by Ellen Wood
“That letter has an official look,” remarked Mrs Vane to him. “Who is it from?”
Mr Vane controlled a smile, and answered, somewhat evasively, “It is on business.”
Harry swallowed his breakfast in haste, and then rose. The summer holidays are a glorious time, boys think, when they have their liberty throughout the sunny day.
“Where are you off to, Harry?”
“Out fly-fishing, papa. I and Allair are going to see if we can’t get some fish out of that lazy stream. Gripper said he’d come too, if he could. But we were not to wait for him.”
“Will you defer your expedition for an hour?”
Harry scarcely understood. “Allair’s waiting for me, papa. I said I’d be with him by nine o’clock.”
“Nevertheless, when I request you to wait a little, I suppose you can?”
“Oh, of course, papa,” replied Harry, in a cheerful, ready tone of acquiescence. With all his carelessness, he was a thoroughly obedient, right-minded boy.
You can run to Allair’s, and tell him that you cannot start just yet. Then come back again.”
“Very well,” said Harry. “Do you want me to go out for you, papa?”
“All in good time. You will see what I want by and by.”
Harry tossed on his cap, and departed. They saw him careering down the road, whistling, leaping, shouting, as healthy boys are given to do. Mr Vane waited until Caroline left the room, and then turned to his wife, speaking somewhat abruptly.
“The time has come when something must be decided about Harry. Sea, or not sea? Which is it to be?”
“Frederick, why do you ask me?”
“Because it rests with you. He has decided to go to sea, ourselves permitting it. My consent is ready. What of yours? If you object, something else must be thought of for him.”
Mrs Vane leaned her head upon her hand, sighing deeply. “I suppose I must say that my consent is also ready,” she presently said, lifting her face and its sad expression. “I cannot conceal from myself that Harry appears to be fitted for the sea far more than he is fitted for any home occupation; and I have latterly been bringing my mind to contemplate it as a thing that will be.”
“You are doing wisely, Anne,” said Mr Vane.
“I consent, out of regard to his wishes — his happiness. He says he could not be happy on land.”
“Harry would like your approbation better than your bare consent,” returned Mr Vane, with a smile. He had always believed it would come to this.
“He shall have it,” said Mrs Vane. “If he does go, he shall not go in a half-and-half way. I can no longer blind myself to the fact — to the belief, I should rather say — that it is the sphere where his talents will find their proper vent; and therefore my duty is plain. Harry shall go: and may God speed him!”
“I have never understood the ground of your antipathy, Anne,” remarked Mr Vane.
“The danger. Nothing else. On board a ship there will be but a plank between him and eternity.”
“Yes, there will: God’s protecting hand. The same God who has watched over and taken care of him on land, will watch over and protect him on the waters.”
“Yes, yes, I know, I know,” she reverently answered.
“But” — after a pause— “we do hear continually of fearful and fatal shipwrecks.”
“I cannot deny it. Let us hope that a better fate may be his. Though, when a lad embraces the sea as his occupation, he must be worse than thoughtless if he does not remember that he also embraces its dangers. My father passed his years at sea, and he lived to a good old age, Anne.”
“Ay,” replied Mrs Vane, who appeared buried in inward thought.
“What is the matter? You look vexed.”
“I am taking blame to myself,” she answered, with a half smile. “I might have foreseen that this would be the ending. In fact, I did foresee it: and yet I kept thrusting the thought away from me. I ought to have looked it fully in the face, and allowed proper measures to be taken.”
“What do you mean by proper measures?” —
“Yes, I have foreseen it, almost from the boy’s infancy,” she continued, as if she heard not Mr Vane’s question. “Much as I disliked the idea of it myself, there was always a conviction in my inmost heart, a hidden voice, that would now and then make itself heard in spite of me, whispering that the sea would eventually be Harry’s destination. It was this silent conviction that kept me from ever saying, ‘You shall not go. I will never consent.’ My opposition to it has always been a negative one.”
