It was the twilight hour, which the two young aunts had always given up to Godfrey. Betty used to look grave about it in the old days, and say she was afraid it was very idle; but she always gave in, and joined Angel and Godfrey when they paced up and down the garden walk, or sat in Miss Jane's arbour, or watched the stars come out from the parlour window, or squeezed into the big arm-chair before the fire. They were in the garden this evening, for it was mild and still, with autumn scents in the air and stars coming out behind a misty haze. And now surely was the time for the last words, the tender advice and warnings that were to go with Godfrey out into the world. But somehow Angel and Betty never spoke them after all. Instead they talked about the past; of Godfrey's first coming to Oakfield—'horrid little wretch that I was,' said the nephew—with the curly head, which had only reached Angel's elbow then, rubbing fondly against her shoulder; of Kiah's coming home, and the captain's first visit, and that Christmas party at the Place.

'And do you remember,' Godfrey said, 'that first day I settled to be a sailor?'

'The Sunday afternoon when we saw Kiah? Yes, of course I do, Godfrey. I never dreamed when we went up to the Place that day what it would put into your head.'

'It wasn't only going to the Place,' said Godfrey thoughtfully; 'I don't know whether I should have settled like that if you hadn't said that to me before.'

'Said what, Godfrey? I don't remember.'

'Don't you, Aunt Angel? I do, every word; about being useful and making the world a bit better. I knew then I'd got to do it, and it was only to settle how; and when I heard about Kiah and the captain, I thought it seemed the nicest way, and I knew it would please you. And it does, doesn't it? That's the best part of going, knowing you're glad for me to go.'

Angelica's hand met Betty's in the dusk and held it tight, and for once it was she who answered for them both:

'Yes, Godfrey dear, very glad and very proud.'

'I told the captain so yesterday,' Godfrey went on; 'and he said I'd better make up my mind directly to be a hero, for I came of an heroic family. That was what he said, and I sha'n't forget. There's the captain and Cousin Crayshaw.'

'Yes, go and meet them,' Angel said, for Betty's hand was trembling in her own and she could hear the catch in her breath that meant she was strangling her tears. She slipped her hand out of Godfrey's arm and let him go forward, while she and Betty drew back through the gap in the yew hedge to Miss Jane's arbour, just where Betty had flung herself down in despair on that first day of Godfrey's coming to Oakfield. They were almost the same words that she gasped out now on Angel's shoulder, as they sat down on the bench side by side; for Betty, though she was nineteen now and wore her hair in a knot at the top of her head, and considered herself a rather elderly person, was much the same vehement little lady as the Betty we knew at thirteen.

'I can't do it,' she sobbed, 'I can't, it's no use; I'm not the right person to be—to be a hero's aunt. I don't want him to go, I shall die if he gets killed; I sha'n't be proud, I shall only be miserable; what am I to do?'

Angel's arms tightened their clasp, she bent her head low over Betty's fair hair and tried to speak once or twice in vain. Then she said at last:

'Dear, we must just say what we said the first day he came. We want to love him, not our own pleasure in him; we haven't loved him and prayed about him and tried to teach him just for ourselves.'

'Oh, I don't know,' faltered Betty; 'I'm afraid I'm selfish, I'm not brave like you. I thought I should feel like the Spartan mothers, but I don't. I can't think of the country. I can only think of Godfrey.'

'Oh, Betty dear, I'm not brave—I never was. I don't feel a bit like a Spartan mother; but it seems to me we needn't mind about what we feel like. We've only got to try and look brave and help poor Cousin Crayshaw, for he is dreadfully sad, and make it easy for Godfrey to go, and not let him think we're fretting.'

'But if we can't?' sighed Betty.

'Do you remember what Martha said the first day?—"We never have a job given us that's too hard for us to do." What do you think, Betty dear, ought we to go in now?'

As they came through the gap in the hedge they nearly ran into the captain in the dusk. He half hesitated, as if unwilling to speak, and then wished them good-night.

'Oh, but you're coming to supper, Captain Maitland,' said Betty. 'Cousin Crayshaw and all of us expected you.'

'I think I must say good-night, Miss Betty,' the captain said a little hesitatingly; 'I—I shall have a good deal to do this evening.'

'Oh, but I know your packing doesn't take long,' said Betty eagerly; 'please do come.'

They both guessed that he was going home to a lonely evening because he would not intrude upon their last night with Godfrey, and they couldn't let him do that.

'I know Cousin Crayshaw expects you,' urged Angel, 'and Godfrey will be so pleased too.'

And Betty, growing bold in the darkness, added earnestly: 'And if you are thinking about Angel and me, it makes it easier for us to pretend to be brave, though we aren't in the least, when you are there.'

The captain did not answer for a minute, and when he did his voice had a strange tremor in it.

'You know,' he said, 'that anything that I can do for you or for Godfrey, anything that is in my power, it will be my greatest happiness to do. I have wanted to say this before Godfrey and I sailed together, and I know you will understand, and not overrate my power to help him and care for him.'

The next minute he had a hand of each of the girls.

'We know you love him almost as much as we do,' said Betty's eager voice.

'And it is our greatest comfort in the world just now to think that he will be with you,' added Angel's gentle tones.'

'And you'll come to supper and help us, won't you?' urged Betty. And so the captain came, and what a help he was! How he seemed to know just when to be silent, and when it would help them all most for him to talk! And though he didn't often talk about his own doings, he told them this evening a good deal about his last cruise, when he had been to the West Indies, where Godfrey was born. And he tried to find out how much Godfrey remembered of the country, and spoke of how English people always draw together in a foreign land, and are kind and friendly to every stranger who speaks their own tongue. There was one man in particular, he said, an Englishman, a successful planter, who had come forward to help him when he was ordered off in a hurry, and was in trouble about one of his midshipmen who was down with the fever.

'He came and took him off my hands,' the captain said, 'and had him into his own house; a man I never set eyes on before, and I don't even so much as know his name. He asked it as a favour, saying he'd no child of his own, nor any kith and kin who cared enough for him to want his help.'

'Poor man! I daresay he was glad enough,' said Angel; while Betty echoed:

'Poor man, fancy having no one belonging to him!'

For it would be better, she thought, to break one's heart over such a parting as was to come next day, than to have no one in the world from whom parting would be pain. And really the thought of that lonely Englishman in the far-away island helped her a little over letting Godfrey go.

