah. But Lucy’s own joy was still and solemn. The others
thought her very strong and calm. But she knew that she often asked
herself whether she were waking or dreaming? She knew that she realised
anew the distance and the dangers between herself and her beloved.
After the glad telegram duly arrived and she knew the very name of the
Atlantic liner on which Charlie was speeding towards her, a clouded sky
or a rising wind would suffice to make her tremble! Ah, she had learned
“to love as the angels may
With the breadth of Heaven between,”
and the next lesson of her life was to be the bringing-down of that
mountain-top vision of serenity and security, and the possessing of it
still among the mists and twists of the level lands. She had learned
that love is eternal, that love is safe when out of sight—now she had
to learn that time is only a part of Eternity, and that what is safe
out of our reach, cannot be in danger while it is within it.
She thought often in those days of Mary and Martha, the sisters of
Lazarus. They, too, like her, had been through the bitterness of death.
Was it henceforth abolished for them, so that they could say, “O
grave, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?” Or did the
impression wear off their souls, so that they had to live through all
their grief again?
She went on, wondering. When we are told that in the mysterious future
there “is to be no more sea,” we feel that the language is only used
as a powerful image, to show us that there shall be no more danger,
no more parting. But after all, what are danger and parting, but for
their fear and pain? Is it not really those that “shall be no more”? It
seemed to Lucy that haply in the highest ministries of life’s immortal
service the paths of those who would be “about their Father’s business”
must still sometimes swerve from one another. If “no more sea” was a
symbol of no more danger, and no more parting, did not that in turn
mean an abiding sense that all is secure, a present consciousness that
all parting involves joyful reunion? Then if our souls, still clad in
mortal weakness, can but attain to this “perfect love which casts out
fear,” should we not be in Heaven’s peace already?
Lucy resolved to go to Liverpool to meet the steamer which had Charlie
on board. She resolved to go alone. For the first time since his father
went away she would leave Hugh, assured now that he was surrounded
by wise kindness. She longed for absolute silence and solitude on
her journey to this reunion, well nigh as sacred and solemn as those
generally guarded by the secrecy of death.
She preferred to go without any “seeing off.” Those in her home, those
who loved her best, probed her feeling on this head, and yielded to it.
They parted from her on her own threshold.
“We will come to meet you both when you return,” they said.
* * * * *
Husband and wife met. It was in a crowd of strangers, and nobody there
took particular notice of the brown, lean, sinewy man, who clasped a
silvery-haired young woman in his arms. Then they held each other apart
for one moment, and gazed at each other, noting all that was gone—all
that was changed, and all—ay, all!—that remained for ever!
As for the conversation—the questions, the answers, the narrations—that
interrupted the rapt silences of this single day reserved for
themselves only, what was it but simply the story which has been
already told?
“They will be all at home to receive us,” Lucy said, as, her hand
clasped in her husband’s, she told of the loyal friendships which had
closed around her terrible waiting-time. “They are all still there,
just as they have been. The house may be small for us all, yet I felt
sure this would be your wish.”
“You knew your husband,” said Charlie, “and if our friends will stay,
they shall stay as we are—for another year. By that time we shall have
got our lives into their regular grooves again—and then, maybe, we
shall all move together into a larger house. As it is God’s will that
the solitary shall be set in families, Lucy, surely it is never more so
than when the solitary have upheld the family.”
(_To be concluded._)
“UPS AND DOWNS.”
A TRUE STORY OF NEW YORK LIFE.
BY N. O. LORIMER.