Wilton School.

by Fred E. Weatherly.

CHAPTER I.

A LONG GOOD-BYE.

Gathering shadows--Harry's wonder--Ambiguous--A long good-bye--The anchor's weighed.

It was a sad evening in the little farm by the church of Wilton, yet very sweet and summer-like without. Very sad it was in the low, dim, oak-panelled parlour, whose diamonded window looked across the quiet churchyard, with its swinging wicket, its gravel-path beneath green aisles of lindens, and all the countless

"Gra.s.sy barrows of the happier dead."

Very sad were those three sitters in the summer twilight, there, at the farm; for a good-bye had to be said--a long, long farewell between that weeping pale woman, and the stout sailor, her husband. And Harry, their blue-eyed, sunny-haired boy, did not understand what it all meant;--why papa did not cheer mamma with hopes of soon coming home again--why mamma did not try to console herself by saying, over and over, that he would soon come back, as she always used in the old days when papa had to go to sea. She had never cried so bitterly before, although these good-byes had come so often. And now it made her cough; she seemed scarcely to have strength to cry. And papa, who was always so brave and stern, why was it even he could not stop the tears from rolling down his bronzed cheeks? And so Harry sat in the window-seat, quite unable to understand the meaning of all the sorrow, and looked out of the window at the farmer's wife nursing her last baby in the orchard, and then at the old s.e.xton in the churchyard throwing up the red earth, and wondered why he always whistled such a jovial tune, while he himself felt so sad.

And the evening drew on over the straggling village, weary with its long day's work. The last loaded waggon had pa.s.sed down the lane by the farm; the last troop of tired hay-makers had trudged gaily homewards; and with the deepening dusk the winds grew cooler, blowing in fresh, along the valley, from the sea.

And, all this while, poor Harry sat with his face pressed closely against the window-pane; and his papa and mamma, apparently unheeding him, sat talking in the far dim corner of the room, while ever anon her great sobs broke the train of comforting words her husband strove to utter.

Presently, he got up, moved to the window, and without saying a word, took Harry's hand and led him across the room to his mother's side.

Then his faltering lips said:

"Harry, my boy, mamma is going away soon--before I come back;--I shall not see her again."

"Not see her again, papa?" cried Harry in amazement. "And why is mamma going away, with her cough so bad, too?"

"Mamma's cough won't trouble her long, my boy. You'll take care of her for me, won't you, Harry? and see her safe off on her journey?"

He spoke very quietly now; but if he had not used those ambiguous sentences, he would have broken down, he knew.

And then the good-bye was said. He kissed Harry tenderly, and then gathered his weeping wife to his breast. And with an earnest "G.o.d guard you!" that well-nigh seemed to break the bursting heart from whence the words arose, he moved quickly from the room. So it was all over now! The long good-bye had been said.

"Take care of her and the boy, Mrs Valentine," he said to the farmer's wife, as she came hurrying up from the orchard to see him before he left, "and G.o.d will reward you. It will not be for long, I fancy. The boy must stay with you till I come back."

"I will, I will sir; bless her dear heart!" the farmer's wife cried, while the tears started to her eyes. "Poor soul, poor soul!" she murmured after him, as he pa.s.sed bravely down the lane, villagewards.

And there, in the little farm by the church, sat the pale wife weeping over her wondering boy, while the shadows of the summer night stole ghost-like over the lands, till the window was but a faint dim square in the sad darkness that was within.

That night the Queen's good ship "Thunderer" weighed anchor from the roadstead where she had been lying off Wilton, and with canva.s.s stretched, and engines at full speed, swung down the Bristol channel on the ebb tide, to join the flying squadron on a six months' cruise. And though many a heart, of seamen and officer alike, felt heavy at parting from sweetheart or wife, in none was there the dull, hopeless agony that dwelt behind the stern face of Chief-engineer Campbell, as he talked on deck with his fellow-officers, or issued his orders to his men below.

CHAPTER II.

WHY THE SAD GOOD-BYE WAS GIVEN.

In commission--At home in Malta--After long years--Settled at Wilton--Unwelcome tidings--Unavailing skill.

Fourteen years ago, amid the mists of Scotland, there was a bonny wedding at a hill-side kirk; the bride, a sweet young English girl, who had left her southern home to pay a visit to her uncle, the old village-pastor; the bridegroom, a stout sailor, home from sea for a short while at his native village. And after a six weeks' happy wooing, a happy wedding took the two away, far from the heathery hills and the mountain lochs; far from the moors and fells of Scotland.