“Of which Master Harry has not failed to hold cognisance. He has repeatedly said, ‘ Mamma has never said I shall not go.’ But you were speaking of taking proper measures.”
“Of their not having been taken,” corrected Mrs Vane. “And I say that I blame myself. Had I summoned up the courage to look at it in the proper light, he might have been entered for the navy. Of course it is too late to do it now, and the merchant service alone is open to him.”
Mr Vane laughed. “Well, I had the courage,” he said, taking a letter from his pocket, and throwing it upon the table. “Harry has been entered for the navy long ago, and this letter contains his appointment.”
Mrs Vane could not immediately take in the sense of the words. “Entered for the navy long ago I” she ejaculated. “Harry?”
“Even so. I foresaw that the sea would inevitably, humanly speaking, be his destination, and I caused his name to be entered. Had you declined to allow him to depart, the appointment would have been returned, and no harm done.”
“I am so glad to hear it!” exclaimed Mrs Vane. “You smile! You are thinking how suddenly I have veered round in my opinions! But I assure you there is no suddenness in it. I have been, as I tell you, for some time making my mind up to the unavoidable necessity. And it is the doing so which has, I believe, in a measure, reconciled me to it.”
“You will be quite reconciled in time,” said Mr Vane.
“Yes, I make no doubt of it. I must trust him to God.”
They waited somewhat impatiently for Harry to enter. Mr Vane slowly paced the carpet of the breakfast room. Mrs Vane sat in deep thought. Presently he came flying in, eyes bright, cheeks glowing. “Now, papa?”
Mr Vane wheeled round. “You are soon back, Mr Midshipman.” —
The words, the meaning tone, sent the hopeful blood coursing to the boy’s heart. “Papa! Why do you call me that?”
“Would you like to serve her Majesty, and do brave battle with her enemies, if called upon?”
“Do you mean to say that I am going into the navy?” asked Henry, his eagerness great.
“Did you notice that I received a large letter this morning? — your mamma remarked that it had an official look.”
“Yes — yes!”
“It contained your appointment. Harry Vane, Midshipman, R.N. How do you like the sound?”
Harry turned his eyes upon his mother. His father was laughing, his tone a joking one altogether; nevertheless he believed the truth the words conveyed. But what of his mother?
The tears stood in her eyes as she held out her hand to him. “I have consented, Harry.”
“Oh, mamma! How shall I ever thank you?”
“By being still my own noble boy, dutiful and good, although you are away from me.”
“I will try to be. Papa, what ship am I commissioned to? Do I join at once?”
“Hark at the impatience!” exclaimed Mr Vane, in a mock serious tone. “Why don’t you ask, young gentleman, what ship will have the honour of carrying your flag? You must undergo a nice little course of study first, sir: instead of joining a ship, you join the naval college, and fag for your examination. In six months’ time you may think about a ship — if you are lucky.”
“All right I” cried Harry, heartily. “I’ll fag; fag with the best of them. What do you think I have been doing, papa?”
“Many things that you ought not, I expect.”
“I daresay I have,”
honestly confessed Harry. “But I have been studying navigation. I have indeed, papa, all my spare time. I got the books out of Robertson’s library, and I shouldn’t be afraid now to navigate a ship with any captain going.”
Mr Vane burst into a laugh. “That is modest, Harry, at any rate.”
“Well, papa, it seems to come to me by intuition. Gruff Jones thought he’d have a go in at it; and he did, and was tired in a week. Horrid stuff, he called it; as dry as sawdust.”
Mr Vane left the room, laughing still. Harry turned to his mother.
“Mamma, why is it that you have always, until now, so disliked the idea of my going to sea?”
“Your papa has just asked me nearly the same question. I answer you as I answered him. The danger, Harry! Have you ever reflected that on board ship there will be but a plank between you and eternity?” Harry looked a shade graver than usual. His countenance brightened as he hastened to reply:
“There’s no real danger on board one of her Majesty’s ships, mamma. They never get drowned — as the children say. I hope I shall be appointed to a three-decker! They are well built, well manned, and their strength is our protection.”
