It was in the paven kitchen, however, that the party now assembled, and taking their seats round the square deal table, which was spread with a clean table-cloth, began at once upon the dinner—a boiled leg of pork and potatoes.
With her little feet swinging to and fro, and her large blue wistful eyes roving wistfully about the room, Madeline sat and ate up her portion contentedly. The sun streaming through the back window caressed her bright cheek and dusty hair, and made her think of the glad light which had touched her only a short time ago, while she had been learning to dance upon the tombs. Suddenly a strange thought seemed to strike her.
‘Uncle Mark,’ she said, while Uncle Luke dropped his knife and fork in wonder, ‘can dead folk feel?’
‘No, my lass,’ returned Uncle Mark, with some little surprise in his mild blue eyes. ‘Dead men is dead as nails is—they can’t feel nothing. What put that into your head?’
But Madeline did not answer; a sense of great satisfaction had stolen over her at this brief assurance, and, with a glance of meaning at Uncle Luke, she said to herself that, for once in his life, the parson had been wrong.
Dinner being over, there was a general movement, and a great awe came over the family as the door of communication between the kitchen and parlour was thrown open, and the latter was seen in all its sepulchral splendour. Uncles Mark and Luke passed reverently in, and closed the door; but soon Madeline was made straight and clean, and sent in after them, while Aunt Jane, who seemed seized with unaccountable irritability, remained to tidy up the kitchen.
Once in the parlour, Madeline crept up to the window, and gazed with wistful dreamy eyes across the little garden on the great still river, which crept past flashing and darkening in the sun. Uncle Mark, seated on a very shiny and sticky horsehair sofa, was deep in the pages of the family Bible, while Uncle Luke, with a face as grave as a judge, was repeating in an undertone the words of an Easter hymn. All was quiet and still in the sepulchral chamber; but through the closed door they could distinctly hear the rattling of dishes, the clangour of pots and pans, from the kitchen. Presently this rattling and clangour became positively furious, and simultaneously a loud rat-a-tat was heard at the front door. Finally, to the same noisy accompaniment, the room door was opened, and a number of visitors came in one by one.
They consisted of a tall thin man, dressed in glossy black, with a long thin face, broad protruding forehead, and a bald head; followed by several very rough-looking figures in high hats and rude Sunday suits. Each as he entered doffed his hat, with a nod of solemn greeting to Uncles Mark and Luke. The tall man paused in the centre of the room and breathed heavily, while Uncle Mark rose to receive him. He was evidently expected.
The tall man in black, a retired tradesman, known in the neighbourhood as ‘Brother Brown,’ was the leader of the sect known as the ‘United Brethren,’ of which Uncles Mark and Luke were lowly members. He was a person of some importance and some property, but, having no wider field in which to practise his feats of piety, he was content every Sunday to visit the row of cottages, and, gathering his satellites together in one house or another, discourse to them on the lights and shadows of another world.
After the keen glance into the room, Brother Brown gave his whole hand to Uncle Mark, and the tips of his fingers to Uncle Luke, nodded grimly to Madeline, and sinking on the sofa, covered his face with large red hands, and sank into deep silence. This manoeuvre was followed by all the others present except Madeline. Each covered his face with his hand, and took a gentle header, so to speak, into himself. If we may continue the metaphor, all remained under water for many minutes. The effect was awe-inspiring.
At last Brother Brown uncovered his face and came up refreshed; the other men emerged one by one.
‘Brother Peartree,’ he said, addressing Uncle Mark, ‘are we all here?’
‘Yes, sir,’ answered Uncle Mark, while his blue eyes wandered over the group. ‘Here be Brother Strangeways, Brother Smith, Brother Hornblower, Brother Billy Horn-blower, Brother Luke Peartree, and myself. Not to speak of little Madlin—she axed to come in, and a child can’t begin too early.’
Brother Brown coughed heavily and looked at the kitchen door, through which came at intervals a dull clangour as of pots and pans.
‘Then I suppose,’ he said, ‘Sister Peartree is still obdurate. Will she not join our little gathering, and listen for once to the words of healing?’
Uncle Mark looked very red and uncomfortable, and jerked his thumb awkwardly towards the door.
‘Never mind the missus to-day, Brother Brown—she’s had a heap o’ worrit during the week, and the fact is, she ain’t just tidy enough to come into the best parlour.’
Brother Brown’s heavy brow darkened.
