Born to Wander Part 27

"Right welcome you are, Douglas," she added. "Oh, how glad I am to see you both!"

"There now, Eff," said her brother, in his old cheery way, "no more tears; it must be all joy now, joy and jollity."

Douglas ran off home now to see his father, and I pa.s.s over the scene of reunion betwixt Leonard and his parents.

"Dear boy," said his father more than once that evening, "I don't care for anything now I've got you back, and I don't mind confessing that I really never expected to see you more."

But in an hour or two in came Captain Fitzroy and Douglas.

Then somehow or other the household horizon took a cheerier tone; there was such an amount of indwelling happiness and pleasantry about the honest Captain's face, that no one could have been in his company for five minutes without feeling the better of it.

About nine o'clock Captain Lyle got up and took down from its shelf a large volume covered with calfskin. It was,--

"The big ha' Bible, ance his father's pride."

Solemn words were read, solemn words were spoken, and heartfelt was the prayer and full of grat.i.tude that was said when all knelt down.

Family wors.h.i.+p was conducted thus early, lest, as Lyle said, everybody should get sleepy. But this did not close the evening. For all sat around the fire long, long after that, and if the whole truth must be told, the c.o.c.ks in the farmer's yard hard by had wakened up and begun to crow when Douglas and his father bade good-night to the cottagers, and went slowly homewards along the beach.

You see there had been such a deal to talk about.

A day or two afterwards who should arrive at the cottage but Captain Blunt himself, and with him honest, kindly, rough old Skipper James. It is needless to say that the latter received a royal welcome.

"We can never, never thank you enough," said Mrs Lyle, "for bringing back our boys."

"Pooh!" said Skipper James, "my dear lady, that is nothing; don't bother thanking me, mention me and my old s.h.i.+p in your prayers, when we're on the sea."

"That I'm sure we will never forget to do."

Lyle and Fitzroy were walking together on the beach about a week after the wanderers' return.

"I've been trying to get my boy to stay at home now altogether," said Lyle.

"Well, and I've been trying mine."

"But _mine_ won't; he says he was born to wander, and wander he will."

"Just the same with mine."

"And Leonard has given up his allowance, dear boy! He says he will work now for his living, and that the seamans.h.i.+p he has learned must stand as his profession. He is full of hope though, and I fear we'll soon lose our lads again."

"For a time--yes, for a time. Be cheerful, remember what I prophesied; all will yet be well, and if they really are born to wander nothing can prevent them."

"What's that about being born to wander?" said Captain Blunt, coming quietly up behind them. "Because," he added, "here's another."

"What!" said Captain Lyle. "Are you going to sea again?"

"I've just left your lads," replied Blunt, "and I've made them an offer that they both jump at. You see, I've made a bit of money, and though I have been in the merchant service all my life, I can't say that ever I have seen the world in a quiet way. Had always, in port, to look after my men and cargo, and hardly ever could get a week to myself. So now, in a barque of my own, I'm going round the world for a bit of an outing, and your boys are going with me. I've offered them fair wage, and, depend upon it, I'll do my best to make them happy, and I won't come back without them. What say you two fathers?"

"What can we say," said Lyle, grasping Captain Blunt's rough h.o.r.n.y hand, "but thank you?"

"And boys will be boys," added Fitzroy, with a ringing laugh that startled the very sea-birds.

Two months after this our heroes had bidden their relations once more adieu, and were afloat on the wide Atlantic.

But before this the whole party had gone to the Clyde, where Captain Blunt's barque was building, and in due form, with all due ceremony, Effie, with a blush of modesty and beauty on her sweet young face, had christened the s.h.i.+p.

And her name was the _Gloaming Star_.

Book 3--CHAPTER ONE.

ADVENTURES IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.

"Far in the west there lies a desert land, where the mountains Lift through perpetual snows their lofty and luminous summits; Billowy bays of gra.s.s, ever rolling in shadow and suns.h.i.+ne; Over them wander the buffalo herds and the elk and the roebuck; Over them wander the wolves, and herds of riderless horses; Over them wander the scattered tribes of Ishmael's children, Staining the desert with blood: and above their terrible war trails, Circles and sails aloft, on pinions majestic, the vulture, Like the implacable soul of a chieftain slaughtered in battle."

Longfellow.

Scene: A green sea tempest-tossed, the waves houses high. White clouds ma.s.sed along the windward horizon, giving the appearance not only of ice-clad rocks and towers, but of a great mountainous snow-land. And above this a broad lift of deepest blue, and higher still--like the top scene on a stage--a curtain-cloud of driving hail. One s.h.i.+p visible, staggering along with but little sail on her.

It was near sunset when Captain Blunt came below to the cabin of the _Gloaming Star_. "It is a bitter night, Leonard," he said, rubbing his hand and chafing his ears. "The wind is as cold as ever we felt it in Greenland."

"Blowing right off the ice, isn't it?"

"Yes, with a bit of west in it, and I do think somehow that the wind of the Antarctic is keener, rawer, and colder than any that ever blows across the pack at the other Pole."

Soon after this Leonard himself went on deck. Here was his friend Douglas, m.u.f.fled up in a monkey-jacket with a sou'-wester on his head, and great woollen gloves on his hands, tramping up and down the deck as if for a wager.

"How do you like it, Doug?"

"Ha!" said Douglas, "you're laughing, are you? Well, your watch comes on at four in the morning. There won't be much laughing then, lad. How delightful the warm bed will seem when--"

"There, there, Douglas, pray don't bring your imagination to bear on it.

It will be bad enough without that."

The two now walked up and down together, only stopping occasionally to gaze at the sky.

There was little pleasure in looking weatherward, however, only a clear sky there now, with the jagged waves for an uneven s.h.i.+fting horizon, but where the sun had gone down the view was inexpressibly lovely. The background beneath was saturnine red, shading into a yellow-green, and higher up into a dark blue, and yonder shone a solitary star, one glance at which never failed to carry our sailors' thoughts homeward.

Now something over three years had elapsed since the _Gloaming Star_ sailed away from the Clyde, since the wild Arran hills were last seen in the sunset's rays, and the rocky coast of this romantic island had grown hazy and faint, and faded at last from view.

Years of wandering and adventure they had been, too--years during which many a gale had been weathered, here and there in many lands, and many a difficulty boldly faced and overcome.

As our two heroes, Leonard and Douglas, walk up and down the deck, and the wind blows loud and keen from off the Antarctic ice, I will try to recount a few of those adventures, though to tell them all would be impossible. I will but dip into their logs, and read you off the entries on a few of the leaves thereof.

OPENING THE LOG AT RANDOM.

I open the log at random, as it were, and first and foremost I find the wanderers--where? Why, among the Rocky Mountains. The _Gloaming Star_ is safe and sound in New York harbour, under the charge of no less a personage than Rory O'Reilly himself, who is second mate of her.

To cross the vast stretch of country that lies between the Atlantic Ocean and this wild mountain range was in those days a daring deed in itself. As long as they were in the midst of comparative civilisation they were safe, but this once left behind, with only the rolling prairie in front of them, hills, glens, woods, and forests, and a network of streams, the danger was such that many a brave man would have shrunk therefrom.