GARDEN OF EDEN
LXI
Happy? If all newly-married folk could find such happiness as was
theirs, what a wonderful world it would be!
From every worldly point of view they had nothing. They were outcasts,
paupers, dependent for the food they ate and the clothes they wore, on
Nature and the caprice of the sea. Yet, having nothing, they had
everything, since they had one another.
If he had rejoiced in her before, and loved her with a love akin to
pain in the repression he subjected it to, he loved her now a thousand
times more, and she filled him with a joy that knew no bounds. Time,
he said to himself, would not suffice for all their love, it would fill
eternity.
The days were never long enough for them. In this new joy of life and
perfected fellowship they forgot their years at times, and were like a
pair of children, endowed with the freedom of time and space and hearts
attuned to the most perfect enjoyment of these new attributes.
They made long journeys and explored every inch of their
territory--sleeping out at times in the side of a sandhill under the
soft summer night. And those were wondrous times.
--To lie there flat on their blanket, side by side, chin in hand like
children, his arm about her, and watch the red sun sink into the water
at the end of his fiery trail, while all the sky above burned crimson
right into the east behind them.--To watch, with bated breath, the
rabbits creeping out to feed and frolic about them, all unconscious of
their presence.--To lie and watch the colours fade slowly in the
darkening sky, and the stars come out till the whole dark dome was a
never-failing marvel of delight.--Or, on the other shore, to lie and
watch the moonbeams dancing on the sleeping bosom of the sea.--To feel
oneself oneself in the midst of it all--a part of it all--the height
and the width and the immensity and wonder of it all.--To feel his arm
enfolding her, and all that that meant to them both.--To feel the
warmth of life, and all the mighty joy of it, throbbing in her slender
body as he drew her closer.--To know, as he knew, that God lived and
had given her to him, and that she loved him with every fibre of her
being, as he loved her....
Happy? At times, so full was her heart that she wondered if such
happiness was right for mortals to enjoy, and so, if it could last.
And when she shared that with him, as they shared everything in common,
he reasoned her back to comfort.
"Happiness and health are life's proper conditions," he asserted, with
such hearty conviction that her doubts hid their heads. "Sorrow and
sickness come of trespass, somehow, somewhere, somewhen, though it is
not always easy to trace them back to first causes. But, without
doubt, people were meant to be as healthy and happy as it is possible
for them to be."
"But I have known people suffer who, I am sure, never did any
wrong--none, that is, deserving of suffering such as they had. In
fact," she mused, "it seems to me that the good people suffer most and
the wicked prosper."
"That is as we judge. But we see only the outsides of things and we
are purblind at best. Nature has certain laws, and God has certain
laws--though a parson could tell you more about these than I can. And
if those laws are broken the results have to be borne, and sometimes
they run on and on and fall on innocent people."
"It doesn't seem very fair."
"The laws cannot be altered for individuals or exceptional cases.
Fathers sin and the children suffer. But the blame is the fathers'."
"Yes," she nodded, and perhaps she was thinking of her own case.
"So you've no need to fear being as happy as you can," he added
quickly. "God meant you for happiness, and truly, I think we have more
certainty of it here than we might have had elsewhere."
"I am sure of it and I am happy," and she nestled still closer under
his folding arm.
But they had their strenuous working times as well, and enjoyed them
equally. He developed his new-found capacity for carpentering. Made
her more chairs and a table, added to the comfort of their house in
many ways. And she kept it all in perfect order, and attended to the
cooking, and proved herself a most admirable housewife and helpmate.
They were down almost to fundamentals. Their life--partaking as it did
of the development of the ages, and so of the wider freedom of thought
and feeling, was the life of the ancients and not far from idyllic.
The hunter went forth to the chase--though it was only rabbits--and the
fisherman to the lake, and brought home his spoils to his waiting mate,
and they ate of them and were content.
They enjoyed the most perfect health, and for society they had one
another and desired no more--at all events, no outsiders.