A brief honeymoon of quiet, unmarred happiness, and Alan Campbell received instructions to join his ship, ordered to Malta for three years. His wife, of course, could not sail with him, so he took a berth for her in one of the ordinary pa.s.senger steamers that run from Southampton to the island. And after seeing her safe on board one rainy April afternoon, her tearful face itself like April weather, he took the evening mail-train to Plymouth, and the following morning was on board his ship. It was not long before his impatience was gratified, and the "Thunderer" steamed out into the English Channel.

Thus over the great waves, through time of sun and stars, through storm and shine, sailed the two parted many miles of heaving sea; Minnie, pale and trembling in her little cabin, with the noise of the waters ever sounding in her sleepless ears; Alan pacing to and fro in the heat and throbbing of the engines of the "Thunderer."

It was a joyful meeting at the island-fortress in the blue Mediterranean. Alan obtained leave to sleep on sh.o.r.e, and took a little white cottage that overlooked the bay, where the good ship "Thunderer" lay at anchor; and there, at her outhanging window, every evening Minnie would sit, looking so anxiously across the bay towards the great black hull of the vessel, till a gig would put off that brought Alan home to her.

So the days and weeks went on. The spring died into the summer's flowery lap; the summer ripened and mellowed unto the golden autumn; and when the year's late last months were come, there was another inmate in the little cottage by the bay; another pair of eyes, blue as the mother's, to greet Alan as he came home at night; another pair of hands to hold and call his own.

The time ran as quickly as it ran happily. The three years pa.s.sed, and again Alan had to put his wife on board a pa.s.senger steamer bound for England--this time with her boy Harry to bear her company, a st.u.r.dy young gentleman of somewhat over two years; while he himself sailed for Plymouth in the "Thunderer." And so it came to pa.s.s, that after many such changes of abode, and many voyages over the dangerous waters, twelve years from the date of their marriage, they came to Wilton.

They found lodgings at Mrs Valentine's farm, near the old church--a strange contrast after the home on the blue waters of the Mediterranean, but a very nice contrast withal. And it seemed, at last, as if poor Mrs Campbell had found a climate that suited her, and that put new life and strength into her failing, fragile form. For those happy and treacherous nights, spent in looking over the bay at Malta for her husband's home-coming, had sown the seeds of a consumption, that each month now seemed to be increasing its wasting, rapid strides.

Yet at Wilton she seemed revived and better than she had been for long; and Alan grew more cheerful and hopeful that, if G.o.d pleased, her life, with care and watching, might be spared. So he took rooms at the farm for a length of time; sent his boy, now grown into a young image of his stout father, to a grammar-school in the village, and determined that, as the place agreed with her so well, Minnie should make it her home, even when he went to sea.

And once more their happiness lost the cloud of doubt and anxiety that for long had been hanging over it. But the dream was soon to be snapt.

One evening Alan came home to find his wife much worse than she had ever been. He learnt the cause. She had been sitting with a sick person, and from the hot, sickroom had pa.s.sed out into the damp evening air. And this was the result.

The village-doctor was sent for at once; and when, on the next morning, Alan anxiously, tremblingly, asked him the candid truth, it was with an open letter in his hand, with which his fingers nervously played. It was marked "On Her Majesty's Service." He must hold himself in readiness to sail within a fortnight. And the doctor's answer was a fearful crowning to this unexpected tidings.

"She may linger on for a month," he said, "six weeks at most. You will have to bid her good-bye for ever when you go. No skill can make her live till you come home."

Alan never uttered a word, but his face was very pale, and a great shudder pa.s.sed over his frame.

"It is very, very sad for you," said the little doctor, "I pity you from my heart." And then he jolted away down the lane in his shaky trap, drawn by his broken-winded pony.

And Alan turned into the farm, and was soon by his wife's side.

So the fortnight pa.s.sed, and the good-bye was said; and this is why that good-bye was so unutterably sad; and this is all that Harry could not understand.

CHAPTER III.

SAD INFORMATION.

Mother and son--Returning fort.i.tude--Self-devoted.

It was drawing close upon the half-yearly examination at the Grammar School, and Harry was beginning to grow very frightened and nervous, for a new boy had been put into his cla.s.s since the last examination, and he feared the newcomer would supplant him, and get to the head.

So, as soon as the sad good-bye, told of in the first chapter of this little tale, was said, and Harry had tried in vain to comfort his mother, he got his books and set to work. And the clock ticked, and Harry pored over his delectus; and in the corner Mrs Campbell sat and wept.

Presently she called Harry to her.