‘“Six days shalt thou labour,”’ he said. ‘Well, brother, you are the head of your own house, and I leave our unregenerate sister to you. Let us pray.’
Thereupon all, including Madeline, knelt down, while Brother Brown exercised his spirit in a long prayer, with variations and expressions of sympathy in the form of low groans and ejaculations from his companions—who had all again (to resume a former metaphor) retired under water. Emerging once more, and receiving a signal from Brother Brown, Brother Billy Hornblower, an overgrown young bargee of twenty, began a homely hymn, in which all the others gruffly joined.
Pilot the boat to the City of Jesus,
Up with the tide, though there’s danger afloat*
Far up the stream lies the City of Jesus,
Dark is the night, but we’ll pilot the boat.
Chorus.
Pilot the boat, mates! pilot the boat!
Hark, the wind rises—there’s danger afloat—
Courage! for up to the City of Jesus,
Steadily, safely, we’ll pilot the boat.
See, mates, the lights of the City of Jesus,
Steer for them lights, thro’ the dangers afloat—
Up to the wharves of the City of Jesus,
Ere the tide turns, we must pilot the boat.
Chorus.
Pilot the boat, mates! pilot the boat!
Hark, the wind rises—there’s danger afloat—
Courage! and up to the City of Jesus,
Steadily, safely, we’ll pilot the boat.
As the music grew louder, the clatter in the kitchen increased, to the obvious dissatisfaction of Brother Mark. The hymn ceased, and Brother Brown delivered a short sermon, founded on the text, ‘Those that go down to the sea in ships,’ which was felt to be especially suitable to those who went down the river in barges.
After this, Brother Mark rose, and in a few brief words, interspersed freely with Scriptural quotations, addressed the Brethren, taking for his theme the sacred character of the day, and greatly troubling the soul of little Madeline by gloomy references to dead sinners in their graves.
After a short address to the same effect from Brother Strangeways, a waterside worthy with a very weatherbeaten face and a very weather wise sort of oratory, and another hymn from Brother Billy Hornblower, the service was concluded.
Then, as a concluding solemnity, all shook hands, and the conversation suddenly grew secular.
‘Going down with the tide i’ the morning, mate?’ asked Brother Strangeways. ‘It be high water at four, and we be loaded since day afore yesterday.’
‘Where for, mate?’ asked Uncle Mark.
‘Down right away Southam,’ was the reply.
‘Well, mate, I be anchored at home with the old woman till Monday, and then I goes up with first flood to Crewsham Basin.’
‘Lime?’ asked Brother Strangeways, sententiously.
‘Lime it is,’ answered Brother Mark, and forthwith the talk became professional.
In the meantime, Brother Brown had drawn from his pocket several loose leaves or tracts, a species of torpedo which he was in the habit of dropping surreptitiously wherever he went, for the confusion of recalcitrant and unrepentant sinners. Selecting three of these, each of which had special reference to the forlorn spiritual condition of a person of the other sex, he proceeded to pin them on the parlour walls—one over the Shepherdess on the mantelpiece, a second under the picture of the Prodigal Son, a third under that of Susannah and the Elders. When this was done he shook hands with Uncle Mark, nodded to Uncle Luke, and passed out of the house; the other men, each with a ‘Good night, mate,’ for each of the two Pear-trees, immediately followed, solemnly, in single file.
No sooner had the street door closed than Mrs. Pear-tree, with the sleeves of her gown tucked up to the elbow, entered the precincts of the chamber. Scorn was in every lineament of her countenance, but directly her eyes fell on the parlour walls, the scorn deepened to wrath.
‘Brother Brown’s been at them walls again,’ she cried. I wonder at you, Mark Peartree, to sit still and see him do it. Tracts agin your own wedded wife, stuck on the walls of her own best parlour—oh, I’d “tract” him!’
As she spoke, she made a dash at each of the papers in succession, and tore them angrily away.
‘My lass,’ said Uncle Mark, gruffly, ‘read’em—they’re left for your convarsion.’
‘Stuff and rubbish!’
‘Salvation ain’t rubbish, mother, and this here earth’s a wale. A wale it is! And let me tell you, tho’ you are my missus, it don’t become you to put Brother Brown so much about. Why, while we was a-singing, I heard you clattering the dishes like a barge a-heaving anchor, and I see Brother Brown looking at the door out of the corner of his eyes. No, my lass, it don’t become you, and it ain’t settin’ a good example to little Madlin, who may be a wessel herself by and by.’
