Drifted ashore;

THE fitful light of a showery April day was shining upon the level expanse of pale yellow sand, and upon the heaving plain of the sullen, angry sea. Great waves came racing in upon the beach, as though nothing would stay their impetuous course; and yet, as they approached that invisible limit against which was traced in unseen characters “Thus far and no farther,” their proud crests fell with a grand crash, and with a sullen and subdued sound, as of resentment and wrath, they drew back again into the seething waste of water they had for the moment seemed to leave behind.

When the dark clouds, heavy with rain, drifted over the sun’s pale disc and blotted out his watery smile, the face of the ocean looked very grim and black; but when the driving shower had passed, and the sunlight shone out clear and bright, turning to powdered gold dust the last of the retreating raindrops, then it seemed as if the great waves were laughing and rejoicing in their play; and even the dreary wastes of sand looked bright and almost beautiful, and the level country beyond, bare and bleak, and in many places almost treeless, put on an aspect of quiet, smiling contentment that might almost be taken for beauty.

A little boy had been sitting for many hours beneath the shelter of an old boat drawn up upon the shore. He was protected from the driving showers, and seemed quite contented with his position, for it was long since he had moved. He sat very still, nursing his knees with his clasped hands and resting his chin upon them, whilst he gazed unweariedly out over the tossing sea.

His coarse clothing and sun-browned face and hands proclaimed him a fisherman’s son. He looked about ten or twelve years old, and had a gentle, thoughtful, although not an intellectual cast of countenance. He did not appear very robust, despite his indifference to raindrops and chilly sea-breezes, and his placid inactivity betrayed a nature more prone to contemplation than to the toils of the life to which he was evidently born.

The sun began to set behind the sandhills, whose shadows slowly lengthened, whilst the thin, coarse grass which grew sparsely upon them turned golden in the radiance of departing day. The hoarse cries of the seabirds grew more frequent as they flew hither and thither, as if in search of their night’s quarters; and the little boy, rousing himself at last from his reverie, rose slowly from his sitting posture, stretched his cramped limbs, and began slowly making his way in a diagonal direction across the sandhills.

He had not proceeded far, before a wreath of pale blue smoke curling up from a little hollow indicated the presence of some dwelling-place; and a few more steps brought him to the door of a tiny cabin such as fisher-folk often inhabit.

The door stood seawards, and was as usual wide open, and upon the threshold sat the boy’s mother, busily engaged in mending a broken net.

She looked up as the child approached, and smiled. She had a round, motherly face, and her person, as well as the interior of her diminutive abode, was far more clean and neat than is usual with the dwellings of people of her class.

“Well, David,” she said, “where hast thou been all the day, honey?”

“Oh, down by the sea, mother,” he answered; and then, glancing quickly up into her face, he asked, “Be he woke up yet?”

The woman shook her head.

“Nay, nay, that he has not,” she answered. “Sometimes I be afeared he’ll never wake no more, for all the doctor says he will.”

A look of distress clouded David’s face.

“Oh, mother, don’t say that! He’s sure to wake up soon—the doctor must know best. May I go and look at un?”

“Ay, do so, child, if thee wants.”

And David stepped over his mother’s net and went into the inner room of the little low-roofed cabin.

Upon a low pallet-bed, beneath the little west window, through which the sun was now pouring a flood of golden light, lay a child about eight years old, a little boy, with dark soft hair lying in heavy waves across his forehead, and his white face very set and still, more as if in unconsciousness than in sleep. A glance at the delicate features of the child upon the bed, the blue veins showing through the transparent skin, the short upper lip, broad, intellectual brow, and small, well-shaped hands, showed plainly enough that he was no relation to the little brown-faced fisher lad who stood beside him, looking down at him with such interest.

What then had brought him to that humble abode? Who was he? and how came it that he lay there so still and motionless, untended save by the hard though motherly hands of the fisherman’s wife? Where were the boy’s own friends and kindred, who would be the most eager to be with him at such a time as this? Where was the mother, who would be first to fly to her darling, could she but see him lying there, on that hard pallet-bed, with no luxuries around him, and only strangers to minister to his need?