They had storms and mists and spells of dull weather, but their house
was proof against all assault from without, and warm and bright with
their abounding love. They had fire and light and books and
themselves, and always in time the sun shone out again, and they
enjoyed it the more perhaps for its frequent defaults.
They had their trying times too. Stores had to be replenished from the
pile, and, after that dreadful experience before they were married, she
would not be left behind.
"I do not care what happens if we are together," she said. "The worst
that could happen would be nothing compared with that other time," and
he could not gainsay her.
So whenever he had to go she went also, and they chose their day with
care and made a picnic of it, and came home laden with spoils.
Only once they got caught by one of those swift-travelling mists which
seemed to spring from nowhere. It swept over them just as they were
preparing to leave, and in the twinkling of an eye they were prisoners,
bound clammily to the pile till it should pass. For in that
close-clinging bank, as thick as wet cotton-wool, all sense of
direction was gone in a moment. They could not see a foot before them,
the pile was pitted with death-traps, a step might be fatal.
They had both come lightly clad, for the day had been warm and the
wreckage claimed unhampered limbs.
Fortunately they had come upon a case of blankets during their
operations.
"Sit you down here," he said, as he felt her shivering under his arm,
"And I'll get you some blankets."
"You won't get yourself lost?" she asked anxiously.
"Not if you will keep calling to me," and he crawled away in search of
the case, while she sat calling, "Wulf ... Wulf ... Wulf," and he
answered her, "Avice ... Avice ... Avice," and at last a shout, "I've
got it."
And presently his muffled "Avice ... Avice ... Avice," drew near again,
and he loomed through the fog like a creeping ghost, and taking her arm
they crept together from blanket to blanket, which he had spread as a
guide, till they came to the case itself. He hauled out more of its
contents till there was room inside for both of them, and they crawled
into their nest and in time got warm and comfortable.
The fog showed no sign of lifting, so before it got quite dark he
crawled out again, she calling to him as before, and found a cask of
rum, of which there was always plenty about, and one of pork, and on
these they supped as best they could.
The writhing and creaking of the pile, as the tide rose and fell,
caused her some alarm. But he explained it all to her, and after a
time she fell asleep with his arm about her, and they were wakened to a
clear bright morning by the shrieking and squabbling of the birds over
the barrel of pork, which he had left standing open.
The barrel itself and all the pile adjacent seemed suddenly to have
sprouted feathers. It was alive with fiercely-beating wings and
jerking feathered necks and squirming feathered bodies, and cold hard
little glassy eyes, and cruel rending beaks, and shrill angry cries.
"How hideous they are!" she said, shrinking back into the case.
"It is the great fight for life. They seem always hungry."
The barrel stood on end. The fortunate ones among the feathered
pirates wormed themselves in, and tore and rent at the food, regardless
of the shrill expostulations of their fellows and the beaks and claws
that tore and rent at them in turn, till the barrel itself was lost
under a seething mass of shrieking, fiercely-struggling birds. They
pecked at one another's glassy eyes, they struck wildly with their
wings, they clawed with somewhat futile feet, and all the time screamed
at the tops of their voices as though they were trying who could scream
the loudest.
"I wish they'd empty it and go," said she, and he wrenched down a slat
of wood and leaned out with a blanket over his head and arm, and
succeeded at last in tipping the barrel over, and pork and pirates
rolled out together.
It was all cleaned up in five minutes and the cloud drifted away after
other prey. The disappointed ones swooped round the empty barrel for a
time, and some of the bolder, or more hungry, or least intelligent,
came fluttering at the opening in the blanket-box as though set on
fresh meat at any cost, and he had to beat them back with his slat. It
was only when a score or more were flopping brokenly about the pile in
front of the box that the rest grew tired of so losing a game and sped
away to join the main body. As soon as the way was clear, he helped
her out of her nest and they got to their raft, and eventually safely
home.
But that was only an incident, though it confirmed her dislike and
dread of the pile. She still always insisted on going with him when he
had to go, and at such times they laboured long and hard, and got in
supplies enough for many weeks, and so went out there as seldom as
possible.