‘Never, if I can help it,’ answered the woman. ‘We’ve wessels enough in our family, what with you and Uncle Luke. Look at the mark o’ the dirty muddy feet on the clean carpet. I wish you’d meet outside, or in some other house but mine.’
‘And I wish you’d join us—it’d do you a power of good.’
Mrs. Peartree’s only answer was to toss her head and walk back into the kitchen. Uncle Luke followed very crestfallen and pitiful at the domestic disagreement; while Uncle Mark remained in the parlour, and showed the pictures in Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’—a precious tome of tremendous antiquity—to Madeline. The child shuddered as she saw on every page flame consuming those who testified to the truth in evil times.
‘Uncle Mark,’ she said, ‘do they ever burn people now?’
‘Not in this here world, my lass; only in t’other. And even then only the wery bad ones—them as hates their neighbours, and can come to no manner o’ good without burning!’
Madeline did not answer, but she thought of Aunt Jane, who was the very essence of gentleness and good nature, but who was made utterly unregenerate by the intensity of her hate for Brother Brown.
When Madeline slipped from her bed on the Tuesday after Easter Monday, drew aside the chintz curtains from her little window and looked forth, she was astonished to see that the sunshine of the preceding days had been followed by a drizzling rain. The river looked black and very solemn as it slipped between its sedgy banks; the marshes, turning a white face to the sullen sky, looked dreary enough as they drank in the falling rain, and the red tiles on the houses of Grayfleet were redder than ever with the ceaseless washing of the showers.
She had slept heavily, but had not yet wholly recovered from the depression caused by the preaching of the past few days, and of so many hours spent in the sanctuary of the best room.
She dressed hastily, ran down stairs, and peeped into the parlour at the ‘weather cottage.’ Alas! Joan was under shelter, and Darby was outside. So it was to be a wet day indeed!
The house was very quiet. The front door stood open and a clammy breeze swept into the passage and kissed her cheeks. The parlour had been cleared out an hour before by Aunt Jane’s industrious hands, and was carefully prepared for next Sunday. But a clear fire burned in the kitchen, casting its light on the bright paven floor, and upon the buxom figure of Aunt Jane herself, who stood by the table preparing breakfast.
‘Eh, bless the child, how you did make me jump!’ she exclaimed, as Madeline put her* head in at the door.
‘Come, lass, and get your breakfast; ’tis near time you were starting for school.’
After bestowing a hearty kiss on Mrs. Peartree’s sunburnt cheek, Madeline took her seat at the table; then suddenly looking round she asked:—
‘Why, Aunt Jane, where be Uncle Luke?’
‘Gone away two hours or more wi’ Uncle Mark; they sailed up wi’ the tide an hour afore thou was out o’ thy bed!’
‘Gone to London without me!’ cried Madeline, her large eyes filling with tears. ‘Uncle Luke did promise to take me with him this time!’
‘There, there, ha’ done wi’ your crying, like a good lass!’ said Aunt Jane, soothingly. Your Uncle Luke he did want to take ye, but I would have none on’t this woyage. A pretty like morning to take you from your bed!—why the rain was falling and the wind blowing enough to give you your death. But if you are a good lass and learn your lessons well you shall go next time. They’ll bring down the barge to-morrow, and likely they’ll be for taking her back o’ Thursday. Then you shall go.’
With this assurance Madeline was fain to content herself. She had been on the barge once or twice when it had lain in Gray fleet basin, opposite the ferry; she had seen it spread out its great red wings and glide along the track of the river—until it looked like a great black swan—passing silently between the marshes, and fading behind the grey mist which for ever hung about them like a cloud; and her childish imaginations had often conjured up pictures of the strange scenes towards which the great black swan was drifting. London was to her the great world, the mysterious city, so different to the dark slimy river and low-lying marshes of Grayfleet. Ever since she could remember, this magic word ‘London’ had been the one which had ever urged her on to good deeds, the final goal to which all her virtuous deeds were to lead. Whenever she was bad, Aunt Jane never forgot to repeat the awful words—
‘There, Madlin, if you can’t be a better lass, you shall never go to London with me and Uncle Mark.’
And when she had been unusually good she never failed to hear the timeworn promise—
‘You’ve been downright good! You shall go to London with me, and see the great waxwork wi’ the kings and queens, and the Sleepin’ Beauty as large as life.’
