CHAPTER XXV.

THE STORM.

For several days after the fishing adventure, Flora was confined to her berth with severe indisposition, and was, indeed, so alarmingly ill, that at one time she thought that she would be consigned to the deep, as food for the fishes, on the great banks of Newfoundland. She loathed the bad water and food, and became so much reduced by sickness, that poor little Josey had to be weaned.

It was a great blessing that the young, tender creature, suffered little from the privation. She ate her meals of biscuit softened in the putrid water, with an appetite that health and hunger alone can give, and looked as rosy and as happy upon the coarse diet prepared by the kind and attentive Sam Fraser, as if it had been compounded of the finest white bread and new milk.

"Oh, what a blessing it is, my darling, that you continue so well!" said Flora, on the fourth morning after her baby's natural sustenance had been withdrawn. "I thought this illness would have been the death of you."

"Dinna distress yersel about the wean," said Mrs. Muckleroy; "the gude God takes care o' His ain. The wee cherub is as blithe as a lark. The pure, fresh air, is baith meat an' drink to her."

Fortunately for Flora, the Captain had a consignment of old port on board, a couple of tablespoonfuls of which, mixed with a little oatmeal, twice a day, was all the nourishment she was able to take; but, in all probability, it was the means of saving her life, and preventing her from sinking from utter exhaustion.

When once more able to leave her bed and crawl upon deck, she looked the mere shadow of her former self. The women, with whom she was a great favourite, crowded round her to shake her by the hand, and offer their congratulations on her recovery. Their simple and affectionate expressions of regard and sympathy moved her very much.

"What depths of kindness there is in the human heart!" she thought. "How little do we understand and appreciate the minds of uneducated people, whom we are too apt to look down upon as inferiors. How far they surpass the hackneyed children of the world in their generous devotion to those they love. Unfettered by conventional selfishness, they dare to obey the natural instincts of their humanity--to act and think with simplicity and truth. We mistrust them, because we are unacquainted with their mode of life, and the motives which influence their general conduct. They look up to us, and have boundless faith in the superiority of our position and intelligence. When will a higher Christianity than that which at present rules the world break down the wall which pride and bigotry have raised between children descended from one parent stock, and bridge the gulf of poverty and ignorance that now separates them from each other?"

"The time is coming," cries the philanthropic speculator; but adds, with a sigh, "it will not be in our day. Yet it will surely come."

Three weeks the ship had been becalmed upon the banks, the dull monotony of the dreary fog only relieved by the ringing of a large bell and the blowing of horns, which were kept up at regular intervals during the day and night, in order to prevent the ship being run down by some larger vessel.

At length the morning came which brought a fair wind to fill the sails of the _Anne_; and her passengers looked up to the blue heavens, and blessed the light of the sun. Joy and hope again beamed from every face. The little brown man's morose aspect alone remained unchanged.

The tall, lithe figure of Mr. Collins seemed to have grown two inches higher, as he paced the deck with elastic steps and head erect. The little tailor was at his post among the clouds at the mast-head, seeing visions of green fields, and singing like a lark; Stephen Corrie was in an ecstasy of mirth; and Tam Grant could not cross the deck without cutting sundry mad capers which set all the rest laughing.

The women crept from their hiding-place in the dark depths of the steerage, and sat smoking their black short pipes, and chatting in lively tones to each other. Even Granny Williamson forgot to quarrel with her daughter, and mounted a clean mutch on the occasion; the soldier Mackenzie, to scold his diminutive wife; or Mistress Macdonald, to annoy the Captain with threats of maternity, and bully her husband. The Sultan of the deck--the dour Boreas himself--resigned for once his dignity, and condescended to laugh and chat, and draw agreeable presages of the future, from the fair wind and the smiling day.

Flora felt tranquilly happy, as she sat on a camp stool upon the deck, with Josey nestled in her arms, and old Oscar basking in the warm sun at her feet, rejoicing in the change which a few hours had made in their prospects. The very waves that followed in their wake, and curled around their prow, flashing and leaping in the sunlight, seemed to lift up their voices and utter a strain of joyful merriment, in having escaped the thrall of the dull, lethargic mist, which had so long held them in silence and inactivity. Yesterday, and not a breath of air stirred the leaden surface of the sea. No glance from the sun's bright eye looked down upon them through the blinding, wildering white veil, suspended between them and heaven. The mist penetrated every where--it hid the sails, floated above the cold, damp, slippery deck, and entered the very cabin, chilling their hearts with apathy and gloom.

Nature had suddenly started from her mesmeric trance, and was wide awake once more; and all the human hearts imprisoned in the _Anne_ responded to her electric touch. The very ship seemed endowed with living power, and bounded over the long rolling surges as if she felt the impetus of the fresh wind which filled her canvas in all her creaking timbers.