Where indeed? That was a question that entered many minds; but none gave voice to it, for all knew how vainly it would be asked. The little white-faced boy had been cast up by the stormy sea at the good fisherwife’s feet three days ago now, but not a single clue could be found by which to identify the child, or even the vessel from which he had been swept. Probably he was the only survivor of some ill-fated ship; probably he had been washed ashore alive only because a life-belt had been tied about him and had floated him to shore. Not a single plank or fragment of wreckage had been cast ashore with the little waif; and, unless he awoke to give an account of himself, it seemed likely that he too would have to lie in a nameless grave, as his companions now did beneath the waves of the pitiless ocean.

The doctor of the nearest village, who had been every day to see the boy, was still of the opinion that he would awake to consciousness in time. He detected traces of a heavy blow upon the head, that was evidently the cause of this prolonged unconsciousness, some concussion of the brain having probably taken place; but consciousness would return in time, and then they would be able to learn who the child was, and communicate with his friends.

Meantime, as the fisherwife’s “goodman” and big boys were out on a fishing excursion, there was room in the cabin for the little waif, and the dame’s motherly heart was filled with compassion for him, and prompted her to “do for him” as if he had been a child of her own.

Little David had taken from the first an immense interest in the nameless stranger. He thought he had never in his life seen any face half so beautiful as that of the white-faced child who lay motionless upon the bed, and he wove round him the web of romance that always seems so dear to children, especially when they are of an imaginative turn. He believed that he would prove to be at the very least a prince, although what a prince was David had only the vaguest of ideas.

He was never tired of standing beside the bed and looking at the white face upon the pillow, of watching his mother feed the unconscious child, and observing the face and movements of the doctor as he made his daily examination. He would have been pleased to stay all day in the quiet room, did not his mother insist on his going out for some hours every day; but the moment he felt at liberty to return he did so, and his first question was always the same—Had the little boy awoke yet?

And now, as he stood gazing down upon the little white face, suddenly his heart began to beat more quickly and his breath came thick and fast, for he saw that the long black lashes resting upon the waxen cheek were beginning to tremble and to slowly lift themselves up; and the next moment a pair of large, dark, soft eyes were looking straight into his. There was no meaning in that gaze, no surprise or inquiry. It was like the expression in the eyes of a little child just awakened from sleep, before any consciousness of its surroundings has dawned upon it; but David uttered a smothered cry that brought his mother hurrying up.

The great dark eyes turned upon her then, and she laid her hand upon David’s shoulder.

“Run for the doctor, quick, Davie boy!” she cried in an excited whisper. “Don’t thee linger by the way now. Fetch him as fast as thee can.”

No need to tell David not to linger. He was off like a shot almost before the words were spoken.

Fortune favored him that day. The doctor, whose experienced eye had that morning detected an approaching change in his little patient’s state, had already set out upon a second visit to the fisherman’s cottage, and David encountered him about a quarter of a mile away from his home.

The boy imparted his news with breathless eagerness. The doctor quickened his pace, and in a very few minutes he was standing beside the pallet-bed.

The sick child had turned his face away from the light and had closed his eyes again; but when the doctor laid a cool, firm hand upon his head, he started a little, and the dark eyes unclosed once more and fastened upon the doctor’s face.

“Well, my little friend, and how are you?” was the kindly inquiry; but the child only looked hard at the speaker and said nothing.

“Can you tell me your name, my boy?” was the next question; but still there was no reply.

“Perhaps he is a foreigner,” thought Dr. Lighton. “His eyes are dark enough;” and, summoning up first French and then Italian, he tried if he could make himself understood.

The child’s dark eyes had never left his face for an instant. Their glance was curiously intent, expressive of some feeling that it was impossible to define, full of a wistful perplexity that was akin to pain, which filled the young doctor with a sort of compassion he did not altogether understand.

Quite suddenly the child’s lips unclosed, and he said, very distinctly and softly,—

“I understood you before, thank you; but I can speak French too. Is this France?”

“No, we are in England, my little man. You are in your own country, and we will soon find your friends for you. What is your name?”

A look of distress and perplexity clouded the child’s face.

“I don’t know,” he answered.

“Don’t know!” repeated Dr. Lighton, kindly. “Well, it will soon come back to you.”

