a cloud comes over ruth’s hopes, and dims their brightness.
to prevent the reader supposing that there is any deep-laid scheme or profound mystery with which we mean to torment him during the course of our tale, we may as well say at once that the little plot, which ruth had in view, and which began to grow quite into a romance the longer she pondered it, was neither more nor less than to bring captain bream and mrs david bright face to face.
ruth had what we may style a constructive mind. give her a few rough materials, and straight-way she would build a castle with them. if she had not enough of material, she immediately invented more, and thus continued her castle-building. being highly imaginative and romantic, her structures were sometimes amazing edifices, at which orthodox architects might have turned up their noses—and with some reason, too, for poor little ruth’s castles were built frequently on bad foundations, and sometimes even in the air, so that they too often fell in splendid ruins at her feet!
it would not be just however, to say that none of ruth’s buildings stood firm. occasionally she built upon a good foundation. now and then she made a straight shot and hit the mark. for instance, the little edifice of cuffs and comforters to the north sea trawlers survived, and remains to the present day a monument of usefulness, (which few monuments are), and of well-placed philanthropy. it may not, perhaps, be just to say that ruth actually laid the foundation—conceived the first idea—of that good work, but she was at all events among the first builders, became an active overseer, and did much of the work with her own hands. still, as we have said, too many of ruth’s castles came to the ground, and the poor thing was so well used to the sight of falling material that she had at last begun to be quite expert in detecting the first symptoms of dissolution, and often regarded them with despairing anxiety. it was so with her when captain bream was summoned so suddenly away from yarmouth.
eagerly, anxiously, had she planned to get him down to that town for the purpose of confronting him with mrs david bright—the reason being that, from various things the captain had said to her at different times, and from various remarks that mrs bright had made on sundry occasions, she felt convinced that the north sea fisherman’s wife was none other than captain bream’s long-lost sister!
it would be well-nigh impossible, as well as useless, to investigate the process of reasoning and the chain of investigation by which she came to this conclusion, but having once laid the foundation, she began to build on it with her wonted enthusiasm, and with a hopefulness that partial failure could not destroy.
the captain’s departure, just when she hoped to put the copestone on her little edifice was a severe blow, for it compelled her to shut up her hopes and fears in her own breast, and, being of a sympathetic nature, that was difficult. but ruth was a wise little woman as well as sympathetic. she had sense enough to know that it might be a tremendous disappointment to captain bream, if, after having had his hopes raised, it were discovered that mrs bright was not his sister. ruth had therefore made up her mind not to give the slightest hint to him, or to any one else, about her hopes, until the matter could be settled by bringing the two together, when, of course, they would at once recognise each other.
although damped somewhat by this unlooked-for interruption to her little schemes, she did not allow her efforts to flag.
“i see,” she said one day, on entering the theological library, where jessie, having laid down a worsted cuff which she had been knitting, was deep in leslie’s short and easy method with the deists, and kate, having dropped a worsted comforter, had lost herself in chalmers’s astronomical discourses. “i see you are both busy, so i won’t disturb you. i only looked in to say that i’m going out for an hour or two.”
“we are never too busy, darling,” said jessie, “to count your visits an interruption. would you like us to walk with you?”
“n–no. not just now. the fact is, i am going out on a little private expedition,” said ruth, pursing her mouth till it resembled a cherry.
“oh! about that little plot?” asked jessie, laughing. ruth nodded and joined in the laugh, but would not commit herself in words.
“now, don’t work too hard, kate,” she cried with an arch look as she turned to leave.
“it is harder work than you suppose, miss impudence,” said kate; “what with cuffs and contradictions, comforters and confusion, worsted helmets and worse theology, my brain seems to be getting into what the captain calls a sort of semi-theological lop-scowse that quite unfits me for anything. go away, you naughty girl, and carry out your dark plots, whatever they are.”
ruth ran off laughing, and soon found herself at the door of mrs bright’s humble dwelling.
now, mrs bright, although very fond of her fair young visitor, had begun, as we have seen, to grow rather puzzled and suspicious as to her frequent inquiries into her past history.
“you told me, i think, that your maiden name was bream,” said ruth, after a few remarks about the weather and the prospects of the short blue fleet, etcetera.
“yes, miss ruth,” answered mrs bright; but the answer was so short and her tone so peculiar that poor scheming little ruth was quelled at once. she did not even dare to say another word on the subject nearest her heart at the time, and hastily, if not awkwardly, changed the subject to little billy.
here indeed she had touched a theme in regard to which mrs bright was always ready to respond.
