Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1.djvu/839

1858.] plank except God,—and He, oh, He, is always able to take care! When that plank was washed near to the shore, I stepped out on the rocks and caught it, and then I saw that a little child was tied fast to it; so I knew that some one must have thrown him into the water, hoping that he would be picked up. I do not know what they who threw the little child into the sea called him; but I, who found him, called him Gabriel, and I carried him, all dripping with the salt sea-water, to my father’s cabin. I laid him on my bed, and my mother and I never stopped trying to waken him, till he opened his eyes; for he lay just like one who never meant to open his eyes or speak again. At last my mother said, ‘ Clarice, I feel his heart boat!’ and I said in my heart, ‘If it please God to spare his life, I will work lor him, and take care of him, and be a mother to him.’ And I thought, 'He will surely love me always, because God has sent him to me, and I have taken him, and have loved him.’ But now he has left me! He is mine no more! And oh, how I have loved him!”

Long before this story was ended, tears were running down Gabriel's lace, and he was drawing closer and closer to Clarice. When she ceased speaking, he hid his face in her lap and cried aloud, according to the boisterous privilege of childhood.

“Oh, mother, dear mother, I haven’t gone away! I’m here! I do love you! I am your little boy!”

“Gabriel! Gabriel! it was terrible! terrible! ” burst from Clarice, with a groan, and a flood of tears.

“Oh, don't, mother! Call me your boy! Don’t say, Gabriel! Don’t cry! ” So he found his way through the door of the heart that stood wide open for him. Storm and darkness had swept in, if he had not.

The reconciliation was perfect; but the shadow that had obscured the future deepened that obscurity after this day’s experience. If her right to the lad needed no vindication, was she capable of the attempted guidance and care? Could she bear this blessed burden safely to the end?

Sometimes, for a moment, it may have seemed to Clarice that Hondo Emmins could alone help her effectually out of her bewilderment and perplexity. She had not now the missionary with whom to consult, in whose wisdom to confide; and Hondo had a marvellous influence over the child.

He was disposed to take advantage of that influence, as he gave evidence, not long after the exhibition of his control over the boat-load of delinquents, by asking Clarice if she were never going to reward his constancy. He seemed at this time desirous of bringing himself before her as an object of compassion, if nothing better; but she, having heard him patiently to the end of what he had to urge in his own behalf and that of her parents, replied in words that were certainly of the moment’s inspiration, and almost beyond her will; for Clarice had been of late so much troubled, no wonder if she should mistake expediency for right.

“I am married already,” she said.

“You see this ring. Do you not know what it has meant to me, Hondo, since I first put it on? Death, as you call it, cannot part Luke Merlyn and me. ‘ Heart and hand,’ he said. Can I forget it? My hand is free,—but he holds it; and my heart is his.—But I can serve you better than you ask for, Hondo Emmins. You learned the name of the vessel that sailed from Havre and was lost. Take a voyage. Go to France. See if Gabriel has any friends there who have a right to him, and will serve him better than I can; and if he has such friends, I myself will take Gabriel to them. Yes, I will do it.—You will love a sailor’s life, Bondo. You were born for that. Diver’s Bay is not the place for you. I have long seen it. The sea will serve you better than I ever could. Go, and Clarice will thank you. Oh, Hondo, I beg you!”

At these words the man so appealed to became scarlet. He seemed to re