“What else do you think is your protection?” quietly rejoined Mrs Vane.
He made no reply: though quite conscious what she meant.
“When I spoke to your papa of the danger, my boy, he reminded me that the same God who has hitherto watched over you on the land, will watch over you on the sea. Ah, Harry! you talk of the ship’s strength being your protection. What protection could there be in a few frail boards, unless He held them together?”
“Mamma, I was speaking only of man’s strength.”
“I know. Listen to me, darling. The sea is a hazardous life, more so than common: take you heed, therefore, that you abide always under God’s good care. Morning after morning, night after night, commit yourself to Him. Never omit it; never forget it. Try and find God. Try and realize the fact that He is ever present with you, your powerful Protector, so long as you trust to Him. Amidst the hurry and bustle of a sea life, steal a moment sometimes for Him; in the silent deck watches, let your heart be often lifted up to Him. Trust yourself wholly to God: let your ever-recurring daily prayer be, ‘ Lord, my time is in Thy hand: do Thou undertake for me!’ And then you may rest assured that, whether He shall see fit to spare you, or to take you, it must, and will, be for the best. Do you think you can realize this, Harry?”
“I can hope for it,” he answered.
“Hope and strive. Your prayers will not ascend alone. For every one that you breathe, I shall offer up its fellow. It is a pleasant belief, that which some of our divines have given utterance to — that the urgent prayers of a mother for her child are never lost. Void they may be, for a time — dormant the answer may seem to lie: but the fruit appears at last. I often think that no prayers can be so urgently fervent, as those sent up by a mother for her boy at sea.”
“What was it papa wanted with me?” inquired Harry, after a pause, turning to a lighter subject.
“To inform you of the news; and to let you know that you would have but a few days longer at Whittermead. You may go on your fishing expedition now.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE MIDDY IN EMBRYO.
THE fishing expedition, all-important as it was before, had faded into nothingness. What was that trifling pastime in comparison with these great tidings? Boiling over with excitement, scarcely knowing whether he stood on his head or his heels, Harry Vane hunted out his glazed sailor’s hat — the article he had invested a certain Christmas-box in the previous Christmas — and proceeded to the linen-draper’s shop. There he went in trust for four yards of blue ribbon, wound it round his hat, leaving the ends flying, and proceeded to show himself in the village. “I am going to sea! I am going at last!” was his salute to everybody. At length he reached Mr Allair’s.
“Give me joy, William!” he cried, bursting in, and waving his hat in triumph. “The long lane has at length had a turning.”
“What on earth do you mean?” asked William Allair, staring at the ribbons.
“I am off in a few days; off to Woolwich, or some of those places, and in six months join the navy — the best middy it ever had, if it will only appreciate me.”
“You have gone deranged, I think.”
“It’s with joy, then. Why, I am telling you nothing but sober fact. The governor — like a sensible governor that he is — entered my name for the navy long ago, though he never spoke of it; and to-day my appointment arrived. Of course he had to speak of it then.”
“In the navy!” repeated William, rather overwhelmed with the news that had broken upon him.
“Is it not prime? I had made up my mind, if I did get to sea, to have a hard working life of it, on board some obscure trader perhaps, — like Gruff Jones’s, — and now there’s this glorious prospect opened to me. Oh, I am so heartily glad! I shall be as happy as the days are long.”
William sighed a sigh of envy. “But what will Mrs Vane say?” he questioned.
“She is a dear mother, and has shown out sensible too. She says it is evidently my appointed sphere of usefulness in life; and so she’ll oppose it no longer, but send me away with a God speed.”
“Well, I’m sure I wish other mothers and people would show out sensible,” cried poor William — discontent and envy uncommonly rife in his heart just then. “What have you tied those blue things round your hat for?”
“To let the public in general know of my luck,” said Harry, with a laugh. “I shall hang a flag out at my bed-room window when I get home. I say, I am in no mood for fishing to day. I must race about to spread the news — going to Lady Sayingham first. I know she’ll be glad.”