"This is glorious, Captain: shall we soon clear the banks?"

"We left them behind two hours ago."

"Shall we see land before night?"

He shook his head. "It's not in the breeks of the _Anne_. She is old, and slow in her paces. With the same wind, we shall be fortunate if we do so to-morrow."

Flora went to bed, hoping and praying for the fair wind to continue, and fill their sails on the morrow.

The morrow came, and filled its appointed place in the long annals of time; and still the ship held on her course, with the same blue skies above, and the same blue desert of ocean, limitless and vast, around.

The nearer they approached the desired haven, the more contradictory and morose Mr. Lootie became. The hope which inspired all with a flutter of joyful anticipation, seemed to awaken no feelings of gratitude and thankfulness in him. He grumbled and snarled at every one and every thing.

At noon, a vessel hove in sight. It was the first that had crossed their long and lonely path; and as she drew near, every one rushed to the deck to look at the stranger. She passed so near, that there was but a narrow path of waves between them; and her crew, in red flannel shirts and worsted caps, seemed as much swayed by the excitement of the moment, as the half-starved passengers on board the _Anne_.

The Captain bellowed through his trumpet to enquire her name, port, and destination, as she glided by, and was answered, in the same trumpet tones--

"The barque _Mary_ of London, Captain Jones; freight, timber; ten days from Quebec--all well!"

In a few minutes she was gone, soon to become a mere speck on the horizon.

Flora turned with a sigh, from following her track along the deep. She was going home, and the very thought of that distant, never-to-be-forgotten home, flooded her heart with sad memories.

"Don't look so grave, Mrs. Lyndsay," said old Boreas. "In ten days we may reach Quebec. I hear Sam ringing the bell for dinner. I thought I would give you a little treat, and have ordered the cook to prepare for us a dog's body."

"A dog's body!--Captain, you could not be so cruel!" She glanced round the deck. Oscar was lying near her, his red eyes gleaming affectionately upon her through his tangled locks. "You have not, surely, ordered the poor Northumbrian's brindled slut to be killed, to give a taste of fresh meat?"

"Why not?" said Boreas, with a grin. "To be sure, she is not in prime condition. But those three fine pups of hers are as fat as butter. The Chinese eat dog, and why should not we?"

"You are not in earnest!"

"Ask Sam."

Flora was perplexed. She saw a smile on Lyndsay's face, and went to Oscar's kennel to ascertain the fact.

Now Oscar, who had three times saved the Captain's life, rejoiced in a fine greenhouse, which stood near the companion-ladder, and was taken as much care of as any of the crew. The brindled slut had thought fit to appropriate this handsome berth to herself, in which she had a fortnight before brought forth three fine bull-dog pups, which Flora had christened Triton, Boatswain, and Neptune.

Oscar had manifested the utmost indignation at this appropriation of his property. He had tried to expel the female invader of his rights with the most awful threats of vengeance, in the shape of snarls, barks, and ferocious growls. But Madame Brindle had claimed the law of the strongest, and, without having consulted Blackstone on the subject, had found out that possession is nine parts of the law.

For a whole day Oscar had endeavoured to effect an ejectment; but the brindled slut had very calmly looked out at the door and laughed at his impotent rage, to the no small amusement of Flora. Oscar at length abandoned the contest in disgust, and not only left Madame Brindle in possession, but disdained to go near his old domicile, in which his foe made herself quite at home, with her bottle-nosed family.

Flora peeped into the kennel, but Brindle had curled herself up for a comfortable nap, and did not choose to be disturbed.

"I am glad he has not killed you, poor beast," said Flora; "but I don't see the pups," and, full of anxiety, she followed the Captain down to dinner.

The laugh was now against her; for the dog's body turned out to be a pease pudding, of which she ate very heartily, while Boreas rubbed his hands, and chuckled at the joke.

To while away the tedium of the voyage, she and Lyndsay would take it by turns to play draughts with the Captain. They always were the victors. He did not mind being beat by Lyndsay, but his pride was deeply mortified, whenever Flora won the game.

"A man may beat a man," he would grumble out, "but, d---- it, I don't like being thrashed by a woman. Mrs. Lyndsay, you have no right to beat a sailor on his own deck, at checkers."

The Captain was by no means a bad-hearted man; but he had many odd peculiarities. One of these was his insisting on keeping his pipe in the large, flat-bottomed, greasy candlestick. This afternoon he missed it from its usual place.

"Sam!" he thundered, in his stentorian voice--"Sam Fraser!--What the devil have you done with my pipe?"

"It's in the cupboard, Sir," said Sam, obsequiously.

"How dared you put it in the cupboard, when I had found out such a _clean_ place for it?"