When this magical visit was to be paid seemed somewhat indefinite. That Aunt Jane was strongly opposed to what she called ‘gadding about,’ may be gathered from the fact that during the six-and-twenty years of her married life she had spent only two days out of her own home. But Madeline had been content to hope and wait on—and dream over the many things she would do when at length the happy day did come. Just before Easter, however, she went half wild with ecstasy—for Uncle Luke in the exuberance of his gratitude to her for not laughing at him when his curiosity induced him to cut open a cheap concertina, ‘to see where the music came from,’ promised to take her immediately on to the barge and show her himself the wonderful sights of the great City.
It was a great blow to Madeline to learn that her uncles had departed to the magical place without her, but by the time she had finished her breakfast the sadness caused by the disappointment had worn away. She bestowed another impulsive kiss on Aunt Jane’s brown cheek, and taking her books under her arm, trotted off gleefully through the rain towards the great red-brick public school where most of her days were spent.
She was wonderfully light-hearted all day, and when evening came she firmly refused Polly Lowther’s invitation to take another dancing lesson, and trotted home to keep Aunt Jane company. She found the kitchen neat and clean as usual, with plates sparkling on the dresser, dishes smiling from the walls, and Mrs. Peartree sitting in their midst with a skein of worsted round her neck, and her busy fingers darning Uncle Mark’s guernsey. When Madeline came she laid her work aside and got the tea. The two sat down together.
‘Madlin, what in the world be you a-laughing at?’ asked Aunt Jane presently, astonished at the continual outbursts and half-smothered laughter of the child.
But for the life of her Madeline would not tell—she only knew that she felt within her a strange hysterical sort of joy which would not be suppressed. Everything made her laugh; the gleaming dishes, the glancing firelight, the cat purring on the hearth, Aunt Jane’s sunburnt face, and even her looks of astonishment and frowns of reproach.
Mrs. Peartree looked distressed; for she was superstitious.
‘As sure as you’re alive, Madlin,’ she cried reprovingly, ‘that laugh o’ yourn means no good. I mind the day my poor brother Jim were drowned dead—I was laughing like a mad thing afore I got the news. Them as laughs i’ the morning will cry before night, I’m thinking.’
At this solemn warning Madeline’s hilarity received a sudden check, only to burst out again with renewed vehemence.
‘’Tis not on account of bad news, Aunt Jane!’ she said, ‘’tis because I’m soon going with Uncle Mark to London!’
But Aunt Jane was not to be convinced. She gravely shook her head, and a few hours later when she put the child to bed she said:—
‘There, Madlin, try to go to sleep, do, and give o’er that giggling—’tain’t nature for a child to laugh so—and ‘twill take all the sleep from my eyes wi’ thinkin’ o’ my poor dear brother that’s gone to heaven.’
Madeline promised implicit obedience, and nestled her dark little head into the snowy pillow. When she found herself alone, she slipped from her bed, drew aside the window curtain and looked out, half expecting to see the great black barge sail, like a spectre, through the hazy mist of rain. But no such vision appeared—the faint ray of the young moon showed her the silently sleeping river, through the silvery threads of rain which still fell from the ever-darkening sky.
‘Uncle Mark, Uncle Luke!’ exclaimed Madeline, clapping her hands, ‘make haste and come home, and I’ll try not to laugh any more.’
At that moment the barge, with Uncles Mark and Luke on board, was gliding slowly up the river, ten miles away. The wind had been fair all day and the barge had made good speed, but as night came on and the rain fell faster, the breeze completely died.
The barge lay heavily on the shining river, with the great red sail flapping listlessly above and black shadows all around. They had hoisted the side-lights, and now and then through the impenetrable blackness a faint light answered them—this was the only indication of human life which came to them at all.
Uncle Luke was at the helm, peering with his small keen grey eyes into the blackness; and Uncle Mark was below, eating his supper. Presently the latter passed his red night-capped head out of the hatchway, and gave 8 sharp glance around him; then his whole long body emerged, and he strolled to Luke’s side.
‘Well, mate,’ he said, ‘there don’t seem much wind, and I’m a-feared there ain’t much a-coming; suppose you go and turn in?’
But Uncle Luke shook his head decidedly.
‘No, no, Mark!’ he answered; ‘reckon you’re more knocked up nor what I be. Just you turn in for a bit while ’tis calm—and when the wind comes I’ll sing out.’