LXII
So, working, wandering, bathing, reading, hunting, fishing, eating,
sleeping, with hearts and minds stripped bare to one another and every
thought in common, they lived that first golden year of their married
life, and grew into still closer fellowship and communion, into still
clearer understanding of one another, into still greater
love,--although, at the beginning, all this would have seemed to them
impossible. But there are always heights and depths beyond, and will
be, until the final heights are scaled--and doubtless even then also.
And now, to one such depth and height they were drawing near, with a
touch of not unnatural fear on her part, as to an experience unknown
and invested with all the possibilities of life and death, and new life.
He cheered her with his own great confidence; and her reliance on his
professional knowledge, and the love he bore her, comforted her
mightily. But they both knew full well that, given all the knowledge
and love in the world, the certain issue of this great matter still lay
beyond the utmost power of man; and it sent them to their knees and
brought them nigher heaven than ever in their lives before.
It also set her very busily to work on tiny garments, which she had to
contrive as best she could from her very scant materials. And it set
him to the making of a cradle out of a very carefully-cleaned and
sand-scrubbed pork-barrel, which turned out an immense success and
filled him with great pride of accomplishment.
She was in the very best of health, without a trouble on her mind, and
rejoicing more than ever in his joy and pride in her. And these and
the free open-air life they led all made for good. He would not permit
her a despondent thought, though as the time drew near she not seldom,
for his sake, assumed a braver and more cheerful aspect than her heart
actually warranted.
But all went well, and within a day or two of the anniversary of their
wedding-day, their son, Wulfrey, was born and proved himself at once a
true Islander, lusty both of lung and limb.
Prouder and happier father and mother, and more wonderful baby, it is
safe to say that island never saw. And if their days had been full of
delight before, the coming of Little Wulf filled them quite three times
as full. For there was Little Wulf's own happiness, which was patent
to all,--and his mother's rapture in him, and his father's,--and his
father's mighty joy in them both,--and her joy in his joy,--and so on
all round the compass;--and deep below and high above and all through
it all, their unbounded thankfulness for safe deliverance from peril.
If he had admired and loved her as a maid, and loved and rejoiced in
her as a wife,--as mother of his child he found himself at times dumb
with excess of delight. He could only sit and watch, with worshipful
eyes, and newer and deeper thoughts of that other Mother, and of The
Child whose coming had transformed the world.
She got out the treasured old Prayer-book, and they read over him as
much as seemed applicable to his case of the Ministration of Private
Baptism of Infants, and then inscribed on the fly-leaf, under the
record of their marriage, his name, Wulfrey Drummond Dale, and the date
of his birth as nearly as they knew it--with the same pen as before, in
the same red ink, and from the same glad source.
And now indeed their days were full, and their nights, for Master
Wulfrey had an appetite that brooked no waiting, and he ruled that
household with a lusty pair of lungs against which even equinoctial
gales strove in vain.
But it was all part of the price of their joy in him, and they paid it
joyfully; and he repaid them tenfold by simply being alive and
permitting them to watch his vigorous kickings as he lay naked on a
blanket at their feet in the sunshine.
Avice was speedily herself again, herself and so very much more. In
his rejoicing eyes all her beauty was clarified, dignified, emphasised
manifold, in a way that he would not have believed possible.
It was his turn now, in spite of all his philosophy,--and at times hers
again also--to marvel at all that had been vouchsafed them, and to
wonder, with a fleeting touch of fear, if happiness so great could
possibly last.
The sense of the mighty responsibility their love entailed was upon
them. Suppose, by any dire misfortune, he were to be taken away,--what
would happen to them? He believed her capable of rising to the
occasion for the boy's sake and doing man's work in his place, but it
would be a desperately hard fight for her. Suppose they should be
taken from him--either, both. God!--he could spare the boy best, but
it would be terrible to lose either.
And suppose, thought she in turn, either of themselves should be taken!