"Why, Sir,--I thought, Sir, the cupboard was the best place for it."

"You thought! Sir, you have no business to think, without I give you leave. If I had put it in the pitch-pot, you had no right to take it out, unordered by me!"

Sam bowed with the gravity of a judge, handing him the black, greasy pipe, with the deference due from a subject to his sovereign prince.

The Captain had lost his eye in a storm, in which his ship (not the _Anne_) had suffered wreck. He had effected his escape through the cabin-window, and a splinter of the glass had pierced his eye and destroyed his sight. This was one of the occasions in which he had been saved by the faithful Oscar, who kept him above water until a boat picked him up. The splinter of glass was afterwards extracted by the surgeon of a man-of-war; and Boreas kept it in a snuff-box, which he always carried about his person, and looked upon it in the light of a charm.

"While I can keep this and Oscar," he said, "I shall never suffer from shipwreck again."

It would have been a difficult matter for any one to persuade him to part with the one or the other of these precious relics.

A great many private letters had been entrusted to his care. This was against the law. Boreas was aware of the fact, and took advantage of it. Every dull day, Sundays especially, he brought these letters from the depths of his huge sea-chest, and amused himself by spelling them over, until he must have learned their contents by heart.

Lyndsay remonstrated with him on this dishonourable conduct.

"Hout! man," he said, "the writers of these letters cheated the Government in sending them by me. It just serves them right. I shall read them as often as I please."

This fact should be a useful hint to persons who, for the sake of saving a trifling amount of postage, entrust letters of consequence to private hands. These letters never reached their destination. After having afforded entertainment to this rough seaman during the voyage, they were thrown overboard before the vessel arrived at Quebec.

The next day the wind still continued fair, but the weather was hazy, and sultry hot. The Captain promised the first man who should descry land a dollar, and a double allowance of grog.

"I'll bet upon the little tailor," he cried, as he saw Sandy mounting with alacrity to his lofty perch. "That fellow has a great soul, though he wears a small pair of breeks. There's luck in his sharp face and keen eye."

James Hawke determined not to be outdone by the tailor, and took up an exalted position on the mast, while the rest of the passengers walked to and fro the deck, straining their eyes, and looking in all directions for the promised land. A bank of dull grey clouds obscured the distant horizon, and for some time they looked in vain.

A warm resinous smell came at times upon the wind, and large masses of sea-weed floated continually past. Flora was watching these with great interest, when the little brown man, who had kept quiet for some days, sauntered to her side.

He was in a more contradictory mood than ever.

"A fine day, Mrs. Lyndsay."

"Rather hazy.--It looks like rain."

"_Quite_ the reverse. The sky is _quite_ clear."

"Independent of that fog-bank."

"_Fog!_ I see no _fog_. You are blind, my dear Madam. The atmosphere is _unusually_ clear."

Flora stared at him. "Could the man be in his senses?" Presently she remarked, "that they must be near land, from the quantity of sea-weed floating upon the water."

"_That's_ not sea-weed!"

"Mr. Lootie, I was born and brought up on the sea-coast: don't you think I know sea-weed?"

"Not if you call pieces of reed and grass _sea-weed_. And as to being _near_ land, that's all fudge. The Captain only says so to please you."

Lyndsay, who was standing near, now took Flora's arm, and walked to the other side of the deck. "What a little contradictory, snarling creature it is!" he said. "Why do you bandy words with him? Look, here is a piece of twisted paper. I will go forward, and throw it overboard. It looks like nothing but what it is. You return to Lootie, and when it passes, say, 'There's a piece of white paper,' and just hear how he will contradict the fact."

Flora did as she was told.

Presently the paper floated just beneath the spot where they were standing.

"Ah!" cries Flora, with feigned surprise, "we must be near land. See--there is a piece of white paper."

"Pshaw! _Paper indeed!_ where are your eyes? It is a _feather_--a white _feather_, belonging to some sea-fowl or other."

"A _goosle_, perhaps, Mr. Lootie. But no, it is what I say, a piece of paper."

"A _feather_, Madam, a _feather_!"

"Why, there's writing upon it; I see the letters."

"Nonsense, it is a _feather_, speckled with black and grey. I'll swear it's a _feather_!" and his shrill voice rose almost to a scream.

Lyndsay joined the disputants, hardly able to keep from laughing in the face of the angry little elf. "Flora, did you see the piece of paper I flung overboard just now? I thought it would set you wondering?"

"Now, Mr. Lootie, what do you say to your _feather_?"

"That I hate senseless jokes, and the fools who make them," snarled the ex-distiller, as he retired with a face as black as a thunder-cloud.

About four in the afternoon, the clouds cleared away, the sun came out brilliantly, and the cry of "Land! land, to the left!" was sung out lustily from the mast-head.

