our eyesoff poor ma's face when she took the letter, tore it open, and began toread. A glance at the envelope told her it was his dear handwriting, soa gleam of joy came into her eyes, and a fond smile half-played roundher lips. Alas! both the gleam and the smile were quickly banished, andwere succeeded by a look of utter despair. Oh, my beautiful mother, howdazed and strange she appeared! One glance round the table, then theletter dropped from her fingers, and we rushed to support her.
But the flood of tears came now fast enough, and as she threw herself onthe sofa in a paroxysm of grief, we really thought her heart wouldbreak.
Speak she could not for a time.
"Oh, mother dear, what is it?"
"Tell us, mother, tell us all."
"Is father killed?"
The sight of our anguish probably helped to stem for a time the currentof her own.
"N-no," she sobbed. "Father is not killed--but he is wounded--slightly,he says,--and, I must go away to him."
Here she hugged us to her breast.
"It will not be for long, children--only just a little, little time--andyou must both be so good."
Our turn had come now--our very hearts seemed swamped as the great griefcame swelling over them, like the waves of the ocean. She let us weepfor a time, she made no attempt either to repress our tears or to stopour senseless, incoherent talk.
"You cannot go. You must not leave us."
This, and this alone, was the burden of our song. Alas! the fiat hadgone forth, and in our very souls we knew and felt it. Once more shekissed us, then auntie led us out, saying we must leave mamma a littlewhile for her good. We would do anything for ma's good, even to goingaway into the schoolroom--which never before had looked so grim andcheerless--and squatting on our goatskin to cry. Every now and thenpoor Jill would say--
"Don't _you_ cry so, Jack."
And every now and then I would make the same request to him.
They say there is no love equal to that a mother bears for a child; buttell me this, ye who have known it, what love exceeds that which a fondand sensitive child bears for a mother? and oh, what else on earth canfill the aching void that is left when she is gone?
For a time weeping gave us relief, then even that consolation was takenaway. I just felt that my life's lamp had clean gone out, that therewas no more hope--_could_ be no more hope for me.
It was difficult to realise or grasp all the terrible truth at once.Mother going away! Our own dear darling mother, and we, perhaps never,never to see her more! Never listen to her voice again at eventide,singing low to us by the firelight, or telling us tales by our bedside!Never kneel again by her knees to pray! Never feel again her softgood-night kisses, nor the touch of her loving hands! Never--but herethe tears returned, and once more Jill and I wept in each other's arms.
In times of grief like this I think the mind is more highly sensitised,as a photographic artist would say, and takes and retains impressionsmore quickly. For the _minutiae_ even of that sad eventful morning arestill retained in my memory in a remarkable way. I remember theslightest sounds and most trivial sights heard or seen by Jill and me aswe sat in our listless grief by the window. I remember the yelp of alittle cur we used to pity, because it was always tied up; the laugh ofa street carter as he talked to a neighbour; the dreary, intermittenttapping of the twig of a rose-bush against the glass; the low boom ofthe breaking waves. I remember it was raining; that the wind blew highacross the sea; that the sea itself was grey and chafing, and apparentlyall in motion in one direction, like some mighty river of the new world;I remember the dripping bushes in the front garden, and the extra-greenlook of the rain-varnished paling around it; and even the little poolsof water on the street, and the buffeted appearance of the fewpassengers striving to hold umbrellas up against the toilsome wind.
Mother came quietly in, and--she was smiling now.
How much that smile cost her, mothers alone may tell, but even we knewit was a smile _without_, to hide the grief _within_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mother went away.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
For many a long month now there was a blank, a void in our hearts and inour home that nothing could fill.
Except Hope.
"Hope springs eternal in the human breast." Truer words were neverspoken. When Hope dies, Life itself is soon extinct.
Auntie Serapheema did all she could now to cheer us. She was far lessprim and stern with Jill and me. One o'clock struck no more on hisknuckles nor on mine. She even shortened our school hours, and waseasier with us in the matter of "ologies" and "ographies." Letters camefrequently and with great regularity, and they were always cheerful.Father was better, and mother would be happy if they could both gethome, and they hoped to. Yes, they hoped to, but no letter said when,or how soon that hope might be realised.
But one of the most cheerful letters was from father himself, in whichhe said he trusted to be able to send us both into the Royal Navy ascadets. To be naval officers had always been our dream of dreams,Jill's and mine. To wear the grand old uniform of blue and gold, totread the snowy quarter-deck with swords by our side, and the white flagfluttering in the sunshine overhead--
"The flag that braved a thousand years, The battle and the breeze--"
to sail the seas, to hear great guns firing, to attack ships and forts,and do all kinds of gallant deeds for our own glory and our country'sgood--this constituted our notions of life as it ought to be led.
We would have to pass, though. The examination, however, was not astiff one. Jill and I were but little over ten, but thanks to auntie weknew most of the subjects already well, if not thoroughly.
Would we pass the doctor with flying colours? Well, we were hardy andhealthy, though at that time of no extra physique. We must get strongersomehow. Auntie consulted the family doctor, she herself suggesting"dumb-bells." The doctor's reply was--"Fiddlesticks, madam,fiddlesticks,"--for doctors do not like other people, especiallyfemale-people, to put words in their mouths. But auntie was a littlediscomposed at the brusque mention of "fiddlesticks."
"What then would _you_ suggest, sir?" she said, pompously.
The doctor simply pointed with his forefinger first at the green hillsand cliffs, then at the sea, took up his hat and marched out of theroom, curtly bowing her "good morning" as he turned in the doorway.
Now, whom should we find in earnest confab with auntie next forenoon butBill Moore, the ship keeper.
Jill and I at once beat a discreet retreat.
I must tell you a little more about Bill. He had not always been simplyBill Moore, but _Mr_ Moore. He had, first and foremost as a young man,taken honours in classics and mathematics at a northern university, thengone straight "to the dogs"--so they said. When he in some measurerecovered himself--war being then going on--he had joined the service(Royal Navy) as a man ready and willing to turn his hand to anything.Well, they were not so particular in those days; they would not refusebone and muscle in whatever shape it came, and Bill had been a handsomefellow in his day. He got on in the service, and though he soon becamean A.B., and really preferred to be before the mast, he was ratedschoolmaster for many years, but finally received an appointment ascoast-guardsman, and latterly, as we know, keeper of the hulk, with afairly good pension.
He took a great fancy for us, and as somehow or other auntie had anacute and undying aversion to public schools, when Mr Bill Mooreproposed we should come to the hulk and be drilled by him physically andmentally, she felt greatly inclined to accede. Hence the presentinterview.
"Perhaps they might do better at a public school, Miss, than with me,but--"
"I won't hear of a public school," auntie cut in with, curtly.
"Well, Miss, we have a mast and ratlins on my old tub; I would take carethey were well drilled and had plenty of exercise, my wife will lookafter their internal comforts, and I can i
nsure their passing theirexaminations in a year or two."
"And they would be out of harm's way," mused my aunt.
"We'll have strict discipline, Miss. They must not leave the shipwithout my permission."
"There would be no objection to your having the boys, I suppose?"
"I know the old admiral well, Miss; sailed with him for five long years,and blew the Russians about a bit. No, I went straight to him before Iwrote to you."
"And what did he say?"
"`Do what you please with the old _Thunderbolt_,' he said, `only don'tset her on fire.' These are his words, Miss."
"Well, then, Mr Moore, I think you may consider the matter as settled.The boys will not be far away, they will be under control anddiscipline, they will know something beforehand about ships, and theycan come home, I suppose, now and then