After a little more discussion as to which should get the first spell of sleep, Uncle Mark descended to the cabin and Luke was left alone.
It was very dreary above, very dark and wet; but Uncle Luke, who was generally in a happy state of mind, seemed quite contented. He grasped the tiller firmly in his hard, horny hand, and fixed his eyes with wonderful keenness upon the moving lights around him.
There was scarcely any wind at all now, and the barge lay like a log; but ever and anon she was lifted up as on a bosom in gentle breathing, while the great sail flapped listlessly above, and the side-lights shone out like glimmering stars in the darkness, and flashed their brightness at the sky which loomed so darkly overhead.
An hour or so passed thus, and then the rain gradually ceased to fall, the black in the sky began to float gently on before a cold, light wind, which bellied out the sail, swung the heavy boom over the side, and made the barge glide softly on.
Uncle Luke, holding the tiller more firmly, rapped sharply on the deck with his hob-nailed shoes, and in a very short space of time Uncle Mark emerged, fresh and active, from the cabin hatchway.
‘Ah, we shall get a goodish bit o’ wind before morning, mate,’ he said as he took possession of the tiller; ‘get the sheets clear, Luke, we mustn’t lose much time i’ working round;—remember the old barge ain’t been over spry sin’ she got water-logged, and there be goodish bit o’ traffic here.’
Uncle Luke trotted aft obediently, and now that Mark had relieved him of all responsibility, he turned his mind again to solve the great problem which had been worrying him ever since he left home—whether he should take Madeline a present from the great City, or allow her to buy it for herself when she got there.
While he was speculating thus, his eyes were dreamily surveying the scene around him, and his hands were busy hauling in the sheets, for the breeze was coming more and more ahead, and less upon the quarter.
As the night passed off and day began to dawn, the breeze grew fresher and fresher, until it spread quite fiercely over the surface of the water, driving it up into little crisp wavelets fringed with foam.
The thick black clouds had drifted westwards, and left the east a mass of scarlet and grey. The landscape was still dim, as with distance, and the light was of that palpitating silvern kind which is neither daylight nor moonlight.
They had left the low-lying marshes of Essex far behind them, and already they could see dimly in the distance, like a cloud brooding over a mountain peak, the smoke which for ever rises above the great City.
The river now seemed alive with traffic, barges beating onwards, laden almost to the water’s edge—others running down—steam tugs and ocean steamers, blackening the air with smoke—all twining in and out, passing and repassing, in a bewildering maze.
Uncle Mark still grasped the tiller, and though he performed his task with skill, it was a difficult job. The bends of the river were innumerable; often the wind came dead ahead; the barge was an unwieldy sailer at all times, and now she was overloaded into the bargain. Once or twice Uncle Mark, miscalculating her power of ‘coming about,’ had brought her into danger, and had a narrow escape from collision. Then the river grew clearer and the wind came straight on the quarter. She scudded onward merrily, and the water all round her was white with foam.
‘Look out, Mark, look out!’ cried Uncle Luke presently, and Uncle Mark, stooping to look under the red mainsail, saw that a steam-tug was swiftly steaming down on their course.
‘She’s straight ahead. Ain’t ye goin’ to keep away?’ screamed Uncle Luke, for the whistling of the wind was deafening.
Mark noted the speed of the barge, then measured the distance between the two.
‘All right, mate,’ he shouted, ‘we’ll clear.’
The barge sped on, the tug advanced quickly, Uncle Mark watched, carelessly at first, then anxiously. The tug was woefully near; by swerving slightly from her course she could have passed by the barge’s stern—by keeping steadily on she seemed likely to cut it through the middle. Uncle Mark concluded that the tug would clear him; the tug calculated that the barge must ‘keep away;’ and she came straight on.
A collision seemed unavoidable, when Uncle Mark screamed:—
‘Haul in the main sheet!’ and, with a cry, he put down the helm.
He had jibbed her as the only chance of escape. The barge swept round before the shrieking wind with her bowsprit within a few inches of the tug’s side, quivering through and through as she heeled over, with a thunder crash, almost wrenching out the mast. Then there was a crash, like the bursting of a cannon, a great splash in the water—a shout from the tug.
Uncle Luke, who had been thrown flat on his face, scrambled to his feet to find the tiller abandoned, the great boom in two, the mast bending like a reed, and Uncle Mark—gone!