Suppose they should both be taken!--Well, in that case the poor little
fellow would linger behind but a very short time. They would soon all
be together again.
But such black thoughts, natural as they were, inevitable almost, still
partook, to both their minds, of basest ingratitude and lack of trust.
And yet they did high service, for, when they came upon them their
souls went down on their knees, and there they found strength and
joyousness again.
Little Wulf--but they very early began to call him Cubbie, it seemed so
appropriate--fulfilled all the promise of his advent. He was a
marvellous child. He crawled vigorously at nine months, and headed
straight across the soft yellow sand for the water, like a true
Islander, born of freedom and the open air and the sunshine, the moment
he discovered this new power. And they followed him, foot by foot,
with beaming faces, as he wallowed along like a well-developed white
frog, digging his little snub nose into the sand at times, but gurgling
and laughing all the same, and struggling on without a look to right or
left, intent only on the water in front.
At the lip of the tide, where it came creaming up the beach in long
soft swirls of amber, laced with bubbles and edged with filmy foam, she
was for snatching him up. But Wulf stayed her. He wanted to see what
the boy would do.
He was no stranger to cold water, but he had so far met it only in a
tub, never in such quantity as this. He crawled on along the wet sand
and the soft swirl came rushing up to welcome him. It was quite two
inches deep. It filled him with astonishment and took away his breath.
Everything under him seemed on the move. He stiffened for a second on
his front paws, gave a huge bellow of amazement, tried to grab the
back-streaming water with both hands as a cat pounces on a mouse, and
then set off after it at top speed, and was swung up into the air by
his delighted father, and held there, kicking and crowing, and striving
still after the enchanted water below.
"He'll do," laughed Wulf. "He'll swim as soon as he can walk. The
first native! And a credit to the Island!"
Golden days! If the first year of their married life was all pure
gold, this second was gold overlaid with jewels of rare delight. Every
moment of it was happiness unalloyed. The boy throve mightily. Avice
was in the best of health and spirits, and to the eyes of her lover
grew more beautiful with every day that passed.
What more could the soul of man desire?
LXIII
Their Wulf Cub was fifteen months old, and could swim like a fish, and
run like a free-born savage, and talk in a jargon of his own which was
yet quite understandable to his parents, when his sister Avice came on
the scene. She took after her mother, and her father vowed there never
had been such a lovely child born into this world before.
Their patriarchal life flowed on, deepening and widening, as it went,
and so far without any break in its smooth-swelling current. The great
gales, to which they had grown accustomed, piled up ever-increasing
supplies for them. Within certain narrow bounds they knew no lack, nor
would they though they lived there for a hundred years. On great
occasions the wreckage even yielded them luxuries of the commonplace
which in the former life they had looked upon as ordinary adjuncts to a
meal and accepted perfunctorily, without a thought of special
thankfulness. But here they were rarities, priceless delicacies to be
held in esteem and made the most of. Apples for example. Once their
western point was strewn thick with what seemed a whole ship-load of
delicious red apples. They had probably been packed in frail barrels
or cases which the waves made short work of, and the birds were
fortunately away. They spent days carrying them up above tide-level
and then transporting them home, and revelled in apples for weeks till
their stock went bad. Another time it was potatoes, which they had not
tasted for over three years. Wulf declared it was almost worth while
to have been denied them so long, to find such new relish in them now.
Avice regretted, for the children's sakes, that they could not have
them all the time.
And that set him to planting a quantity in some of the damp bottoms by
the water-pools. They came up all right, but the rabbits cleared the
green shoots as fast as they appeared. Upon that he fenced off a patch
with some of his superfluous raft timber and planted more, and
succeeded in raising a small crop, but they were a degenerate race,
lacking the good soil which had gone to the making of their ancestors.
Curiously enough, that fact started into expression trains of thought
that had been latent in both their minds.
He had come in exultantly with his first fruits of the potato-patch,
Cubbie at his heels proudly bearing one in each hand, and Avice cooked
them rejoicingly and pronounced them excellent.
