"Yes, unless his ship is wrecked, and he is drowned, and poorpapa never, never knows where we are."
_Leonard_ (laughing). "Why, Eff, what a long face you pull! It isalways `ever ever' or `never never' with you. Now I dreamt last nighthe would return in a week, and I'm sure he'll come. No use looking outof the window any longer to-night, Eff. The sun is just going down, andthe sea-birds are all going to roost in the cliffs beneath the window.And it is time for the great lamps to be lit. Come on, Eff; let us goup with old Grindlay."
Effie checked a sigh, cut it in two, as it were, and turned it into alaugh, and next minute both were out on the grass among the sheep, andgazing up at the whitewashed tower, which seemed so very tall to them.
"Ahoy-oy-oy!" sang Leonard, with one hand to his mouth in true sailorfashion. "Are you up there, old shipmate?"
"Ay, lad, ay," a cheery voice returned. "Come up and bring missie."
They were pattering up the stone stairs next minute, and soon arrivedpanting and breathless at the lamp room.
Old Grindlay was there, and had already lit up, and by-and-bye, whendarkness fell, the gleam from the great lamps would shine far over thesea, and be seen perhaps by many a ship homeward bound from distantlands. It was very still and quiet up here, only the wind sighing roundthe roof, the occasional shriek and mournful scream of some sea-bird,and the boom of the dark waters breaking lazily on the rocks beneath.Old Grindlay sat on a little stool waiting for his son to come and keepwatch, the two men, with old Grindlay's "old woman," as he called hiswife, being all that dwelt on the island, and no boats ever visited itexcept about once a month.
Old Grindlay was kindly-hearted, but terribly ugly. As he sat therewinking and blinking at the light, he looked more like a gnome than ahuman being. His son's step was heard on the stone stairs at last, and,preceded by a cloud of tobacco smoke, he presently appeared. He was afar more cheerful-looking being than his father, but Leonard and Effieliked the latter better.
"Come, my dears," said the little gnome, "let us toddle."
"Keep the lights bright, Harry lad; I think it's going to blow."
Down the long stairs they went, and away into the house. The supper waslaid in the old-fashioned kitchen, and cheerful it looked; for though itwas July a bit of fire was burning on the hearth. It was wreckage theyused for fuel here, and every bit of wood could have told a sorrowful,perhaps even tragic story, had it been able to speak.
"Something tells me, children," said old Mrs Grindlay, as she clearedaway the remains of the supper, "that you will not be long here. Harkto the sound of the rising wind! God save all at sea to-night!"
"Amen," said the gnome.
"Amen," said Leonard and Effie in one breath.
"Gather close round the fire now, children, and let us feel thankful tothe Great Father that we are well and safe."
The old woman began knitting as she spoke, the gnome replenished thefire with a few more pieces of wreck to drive the cold sea air out ofthe chimney. Then he lit his pipe, and sat down in his favouritecorner.
After a pause, during which nothing was heard but the roar of the risingwind and the solemn boom of the waves, and the steady tick of an oldclock that wagged the time away in a corner,--
"Why," said Effie, "do you think we'll soon go?"
"I cannot tell you," replied the old lady, and her stocking wiresclicked faster and faster. "We folks who live for years and years inthe midst of the sea, have warnings of coming events that shore folkscould never understand. But the house won't seem the same, Effie, whenyou and Leonard are gone away--heigho!"
"Well," said Effie, "I'll be so sorry to go, and yet so glad."
"Tell us a story," said Leonard, "and change the subject. Hush! whatwas that?"
A wild and mournful scream it was, and sounded close under the window.
"That is a cry we often hear," said the old lighthouse keeper, "alwaysbefore a storm, sometimes before a wreck. It's a bird, I suppose, ormaybe a mermaid. Do I believe in them? I do. I'll tell you a strangedream I had once upon a time, though I don't think it could have been adream."
OLD GRINDLAY'S DREAM.