It was strange that when he really was gone the most restless person in Oakfield was Kiah, who all those years had been so busy and contented at the Place. He took to hobbling up and down the garden path instead of sitting on his bench or by the fire, leaning over the gate and scanning the country, as if he were watching for the French to come, and presenting himself daily at the cottage to know if they had any news of the young master.

And at last, about a month after the Mermaid had sailed, he came one day in his best clothes and with a bundle in his hand, looking more cheery than he had done since Godfrey left.

'Yes, young ladies,' he said, as Angel and Betty asked wonderingly where he was going, 'I'm off down South for a bit of a visit. I bean't tired of Oakfield, nor I don't look for no home but here among my folks, but it's come over me as I must have a blow o' the sea and a sight of a ship again, and Timothy Blake, that was an old messmate o' mine, I give him my word I'd see him one o' these days, and I've a many friends beside him on the Devon coast. And then you see, young ladies, I might be getting a sight o' the Mermaid.'

'O Kiah!' gasped Betty, as if she longed to ask him to take her too.

'But are you going alone, Kiah?' asked Angel.

'Trust an old salt to take care of himself, Miss Angel. Ay, and if Boney ever gets ashore down there, which ain't likely, but just might be, I'd like to be near about, so I would, for I haven't forgotten how to fire a gun; a hand and a half's good enough for that.'

'And what does Martha say?' asked Betty.

Kiah chuckled.

'She's a wise one, is our Martha. She says she always knew I was a bit of a rolling stone, and my chair'll just be waiting against I come in again.'

And so the little Oakfield world had a fresh, interest in the great world's doings, and Nancy, at any rate, felt that they might all laugh at the notion of a French invasion, with the captain and Mr. Godfrey in the Channel, and Uncle Kiah keeping guard on shore.



CHAPTER VIII

IN THE CHANNEL

'Britannia needs no bulwarks, No towers along the steep: Her march is o'er the mountain waves, Her home is on the deep.'—CAMPBELL.

One spring afternoon a gentleman was strolling along the cliff path which led to a little fishing village on the Devonshire coast, some miles from Plymouth. He seemed to be in no particular hurry, and indeed to have no special destination, for he stopped once or twice and looked about him, and turned off a little way into the fields as if he were exploring a country that was new to him.

Presently he came in sight of an old man with a wooden leg, who was standing near the edge of the cliff, scanning the wide expanse of dancing water with a telescope. He was so much absorbed in what he was looking at that he never noticed the stranger until he was close to him, when he touched his hat and wished him good-day.

'You are on the look-out for some ship?' said the gentleman, following the direction of the old man's eyes.

'Ay, sir, but my sight ain't what it was. I could have vowed I saw a sail yonder, but I can't be sure. Take a look, will you kindly, sir? Your eyes are a deal younger than mine.'

The new-comer took the glass accordingly, but though his eyes were younger they had had less practice than the old sailor's, and he was obliged to own that he could see nothing.

'You are more used to looking out for ships than I am,' he said, as he gave the glass back.

'Ay, sir, I was afloat, boy and man, over fifty year, and good for a few year more if the "froggies" had left me my leg. They want men with all their limbs, you see, in these times, though I'm seaworthy yet, I fancy, and if Boney ever got ashore here, I'd let 'em know I'd my arms still.'

'And so you've settled down at home here,' said the stranger, throwing himself down on the short green turf.

'Well, my home ain't just here, sir, so to speak. My folks live further inland, but now and again I get a longing for a breath o' salt, and an old messmate of mine here has given me a corner for a bit. For you see, sir, the old ship's in the Channel now, and one might hear something of her any day, or maybe see her even; and what's more, the captain's got our boy with him, you see.'

'Your son, do you mean?'

'No, no, sir, I'm a single man, and this here's a quarter-deck young gentleman, and will make as fine an officer as any in the service. And when I said to our Miss Angel that I was thinking of coming down here for a bit, where I could keep an eye on him, as it might be, I could see she was pleased. And so here I am and on the look-out, for the captain might be bringing in a prize any day, none more likely, and then I'd make a shift to get in to Plymouth and see them both, and there'd be news for the young ladies. But there, sir, you'll forgive me running on like this; they say at home Kiah's the one for a yarn if you've the time to listen; which is my name, sir, Hezekiah Parker, at your service, Kiah for short, so to say, and my parents thinking it maybe be presuming to call a bit of a boy the whole name of a Bible king.'

'Oh, you won't tire me, Kiah,' said the stranger, lying back on the grass with his arms under his head, while he followed with his eyes the flight of a lark up into the untroubled blue sky. 'I've not so many friends to talk to that I get tired of the sound of their voices.'

'You're maybe not from these parts, sir?'

'No, I've been away from England for years,' was the answer. 'I've had some queer ups and downs, and tried being a prisoner, and come very near to leaving my bones in foreign parts.'

Kiah touched his hat with increased respect.

'I ask your pardon, sir. I didn't guess as you'd seen service.'

'No, not your sort of service, Kiah; nothing so fine. I'm nothing grander than a West Indian planter.'

'Well, sir, it's welcome home to you, all the same.'

'Well, I suppose my country is home,' said the stranger, rather sadly, 'but I don't know about the welcome. I've outstayed the time for that, Kiah, and there's no one now will care to see me back.'

'I wouldn't be too sure of that if I was you, sir, especially if you've women folks belonging to you. It's wonderful, sir, how they keep a man's place warm for him, and a deal more than we deserve, I say, that go knocking about the world all our lives, and coming back useless old hulks when we can't do for ourselves any longer. Why, there's my sister Martha, with a man and children of her own to think about, and yet, when I come back with my hand and a half and my timber toe, "Kiah," says she, "you're kindly welcome, so you are, and you shall have a chair by our fire as long as we have a fire ourselves, my dear." And as for our young ladies, I doubt there'll be nobody sit in the young master's place till he comes back himself to fill it.'

'Oh, you and your young master have been good brothers, I daresay,' said the stranger, looking up at the singing lark with rather sad eyes.

