Volume II Part 40 (2/2)
”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 s.h.i.+p'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 G.o.d from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made; even his eternal power and G.o.dhead. And those glorious last words were what my heart fixed upon.”
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