The Old Helmet. Volume II

"Think you'll get those dark fellows to listen to you?"

"Why not?" said Eleanor brightly.

"It's all make-believe. They only want to get your axes and hatchets, and such things."

"Well, we want their yams and potatoes and fish and labour," said

Eleanor; "so it is a fair bargain; and no make-believe on either side."

"Why don't you stay in the Colonies? there is work enough to be done; people enough that need it; and a fine country. Everything in the world that you need; and not so far from home either."

Eleanor made no answer.

"Why don't you stay in the Colonies?"

"One can only be in one place," said Eleanor lightly.

"And that must always be the place where somebody else is," said the captain maliciously. "That's the way people will congregate together, instead of scattering where they are wanted."

"Do you know the Colonies well?" said Eleanor coolly, in answer to this rude speech.

"I ought. I have spent about a third of my life in them. I have a brother at Melbourne too, as rich in flocks and herds almost as Job was. That's the place! That's a country! But you are going to Sydney?"

"Yes."

"Friends there?"

"I have one friend there who expects me."

"Who's he? Maybe I know him."

"Egbert Esthwaite is his name."

"Don't know him, though. And so you have left England to find yourself a new home in the wilderness?"

"Yes."

"Pretty tough change you'll find it. Don't you find it already?"

"No. Don't you know," said Eleanor giving him a good look, "when one's real home is in heaven, it does not make so much difference?"

The captain would have answered the words fast enough; but in the strong sweet eye that had looked into his so full, there was something that silenced him. He turned off abruptly, with the internal conviction – "That girl thinks what she says, anyhow!"

Eleanor's eyes left contemplating the waters, and were busy for some time with the book which had lain in her lap until her colloquy with the captain. Somebody came and sat down beside her.

"Mr. Amos! I am glad to see you," said Eleanor.

"I am glad to see you, sister," he replied; "and glad to see you able to be here. You look well again."

"O I am."

"Mrs. Amos cannot raise her head. What are you doing? – if I may ask so blunt a question upon so short an acquaintance."

"This is the first time I have been on deck. I was studying the sea, in the first place; – and then something drove me to study the Bible."

"Ah, we are driven to that on every hand," he answered. "Now go on, and tell me the point of your studies, will you?"

There was something in the utmost genial and kind in his look and way; he was not a person from whom one would keep back anything he wanted to know; as also evidently he was not one to ask anything he should not. The request did not even startle Eleanor. She looked thoughtfully over the heaving sea while she answered.

"I had been taking a great new view of the glory of creation – over the ship's side here. Then I had the sorrow to find – or fear – that we have an unbeliever in our captain. From that, I suppose, I took hold of Paul's reasoning – how without excuse people are in unbelief; how the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; even his eternal power and Godhead. And those glorious last words were what my heart fixed upon."

"'His eternal power and Godhead.'"

Eleanor looked round without speaking; a look full of the human echo to those words; the joy of weakness, the strength of ignorance, the triumph of humility.

"What a grand characterizing Paul gives in those other words," said Mr. Amos – "'the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God.' Unto him be honour and glory forever!"

"And then those other words," said Eleanor low, – "'The eternal God is thy refuge.'"

"That is a good text for us to keep," said Mr. Amos. "But really, with that refuge, I don't see what we should be afraid of."

"Not even of want of success," said Eleanor.

"No. If faith didn't fail. Paul could give thanks that he was made always to triumph in Christ, – and by the power that wrought with him, so may we." He spoke very gravely, as if looking into himself and pondering his own responsibilities and privileges and short-comings. Eleanor kept silence.

"How do you like this way of life?" Mr. Amos said presently.

"The sea is beautiful. I have hardly tried the ship."

"Haven't you?" said Mr. Amos smiling. "That speaks a candid good traveller. Another would have made the first few days the type of the whole."

And he also took to his book, and the silence lasted this time.

Mrs. Amos continued prostrated by sea-sickness; unable to raise her head from her pillow. Eleanor could do little for her. The evil was remediless, and admitted of very small amelioration. But the weather was very fine and the ship's progress excellent; and Eleanor spent great part of her time on deck. All day, except when she was at the side of Mrs. Amos, she was there. The sailors watched the figure in the dark neat sea-dress and cloak and the little close straw bonnet with chocolate ribbands; and every now and then made pretences to get near and see how the face looked that was hidden under it. The report of the first venturers was so favourable that Eleanor had an unconscious sort of levee the next day or two; and then, the fresh sweet face that was so like a flower was found to have more attractions when known than it had before when unknown. There was not a hand on board but seized or made opportunities every day and as often as he could to get near her; if a chance offered and he could edge in a word and have a smile and word in answer, that man went away esteemed both by himself and his comrades a lucky fellow. Eleanor awoke presently to the sense of her opportunities, though too genuinely humble to guess at the cause of them; and she began to make every one tell for her work. Every sailor on board soon knew what Eleanor valued more than all other things; every one knew, "sure as guns," as he would have expressed it, that if she had a chance of speaking to him, she would one way or another contrive before it was ended to make him think of his duty and to remember to whom it was owed; and yet – strange to say – there was not one of them that for any such reason was willing to lose or to shun one of those chances. "If all were like she" – was the comment of one Jack tar; and the rest were precisely of his opinion. The captain himself was no exception. He could not help frequently coming to Eleanor's side, to break off her studies or her musings with some information or some suggestion of his own and have a bit of a talk. His manners mended. He grew thoroughly civil to her.

Meanwhile the vessel was speeding southwards. Fast, fast, every day they lowered their latitude. Higher and higher rose the sun; the stars that had been Eleanor's familiars ever since she had eyes to see them, sank one by one below the northern horizon; and the beauty of the new, strange, brilliant constellations of the southern sky began to tell her in curious language of her approach to her new home. They had a most magical charm for Eleanor. She studied and watched them unweariedly; they had for her that curious interest which we give to any things that are to be our life-companions. Here Mr. Amos could render her some help; but with or without help, Eleanor nightly studied the southern stars, watched and pondered them till she knew them well; and then she watched them because she knew them, as well as because she was to know them all the rest of her life.

By day she studied other things; and the days were not weary. The ocean was a storehouse of pleasure for her; and Captain Fox declared his ship had never carried such a clever passenger; "a girl who had plenty of stuff, and knew what to do with herself." Certainly the last piece of praise was true; for Eleanor had no weary moments. She had interests on board, as well as outside the ship. She picked up the sailors' legends and superstitions; ay, and many a little bit of life history came in too, by favour of the sympathy and friendliness they saw in those fine brown eyes. Never a voyage went better; and the sailors if not the captain were very much of the mind that they had a good angel on board.

"Well how do you like this?" said Mr. Amos coming up one day. N.B. It was the seventh day of a calm in the tropics.

"I would like a wind better," Eleanor said smiling.

"Can you possess your soul in patience?"

"Yes," she said, but gently and with a slight intonation that spoke of several latent things.

"We are well on our way now, – if a wind would come!"