'Not so extra particular for me, sir, though Martha and me was good friends enough; and as for the young gentleman, the ladies aren't his sisters but his aunts, you see, he having neither father nor mother, brother nor sister. Bless 'em, they're that wrapped up in him; and yet they haven't spoilt him, not they. "You see, Kiah," Miss Angel says to me, "we feel like as if we must answer to his dear papa, our brother that's dead, for how we bring up his boy; we daren't be pleasing ourselves, Kiah," says she. Dear, now, that's one thing I'm bound to own I miss down here, them coming in and out. But, if you'll believe it, sir, I've got a letter Miss Angel wrote me herself. I got my mate's missus, that's a fine scholar, to write to her for me, and there come a beautiful answer back; leastways them as read it to me says it's written like a book. I can make shift with a chapter of the Bible, but I can't get on with handwriting, you see. But it sounds just like as if she was talking to me, and she sends me a sovereign for a poor soul that lost her husband in a brush in the Channel last month—she's that feeling, Miss Angel, and she knows what it is to have them belonging to her in danger.'

The gentleman put his hand in his pocket.

'I'll give you something for her too,' he said; 'and mind you, Kiah, there's a worse thing than having those belonging to you in danger, and that's to have no one belonging to you at all. I'm staying at Plymouth for a bit, and I shall see you again.'

'Well, I hope you will, sir, and I'm very grateful to you, I'm sure, and so will she be; and you'll make yourself some friends, I doubt, if you be short of relations.'

And then, after fumbling in his pockets, he produced a letter, wrapped up with much care in a sheet of paper.

'May be, sir, you'd like to see the young lady's letter. No, you needn't read it all at once, for you see it's a long letter and very beautiful, and you being a scholar you'll understand that, and if you're coming in to-morrow you'd bring it back to me.'

The stranger promised and put the precious paper in his pocket, and then strolled away along the cliffs.

He had nowhere particular to go and nothing particular to do, only he liked to be out here, where the breeze blew salt and fresh in his face, and where he could see the dancing, plunging waves, and the beautiful line of coast. He had had plenty of hard work in the last few years, and had been tired and ill when he started a few months before for the country which, as he had said to Kiah, must always be home.

And now he found himself wondering whether it were worth while to get strong again, and to be brave and successful as he had been lately, when there was no one in all the world to whom his success made any difference. He had grown more happy and hopeful since he had come to Plymouth, for in those days, when the safety of England was depending from hour to hour upon her coast defences, the very life and heart of England seemed to be stirring and throbbing in the great seaport town. Even now, in these happier days, when no hostile ships are waiting for our weak moments in the Channel, we can hardly stand on Plymouth Hoe and see the stately ships in the port, and the guns ready to thunder defiance from the citadel, and think of Drake turning cheerily from his game of bowls to meet the Armada 'For God and Queen Bess,' without thrilling and glowing at the thought of the little land that rules the waves. And in those days every one was so eager and patriotic, and so ready and willing to fight Boney if he came, that our traveller had caught the enthusiasm too, and was wondering how he could give to his country's service the life that seemed of little use to any one else. Here, on the coast, where the danger was most real and present, people drew together in the sympathy of the one great anxiety, and the lonely man felt as if, in coming back to England, he had really got among friends, who were all ready to talk and tell the latest news and discuss the common safety with him as if he were indeed one of themselves.

He liked the fisher folk, too, in the villages round about, they were so frank and simple and kindly; and once or twice he had been out in their boats, for after the hot southern climate he had come from he felt as if he could not have too much of the fresh salt air. And there was always excitement, too, in the Channel in those days, when even a fishing-boat might have to make sail and get away at her best speed before a French privateer.

When he got back to Plymouth late in the evening after his talk with Kiah Parker he found every one in a state of great excitement. The landlady of the lodgings he had taken during his stay there was eager to tell him the latest news. A frigate had come into the port just at sundown with a fine prize—a French gun-brig, taken after a stubborn fight in which both vessels had suffered severely. The first lieutenant had brought the ship in, the captain being wounded and disabled, but the whole place was ringing with his praise.

It had been a most brilliant capture, only the greatest daring and most skilful management could have carried it out.

Two brigs had both attacked the English frigate, and she had made a feint of flight and then turned on them and managed to sink one and disable the other. She would have to wait for repairs. So much the good landlady had told before her lodger could ask a question, and when she paused for breath he inquired whether she knew the name of the English ship. Certainly, the Mermaid frigate, Captain Maitland; heaven send he was not badly hurt, poor gentleman! Had there been any loss? Not many killed, she thought, a matter of one or two men, and one officer downed, but a many wounded, they were in hospital; and she branched off into stories of sailor friends of her own, while her lodger tried to remember why the name of the ship and the captain were so familiar to him. It came back to him later in the evening, when he was reading his paper after a solitary supper. It was a midshipman of the Mermaid whom he had nursed in a fever in his far-away West Indian home, and it was the praises of Captain Maitland that the lad was always singing. What a pleasant visitor he had been! What a regretful longing he had left behind him for such another blithe stout-hearted English boy who might call that house his home! His late host wondered if he were in Plymouth, and decided to try and find him out next morning, but one of his fishermen friends came to invite him to go on a two days' cruise, and he accepted readily.

It was a bright day, but there were clouds on the horizon and a fresh breeze springing up; there might be a capful of wind at night, the fisherman said, but the gentleman didn't mind that, he knew. The gentleman said he would like it all the better, and he won the men's hearts as they went along before the wind by his questions about navigation, about rocks and shoals and sandbanks, and the adventures which they were ready enough to tell over again. And their guest had stories of his own to tell, about marvellous adventures with mutinous slaves in the West Indies, and of how he had escaped from their hands to be taken by a French privateer, and was freed by a storm in which the ship went down. And in the interest of the tales and the weather and the fishing he almost forgot about the excitement of the day before, for the bringing in of a prize was a common enough event in war time.

In the afternoon the wind freshened to something like a gale; the fishermen were too busy and alert for talk, and their guest was left to his own thoughts. And then he found himself going back to his conversation with the old sailor. What a good cheery old fellow he was, and what a happy view of life he managed to take after all his ups and downs! And one piece of advice which he had given so frankly to his new acquaintance kept running in the stranger's head, it had been there ever since, though he wouldn't let himself think of it. 'It's wonderful,' Kiah had said, 'how women folks keep a man's place warm for him,' and involuntarily he found himself thinking how it would be if he should test the old man's words on his own account.

