Drifted ashore;

WHEN Bertie found himself clasped in his mother’s arms, and felt her warm tears upon his face, and heard her soft voice whispering tender, caressing words in his ear, he felt as if he had just awoke from a long bewildering dream, and such was the confusion of his mind that he clung to her more in terror than in joy; and his agitation was promptly checked by Dr. Lighton, who administered a soothing draught, which sent the child off into a sound sleep long before he had unravelled the tangle of his own ideas. This gave other people time to consider what steps had better be taken for the preservation of needful repose of body and mind after the double shock.

The child had been a good deal bruised and shaken by the fall, and his right arm was severely sprained, although not broken, as the good farmer had believed, Dr. Lighton attended to these injuries without rousing him from the torpid condition induced by opiates, and left with the injunction that he was to be kept perfectly quiet in a darkened room, and not encouraged to talk, or to do anything, in fact, but sleep.

And by a little dexterous management on the part of those about him, this health-restoring sleep was made to extend for more than four-and-twenty hours. When the child roused up, a little food was given to him by Mrs. Pritchard, nothing that could excite him was spoken, no face that might perplex him showed itself, and he dropped back into slumber almost at once.

But upon the evening of the day following the accident, Bertie woke up, his mind quite clear, and his brain alive with all sorts of new ideas and impressions. Mrs. Pritchard was sitting at work beside him.

“Where is papa?” he asked.

The good woman looked up at the sound of his voice and approached the bedside. She saw that the little boy’s eyes were open and that he looked calm and collected.

“The Squire is at his dinner; do you want to see him?”

“Yes, please,” answered Bertie whose eyes were very bright and shone with a strange sort of exultation. “I have something very particular I want to tell him.”

The message did not take long to deliver to the Squire, and in a very few moments he was standing at the child’s bedside.

“Papa,” said Bertie, taking one of the strong man’s hands in his and holding it tightly, “I am going to be always your little Bertie; but my real name is Ronald Damer, and my mother’s name is Winifred Damer, and we have a house in London, No. 10 Grantham Square. When grandpapa died we went away to France; but I think it is mother’s house still, and perhaps she is there now. If you write, I am sure she will get the letter. Somebody there will know where she is.”

Bertie (as we must go on calling him now) said all this very distinctly, holding fast by the Squire’s hand and gazing up at him with very bright eyes.

“What has made you remember all this, my child?” was the quiet question.

“It was a dream,” answered Bertie, promptly. “Mother came and kissed me and called me her little Ronald, and then I remembered. Please do you think she could come soon if you telegraphed to her? She is such a dear, sweet mother, and she thinks she has no little boy left now.”

He seemed inclined to grow excited again. The Squire laid a firm, cool hand upon his hot brow.

“You must keep still and be patient, Bertie, and I will do what I can to bring your mother to you. Will you promise me to be very quiet and good whilst I go and see what I can do?”

Bertie folded his hands together with an air of quiet determination.

“I will try to be good, papa,” he answered, with a confiding smile. “Come back very soon and tell me what you have done.”

The child lay back on his pillows after the Squire had gone, and kept his promise literally so far as his body was concerned, but his mind could not be controlled in the same fashion. Strange thoughts and memories were chasing each other through his brain in so bewildering a phantasmagoria, that at last he could only press his hand over his eyes, as if to shut out the images that crowded themselves before his mental vision, and wait with a beating heart and a sense of expectancy that he could not in the least have explained for something, he knew not what, that he was certain was about to happen.

He heard steps approaching the door, the firm footfall of the Squire, and another tread much more light, accompanied by the rustle of a dress—but the sort of rustle that no garments Mrs. Pritchard ever wore could possible make.

Bertie’s heart beat faster and faster; there was a strange singing in his ears, as if water were surging round him. He pressed his hand more tightly over his eyes. It almost seemed as if he were afraid to look up, or to see who was approaching, and yet in his heart of hearts he knew.

“Ronald!” said a very sweet and gentle voice.

And then all the clouds seemed suddenly to roll away and the confusion to melt away like summer snow. The child looked up with a glad, sweet smile and said,—

“Mother dear, you have come at last. I knew you must be coming.”

The mother bent and kissed her child, as she had done so many times whilst he had lain asleep. He seemed to know it now.

“You used to kiss me like that in my dreams,” he said. “I did not want to wake because the dreams were so nice.”

The Squire was about to withdraw and leave them together, but Bertie saw the movement, and noted, too, the expression on the face he loved so well.

“Papa,” he said, holding out his hand,—“papa, don’t go, please. We both want you. Nothing is quite right without you now; and I know mother will always let me be your little boy too.”

