Page:Once a Week Jun to Dec 1864.pdf/88

9, 1864.] there wouldn’t be much time to do it now. I have been headstrong and irritable, giving my tongue the reins, but the Great Commander knows that poor Jack Tar acquires that in his hard life at sea. He looks to the heart, and He is merciful to a slip word or two. Pompey.”

The man came forward and threw himself by the bedside; his whole attitude expressing the keenest grief and love.

“Pompey, tell them, though I have made you fly at my voice, whether I have been a bad master. What sort of a master have I been?”

Poor Pompey! his wailing sobs nearly choked him as he knelt and covered the earl’s hand with his tears and kisses.

“Never a better massa! never a better massa! Pompey like to go with him.”

“You’d keep it from me that my voyage is run, sirs! We seamen have got a Saviour as well as you. He chose fishermen for his friends; d’ye think, then, He’d reject a poor knocked-about sailor, who goes to Him with his hat in his hand and lays his sins at His feet? No! He’ll steer our boat through the last quicksands, and be on shore to receive us, as He once received His own fishermen, and had a fire of coals ready for them, and fish laid thereon, and bread. And that was after He had suffered! Never you be backward again in telling a tired sailor that he’s nearing the port. Shall I last the day out?”

More than that, they thought.

“One of you will send a despatch for my daughter, and—I suppose my wife cannot come to me.”

The attendant of Lady Oakburn was in the room, one of those round the earl, and he pronounced it “Impossible.” Neither must her ladyship be suffered to know of the danger, he added: for a day or two at all events it must be kept from her, or he would not answer for the consequences. The young Lady Lucy must not be allowed to learn it, or she would carry the tidings.

The earl listened, and nodded his head. Very good, he said. And he dictated a message to his daughter Jane.

As the medical men went out, they encountered Lucy. She was sitting on the stairs waiting for them, deeply anxious. The summoning of the third doctor had caused commotion in the house, and Lucy did not know what to think. Gliding up to the one who attended Lady Oakburn, whom she knew best, she eagerly questioned him. But Dr. James was upon his guard, told Lucy the pain had left her papa, and she might go in for a minute to see him.

The child, delighted, went in. The earl stroked her head and kissed her; told her to take a kiss to mamma and to the “young blue-jacket,” and to say that his voyage was going on to a prosperous end. Then, remindful of what the medical men had said about its being kept from his wife, or it might cost her her life, and afraid of a slip-word on his own part, he dismissed the child, telling her he was to remain very quiet all day. Lucy flew to the countess’s chamber, encountering the angry nurse at the door, who looked ready for a pitched battle.

“It’s quite impossible that you can enter, my lady.”

Lucy pleaded. And the nurse found that the child had only come to bring glad news, and to talk of the little “blue-jacket:” and she allowed her to go in.

And when Dr. James came to pay his morning visit to the countess, his answers to her inquiries were full of reassuring suavity, calculated to give ease to her mind. No idea did they impart that the earl was dying; indeed, Lady Oakburn rather gathered from them that he might be taking a renewed lease of life.

was seated at breakfast in her house at South Wennock, when a man on horseback, wearing the uniform of the telegraph office at Great Wennock, came galloping to the gate. Jane saw him hand in a despatch, and her heart fluttered strangely. Imagination took a wide range and settled upon Clarice. When Judith entered she saw that her mistress’s very lips were white.

“I am afraid to open it, Judith,” spoke poor Jane, as the girl held it out to her. “It may bring bad news.”

“Nay, my lady, I should hope the contrary,” was Judith’s answer. “It’s known there was a young heir expected: perhaps this is to tell that he is born.”

The colour came into Jane’s face again. Of course it was nothing else! How could she have been so oblivious? No, no chance of its being from the unhappy Clarice: she seemed lost for good. With fingers that burned—burned at the thought of who the young heir’s mother was, and who she had been,—Jane Chesney tore open the despatch.

“London. Half-past-eight, A.M.

“The Earl of Oakburn is dangerously ill: come at once, if you would see him alive. He says bring Lady Laura.”