'No, it's nonsense for me,' he thought; 'she probably doesn't remember that she ever saw me, and since then she can't have heard very attractive accounts. No, no, better not turn up to be an embarrassment to them if they're alive, for even that I don't know.'

Just then one of the fishermen caught his attention by a remark to his companion: 'Ay, poor old Kiah'll take it hard, such a work as he made about him; but after all he couldn't look for better, only it's hard like when the young uns go.'

'Do you know Kiah Parker?' asked the stranger.

'Ay, surely sir, everybody knows Kiah. Poor old chap, he'll be breaking his heart over his young master, as he calls him, for I doubt 'twas him was drowned off the Mermaid in the tussle the other day.'

'Drowned, was he? Is it certain?' asked the visitor, with sudden interest.

'Ay, so they say, not a doubt of it. It's a pity, he was as smart a middy as any afloat, so they say. I saw the bo's'un myself, that was piping his eye like a baby to think of him safe ashore and the lad at the bottom.'

The stranger did not answer. His thoughts had flown to Kiah's young ladies, waiting and watching at home for the boy whom no favouring wind would blow home to them. How strange it seemed, he thought, that that young life should be cut off when so many would mourn for it, and that he, whose life or death made no difference to any one, should have come safely through so many strange accidents and changes and chances of fortune! And then he suddenly remembered that letter which Kiah had given him, and which had been in his pocket unthought of ever since. He felt as if he hardly liked to look at it now, as if it were presumption to read the words of one on whom so terrible a grief had fallen. But he took it out of his pocket, and unfolded it from its wrapping, and glanced at the beginning by the red light of the stormy sunset which was beginning to blaze in the western sky. And as he did so the heading caught his eye: 'Oakfield Cottage.'

He gave a great start, and half dropped the closely-written sheet. And then he laughed at himself. There might be other Oakfield Cottages in the world besides the one which stirred such a host of boyish memories by the very sound of its name. He turned the letter over to look at the signature. There it was, plain enough in the clear, legible writing:

'Your sincere friend, 'ANGELICA WYNDHAM.'

The reader put his hand before his eyes for a moment, seeming to feel again a pair of soft arms round his neck, a curly head pressed against his cheek, while a trembling child's voice whispered to him not to cry because they would wake Betty, and papa and mamma would come back. Little Angel, the little sister whom he had never seen but that once when they grew near together in a few minutes under the shadow of a great grief, she might well have grown into such a woman as old Kiah had spoken of with loving pride.

'Boat ahoy!'

The shout came faint and far away across the gleaming tossing water from where that red glow burned in the west. The fishermen were on the look out at once, a hail in those days might mean something serious; but their passenger sat with the letter unread in his hand, unheeding anything, reading instead a page out of the long ago past.

But after a minute or two the fishermen's excited words brought him back to the present.

'Boat? Not a bit of it. 'Tis a bit of a raft, some poor chap on a spar. English too, 'twas an English shout. Well, and if he was Boney himself we're bound to get him aboard.'

'Where is he?' asked the stranger, shading his eyes from the dazzling sun rays.

Yonder, sir, don't you see him, there, just where you're looking? We'll have him aboard in a minute.'

All eyes were fixed on the black moving object in the water, which, as they came nearer, proved to be a large piece of wreckage to which a figure was clinging. Presently it could be seen that the figure was that of a boy, who seemed to be holding to the tossing spars with the last effort of his strength, for when he was hailed again he made no reply, only lifting his head for a moment.

'He'll hardly get hold of a rope,' said one of the men doubtfully; 'he's about done for, that last hail was as much as he could do.'

The next moment the mass of wreckage disappeared for a moment, and when it rose again there was a cry of dismay from the boat, for the boy was gone. Another minute showed him lifted high on the crest of a wave, and, before any one else could move, the strange gentleman was overboard and striking out boldly towards him. A few breathless moments, then he had hold of him, and immediately a rope, thrown by a powerful arm, struck the water close to them. It was the work of a minute to knot it about his waist, and he and his unconscious burden were dragged on board amid the congratulations of the fishermen.

'Well done, sir! Didn't know you could swim like that. Never gave us a chance, no more you did. Take a sup o' this,' and a can was put to his lips; 'never mind about the lad, he'll do well enough. Lift his head a bit, Jack, and loose his jacket. What's that bag hung round his neck? Why, bless us, he's an officer, he is—see his clothes; may be 'tis Kiah's middy; there'd be a thing if we'd picked him up!'

'He's alive, isn't he?' gasped the stranger.

'Alive, sir? Bless you, yes! he's coming round this minute; give us the can there, Tom; turn his face this way. How now, sir; won't you live to drub the "froggies" again, eh?'

Even as he spoke the boy's eyelids fluttered, and then a pair of wide grey eyes looked wonderingly round the group. He closed them again, drew a long breath, and then looked about him with understanding coming back to his face.

'Where am I?' he asked, and at the same moment his fingers seemed to be seeking for something.

'Aboard the Elizabeth of Plymouth, sir, thanks to this here gentleman that took to the water for you when you and your raft parted company. Is it a bit of a leather bag you might be looking for, sir?'

'Yes, is it here?' said the boy eagerly, and trying to lift his head; 'there are French papers in it, despatches I think. I dived after them when they threw them overboard; I kept them as dry as I could.'

'Safe they are, sir, and wonderful dry considering,' said one of the men after a hasty examination.

'You bean't the young gent from the Mermaid frigate, I suppose?' said another, pushing his head into the group.

'I'm Godfrey Wyndham, H.M.S. Mermaid', said the boy faintly, and then, with sudden eagerness, 'Do you know anything about her?'

'Safe in Plymouth, sir, with a nice prize behind her. Every one taking on fine about you, sir.'

'Thank God!' the boy said simply and reverently. At the same moment there was an exclamation:

'What's wrong with the gentleman?'

The stranger had pushed his way through the group and was leaning over the boy, looking whiter than Godfrey himself, and with a strange hungry gaze in his eyes. The kindly fishermen took hold of him, for he was trembling from head to foot.

'You let him be, sir, he'll do all right. Come you below and have a drop o' something, you're dead beat. There, sir, let him be a bit, and he'll talk to you fast enough. He's a tough little heart of oak, he is; let him be a bit and he'll do.'

'What did he say his name was?' said the stranger, kneeling down by the young midshipman and trying to steady his voice.