"It was far away in the Greenland seas I was, sailing northwards towardsSpitzbergen. I was second mate of the bonnie barque _Scotia's Queen_.Well, one dark night we were ploughing away on a bit of a beam wind,doing maybe about an eight knots, maybe not so much. There was verylittle ice about, and as I had eight hours _in_ that night, I went earlyto my bunk, and was soon fast asleep. It must have been well on to twobells in the middle watch--the spectioneer's--when I awoke all of asudden like. I don't know, no more than Adam, what I could have beenthinking about, but I crept out of my bunk in the state-room, where alsothe doctor and steward slept, and up on deck I went. I wondered tomyself more than once if I really was in a dream. But there were sailsand rigging, and the stars all shining, and the ship bobbing andcurtseying to the dark waters, that went swishing and lapping alongsideof her, and all awfully real for a dream. I could hear the men talkinground the fo'c's'le, and smell their tobacco, too.
"Well, Leonard, I went to the weatherside, and leant over to calculate,sailor fashion, our rate of speed, when I noticed something like asquare dark shadow on the water at the gangway. There was nothing aboveto cause so strange a shadow, but while I was yet wondering a faceappeared in the middle of it, the face of a lovely woman. I saw it asplain as I see dear wee Effie's at this present moment. The long yellowhair was floating on the top of the water, and a fair hand beckoned me,and a sweet voice said, `Come.' I thought of nothing but how to savethe life of what I took to be a drowning woman. I sprang over at once,though I never could swim a stroke, and down I sank like lead. Therewas a surging roar of water in my ears, and I remembered nothing moretill I found myself at the bottom of the sea, with a strange green lightfrom a window in a rock a kind of dazzling my eyes. The woman's faceand long yellow hair were close beside me, and the fair arms were roundme.
"I tried to pray, but I was speechless. Then the rock in front seemedto open of its own accord, and next minute I was inside. But oh! what agorgeous hall--what a home of delight! There were other mermaidsthere--ay, scores of them. There was light and warmth all around us,that appeared to come from the precious stones of which the walls werebuilt, and the glittering pillars that supported the roof.
"Such flowers, too, as grew in snow-white vases I had never seen before!
"Then music began to float through the hall, slow and solemn at first,then quicker and quicker, and all at once the marble floor was filledwith fairies--the loveliest elves imagination could paint--all minglingand mixing in a mazy dance with waving arms and floating hair, and allkeeping time to the music. The mermaids, too, left the couches of pearlon which they had been reclining, and were carried through and throughthe air, the ends of their bodies covered with long floating drapery ofgreen and crimson. Then some of these strange creatures brought mefruit and wine, and bade me eat and drink. I fain would have spoken,but all my attempts were in vain.
"Suddenly our ship's bell rang out clear enough, ting-ting, ting-ting,ting-ting, _ting_. It was seven bells, and all the mermaids and fairiesmelted away before me, the music died away as if drowned, the surging ofwater returned to my ears, and next moment my head was above the sea,and I could see the stars shining down, and looking so large and nearand clear, as they always do in those northern seas. In a minute I hadcaught the chains, and swung myself on board. I went to bed. In themorning I awoke, and laughed to myself as I thought of my dream, but mylaughing was changed to wonder when I found every stitch of my clothingwringing with salt water, and when the spectioneer told me that he hadseen me with his own eyes come on deck at two bells and go below atseven. Then I told him and the rest the story, and we all agreed thatit was something far more than a dream."
Effie sat looking into the fire for some time in silence; then shesaid,--
"Were there no mermen in that lovely hall, and were they verynoble-looking and gallant, like my dear
papa in uniform?"
"_No_," said old Grindlay, "I don't think mermen would have beenadmitted into such a place any more than the great sea-serpent would."
"Why not?"
"Because, missie, they are such ugly old customers. I've never seenone, that I know of, but a mate that sailed with me said he had, andthat it was uglier than the faces we sometimes see on door-knockers, anduglier than any baboon that ever grinned and gibbered in an Africanforest."
"How terrible!" said Effie.
"Oh, I should like to meet one of those!" said Leonard. "And I've beentold that the mermaids wouldn't live anywhere near where these mermenare,