"It will be so delightful to have potatoes again," said she.
But he was critical of his own production, as the author of a
work--even though it be but a potato--may be allowed to be. "They have
neither the texture nor the flavour of the original stock," he said.
"I suppose they need better soil than our old sandbank can afford
them,"--and his eyes happened to fall on Cubbie munching away at a
potato, and hers lighted on the dark little head in her arm. The same
thought pricked both their hearts and their eyes met with understanding.
As with potatoes--so with children. He and she, growths of the larger
world, had found unlooked-for happiness through the accident of their
transplantation to this outer isle. But they brought with them the
strength of heart and mind that had come to them through contact with
that other world. In many respects it was a vain and hollow world.
The change had made entirely for their good and happiness.
But--these little ones! ... Were they to be condemned for ever to the
sweet narrow groove of this island life, which to their father and
mother, by reason of the wonder of their love, had been like Paradise?
To the children no such transformation, no such veritable
transfiguration of life as had been theirs would be possible.
They could, indeed, teach them all they knew themselves--all the
essentials at all events. They could train their hearts and brains to
highest things. But in time the children would feel what the island
life entailed and denied them--what their lives were missing. The
higher their development the keener would be their regrets.
"Dear," he said, clasping her closer, as she lay in the hollow of his
arm before the fire that night, "I know what you are thinking. It came
on me, and it came to you, when I was criticising those degenerate
potatoes."
"I suppose it must have been lurking somewhere in my heart," she said
quietly. "But it all came on me with a rush as you spoke. You and I
desire no better. It has been wonderful ... perfect happiness. But
for them...."
"Yes," he said soberly. "For them it would be different. For them we
desire the very best. And here they cannot get it."
And so they were face to face with the mighty problem which thenceforth
must of necessity be constantly in their minds and hearts.
For themselves, all that the outside world could give them could add no
whit to their perfect content and happiness.
But for the children's sakes ... how to cross that treacherous hundred
miles of sea which barred the way to the wider--in some respects
wider,--to the larger--in some respects larger,--to the questionably
happier life, which yet these newcomers must prove for themselves, as
was their right?
They discussed it quietly and at great length that night, but could see
no way out, and for the moment he could find no further comfort for her
than this--and yet it was much,--"Providence, which has done so much
for us," said he, "may in time do this also. Meanwhile the Island life
is all to the good for them. They are splendid little specimens, and
if they run wild and free for some years they will reap the benefit all
their lives. We will hope and pray, and puzzle our brains for them."
Hope they did. And pray they did. But no amount of brain-puzzling
afforded them any solution of their difficulty.
Nothing in the shape of a boat had ever come ashore, and he had neither
the tools nor the skill to build one. And if he had done he would not
have dared to risk his wife and children in it for so doubtful a voyage.
Wild ideas came upon him of constructing a raft stout enough for such a
journey and venturing on it himself, leaving Avice and the children,
fully provided for, to await his return with succour. But he knew she
would never hear of such madness, so sent it to limbo with the rest.
He took to lighting huge fires of timber from the pile, as he had done
more than once before, but the wood burned brightly, with splendid
crackings and spittings which set Master Cubbie dancing with delight,
and the volume of smoke was trifling. It occurred to Wulf also that no
matter how dense a smoke he could raise it would, if seen at all, be
probably taken only for the cloud of sea-birds which were doubtless
known to mariners and avoided like death itself--when avoidance was
possible to them.
That every ship that could do so kept well away from their notorious
bank was evident, for they had never set eyes on a single sail since
they landed. Of course their ordinary range from the level could not
be more than four or five miles, he supposed; and even from their
highest hill, which he reckoned to be sixty to eighty feet, they would
see but twice as far;--and nothing came so close to Sable Island as
that if it could help it.
Still wilder ideas he had,--of tying messages to some of the birds'
legs--but they were such a vicious set that he knew they would get rid
of them at once,--of nailing messages to boards, to empty casks, to
anything that would float--but he knew they might float for a score of
years and never be found, even if the seas did not strip them within a
week.