The little tailor had won the promised reward, and it was not many minutes before he reached the deck to claim it.

Land was indeed in sight, not exactly that which they looked for. The ship was considerably out of the usual track, and was rather too near for safety, to the stern mountain peak of Cape Breton. The Captain calculated it to be about fourteen miles distant before sunset, and the dark outline of rock and forest was visible to the naked eye.

It was a warm, delicious summer evening, and the smell of the pine forests was as rich as gales of Araby to the poor emigrants. The Captain had treated all hands to a stiff glass of grog; and the Duncans had tuned their fiddles, and young and old were assembled upon the deck for a dance.

Flora was too much entranced with the sight of land, to heed the dancers as they bounded past; shouting and laughing in their mad revel of mirth.

The moon had risen above the frowning Cape, and flooded the land and sea with light. The jollity of the passengers and crew profaned the calm grandeur of the night--the august and profound solitude of sea and sky. Gladly would she have shut out all such sights and sounds, to commune with her own heart, with nature, and with nature's God, while gazing upon such a scene, at such an hour. "But fast and furious grew the fun," and a cry from her babe, whom she had left sleeping in her little cabin, faint as it was, reached her maternal ear; and she left the revellers, to attend to the wants of her child.

Josey was fretful and restless, and more than an hour elapsed before she could hush her again to sleep. She was still lying beside her on her berth, with the little creature's arms clasped tightly about her neck, when the ship seemed to reel and lurch, as if suddenly struck by a tremendous blow. Then came shouts and cries--the trampling of feet, the creaking of ropes and chains; and still the ship plunged and tossed, with such a violent motion, that she had to hold to the berth to keep her feet. What could all this mean?--was she in a dream? Everything was bright and beautiful above, when she quitted the deck. Whence then came the confusion of sounds--the hoarse roaring of winds--the dashing of waves--the fearful tossing to and fro of her ocean home? Flora gently unclasped the clinging arms of her sleeping babe, and groping her way through the dark cabin, with great difficulty succeeded in climbing the companion-ladder, and bringing her head on a level with the deck.

She did not venture higher. She saw enough to convince her that women had no place amid the horrors of such an awful scene. A sudden squall from the mountains had struck the ship. The moon had withdrawn her light; and vast masses of clouds covered the sky, which was before so clear and brilliant. Vast sheets of foam enveloped the vessel, and huge billows thundered upon her deck. Not a stitch of canvas was to be seen; some of the sails had been rent from the mast by the gale; the rest were close furled. Lyndsay and four other men were at the rudder, to keep the ship in her course. The roaring of the winds and waves was deafening. Flora's heart beat violently for a moment, then grew calm before the grandeur of the scene.

"We are in the hands of God!" she thought; "in life and death we are His. Submission to His will is the sublimity of faith!"

In the cabin everything was loose. Trunks rolled from side to side. The mate had removed the light, and utter darkness prevailed. It was a long time before she could regain her little domicile--the ship pitched with such violence, that every step brought her to her knees; at length she found the door, and lifting the mattress from her berth, into which she found it impossible to climb, she took her baby in her arms, and lay down upon the heaving floor, commending herself and her fellow-passengers to the care of God.

To sleep was impossible; but her mind seemed sustained by a lofty courage which made her feel calm in the midst of danger. This strength was not her own; it was derived from a higher source--a firm reliance on the unerring wisdom and providence of God. If death was His decree, she would try to meet it with becoming fortitude. Resistance and lamentations were alike useless; even prayers for self-preservation appeared impious. She was in His keeping, and she felt confident that whatever might befal her and those so dear to her was for the best.

The hurricane roared through the long starless night. Floods of rain forced their way through the skylight, and drenched her bed. She buried her head in the wet blankets, and shivered with cold. Yet Josey slept as peacefully as ever on her mother's breast, happily unconscious of the terrors of the hour.

About four o'clock in the morning, Lyndsay opened the door of her little cabin. The water was streaming from his garments.

"Flora, are you awake?"

"Yes, darling," she cried, starting to a sitting posture; "who could sleep in such a storm?"

"It has been a dreadful night. The danger is over. The ship is no longer on the lee shore, but standing out to sea. At one time, we expected that she would run upon the rocks and go down. The gale still continues, but we have plenty of sea-room. I have been hard at work all night. The men behaved like trumps--especially old Macdonald and the Dragoon. I am going to change these wet clothes, and lie down for an hour. So content yourself, my Flora. Thank God for our deliverance, and go to sleep."

Flora had silently done that already. In a few minutes she was slumbering as peacefully as Josey--dreaming of green fields, and running brooks, and wandering with dear familiar faces, among nature's quiet haunts, in the memory-haunting eternity of the past.