The fishermen shook their heads; they didn't rightly catch, only he belonged to the Mermaid, they were sure of that. Did the gentleman know him?

'I am not sure; perhaps I do,' said the stranger briefly, and he made a movement as if to carry the boy down to the cabin himself. Two or three pairs of stout arms were ready to help him, and plenty of hearty voices to assure him that the young gentleman would be all right; they'd get his wet clothes off and let him sleep, he was bound to be about done; he'd be all right in no time. And Godfrey fulfilled their prediction by sinking into the sound healthy sleep of a tired boy, with a dreamy sense of satisfaction that the Mermaid and the despatches were all safe. But the strange gentleman did not take the advice of his hosts and follow the boy's example. All that night he spent awake and watchful by Godfrey's side. He had had a good many hard hours in his life, but none that seemed quite so long as those night hours in the narrow cabin of the fishing smack, while the boat rocked on the heaving Channel, and the swinging lamp over his head showed him the sleeping face of the young sailor to whom the sound of wind and waves was the most familiar lullaby. How he studied the still young face by the uncertain light, trying to trace in the broad-chested sturdy midshipman some memory of a white-faced eager little boy who had once looked up wonderingly into his own sad eyes! And if he turned his eyes from him for a moment, it was to decipher by the dim lamplight that letter of Kiah's with the heading and the signature that were so familiar. And when the agony of uncertainty grew almost unbearable, he dropped his head in his hands by the boy's side with the half-stifled murmur:

'If it might be—far, far beyond my deserving—but if it might be!'

He scarcely noticed how the grey light of dawn grew stronger about them, how the gale dropped and the boat sped along before a steady breeze, until Godfrey suddenly opened his eyes and looked up with the puzzled wondering gaze that thrilled the watcher through and through with vivid recollection.

'I know I'm not on board the Mermaid' he said, 'but I can't remember how I came here, and what boat this is.'

'You are on board a fishing smack from Plymouth,' said the stranger, struggling hard to speak calmly; 'you were picked up last night clinging to some wreckage in mid-Channel.'

Godfrey's face brightened with quick understanding.

'I know, I know,' he said, 'and the papers are all right, and the Mermaid too. That's the last thing I remember. I feel as if I'd been asleep for weeks. I wonder if I shall get long enough leave to run home, it would be rare to tell them all?' Then looking up doubtfully at his companion, he added:

'I'm sure I ought to know you, sir; I beg your pardon, but I can't put your name to you.'

'Where do you think you have seen me?' asked the stranger eagerly.

'I don't remember, sir. It's very stupid of me. Is—is anything wrong, sir? Can I do anything?'

'Yes,' cried the stranger, with his self-control breaking down, 'you can tell me in mercy the name of your father.'

'My father's name was Bernard Wyndham,' said Godfrey wonderingly. 'He was killed in the West Indies some years ago. I say, what is it, sir—you're ill, aren't you? I'll fetch——'

But the stranger had fast hold of him.

'Don't fetch any one,' he gasped, 'I want you, only you. Godfrey, my boy, my son, look at me, don't quite forget me—you say you've seen me before! Godfrey, believe me—don't say you can't believe me, my boy, my only child!'

The colour rushed into Godfrey's face.

'I—I don't understand,' he faltered. 'Why didn't you come?'

'Because I thought you were dead, my little boy; because they told me every one died together, and you too. Because when I got free and came back they showed me the graves and told me yours was one.'

Still Godfrey held back doubtfully, though the pale eager face was so strangely familiar.

'But why didn't you come home?' he asked; 'they've been so unhappy about you, the aunts have. Why didn't you let them know?'

'Because I was a coward, Godfrey; because I never knew they cared for me—why should they? Ay, and why should you?'

He had turned his head away, when he suddenly felt himself seized in such an embrace as Godfrey generally kept for Angel and Betty.

'Father,' cried the eager young voice, 'papa, I'm a brute, I didn't understand! I know you now—I half knew you all the time. Why, they've talked about you all these years, they never let me forget. I say, I mustn't make a baby of myself, I'm an officer, you know, but it makes one feel as if one was standing on one's head to think of bringing you home to them.'

And I don't think that Godfrey disgraced the King's uniform, even if he laid his curly head down on his new found father's shoulder and hugged him as he hugged his Aunt Angel.



CHAPTER IX

IN PORT

'If conquering and unhurt I came Back from the battle-field, It is because thy prayers have been My safeguard and my shield.'—A. A. PROCTER.

And meanwhile how had it been at Oakfield, little Oakfield, which had its share in the joys and sorrows of those stirring times? Angel and Betty could hardly remember afterwards exactly how they heard the news; it seemed to be all over the place directly, and no one could have said who actually told it. But it was Mr. Crayshaw who brought it—poor Mr. Crayshaw, so aged and altered and broken-down that to care for him and comfort him seemed the first thing his two young cousins had to do and to think of. And indeed with Angel it was so much more natural to think of other people first that she seemed to feel Godfrey's loss chiefly in the way in which it would affect them all—Cousin Crayshaw, who had had to meet the first shock of the news; poor old Penny; Nancy, who had been his playfellow; Betty above all, who had said she could never bear it if Godfrey died for his country. Poor Betty made such desperate efforts to be brave and unselfish, choked back her tears so manfully, faltered such bold words about their boy having died as he would have wished for King and Country. And then she would run away and sob passionately over Godfrey's toy boats, the lesson-books he had used with her, the bed he had slept in, and then would tell herself she was not worthy of him, and come back to be brave and self-controlled before the others once more. While Angel, for her part, hardly expected to be ever worthy of her boy, only went her quiet way, cried bitterly on Martha's shoulder, sat on a stool at Cousin Crayshaw's feet as if she were a little girl again, and did the work which Penny forgot, and found comfort somehow from them all. Angel could not be Betty, and Betty could not be Angel, no two people meet joy and sorrow and do their brave, unselfish deeds in just the same way; and the beautiful part is that there is room on the great list of honour for the Betties who school themselves to courage, and the Angels who are simply brave in their self-forgetfulness, and the world is the better for them both.

It was three days after the news had come—Angel and Betty unconsciously counted the time like that now, looking back to the days when they didn't know that Godfrey was dead as to something beautiful and far away.