“Mother,” said Bertie, later on, in one of those little confidences that they held from time to time during the days of his convalescence, “I’ve learned now what you used to tell me so often—about God’s taking care of us always. I used not to care about it much till I lost you and was so lonely. I thought He’d forgotten me then; but I’m sure now He hadn’t. He didn’t forget you either, did He, mother dear?”

“No indeed,” answered Mrs. Arbuthnot, gently. “He has been very, very good to me. Once He seemed to take away all that made my life glad; but He has restored it all fourfold now.”

Bertie’s face expressed a vivid interest and animation.

“I think He’s always very good to people when they’re lonely. You see He gave me to the Squire when I had nobody to love, and it was like having a home of my own then, and a father too. And when you had nobody He sent Uncle Fred to you. You are quite happy now, aren’t you, mother dear?”

“Yes, my little boy, I am very happy indeed.”

Bertie got fast hold of her hand and held it very tight. His eyes were fixed very intently on her face.

“Mother,” he said, “you are going to live quite close to the Squire now, aren’t you?”

“Yes, dear; we are living there already, and very soon we shall have the house quite to ourselves.”

“And where shall I live then? here or in Uncle Fred’s house?”

Mrs. Arbuthnot had been expecting this question for some days, and was quite prepared to meet it.

“You will have two homes then, my child. Which do you think you would like to spend most of your time in?”

Bertie’s eyes sought her face with great intentness. He took the hand he held and carried it to his lips.

“Mother dear,” he answered after a short silence, “you have Uncle Fred now, and the Squire has nobody but me. I shall see you every day. It will be almost the same, you know—”

The child broke off suddenly, looking wistfully at his mother.

“You know I love you just the same,” he said, simply; “but the Squire is so lonely, and he has been so very good to me. They have all died and left him alone, and he says I have been like one of them—the child of his old age—I don’t know how to go away and leave him.”

Bertie’s lip quivered, and the tears stood in Mrs. Arbuthnot’s eyes, as she stooped to kiss him.

“My dear little boy,” she said, very tenderly, “I think you and I both feel alike about this. I did not tell you what Uncle Fred and I have said, because I wanted to learn your own feelings first. We do not want you to do anything to darken the life of one who has been like a father to you when you were so sadly in need of love and care. My darling, we think that your place is still here with the Squire, if you are content to stay. We shall see you every day; you will always be our little boy too. You will have two homes instead of one, and loving parents in both. But, as you say yourself, I have Uncle Fred to take care of me now, and be my companion always, whilst he has nobody but his little Bertie.”

Bertie kissed his mother’s hand again, and looked at her with loving eyes.

“You always understand, mother dear. Some day I will tell you all about things—about the Squire, I mean, and how they all died,—Tom and Charley, and Mary and Violet, and even little Donald,—and then you will understand better still. But please may I see him now? I think he has been looking rather sad these last few days. He has not talked to me quite in the same way, quite as if I belonged to him now. I should like to see him and tell him what we have arranged. Please may I see him all by myself?”

Bertie’s quick instincts had not deceived him. These last few days had been rather sad ones for the good Squire. He had been trying to resign himself to the loss of the child, feeling that it would be ungenerous to take advantage of the mother’s concession, made in a moment of deep emotion, and being of opinion that the child would himself be unwilling to remain beneath his roof when the mother he evidently so truly loved had a home to offer him herself.

Trouble had so far weighed upon the Squire’s mind, that he was inclined to expect more, and to prepare himself for adverse fortune. It seemed more natural to him now to lose than to gain, and he had no real hope of keeping the child beneath his own roof much longer. Some compromise might possibly be made for the present; but his sense of ownership, of fatherhood, would be gone, and the sense of warmth and light that had slowly crept into his lonely life would be as slowly extinguished.

When he came and stood beside Bertie’s couch,—the child was up and dressed for the first time to-day,—his face showed some faint reflection of the trouble of his mind, and Bertie’s quick eyes detected it instantly.

The little boy got up and pushed him gently towards Mrs. Pritchard’s great easy chair that stood beside the fire. It was May, but the cold east winds were blowing, and made fires very pleasant companions, especially when the light began to wane in the sky and the dusk crept into the corners of the room, as it was doing now.

“You are better to-day, Bertie,” said the Squire, kindly. “Rather shaky on your legs still, eh?”

“A little,” answered Bertie, laughing. “I feel rather funny when I walk; and my arm is very stiff. Take me on your knee, please, papa; I want to talk to you.”

The Squire lifted him up, and Bertie nestled down comfortably in his accustomed resting-place, drawing a long breath of satisfaction.

“That is just nice!” he said.

“What is nice?”

“Why, to know that I shall be your little boy always now, and that nobody can ever want to take me away so long as you want me.”

The Squire held the child a little more closely in his arms, but his voice was quite steady as he said,—

“What makes you speak so, Bertie?”

“I have been talking to mother,” answered the little boy. “We have arranged it all. I am to go on living with you,—if you want me.”