There was a long silence in the little room. David almost held his breath, for fear he should disturb the current of the little prince’s thoughts. His mother shook her head sympathetically and murmured, “Poor lamb, poor lamb!” whilst the doctor’s eyes were fixed with keen professional scrutiny upon the child’s face.

The look of bewildered distress had deepened there. The dark eyes began to burn with strange intensity, and with a sudden little frightened cry the boy pressed his two hands upon his head.

“I can’t remember—I can’t remember! It’s all gone!”

Dr. Lighton laid his own hand upon those of his little patient.

“Never mind,” he said, in kindly, reassuring tones; “it will all come back in time. Do not try to think, or you will only hurt yourself. Take some of this milk, and go to sleep. When you wake up again you will remember all about it, I dare say.”

The child was docile and obedient, as well as exceedingly weak. He took what was offered from the doctor’s hands, and fell asleep shortly afterwards—the sleep of exhausted nature.

“Let him sleep; see that he is not disturbed,” said the doctor to the fisherman’s wife, as they stood in the outer room together. “He wants rest more than anything. He must not excite himself by talking.”

“He’ll remember all about hisself by and by, doctor?” questioned the good woman, compassionately. “I be main anxious to let his poor mother know he’s safe. She must be fretting sorely.”

“Perhaps, perhaps,” answered the doctor, glancing over the sea, thinking to himself that the mother might in all probability be sleeping beneath the waves; “time and rest may work wonders for him; but don’t press him, don’t try to force his memory. Let it come of itself by degrees. I’ll look round early to-morrow.”

And with that the doctor took his departure, nodding a kindly adieu, and muttering, as he walked over the soft sandhills,—

“A curious case, a curious case. I wonder how it will end.”

The opinion of the kindly fisher-folk of the neighboring hamlet was that the child would be able to give an account of himself, as soon as he had recovered a little more strength, and grown used to his surroundings; but day by day passed by, strength and spirit both began to revive, and still the little boy remained utterly silent as to his past history, and when the doctor questioned him (he had forbidden any one else to do so) as to his name, his parentage, his antecedents, a look of bewildered distress would cross his face, he would press his hands upon his head, and say,—

“I can’t remember. It’s all gone. Oh, I don’t know anything about it!”

Dr. Lighton never pressed him. He always turned the talk, with a smile or a kind word; but as day by day passed on, and still no memory returned, he began to wonder how it would all end, and how long a time must elapse before the shaken faculties could reassert themselves.

The boy grew better and stronger every day. He played with David unweariedly for many hours upon the bed, and when he was able to get up and be dressed in some of the elder boy’s clothes,—he had been washed ashore in a little nightdress and a rough blue pilot coat,—they wandered out upon the sandhills together, and enjoyed themselves after a peculiar fashion of their own.

They were a very quiet pair, but not on that account unhappy. David was in a state of quiet and ecstatic delight. It was enough for him to be with the stranger, to watch his every movement, wait upon him, talk to him, love him as only children can love their own kind, and to bask, as it were, in the light of his countenance.

The little new boy was very silent and quiet. He answered when he was spoken to, but seldom volunteered a remark. His eyes were always dreamy, and wore a look of wistful bewilderment and sorrow that was very expressive of the confused state of his mind. He would sit for hours gazing over the sea, with a strangely rapt expression of countenance, and when David spoke to him he would start and flush as if his thoughts had been very far away.

He seemed to cling, in an abstract way, to the gentle-faced boy who watched him with such undivided interest and devotion; but so far the conversation had been limited to a very few remarks, and even the games they played together were of a peculiarly silent description.

The boy had a marked preference for the sandhills and the shore, and an increasing distaste for the low cabin that somewhat distressed David and his good mother.

This distaste was not expressed in words, but was manifested in a marked reluctance to come in, in an intense eagerness to get out, and in a quiet determination not to eat his food until he had carried it into the purer air without.

The food, too, as soon as he had advanced beyond the “slop stage,” seemed very unpalatable to him. He was too thoroughly the little gentleman to complain, but it was plain that he would never thrive on such coarse fare; and the doctor was once more appealed to.

He looked with a smile at the slight and graceful child, as he sat beside David on the sandhills, and said,—

“It is plain something must be done, Mrs. Wickham; he cannot go on much longer like this. You have done your share, and more. I must see to matters myself, I think.”