Christian teaching. You must not think of him like a savage, for he is my friend, and a far more perfect gentleman than I ever saw any one, but you, papa, holding the command over his people so easily and courteously, and then coming to me with little easy first questions about the Belief, and such things, like what we used to ask mamma. He liked nothing so well as for me to tell him about King David; and we had learned a good deal of each other's languages by that time. The notion of his heart--like Cocksmoor to Ethel--is to get a real English mission, and have all his people Christians. Ethel talked of good kings being Davids to their line; I think that is what he will be, if he lives; but those islanders have been dying off since Europeans came among them.'
But Harry's letter could not tell what he confessed, one night, to his father, the next time he was out with him by starlight, how desolate he had been, and how he had yearned after his home, and, one evening, he had been utterly overcome by illness and loneliness, and had cried most bitterly and uncontrollably; and, though Jennings thought it was for his friend's death, it really was homesickness, and the thought of his father and Mary. Jennings had helped him out to the entrance of the hut, that the cool night air might refresh his burning brow. Orion shone clear and bright, and brought back the night when they had chosen the starry hunter as his friend. 'It seemed,' he said, 'as if you all were looking at me, and smiling to me in the stars. And there was the Southern Cross upright, which was like the minster to me; and I recollected it was Sunday morning at home, and knew you would be thinking about me. I was so glad you had let me be confirmed, and be with you that last Sunday, papa, for it seemed to join me on so much the more; and when I thought of the words in church, they seemed, somehow, to float on me so much more than ever before, and it was like the minster, and your voice. I should not have minded dying so much after that.'
At last, Harry's Black Prince had hurried into the hut with the tidings that his English father's ship was in the bay, and soon English voices again sounded in his ears, bringing the forlorn boy such warmth of kindness that he could hardly believe himself a mere stranger. If Alan could but have shared the joy with him!
He was carried down to the boat in the cool of the evening, and paused on the way, for a last farewell to the lonely grave under the palm tree-one of the many sailors' graves scattered from the tropics to the poles, and which might be the first seed in a 'God's acre' to that island, becoming what the graves of holy men of old are to us.
A short space more of kind care from his new friends and his Christian chief, and Harry awoke from a feverish doze at sounds that seemed so like a dream of home, that he was unwilling to break them by rousing himself; but they approved themselves as real, and he found himself in the embrace of his mother's sister.
And here Mrs. Arnott's story began, of the note that reached her in the early morning with tidings that her nephew had been picked up by the mission-ship, and how she and her husband had hastened at once on board.
'They sent me below to see a hero,' she wrote. 'What I saw was a scarecrow sort of likeness of you, dear Richard; but, when he opened his eyes, there was our Maggie smiling at me. I suppose he would not forgive me for telling how he sobbed and cried, when he had his arms round my neck, and his poor aching head on my shoulder. Poor fellow, he was very weak, and I believe he felt, for the moment, as if he had found his mother.
'We brought him home with us, but when the next mail went, the fever was still so high, that I thought it would be only alarm to you to write, and I had not half a story either, though you may guess how proud I was of my nephew.'
Harry's troubles were all over from that time. He had thenceforth to recover under his aunt's motherly care, while talking endlessly over the home that she loved almost as well as he did. He was well more quickly than she had ventured to hope, and nothing could check his impatience to reach his home, not even the hopes of having his aunt for a companion. The very happiness he enjoyed with her only made him long the more ardently to be with his own family; and he had taken his leave of her, and of his dear David, and sailed by the first packet leaving Auckland.
'I never knew what the old Great Bear was to me till I saw him again!' said Harry.
It was late when the elders had finished all that was to be heard at present, and the clock reminded them that they must part.
'And you go to-morrow?' sighed Margaret.
'I must. Jennings has to go on to Portsmouth, and see after his son.'
'Oh, let me see Jennings!' exclaimed Margaret. 'May I not, papa?'
Richard, who had been making friends with Jennings, whenever he had not been needed by his sisters that afternoon, went to fetch him from the kitchen, where all the servants, and all their particular friends, were listening to the yarn that made them hold their heads higher, as belonging to Master Harry.
Harry stepped forward, met Jennings, and said, aside, 'My sister, Jennings; my sister that you have heard of.'
Dr. May had already seen the sailor, but he could not help addressing him again. 'Come in; come in, and see my boy among us all. Without you, we never should have had him.'
'Make him come to me,' said Margaret breathlessly, as the embarrassed sailor stood, sleeking down his hair; and, when he had advanced to her couch, she looked up in his face, and put her hand into his great brown one.
'I could not help saying thank you,' she said.
'Mr. May, sir!' cried Jennings, almost crying, and looking round for Harry, as a sort of protector--'tell them, sir, please, it was only my duty--I could not do no less, and you knows it, sir,' as if Harry had been making an accusation against him.
'We know you could not,' said Margaret, 'and that is what we would thank you for, if we could. I know he--Mr. Ernescliffe--must have been much more at rest for leaving my brother with so kind a friend, and--'
'Please, miss, don't say no more about it. Mr. Ernescliffe was as fine an officer as ever stepped a quarter-deck, and Mr. May here won't fall short of him; and was I to be after leaving the like of them to the mercy of the black fellows--that was not so bad neither? If it had only pleased God that we had brought them both back to you, miss; but, you see, a man can't be everything at once, and Mr. Ernescliffe was not so stout as his heart.'
'You did everything, we know--' began Dr. May.
''Twas a real pleasure,' said Jennings hastily, 'for two such real gentlemen as they was. Mr. May, sir, I beg your pardon if I say it to your face, never flinched, nor spoke a word of complaint, through it all; and, as to the other--'
'Margaret cannot bear this,' said Richard, coming near. 'It is too much.'
The sailor shook his head, and was retreating, but Margaret signed him to come near again, and grasped his hand. Harry followed him out of the room, to arrange their journey, and presently returned.
'He says he is glad he has seen Margaret; he says she is the right sort of stuff for Mr. Ernescliffe.'
Harry had not intended Margaret to hear, but she caught the words, smiled radiantly, and whispered, 'I wish I may be!'
CHAPTER XVIII.
Margaret had borne the meeting much too well for her own good, and a wakeful night of palpitation was the consequence; but she would not allow any one to take it to heart, and declared that she should be ready to enjoy Harry by the time he should return, and meantime, she should dwell on the delight of his meeting Flora.
No one had rested too soundly that night, and Dr. May had not been able to help looking in at his sleeping boy at five in the morning, to certify himself that he had not only figured his present bliss to himself, in his ten minutes' dream. And looking in again at half- past seven, he found Harry half dressed, with his arm round Mary; laughing, almost sobbing, over the treasures in his cupboard, which he had newly discovered in their fresh order.
Dr. May looked like a new man that morning, with his brightened eye and bearing, as if there were a well- spring of joy within him, ready to brim over at once in tear and in smile, and finding an outlet in the praise and thanksgiving that his spirit chanted, and his face expressed, and in that sunny genial benevolence that must make all share his joy.
He was going to run over half the town--every one would like to hear it from him; Ethel and Mary must go to the rest--the old women in the almshouses, where lived an old cook who used to be fond of Harry-- they should have a feast; all who were well enough in the hospital should have a tea-drinking; Dr. Hoxton had already granted a holiday to the school; every boy with whom they had any connection should come to dinner, and Edward Anderson should be asked to meet Harry on his return, because, poor fellow, he was so improved.