Abandoned by the helmsman, the barge swept round into the wind, with her great sails flapping uselessly, and her whole fabric like a drifting wreck.
Confused by the accident and the thunderous sound of shrouds and sails, Uncle Luke, who could not at any time get his ideas to work quickly, gazed about him for a few moments in horrified despair—then he saw that the tug, having reversed her engines, was close upon the barge, and that a boat which she had put out was rowing swiftly towards a figure which was floating, apparently lifeless, on the waves—the figure of Uncle Mark. Dead? It seemed so—the body was moveless, the face livid, and it floated without a struggle.
Suddenly Uncle Luke became aware that the deck of the barge was withdrawing itself from his feet. The shaking of the mast had wrenched open the timbers—the water was pouring in like a torrent, the barge was rapidly sinking. He leapt into the punt which floated behind, cut the painter with his knife, and, utterly unmindful of the barge, pulled rapidly to the spot where they were rescuing Uncle Mark.
They had got him into the boat by this time, and he lay in the stern motionless, his cheeks ashen grey, his lips bloody, his eyes half closed.
With a wild cry like that of a child, Luke leapt into the boat, abandoning his own, seized the cold wet hand, smoothed back the dripping hair, and began to cry and moan.
‘Mark, mate, open your eyes,’ he cried. ‘What ails you?—don’t you know Luke—your brother Luke?’
But Mark answered neither by sign nor word—a splinter of the boom had struck him senseless, and almost killed him at a blow.
‘We’d best take him aboard,’ said one of the men; ‘see, the barge is sinking fast.’
As he spoke the barge settled down and disappeared, leaving only the point of her topmast visible above the waves. But poor Luke thought nothing of the vessel; his thoughts were full of the injured man.
‘Where do ye live, mate?’ asked one of the sailors from the tug.
‘At Grayfleet, master,’ answered Luke, sobbing, and still chafing the cold limp hand. ‘And oh, mates, do take him aboard, and get him home quick, and then mayhap he won’t die.’
The men agreed to take the two men on board, especially as their course lay past Grayfleet. Nevertheless, as they looked on the face of Uncle Mark, they firmly believed it to be the face of a corpse. But after they had got him aboard the tug, stripped him of his wet clothes, and administered some restoratives, he heaved a little sigh, and opened his eyes.
‘Luke, mate,’ he said, recognising his brother, ‘try and say a prayer for me. I doubt I’m a dead man!’
All that night Madeline, sleeping peacefully, had been dreaming happy dreams. Her little feet had been pattering through the busy streets of the Golden City; her wondering eyes had been feasted with all the gay sights, her ears with all the gay sounds, which the wondrous ways afford. When she awoke in the morning, she was a little disappointed, and a good deal astonished, to find herself in her little room at home.
It was broad daylight, and Madeline thought it must be late; Mrs. Peartree stood at the window, gazing dreamily forth. Madeline lay for a time and watched her; then she said suddenly:—
‘What are you looking at, Aunt Jane?’
At the sound of the voice the woman turned, and bent to impress her usual kiss on the flushed little cheek on the pillow.
‘Get up, Madlin,’ she said, ‘’tis close on eight o’clock, and you’ll be late for school again.’
‘What were you looking at?’ reiterated Madeline, after returning the caress.
‘Nought, lass, nought—’twas only one of them little steam tugs that stopped off the ferry and sent a boat ashore—but now the boat has gone back again, and the tug has steamed away.’
‘What did it stop for?’ asked Madeline, rising on her pillow.
‘Bless the lass, how can I tell? for nought that consarns us, be sure. There, get up quick, and I’ll cut the bread and butter.’
So saying, she departed, and Madeline, slipping from the bed, began to dress herself. She had pretty nearly completed her task, and had her arms raised, and her frock suspended above her head, when the sound of voices reached her from below.
She listened, and recognised the tones of Uncle Luke. Her heart bounded, her cheek flushed, a minute afterwards she flew down the stairs, thrusting her arms into the wrong sleeves, and alighted, radiant, panting, and half-dressed, on the kitchen floor.
It was Uncle Luke sure enough, but how strange he looked! His weather-beaten cheeks were ghastly—his nervous fingers worked at a big hole in his guernsey, he stared about him in perplexed silence, but when Madeline entered he quietly sat down and burst into tears.