He was reduced at last to that certainty of knowledge which it is
always of highest benefit to man to attain,--that in this matter he was
as helpless as a child in arms. He could do absolutely nothing that
was of the slightest avail. And so he was thrown back upon, and led
and lifted up to, that complete and perfect trust in a Higher Power
which is the measure of a man's understanding of the great lesson of
life.
LXIV
They had been five years on the Island. Little Wulf was three, Avice
two,--as healthy and handsome youngsters as the world could show.
Life had been all joyous to them. All the year round, except just now
and again when unusual drift of ice came rustling and grinding about
their island, they trotted about with almost nothing on. They swam
before they could walk, and now were in and out of the water a dozen
times a day, and so they regarded clothing of any kind as a hindrance
to pure enjoyment and freedom of action, and their mother judged it
well to insist on no more than the most reasonable minimum.
They never lacked friends or company, though truly the friendship was
mostly on their side and provokingly lacking in mutuality. Rabbits and
seals, especially baby-rabbits and baby-seals, were the chiefest
objects of their young affections, and they were sorely disappointed at
the small response their proffered friendship evoked. On crabs this
could be enforced by capture and imprisonment, but they found them
cold-blooded, impassive playfellows, of altogether too-retiring
dispositions, and only to be stirred into display of their natural
abilities by provocation. Sea-birds were just as bad in a different
way, and fishes were altogether too elusive until you wanted to eat
them, when a baited hook did the trick in a moment.
That wonderful father of theirs, however, managed to capture a pair of
baby-rabbits, whose mother he had unfortunately knocked on the head for
dinner before he perceived the mischief he was doing. The babies were
welcomed with shrieks of delight and were like to be killed with the
expression of it. The youngsters spent hours flat on their stomachs
watching them in their boarded enclosure alongside the house, and more
hours foraging for them the sweetest and tenderest herbs the hollows
could yield. And presently the captives became friends, and were so
comfortable in their narrow estate that they had no desire for a wider,
but galloped about after their owners wherever they went, and sat
anxiously twisting their noses on the beach when the irrepressibles
found it necessary to wallow and frolic in the water.
At times, for a change, they lived aboard the 'Jane and Mary' for a
week or two, but Mistress Avice always had a very reasonable fear of
one or other or both of the children tumbling overboard, and so the
greater part of their life was passed ashore, with the sand-house as
headquarters and all the rest of the island as playground.
That a life so circumscribed should never have grown monotonous tells
its own pleasant story. But the youngsters had known no other life
with which to compare it, and their elders, who had, found it fuller
and sweeter in its pastoral simplicity than any the great world had
ever offered them.
Every moment of their day was occupied, if not with work, then with
enjoyments. The elders had to provide for the youngsters, and these
again for theirs; and when every single thing must be drawn from Nature
or from an accommodating but distant wreck-pile, such provision takes
time and forethought.
When the day's work was completed they all bathed and rambled far and
wide, and it was on one such ramble, when they had gone as far along
towards the eastern end of the Island as small legs could carry, that
the end came--as suddenly as had come the beginning.
They were sitting on the sunny side of a great sand-hill, eating and
resting after their journey,--resting, that is, so far as the elders
were concerned. The youngsters, who had found walking tiring, or
perhaps tiresome, found no fatigue in scrambling to the tops of
sandhills and sliding down the smooth soft sides with shouts and
shrieks of laughter.
A cessation in the sport drew their father's and mother's eyes to them.
They were both standing on the hill-top gazing eagerly out to sea and
chattering to one another.
"Seals probably," said their mother. From where they sat they could
not see the shore for an intervening ridge. And seals were always a
mighty attraction to the children.
But when they began dancing excitedly on their hill-top their father
called, "What is it you see, Cubbie?"
"Somefing, dad! Somefing funny."
"Somefing funny!" repeated little Avice eagerly, and the elders got up
lazily and slowly climbed the hillside to see what it was.