Angel was in the garden, sitting with her work in Miss Jane's arbour. There was so much work to be done, and poor old Penny cried so bitterly over the black stuff that her damp needle and thread didn't get on very fast, and Angel took it quietly away from her and carried it out of doors. Penny had a sort of idea that there was something wrong in sewing at mourning dresses in the garden, but Angel thought it didn't matter. Betty felt as if the glory of the spring-time, the flowers in the borders and the birds' song and the vivid green of the meadows, were like a mockery of their grief, but to Angel the sunny sweetness brought a strange comfort which she did not try to understand. Martha had promised to come round and help her, but it was afternoon now and she had not come. She was very busy at home, Angel supposed, but still it was not like her not to keep an appointment when she had said she would come. Betty sat on the grass at her sister's feet. She had her work, too, but it did not get on very fast. She laid it down at last and leaned back against the stone shoulder of Demoiselle Jehanne, much as she had been used to do in the days when she was a little girl and used to come to her for comfort. There was something about the peacefulness of the still figure under the flowers which soothed Betty still, she hardly knew how. She remembered, almost with a smile, how Godfrey had always believed that Miss Jane's heart was broken by a naughty nephew, and he had been so afraid of the same thing happening to her and Angel. She had almost come to believe in the story herself, and as her fingers strayed half caressingly over the familiar broken face she wondered how Miss Jane felt when she was a living, loving, sorrowing woman here at Oakfield. Did she know about the dreary blank, the aching longing which had come to the little girls who used to play beside her? And a hundred years hence would it matter as little to any one that Godfrey lay under the tossing Channel waters as it did to-day that a sad woman's heart had broken long ago? A timid step on the path made them look up, and there stood Nancy, waiting with much less assurance than usual for them to notice her. Angel held out her hand.

'Well, Nancy dear,' she said, 'where is your mother?'

Nancy for answer began to cry.

'O Miss Angel, you won't be angry, will you?' she sobbed; 'Patty said I mustn't come, but I couldn't help it, miss.'

'We like you to come, dear,' Angel began gently; but Nancy went on between her sobs:

'It's him—the captain—he's come home, Miss Angel.'

'The captain! When did he come?' cried both the sisters together.

'Last night,' said Nancy, wiping her eyes; 'and, Miss Angel, he's not like the captain a bit now; he looks quite, quite old, and Pete and father they a'most carried him in from the chaise; and do you know, he can't see, he won't be able to see for ever so long, perhaps never. And they told me not to tell you because it'd make you sadder. And this morning he asked me about you, and I said, should I fetch you, and he said, "No, no, you wouldn't want to see him"; but somehow I couldn't help it, and I've come, and, Miss Angel, I'm sure if you saw him you wouldn't be angry with him.'

'Angry!' said Angel, laying her heap of black work down on the arbour seat, 'angry with just the one person we want to see, Godfrey's best friend, the last person who saw him! You were quite, quite right to come, Nancy dear. Betty, will you——'

'Come this minute? Of course I will,' said Betty, rising in her old impulsive way. 'Cousin Crayshaw's out, but we can't wait for him, can we, Angel?'

'No, I don't think we can,' said Angel; and in a few minutes the two were walking down the road to the Place, with Nancy, crying still but half-triumphant, between them.

And on the bench outside the house, in Kiah's old place, where Godfrey had first settled to be a sailor, Captain Maitland sat, all alone and not feeling the spring sunshine which fell about him. He hardly knew why he had chosen that place, only just to-day he felt as if, as Nancy said, he had grown old like Kiah, only with none of Kiah's cheery content. His eyes were bandaged from the happy light, but he knew just how it all looked, and he said to himself that it was only he who had changed, not the beautiful, happy world; for he had loved the sunshine, this merry-hearted sailor, and the joy and the beauty of the fair earth, and the stir and the work and bustle of life, and he felt as if it were not himself but some other man who sat here in the darkness at the door of his old home, and as if all his hopeful courage were gone and would never come back. The doctors had told him that he would recover his sight with time and patience; but just now he felt as if he couldn't look forward, only back to that moment which would be before him all his life, the moment when the French brig went down, and he saw his youngest midshipman jump headlong over the side of the Mermaid, and knew that his pursuit of the other ship must not be stayed for the sake of one life, and so went on his way, with Angel's white face before his eyes and the sound of Betty's voice in his ears. It was only a few minutes before the shot came which stretched him, blinded and unconscious, on the deck, but they were the sort of minutes in which a man grows old; and when he came to himself, helpless and weak and bewildered, to be told that Godfrey Wyndham had never been seen since the fight, he felt as if the time before were part of another life.

He was wondering sadly this morning why he had hurried home before the doctors wished him to travel; he had been restlessly anxious to get to Oakfield, and now he scarcely knew why. How could he meet Angelica and Betty, when he had come back safe, only useless and helpless, and the boy they had trusted to him, the boy who was the light of their eyes and the joy of their hearts, would never come back to them any more?

And then suddenly a voice sounded close to him; he had been too much taken up with his own thoughts to hear the steps on the path till they were beside him.

'Oh! Captain Maitland'—it was Betty's eager tones—'it is dreadful to see you like this; but you'll be able to see again soon, won't you?'

The captain rose to his feet and stood trembling as he had never trembled before the French guns. And even in the darkness he knew that it was Angel's hand that touched him.

'Please sit down,' she said gently, 'please don't stand. Why did you not let us know? Nancy had to fetch us.'

'How could I?' he said, turning away his face from her, 'how could I, when I would give all the world to be where he is and he here?'

'Oh, we know,' said Betty's earnest voice, 'we both remember what you said, that we mustn't over-rate your power to save him. You don't think we're thinking anything like that, you surely know us better? Angel, Angel, can't you explain?'

'I'm sure Captain Maitland understands,' said Angel very quietly; 'and now he will tell us all about what we most want to hear, we and Cousin Crayshaw and Penny and all—what nobody else can tell us.'

And the captain said 'Yes' as he had said 'Yes' when Angel and Betty fetched him home to help them at supper on the evening before Godfrey went away.