“ah! he is a good boy, is billy,” she said, “an uncommonly good boy—though he is not perfect by any means. and he’s a little too fond of fighting. but, after all, it’s not for its own sake he likes it, dear boy! it’s only when there’s a good reason for it that he takes to it. did i ever tell you about his kicking a boy bigger than himself into the sea off the end of the pier?”
“no, you never told me that.”
“well, this is how it was. there’s a small girl named lilly brass—a sweet little tot of four years old or thereabouts, and billy’s very fond of her. lilly has a brother named tommy, who’s as full of mischief as an egg is full of meat, and he has a trick of getting on the edge of the pier near where they live, and tryin’ to walk on it and encouraging lilly to follow him. the boy had been often warned not to do it, but he didn’t mind, and my billy grew very angry about it.
“‘i don’t care about little brass himself mother,’ said billy to me one day; ‘he may tumble in an’ be drownded if he likes, but i’m afeared for little lilly, for she likes to do what he does.’
“so, one day billy saw tommy brass at his old tricks, with lilly looking on, quite delighted, and what did my boy do, think ye? he went up to brass, who was bigger and older than himself, and gave him such a hearty kick that it sent him right off into the sea. the poor boy could not swim a stroke, and the water was deep, so my billy, who can swim like a fish, jumped in after him and helped to get him safe ashore. tommy brass was none the worse; so, after wringing the water out of his clothes, he went up to billy and gave him a slap in the face. billy is not a boastful boy. he does not speak much when he’s roused; but he pulled off his coat and gave brass such a thump on the nose that he knocked him flat on the sand. up he jumped, however, in a moment and went at billy furiously, but he had no chance. my boy was too active for him. he jumped a’ one side, struck out his leg, and let him tumble over it, giving him a punch on the head as he went past that helped to send his nose deeper into the sand. at last he beat him entirely, and then, as he was puttin’ on his jacket again, he said—‘tommy brass, it ain’t so much on account o’ that slap you gave me, that i’ve licked you, but because you ’ticed lilly into danger. and, you mark what i say: every time i catch you walkin’ on that there pier-edge, or hear of you doin’ of it, i’ll give you a lickin’.’
“tommy brass has never walked on that pier-edge since,” concluded mrs bright, “but i’m sorry to say that ever since that day lilly brass has refused to have a word to say to billy, and when asked why, she says, ‘’cause he sowsed an’ whacked my brudder tommy!’”
thus did mrs bright entertain her visitor with comment and anecdote about billy until she felt at last constrained to leave without having recovered courage to broach again the subject which had brought her to the fisherman’s home.
that same afternoon mrs bright paid a friendly visit to the wife of her husband’s mate.
“i can’t think whatever miss ruth dotropy is so curious about me for, she’s bin at me again,” said mrs bright to mrs davidson, who was busy with her needle on some part of the costume of her “blessed babby,” which lay, like an angel, in its little crib behind the door.
“p’r’aps it’s all along of her bein’ so interested in you,” replied pretty mrs davidson. “she asks me many odd questions at times about myself, and my dear joe, and the babby—though i admit she don’t inquire much about my past life.”
“well, that’s not surprising,” said mrs bright with a laugh, as she sat down on a stool to have a chat. “you see, maggie, you haven’t got much of a past life to inquire about, and joe is such a good man that you’ve no call to be suspecting anything; but it wasn’t always so with my dear david. i wouldn’t say it even to you, maggie, if it wasn’t that everybody in yarmouth knows it—my david drinks hard sometimes, and although i know he’s as true as gold to me, an’ never broke the laws of the land, everybody won’t believe that, you know, and the dear man might fall under suspicion.”
“but you don’t suppose, if he did,” said mrs davidson, with a look of surprise, “that miss ruth would go about actin’ the part of a detective, do you?”
“well, no, i don’t,” replied her friend, looking somewhat puzzled. “all the same it is mysterious why she should go on as she’s bin doin’, asking me what my maiden name was, and who my relations were, and if i ever had any brothers, and when and where i first met wi’ david. but whatever her reasons may be i’m resolved that she’ll get nothing more out of me.”
“of course,” returned maggie, “you must do as you think right in that matter. all i can say is, i would tell miss ruth all that was in my mind without any fear that she’d abuse my confidence.”
“ah! maggie, i might say that too if my mind and conscience were as clear as yours. but they’re not. it is true i have long ago brought my sins to jesus and had them washed away in his precious blood. and i never cease to pray for my dear david, but—but—”
“don’t you fear, nell,” said mrs davidson, earnestly, and in a tone of encouragement. “your prayer is sure to be answered.”