"My God!" said Wulfrey, as his eyes cleared the top first, and he
turned and kissed his wife joyously.
"Thank God!" she breathed deeply, as her eyes also lighted on that
which was coming.
For there, not half a mile away, was a white boat manned by blue
sailors, leaping towards the shore as fast as eight lusty oars could
drive her, and out beyond her, probably three miles away, was a
white-sailed ship of size.
Wulfrey shouted and waved his arms. The children immediately did the
same, and the regular rise and fall of the oars stopped suddenly as
every eye in the boat turned on them. There were men in the stern with
gilt on their hats. Then the oars fell-to again and the boat came
bounding on. Wulfrey and Avice picked up each their namesakes, and
plunged down the hill and ran round the ridge to the shore.
With a final lunge the boat came up the beach, and a tall man rose in
the stern and asked, "Who, in heaven's name, are you, and what are you
doing here?"--while nine pairs of eager eyes raked over the little
party.
"I am Dr Wulfrey Dale, of Hazelford in Cheshire. This is my wife--and
our children. We have been here five years."
"Good God! Five years!"--he was ashore by this time, and the rest
tumbled hastily out and stood about them, the burly sailors listening
with one ear and trying to make up to the children, who gazed with
wondering awe at the only men they had ever seen except their father.
"How on earth have you lived? ... Five years! ... Not all of you," he
said with a smile.
"Not all of us. The children were born here. We were afraid we would
all have to live and die here. I thank God you are come. What brought
you?"
"We've been sent to prospect with a view to a lighthouse here. There
has been an outcry about the number of wrecks----"
"Ay, there are hundreds over yonder," said Wulfrey, pointing westward.
"They have kept us alive, but the cost to others has been heavy."
"And where do you live?"
"Come and I'll show you--or will you take us along in the boat? It's
good four miles over that way."
"Boat'll be easiest. Sand's heavy walking. How long can we count on
this weather?"
"Oh, for a week at least. It's our best time of year."
"You will take us home?" asked Avice eagerly, when they had climbed
into the boat and were swinging along parallel to the shore, the
children staring in a vast silence and with rounded eyes at the bearded
sailor-men and their amazing ways.
"As far as our service permits, madame, we will do anything and
everything you wish. We return to Halifax in Nova Scotia, but once
there you will have no difficulties."
"That is where we want to go," said Wulfrey.... "Better keep out a bit
here. There are ridges below there.... Now if you will turn in."
"What's that? A ship?" asked the tall man, and all eyes shot round to
the bare poles of the 'Jane and Mary' snowing over the sandhills.
"A schooner, land-locked in a lagoon. That was our first home. Now we
live ashore."
"And you've been all alone all that time?"
"We had one companion, the mate of the ship.... He died four years
ago. Since then none have come but the dead.... We can get in here, I
think."
The boat ran softly up the beach again, the sailors carried out Avice
and the children, and they all struck up through the sandhills to the
house.
THE END
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.
PLYMOUTH, ENGLAND.
1917.
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
GOD'S PRISONER
RISING FORTUNES
OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
A PRINCESS OF VASCOVY
JOHN OF GERISAU
UNDER THE IRON FLAIL
BONDMAN FREE
MR. JOSEPH SCORER
BARBE OF GRAND BAYOU
A WEAVER OF WEBS
HEARTS IN EXILE
THE GATE OF THE DESERT
WHITE FIRE
GIANT CIRCUMSTANCE
PROFIT AND LOSS
THE LONG ROAD
CARETTE OF SARK
PEARL OF PEARL ISLAND
THE SONG OF HYACINTH
MY LADY OF SHADOWS
GREAT-HEART GILLIAN
A MAID OF THE SILVER SEA
LAURISTONS
THE COIL OF CARNE
THEIR HIGH ADVENTURE
QUEEN OF THE GUARDED MOUNTS
MR. CHERRY
THE QUEST OF THE GOLDEN ROSE
MARY ALL-ALONE
RED WRATH
BEES IN AMBER (VERSE). 10th edition.