They were all together at the Place that evening, after the captain's story had been told. In spite of the sunny days, the spring nights were chilly, and they gathered round the wood fire in a little panelled room which had been old Mrs. Maitland's sitting-room. It had been scarcely used since, and the lady's things—her favourite chair and her little work-table and her big basket—were still in their places as she had left them, waiting, Martha used to say, like the stores of linen, till the captain brought home his bride. It was Martha who had thought that the big room, which was so full of memories of that merry Christmas party, would seem cold and dreary, and had carried the lamp into the little parlour. And there round the fire they sat together, Betty at Mr. Crayshaw's feet, with his hand caressing her bright hair, and Angel on her low chair beside them, and the captain opposite, with his eyes shaded from the light. Only this evening he had been talking quite hopefully about the time when he would be fit for work again. And they talked about Godfrey too, Angel being the one to begin, and for once it was she who led the talk, and dwelt quite quietly and naturally on old days—on Godfrey's first coming home, and the day when he had first heard Kiah's stories and settled to be a useful sailor. And she spoke freely as she had never done before of hers and Betty's fears and misgivings about his education.

'Don't you remember that first day, Betty, how you said you could never be a maiden aunt? And afterwards, when we knew he was set on being a great sailor, I was more afraid still, for I couldn't think how I was ever to teach him.'

'And little enough help from those who should have been the first to help you,' sighed Mr. Crayshaw.

'Oh no, no—I didn't mean that. Only, you see, we had more to do with him than any one. But Martha was so good, she told us not to worry too much, only to do our best and trust about him. Do you know, I think if I had known then that he would die like this, such a brave, good little officer, I should have felt quite glad and thankful.'

'A gentleman wants to see Miss Wyndham,' said Patty at the door.

'Miss Wyndham cannot see any one to-night,' said Mr. Crayshaw, impatiently.

'Oh yes, I can,' said Angel rising, 'only I don't know who it can be. Where is he, Patty?'

'I showed him into the dining-room, Miss Angelica; he came on here from the cottage, he says.'

Angel went out of the room and across the hall to the dining-room; the front door was open, and across the still meadows the church bells were ringing, for the news of a victory in the Peninsula had reached the village that evening. Angel wondered as she listened if there were many in England who heard through the joyous peal the sound of a bell tolling for some one whose life or death meant more to them than victory or defeat.

'God help them all!' she whispered to herself, for she was one of those whose tender sympathy grows wider at the touch of their own sorrow.

The dining-room was almost dark. Patty had put a candle on the table, but its rays hardly reached the end of the room. The shutters were not closed, and outside it was starlight, as it had been on that Christmas night when she and Godfrey and the captain looked at the Plough shining over the homes of Oakfield. The strange visitor was standing by the table. He turned when Angel came in and gave a great start as he saw her standing there in the doorway, dressed as she had been when Godfrey saw her first, in a white gown with black ribbons, and with the chain round her neck on which she always wore the miniature of her brother. He did not speak, so she said:

'You wished to see me, sir?'

'Yes,' began the stranger hurriedly; 'you are Miss Wyndham, I am sure—Miss Angelica Wyndham. I came—I wished—I once knew some relatives of yours in the West Indies.'

'My brother,' said Angel, faltering a little. Was this a friend of Bernard's come to ask for Godfrey?—and Godfrey was gone.

'Your brother, yes; I knew him very well.'

'He was killed in a rising of the slaves nine years ago,' said Angelica.

'I know his death was reported,' said the stranger; 'there were many killed, and some—some who had marvellous escapes, and returned to find their friends dead, or believed to be dead, and themselves perhaps forgotten.' Something more in the tone than in the words thrilled Angel strangely. She began to tremble.

'Please tell me what you mean,' she said, and she tried to see her visitor's face, but his back was to the light and he stood in deep shadow.

'Some of those supposed to be lost came back,' he said, and his voice faltered too.

Angel put out her hand.

'You have something to tell me,' she said, leaning back against a high carved arm-chair.

The next moment his arm was supporting her, his voice, hoarse and broken, was in her ear.

'Angelica—Angel, do you not understand? Can you remember, can you forgive, do you think? I never guessed that you would care. I thought only to bring trouble if I came. Will you try and forgive me now?'

Angel stood half stunned for a minute leaning against his shoulder, and then suddenly the thought of what might have been swept over her, a bitterness of grief which she had never known before seemed to crush her down. She burst out into passionate crying, such tears as she had never shed.

'Oh, Bernard! Oh, Bernard!' she sobbed, 'we have not got him for you; if you had come—if you had come before—but he is not here any more.'

There was a sound of doors opening, of voices outside; the peal of the church bells rose and fell on the breeze. Angel felt herself drawn into her brother's arms. His voice sounded above her:

'Angel, don't cry so; look up, dear, listen—there are wonders on sea as well as on land; you must listen and hope, and——'

But at that moment there was a shriek in the hall—Betty's voice, and then a clamour of crying and laughing and questioning, a door burst open, a pair of arms round Angel's neck, a curly head against her cheek, and over all the triumphant tones of Kiah Parker's voice as he stumped with his wooden leg upon the floor.

'Don't you be afeard. Our young ladies ain't the sort as dies of joy, bless 'em, bless 'em all, every one of 'em!' and round the group he hobbled in a sort of Indian war-dance, till Nancy, who couldn't get into the circle and wanted to say something, called out between laughing and crying:

'Oh, Uncle Kiah, do mind the polished floor!'

And all the time the bells rang their cheery peal for what brave English hearts had done.

It was very early the next morning, when only the birds, who scarcely seem to sleep at all in springtime, and the busiest people in Oakfield were up, that Peter Rogers might have been seen setting a ladder against Sir Godfrey's oak-tree and preparing to go up it. Mr. Collins came to the inn door while he was doing it.

'Holloa! Pete, my man, and what may you be after?' he exclaimed.

'Just running a bit of a flag up on the old tree, Mr. Collins, with your good leave.'

Mr. Collins rubbed his hands with great satisfaction.

'And that's quite right to be sure, and very suitable to the occasion, Pete,' he said. 'Bless your heart, who ever looked to see this day when you went up that same tree to get Mr. Godfrey down; and a very near thing too, so it was?'

'To think of me ever having to help Mr. Godfrey down,' laughed Pete, as he lashed the flag-staff to the topmost bough; 'why, if one's to believe Uncle Kiah, he can a'most run up the mast with his eyes shut, and stand on his head on the top.'

'Oh, that's not nearly all he can do,' said Nancy, who was there, of course, steadying the ladder.

'Nance, is it true that your Uncle Kiah came home in a post chaise with the gentlemen?' asked one of the inn maids.