Bertie felt a sort of tremor run through the Squire’s strong frame, but his voice was as quiet and composed as ever.

“But what do you say yourself, Bertie? You have found your mother now. Do you not wish to go to her? You love her very much, I can see. Would you not rather belong to her than stay here to be my little boy?”

Bertie raised his face a little, so that he could look at the Squire. His eyes were full of gravity and a certain fixity of purpose.

“I want to stay with you,” he answered, slowly and steadily. “I do love mother very, very much; but I shall see her every day. She has Uncle Fred now; it is not quite as it used to be when she and I were alone together. She is not lonely now, she is very happy. I am going to be your little boy, and stay with you.”

The Squire bent his head and touched the child’s forehead with his lips.

“You are sure this is your own wish?—you will be content to stay with me?”

“Oh yes,” answered Bertie, quickly; and then, stealing his uninjured arm about the Squire’s neck, he added, with the quaint simplicity that seemed to belong to him, “I feel as if you and I just understood one another. I think we must have been meant for one another when I got washed up here and you adopted me. I don’t think anybody understands you as I do.”

The Squire smiled at these words, yet a suspicious moisture stood upon his eyelashes, as he once more kissed the child in his quiet fashion.

“Yes, my little boy, I think you and I understand one another; and if God has given us to each other, we will try to show our gratitude to Him by loving Him more and more all our lives.”

“I should like that,” answered Bertie, reverently; “because you know it was so kind of Him not to forget me that time when I was quite alone.”

And so, without any more discussion, the matter was settled, and little Ronald Damer was known to be still the Squire’s adopted son, notwithstanding that his mother and her husband were living within a stone’s throw of the Manor House, and that the child was as much at home in one house as in the other. He was still called by the name the Squire had found for him when his own had been buried in oblivion, and it seemed as if he would be always Bertie to those who had known him when he had had no other.

Queenie and Phil came to say good-bye before they left their home.

They had been constant in their inquiries after their little friend and companion; but Dr. Lighton had wished Bertie to be kept quiet for quite a long time, and they had not been allowed to see him.

He had been a good deal shaken by his fall, and did not get strong as fast as some children would have done; so that it was not until Sir Walter Arbuthnot and his family were just on the eve of departure that Bertie was allowed to see Queenie and Phil.

Phil was as merry and gay as ever, although his bright face grew grave for a few minutes whilst he thanked Bertie in boyish fashion for having saved his life on the cliffs that day; but Queenie was more quiet and less imperious in her speech than was at all usual, and Bertie, observing this, wondered what was the matter, and if she were sorry about going away.

“It is not that exactly,” answered the little girl, when questioned. “I think it is because I have something on my mind.”

“Have you? What sort of thing?”

“Something I want to say, only it isn’t very easy,” and Queenie got rather red, for she was a proud little maiden, and found it rather hard to own herself in the wrong. “I called you a coward, Bertie; I think I called you so a great many times. I want to tell you I’m sorry. I know now that you were just as brave as Phil or any of the boys, and I want you to say you forgive me for being so cross.”

Bertie was quite taken aback, and blushed as red as Queenie.

“Please don’t talk so. I was a coward about the boat; and I’ve forgotten all about the rest. You have always been very kind to me, Queenie. You know you made friends with me when I had nobody else.”

Queenie began to laugh now; she had got a weight off her mind, and was her merry self again.

“I was often very cross,” she said. “I sometimes think I must have a very hasty temper. I do get so cross if I have to do what I don’t like. You don’t ever get cross, do you?”

“I feel cross sometimes,” answered Bertie, truthfully; “but you know, I like to do what the Squire tells me; I like to keep his rules.”

“I know you do,” answered Queenie, quickly. “You are obedient. Nurse often tells me so; but I like doing as I like, not as other people say.” She sighed a little impatiently, and then added, half reluctantly, “Sometimes I think I should like to be obedient too; only it seems so tiresome.”

“You would like it if you once began,” said Bertie, quickly. “It’s nice to please people when we love them.”

Queenie sighed again.

“I like pleasing Uncle Fred and Aunt Winifred; they are very nice and kind. When I come to stay with them I shall try very hard to be good. Perhaps, if I find it answers, I’ll try always.”

“Do,” answered Bertie. “I think you will be happier if you do.”

“Phil has been more obedient since he went to school,” said Queenie, reflectively; “and he is always happy. Perhaps I’ll try.”

And then they bade Bertie an affectionate farewell, and made him promise to come very often to see them whenever they came to stay with Uncle Fred.

And so there were changes in that little circle. Sir Walter Arbuthnot gave place to his brother, and a very close bond of union existed between the two households in the adjoining houses, the golden link that joined them together being no other than little Bertie, the child who had once been so lonely and homeless, without even a name to call his own.