Part 49 (1/2)

And when he had time to look about him, there was half the folk in Portie a.s.sembled to welcome the returned sailor, and in the midst of them stood George, with his arm laid across the shoulders of his friend.

It was something to see these two faces--the one fair, smiling, n.o.ble,--the other no less n.o.ble, but brown and weatherbeaten, and with a cloud upon it, notwithstanding all the joy of home coming. They were brothers in heart, he saw that, whatever might befall. Before he could make up his mind to push his way toward them, a hush fell on the crowd.

Captain Calderwood was making a speech.

It was not much of a speech that Captain Calderwood made, however.

He had only done his duty, he said, as n.o.body knew better than the seafaring folk of Portie, every one of whom would have done the same in his place, if they had seen the same reason. He was glad to be safe home again with his s.h.i.+p and cargo, and not a life lost, and he was proud of the welcome they were giving him--for there was no place like Portie to him, and no folk like the folk of Portie whom he had known all his life.

That was all. But George made a speech, and said just enough and no more--”as he ay does,” his proud father thought as he listened.

Still standing with his hand on his friend's shoulder he said a few words about what Captain Calderwood had done. He could not tell them the story, because he had heard nothing as yet, more than the rest. But he knew as well as if he had been told, how all things had been ordered on board of the ”Ben Nevis,” both before the storm and after it, because he knew Captain Calderwood.

He had done his duty. That was all. But he need not tell the men of Portie--the Saugsters and the Cairnies, the Smiths and the Watts, the Bruces and the Barnets, who had had sailors among their kin longer ago than the oldest of them could mind--what duty meant to a sailor.

It meant to him, whiles, what heroism meant to other folk. It meant courage to face danger, patience undying through want and weariness and waiting, cheerful endurance through wakeful nights and toilsome days, and long banishment from friends and home.

It meant to the master, a power to command himself, as well as his men; it meant skill and will, and wisdom to act, and strength to bear up under the terrible responsibility of holding in his hand other men's lives, no one but him coming between them and G.o.d.

To the men it meant obedience, entire and unquestioning, sometimes, alas! to unreasonable commands--to tyranny to which, in the hands of evil men, unrestrained power might easily degenerate. It meant to all and each--to master and to man--a taking his life in his hand--a daily and nightly facing of death--ay, and of suffering death. It might mean that to some of their own, now far away. It might have meant that to Captain Calderwood, for instead of coming home with s.h.i.+p and cargo safe and with not a life lost, he might have given his own life in doing his duty, as his father had done before him, and his grandfather, as all the men of Portie knew.

”And is he less a hero to us to-day because he has only done his duty?

And if instead of having him here among us to-day--to fill with joy and pride every sailor's heart in Portie--there had come to us from the sea, first a vague and awful rumour of danger and loss, and then one or other of the tokens that have come to some here--a spar, a broken piece of the s.h.i.+p, a word or two written beneath the very eyes and touch of death-- would he not have been a hero to us then? And all the more, that having no thought of what men's eyes might see in his deeds, or men's tongues tell of them, he had lived through the violence of the tempest, and through the lingering days of peril that followed, only to do his duty?”

It was here that George's speech ought to have come to an end. It was at this point that his father thought he had said ”just enough and no more.” And it was here also that Willie shrugged his shoulders under the hand that still rested lovingly on them as he muttered,--

”Hoot, man, Geordie! Cut it short.” But the folk--who had listened in a silence so absolute that the ”click, click” of Mrs Cairnie's crutch could be heard on the stone causeway--stirred a little and murmured, and then waited for more. And George had more to give them.

”And now, men of Portie--sailors and fishers--ay, and sutors and saddlers, masons and merchants--every man among you, I have just one word more to say to you all--but chiefly to you sailors. Willie here has whispered two words in my ear, and one of them I'll give you.

”Never through all that terrible storm that beat upon them, nor after it, when the bitter thought that the s.h.i.+p must be forsaken was forced upon them, nor during the long doubtful days--harder to bear--that followed, when in the morning none could say whether hope or fear was to win the day, or at night whether there was to be another day to them-- through all that time, I say, not a man among them looked to the devil for courage to dare his fate, or deaden his fears. There pa.s.sed not the lips of a man among them a drop of that which has lost more s.h.i.+ps, and broken more hearts, and beguiled more sailors from their duty, than you and I, and all here could count in a day.”

”Is that so, Willie?” cried a voice from the crowd. ”Ay, is it. And no man here needs me to point the moral.”

Willie had had enough of it by this time. He would not be beguiled into answering questions or telling tales. So he slipped his shoulder from under George's hand and withdrew a little from him.

But George did not move. He stood with glad eyes looking down on the familiar faces of his townsfolk and with a sweet and kindly gravity which was better to see than a smile, and when he lifted his hand, the movement in the crowd and the murmur of talk that had risen were hushed.

The last word had been from his friend. This was from himself. It was only a word. It was not about the courage or skill or immovable patience of the young commander that he spoke; but of something that lay behind all these, and rose above them--the living belief in an eye that saw him, in a hand that held him, in a will that controlled and guided and kept him through all, and in a love and care that could avail in s.h.i.+pwreck and loss; ay, in death itself.

It was this living belief in the Lord above as a living Lord that had stood him in such stead in those terrible days.

”Was Willie _feared_, think ye?” said George, coming back to their common speech in his earnestness. ”Some o' ye ha'e come through, and mair than aince, the terrors o' storm and threatened s.h.i.+pwreck, and ye ha'e seen how strength and courage, and common humanity itself, whiles fails before the blackness and darkness and tempest; and it's ilka ane for himsel', be he master or man.

”But, with this belief in a living Lord who has called Himself and proved Himself friend and brother in one, was there danger of this to Captain Calderwood and those whom he commanded?

”Belief, said I? Nay, lads, who of us can doubt that the Lord Himself stood by him, as He stood by Paul His servant at such another time, giving him promise of life to them who saw only death waiting them.

”Was Captain Calderwood afraid? Look ye at his clear eye, and take a grip o' his steady hand, and hearken to what his men may have to say of him, and ye'll ken that he came out of it all by other help and a better strength than his own--a help and a strength that we a' need, on land and sea, and that we can get for the seeking--as some o' ye ken better than I can tell you--and may it be baith yours and mine when our time of trouble shall come--” said George ending rather abruptly at last.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.

AT LAST!