'Of course it is,' said Nancy, with her head inches higher than usual.

'And did King George really thank Master Godfrey himself for saving them French papers?'

'Of course,' said Nancy, promptly, 'or at least he sent somebody very grand to do it.'

'And did he and his papa really swim over from France with the letters in their mouths and the cannon-balls flying all over them?'

'I'll tell you all about it by-and-bye, I'm going to get eggs for the captain's breakfast,' said Nancy, who was as important as the Admiral of the Fleet; 'but you see if Mr. Godfrey doesn't have a ship of his own directly, and medals all over him.'

And at the top of Sir Godfrey's oak the English flag flew free and fair, as it flies amidst the storm of shot and shell, the roar of winds and the din of battle.

It was flying gaily when a party of three came past on their way from the cottage to the Place, Mr. Wyndham, with Betty on one side of him and Godfrey on the other. Betty pointed up into the tree. 'That's where the bough was, Bernard, just under the flag, where Godfrey sat that first day when he was a little naughty boy and I was a little stupid aunt.'

'And you did name me after the great Sir Godfrey, didn't you?' said the young sailor eagerly.

'I named you after the Sir Godfrey of the oak, with some sort of hope, I think, that you might stand under it one day. I'm afraid I didn't think of choosing you an illustrious namesake; I never knew that he did anything particular, except plant that acorn.'

'No more did I,' laughed Betty. 'Don't look horrified, Godfrey; you and I romanced about him so much that I came to think he was a great hero, just as I believed Miss Jane was a broken-hearted aunt.'

'He was my first hero,' Godfrey said, 'before Kiah and the captain came. I shall go on believing in him; he left something good behind him at all events. Do you remember how cross I was because you wouldn't let him sit under his own oak-tree? Oh, there's old Mrs. Ware, I must speak to her; don't wait, I'll catch you.'

He darted off, and the others went on slowly.

Presently Betty said:

'I have been thinking that sometimes people are allowed to sit under their own trees after all, to see the end of what they do. When I look at Godfrey, and think about how we planned for him, it seems so much, much more than I deserve; do you know what that feels like, Bernard?'

'Betty, when I think of you two, keeping the remembrance of a good-for-nothing brother all these years and training up for me such a son as this is, and set that against my deserts, I'm not sure how I could bear the shame of it if the thankfulness were not greater still.'

'Oh hush! you're not to talk like that any more, at any rate not to me. I never should have done anything by myself, it was Angel who settled first of all that we were to be good sisters. And then we thought that was over, and we had to begin to be maiden aunts, and Martha told us not to be afraid, for we never had a job set us without strength to do it. I've made lots of mistakes, I'm not a perfect maiden aunt even now, but Angel might have been born one. Bernard, why are you laughing? I expect you think me a dreadful rattle, but, indeed, I'm much older than I look. Here we are and here's Martha. Good morning, Martha, is the captain up?'

'Up! Why, Miss Betty, my dear, he's gone by the fields to the cottage this half-hour since.'

'All alone? Oh, Martha, that's very rash!' exclaimed Betty in her motherly way. 'Over the brook with no one to lead him! Suppose he missed his footing?'

'Oh, the captain's sight's a deal better this morning,' said Martha, with her broadest smile. 'I don't think he'll come to any harm, Miss Betty.'

'Well, we'll go after him,' Betty said, 'or we may meet him coming back; for I do think it's rash, Martha, I do indeed!'

But Martha only went on smiling as if she were not at all alarmed. So Betty and her brother, with Godfrey following them, went across the meadows by the foot-path to the cottage. And about half way they met the captain, walking erect and strong like his old self, and Angel beside him. And Betty, who had never thought much whether her sister were pretty or not, gave quite a start of surprise, for Angel looked so beautiful at that moment that she wondered why she had never noticed it before. And the captain looked quite radiantly happy, and altogether forgot to say good morning.

'We've been to look for you at the Place,' Betty said; 'and Martha told us you'd gone out all by yourself, and I rather scolded her for letting you; but really I don't think you look as if you wanted taking care of.'

'Don't you?' said the captain; and then he and Mr. Wyndham and Angel suddenly burst out laughing together, Angel with her fair face growing rosy red and the happiest light in her eyes. But the captain took hold of Betty's hand.

'You must try and forgive me, Miss Betty,' he said, 'but I want taking care of so much that I have found a guardian angel for myself who says she will take me in hand.'

And then Angel put her arms round her sister and whispered:

'Betty dear, you will be glad, won't you? And now you'll have two brothers instead of one.'

And Betty stood still a minute while this new wonder grew clear to her, and then threw one arm round Angel and held out the other hand to the captain, and exclaimed at the same moment:

'Oh, Angel, when I was just telling Bernard that you were born to be a maiden aunt!'

The worst of it was, as both Betty and Godfrey declared, that nobody would say they were surprised. Cousin Crayshaw looked as knowing as possible and called Betty 'Mrs. Blind Eyes'; Martha Rogers would do nothing but laugh and say she had made an extra stock of lavender bags last year, knowing Miss Angelica was partial to them. As for Kiah, he frankly declared that he had settled the match years ago.

'No, nor you mustn't take it presuming, Miss Betty,' he said as he sat on his bench, chopping away at a clothes-peg for Martha as if he had never been away, 'but one couldn't but be looking about for a good wife for the captain, and who should one pitch on but the young mistress, that's just built for an admiral's lady, so she is.'

'Oh, then the wedding's to wait for my promotion, Kiah?' said the captain.

'Not a bit of it, captain! Wedding first and cocked hat after, and, mark me, it'll come the quicker for it, asking your pardon, Miss Angel, and no offence meant.'

'Offence! no, I'm very much obliged to you, Kiah,' said Angelica, sitting down beside the old sailor; 'I was only afraid you would think I should spoil the captain for the service.'

'No fear of that, Miss Angel. Some says the best men in a fight must be them as have none at home to think for. They're all out, them folks are. A man serves King and country better for having the right sort o' women folks at home, and he'll go to work the stouter if he keeps his heart warm with a thought o' the mother and sisters behind him.'

'And the aunts, Kiah,' said Godfrey.

'Ay, to be sure, sir, the aunts.'



FINIS



[Transcriber's note: the HTML version of this etext has scans of the publisher's catalogue.]