‘It warn’t no fault o’ mine, mother,’ he sobbed; ‘don’t think it! He went on hisself, he jibbed the old barge hisself, and that’s how it all came about.’
Mrs. Peartree looked aghast, and her cheeks gradually grew pale too.
‘Mercy onus, Luke, can you not speak?’ said she, irritably. ‘What’s happened to Mark? Is he hurted?—is he—killed?’
As she spoke she grew sick at heart with apprehension, and turning at a heavy sound of footsteps came face to face with her husband. He lay upon a stretcher covered with rugs and blankets, and carried by one or two of the Brethren who used to meet in the parlour on Good Friday. His face was deathly pale, but his eyes wandered restlessly about, and when they lighted on his wife’s face they gleamed with recognition. He smiled faintly, and stretched towards her a trembling hand.
‘Don’t ’ee cry, mother,’ he said, seeing that her lips trembled and her eyes grew dim; then, seeing Madeline in the background ready to spring upon him, he added feebly, ‘Don’t come a-nigh me, little Madlin—I’m a’most worn out.’
Mrs. Peartree was a woman of strong emotions, but she had a wonderful power of self-control. She resolutely choked back the rising desire to scream and fall into hysterics—and laying her brown hand on her husband’s cold wet brow, said quietly but firmly:—
‘Why, Mark, Mark—what’s to do? I never thought to see my man brought back to me like this.’
Then motioning Madeline to keep back, she had Uncle Mark carried into the bright warm kitchen, where the breakfast was set, and, bringing in the horsehair sofa from the parlour, drew it up beside the fire, and had him placed thereon.
She had need of her resolution, for all poor Uncle Luke could do in this time of trouble was to sit in a corner and cry like a child, asserting, with strange vehemence, that he had no hand in the disaster, while Madeline, as if for sympathy, sat by his side and cried too.
The movement and excitement seemed to have completely overpowered Uncle Mark; no sooner did he get upon the couch than he sank back with his eyes closed, and seemed to breathe his last.
Meantime one of the Brethren had run off for the doctor, while another held a glass containing a little whisky, and Mrs. Peartree, taking the drooping head under her arm, poured between the livid lips a few drops of the spirit. At this he seemed to revive a little—he opened his eyes, again recognised his wife, and fixed his gaze on hers.
In a few minutes the messenger returned, flushed and panting from his run. The doctor wasn’t at home, he said; he had gone to visit a patient several miles away; when he returned they would send him on.
Uncle Mark listened, smiling faintly, then he said:—
‘Ah, I don’t want ne’er a doctor, mate. I’ve got my physic at last, Lord knows.’
‘Mark, Mark, don’t ‘ee talk so,’ said Mrs. Peartree, almost breaking down.
But Uncle Mark smiled faintly again, and reached forth his trembling hand towards her.
‘Mother,’ he said, ‘’tain’t no use denying of it, I’m agoing away. That there spar did the job for me—but nobody’s to blame for it, only me;’ then, as his wandering gaze fell upon his brother, who sat sobbing in a corner, he asked suddenly:—
‘Luke, mate, what’s come o’ th’ old barge?’
‘She be clean sunk, mate,’ returned Luke, dashing away the tears with the back of his rough, weatherbeaten hand. ‘She be sunk out there in the river, up to Southam Beacon.’
‘She was a good wessel,’ said Mark, faintly; ‘many’s the year we sailed her, you and me. And she be sunk at last!’
‘O, mate,’ cried Uncle Luke, piteously, ‘don’t take on about that. We’ll get her up again, but if you go and die we shall all be adrift together—little Madlin, and mother, and me, and all our hearts’ll be broke.’
Uncle Mark did not reply; he lay back with closed eyes, his breathing was laboured, and the hand which lay in his wife’s turned cold as stone.
For a moment Mrs. Peartree’s heart sank in dread, for she thought that he was dying, but she neither spoke nor moved; she only clasped the hand a little tighter in her own, and let the scalding tears run down her cheeks.
It was a sorrowful group, and the warmth and comfort of the surroundings seemed to make the sorrow of parting more keen. There was a death-like silence in the room, the ticking of the old Dutch clock in the corner rang out bell-like and clear, and between the ticks came the stifled sobs of Madeline and Uncle Luke. The kettle was singing on the hob, the cat purring on the hearth, and the sun-rays creeping in through the window touched the bowed heads of those about the sofa, and laid a soft caressing hand on the child’s trembling form.