“oh! maggie, i try to believe it—indeed i do. but when i see david go down to that—that public-house, and come up the worse o’ liquor, an’ sometimes little billy with him with a cigar in his sweet little mouth an’ the smell o’ drink on him, my heart fails me, for you know what an awful snare that drink is, once it gets the upper hand—and—”
poor mrs bright fairly broke down at this point for a few seconds; and no wonder, for, not even to her most confidential and sympathetic friend could she tell of the terrible change for the worse that came over her husband when the accursed fire-water burned in his veins.
“nell,” said maggie, laying her work in her lap and taking her friend’s hand. “don’t give way like that. god would never ask us to pray for one another, if he didn’t mean to answer us. would he, now?”
“that’s true, maggie, that’s true,” said mrs bright, much comforted. “i never thought of that before. you’re young, but you’re wise, dear. of course, the good lord will never mock us, and if there’s anything i have asked for of late, it has been the salvation of david and billy. what was it, maggie, that made your joe first turn his thoughts to the lord?”
“it was one of his mates. you remember when he sailed wi’ that good man, singin’ peter? well, peter used often to speak to him about his soul to no purpose; but that fine man, luke trevor, who also sailed wi’ singin’ peter at the time, had a long talk with joe one night, an’ the holy spirit made use of his words, for joe broke down an’ gave in. they’re both wi’ your david and billy now, so you may be sure they won’t throw away the chance they have of speakin’ to ’em.”
“god grant them success!” murmured mrs bright, earnestly.
“amen!” responded the younger woman. “but, nell, you haven’t told me yet what you think o’ the miss seawards.”
“think? i think that next to miss ruth they are the sweetest ladies i ever met,” returned mrs bright with enthusiasm. “they are so modest and humble, that when they are putting themselves about to serve you, they almost make you feel that you’re doing them a favour. don’t you remember only last week when they came to see poor jake’s boy that was nearly drowned, and insisted on sitting up with him all night—first one and then the other taking her turn till daylight, because mrs jake was dead-drunk and not able for anything.”
“remember it?” exclaimed maggie, “i should think i does, and the awful way mrs jake swore at them afore she rightly understood what was wrong.”
“well, did you hear what mrs jake said in the afternoon of that same day?”
“no—except that she was more civil to ’em, so i was told.”
“civil! yes, she was more civil indeed. she’d got quite sober by the afternoon, and the neighbours told her how near the boy was to death, and that the doctor said if it hadn’t been for the wise and prompt measures taken by the miss seawards before he arrived, he didn’t believe the boy would have lived—when they told her that, she said nothing. when the miss seawards came back in the afternoon, they tapped so gently at the door that you would have thought they were beggars who expected a scolding, an’ when mrs jake cried out gruffly in her man-like voice, ‘who’s that?’ they replied as softly as if they had been doing some mischief, ‘may we come in?’ ‘may you come in?’ shouted mrs jake, so that you might have heard her half way down the street, as she flung the door wide open, ‘may angels from heaven come in? yes, you may come in!’ an’ with that she seized the younger one round the neck an’ fairly hugged her, for you see mrs jake has strong feelin’s, an’ is very fond of her boy, an’ then she went flop down on a chair, threw her apron over her head, and howled. i can call it by no other name.”
“the poor ladies were almost scared, and didn’t seem rightly to know how to take it, and miss kate—the younger one you know—had her pretty new summer dress awfully crushed by the squeeze, as well as dirtied, for mrs jake had been washin’, besides cleaning up a bit just before they arrived.”
“well, i never!” exclaimed maggie in great admiration. “i always thought there was a soft spot in mrs jake’s heart, if only a body could find it out.”
“my dear,” said mrs bright, impressively, “there’s a soft spot i believe in everybody’s heart, though in some hearts it’s pretty well choked up an’ overlaid—”
at that moment a bursting yell from the crib behind the door went straight to the soft spot in mrs davidson’s heart, and sank deeply into it.
“that blessed babby!” she cried, leaping up in such haste that her work went into the grate, in which, however, there was happily no fire.
“oh! my darling! you’re joe to the back-bone—though you are a girl—all bounce, an’ bang, an’ tenderness!”
seizing the infant in her strong arms she gave it a hug which ought to have produced another yell, but the little one was tough, besides which, she was used to it, and said nothing. the calm did not last long, however. little mag, as she was called, felt that her interior somewhere was somehow in want of something, and took the usual way to publish the fact.
after that, conversation became impossible. a storm had burst upon the friends which increased rapidly, so mrs bright rose to say good-bye in the midst of a squall which ought to have blown her through the door-way or out at the window into the street. she was not irritated, however. as she left the house followed by the squall, which was soon moderated to a stiffish breeze by distance, the sound called up reminiscences of little billy, and she smiled as she thought of the unvarying continuity of human affairs—the gush of infant memories, and the squalls of other days.