“Who cares for fishing?” returned William. “I don’t. I don’t mind if I never go fishing again. I wish I was you, Vane! Some people do get all the luck of it in this world.”
Harry Vane laughed good-naturedly. “Never was such luck as mine.”
“Well, this is a change!” repeated William. “Why, it was only yesterday you were saying your hope of sea was further off than ever.”
“I thought it was. But, look you, I did not despair of going some time or other.”
“Suppose they had still held out against it — your father and Mrs Vane — what should you have done? Run away?”
“What rubbish! Gruff Jones asked me that, one day. As if I should take the reins into my own hands in that way! No good comes of defying your father, when they are good fathers, you know, as ours are. Besides, it’s not gentlemanly to play the runagate.”
“Then what should you have done,” persisted William, “supposing they had held out in denying you the sea?”
“Stopped on land, and made the best of it, always hoping that something or other would turn up to subdue their prejudices. I did not think my mother would come-to, yet awhile, at any rate; and I never would have gone in opposition to her. She is my mother, you know, Allair, and a regular good mother, too; and I’d not have turned against her. I shall look out for luck and happiness now. And that’s what I never should have had, if I had gone in opposition to my mother.”
William sat drumming on the table. “I wish fathers and mothers could see with our eyes!” he impulsively cried.
“I had been casting about in my mind what I could do — what employment would be the least distasteful to me, hopes of the sea being at a discount,” went on Harry. “And I had nearly fixed on being a ship’s carpenter.”
“A ship’s carpenter!” repeated William, in astonishment.
“In some of our great big dockyards,” he continued, with equanimity. “A ship’s carpenter, or ship-builder, — anything of that. It would have brought me into constant contact with ships; and that’s the next best thing to sailing in them.”
“But to be a ship’s carpenter! That’s such hard work!”
“Well, a builder, then. But what do I care for hard work? Knocking about suits me. And, as I tell you, I sho
uld always have had the hope upon me that some lucky turn-up would send me to sea. But, I say, Allair, what a stunning thing it is that I have got on so far with navigation! I would stick to that; and I did. Ha, ha! that’s of more use to me than Latin and Greek. I’ll leave the classics to you — you’ll want them. William Allair, Esquire, attorney-at-law, and one of the Masters Extraordinary in the High Court of Chancery! Exempli gratia!”
Catching up his hat, with a joyous, ringing laugh, Harry Vane tossed it on his head sideways, sailor fashion, and tore away towards Sayingham Court, his blue streamers flying behind him.
William remained alone, giving way to one of the most discontented reveries he had ever had the pleasure of indulging. It showed itself in his countenance. He carried his gloomy looks into the presence of his mother.
“What can be the matter?” she exclaimed, as soon as she caught sight of his face.
“Harry Vane’s going to sea.”
Mrs Allair was surprised at the answer. “To sea! Well, need you look so sorrowful over it? He will be home occasionally, I suppose.”
“Who’s looking sorrowful over that?” not very dutifully responded William; but he was in a testy temper. “I wish I could go with him! That’s why I look sorrowful: because I want to go, and can’t.”
Mrs Allair laughed pleasantly. “Don’t envy him, William. You will find happiness in a home life — he in a sea one.”
“Mr and Mrs Vane have consented, have approved. It turns out that he was entered for the navy long ago, and now his appointment’s come,” continued William, in a tone of fierce resentment against things in general.
“I am glad to hear it: glad that Mrs Vane has seen for the best at last. Were Harry Vane my boy, I believe I should have seen it long ago.”
“That’s good, mother!” retorted William; “when you know how you hate the sea.”
“I don’t hate it; you are mistaken. What would become of our ships, our commerce, our prosperity, our proud name as mistress of the world, if there were to be no sailors?”
“I am sure you hate it for me.”
“That is another thing. Though ‘ hate’ is not precisely the right word.” —