Presently Uncle Mark opened his eyes, and rousing himself suddenly, gazed wildly about him.
‘Luke, mate,’ he said, ‘that warn’t right about the old barge. No, no, she bean’t sunk. Why look, there she be a-sailing up to the bridge—only her sails be white—so white—and there be a chap in white at the helm. What’s that noise? It be like a steamboat’s whistle i’ the fog. Oh, if my head warn’t so dazed-like I could hear it—but I be kind o’ stupid to-night. Give me a light; it’s black dark.’
‘Uncle Mark, it’s morning,’ said Madeline, creeping to his side. ‘Dear, dear Uncle Mark, can’t you see the sun?’
But Uncle Mark did not seem to hear the child’s voice. His eyes were fixed on vacancy, or, rather, on some vision unbeheld of eyes.
‘Look out there ahead,’ he said faintly. ‘There be a white barge coming down with the wind on her quarter, and the waters all black beneath her. Look, there be folk in white standing on her deck and singing. Hark! that be Brother Billy Hornblower’s voice, sure—ly?’
Brother Hornblower, who indeed stood near, turned pale at the mention of his name.
‘He think’s it’s me a-singing,’ he observed, brushing his sleeve across his eyes; and he added, bending gently over Uncle Mark, ‘Will I sing a bit of a hymn, Brother Peartree?9
‘Aye, aye,’ murmured Uncle Mark, closing his eyes.
Whereupon Brother Hornblower, clasping his hands before him and looking on vacancy, commenced to sing in his own peculiar style part of a hymn which was very popular with the Brethren of the river:
Up the shining river,
Sailing with the tide,
Jesus is my pilot,
Jesus is my guide.
Steer the wessel, Jesus,
Steer it night and day,
To the Golden City
Far, far away.
See how hard ’tis blowing,
Th’re’ll be win; to-night—
Tremble not, my brothers,
He will steer us right.
Steer the wessel, Jesus,
Steer it night and day.
To the Golden City
Far, far away.
While the hymn lasted, Uncle Mark remained lying in his wife’s arms as if asleep—he remained so for some time after the hymn was done. The kettle went on singing, the cat went on purring, and the clock seemed to tick with more bell-like clearness than before. When he again opened his eyes the old wandering look had passed away.
‘Do you know me, Mark, dear?’ asked his wife.
‘Aye, mother—I know ye all. There be Luke—there be little Madlin—and that be Brother Billy Hornblower—I’ve been a-dreaming that he was a-singing to me.’
‘And so I were, Brother Peartree,’ exclaimed the musician softly.
‘Was ye now?9 said Uncle Mark, smiling gently. ‘Well, mate, I take that as wery kind.’
He closed his eyes again. Brother Hornblower turned his simple face to Mrs. Peartree and whispered:—
‘There be another werse, Sister Peartree—shall I sing it? He seems to feel it kind o’ soothin’, and,’ he added eagerly, ‘them’s blessed words.’
Mrs. Peartree nodded; she could not speak, for her tears choked her; and the thin but musical voice piped again:
Who’s afraid when Jesus
Like an angel stands,
Holding sheet and tiller
In His holy hands?
Steer the wessel, Jesus,
Steer it night and day,
To the Golden City
Far, far away.
When the hymn ended this time, Uncle Mark opened his eyes, turned a radiant face to the singer—then he turned to his wife.
‘Up the shininsr river,’ he said. ‘Aye, there I be agoing straight away. Kiss me, mother, and let little Madlin kiss me too—I be goin’ to Jesus- -up the shining river to Jesus, mates. It be all for the best—if it weren’t for you three I shouldn’t mind goin’.’
‘Oh Mark, Mark,’ sobbed his wife, now fairly breaking down.
‘Mother, don’t ’ee take on—there be one at the helm as’ll look arter you, and Luke, and little Madlin too. He’s taking me away, the old barge be sunk, and I be going up the river, mates—up the shining ri———’
He was silent, and they thought he had passed away. Those were the last words which Uncle Mark spoke on earth, but he did not die at once. He lay on the sofa for several hours, breathing heavily, like one in a troubled sleep; the time dragged wearily on, the day brightened, then faded, and as the last rays of the setting sun fell across the floor, Uncle Mark heaved his last sigh. He passed away like one in sleep, lying in his wife’s arms, and not for several minutes after his last breath was taken did they know that he was dead.