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Queechy

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Fleda laughed a little.

"But what will you do when we get to Paris?"

"I don't know. I should like to have you always, Elfie."

"You'll have to get aunt Lucy to give me to you," said Fleda.

"Mr. Carleton," said she a few minutes after, "is that story in a book?"

"What story?"

"About the lady and the little sprites that waited on her."

"Yes, it is in a book; you shall see it, Elfie.--Here we are!"

And here it was proposed to stay till the next day, lest Fleda might not
be able to bear so much travelling at first. But the country inn was not
found inviting; the dinner was bad and the rooms were worse;
uninhabitable, the ladies said; and about the middle of the afternoon they
began to cast about for the means of reaching Albany that night. None very
comfortable could be had; however it was thought better to push on at any
rate than wear out the night in such a place. The weather was very mild;
the moon at the full.

"How is Fleda to go this afternoon?" said Mrs. Evelyn.

"She shall decide herself," said Mrs. Carleton. "How will you go, my
sweet Fleda?"

Fleda was lying upon a sort of rude couch which had been spread for her,
where she had been sleeping incessantly ever since she arrived, the hour
of dinner alone excepted. Mrs. Carleton repeated her question.

"I am afraid Mr. Carleton must be tired," said Fleda, without
opening her eyes.

"That means that you are, don't it?" said Rossitur.

"No," said Fleda gently.

Mr. Carleton smiled and went out to press forward the arrangements. In
spite of good words and good money there was some delay. It was rather
late before the cavalcade left the inn; and a journey of several hours was
before them. Mr. Carleton rode rather slowly too, for Fleda's sake, so the
evening had fallen while they were yet a mile or two from the city.

His little charge had borne the fatigue well, thanks partly to his
admirable care, and partly to her quiet pleasure in being with him. She
had been so perfectly still for some distance that he thought she had
dropped asleep. Looking down closer however to make sure about it he saw
her thoughtful clear eyes most unsleepily fixed upon the sky.

"What are you gazing at, Elfie?"

The look of thought changed to a look of affection as the eyes were
brought to bear upon him, and she answered with a smile,

"Nothing,--I was looking at the stars."

"What are you dreaming about?"

"I wasn't dreaming," said Fleda,--"I was thinking."

"Thinking of what?"

"O of pleasant things."

"Mayn't I know them?--I like to hear of pleasant things."

"I was thinking,--" said Fleda, looking up again at the stars, which shone
with no purer ray than those grave eyes sent back to them,--"I was
thinking--of being ready to die."

The words, and the calm thoughtful manner in which they were said,
thrilled upon Mr. Carleton with a disagreeable shock.

"How came you to think of such a thing?" said he lightly.

"I don't know,"--said Fleda, still looking at the stars,--"I suppose--I
was thinking--"

"What?" said Mr. Carleton, inexpressibly curious to get at the workings of
the child's mind, which was not easy, for Fleda was never very forward to
talk of herself;--"what were you thinking? I want to know how you could
get such a thing into your head."

"It wasn't very strange," said Fleda. "The stars made me think of heaven,
and grandpa's being there, and then I thought how he was ready to go there
and that made him ready to die--"

"I wouldn't think of such things, Elfie," said Mr. Carleton after a
few minutes.

"Why not, sir?" said Fleda quickly.

"I don't think they are good for you."

"But Mr. Carleton," said Fleda gently,--"if I don't think about it, how
shall _I_ ever be ready to die?"

"It is not fit for you," said he, evading the question,--"it is not
necessary now,--there's time enough. You are a little body and should have
none but gay thoughts."

"But Mr. Carleton," said Fleda with timid earnestness,--"don't you think
one could have gay thoughts better if one knew one was ready to die?"

"What makes a person ready to die, Elfie?" said her friend, disliking to
ask the question, but yet more unable to answer hers, and curious to hear
what she would say.

"O--to be a Christian," said Fleda.

"But I have seen Christians," said Mr. Carleton, "who were no more ready
to die than other people."

"Then they were make-believe Christians," said Fleda decidedly.

"What makes you think so?" said her friend, carefully guarding his
countenance from anything like a smile.

"Because," said Fleda, "grandpa was ready, and my father was ready, and my
mother too; and I know it was because they were Christians."

"Perhaps your kind of Christians are different from my kind," said Mr.
Carleton, carrying on the conversation half in spite of himself. "What do
you mean by a Christian, Elfie?"

"Why, what the Bible means," said Fleda, looking at him with innocent
earnestness.

Mr. Carleton was ashamed to tell her he did not know what that was, or he
was unwilling to say what he felt would trouble the happy confidence she
had in him. He was silent; but as they rode on, a bitter wish crossed his
mind that he could have the simple purity of the little child in his arms;
and he thought he would give his broad acres supposing it possible that
religion could be true,--in exchange for that free happy spirit that looks
up to all its possessions in heaven.




Chapter XI.



Starres are poore books and oftentimes do misse;
This book of starres lights to eternall blisse.

George Herber.


The voyage across the Atlantic was not, in itself, at all notable. The
first half of the passage was extremely unquiet, and most of the
passengers uncomfortable to match. Then the weather cleared; and the rest
of the way, though lengthened out a good deal by the tricks of the wind,
was very fair and pleasant.

Fifteen days of tossing and sea-sickness had brought little Fleda to look
like the ghost of herself. So soon as the weather changed and sky and sea
were looking gentle again, Mr. Carleton had a mattress and cushions laid
in a sheltered corner of the deck for her, and carried her up. She had
hardly any more strength than a baby.

"What are you looking at me so for, Mr. Carleton?" said she, a little
while after he had carried her up, with a sweet serious smile that seemed
to know the answer to her question.

He stooped down and clasped her little thin hand, as reverentially as if
she really had not belonged to the earth.

"You are more like a sprite than I like to see you just now," said he,
unconsciously fastening the child's heart to himself with the magnetism of
those deep eyes.--"I must get some of the sailors' salt beef and sea
biscuit for you--they say that is the best thing to make people well."

"O I feel better already," said Fleda, and settling her little face upon
the cushion and closing her eyes, she added,--"thank you, Mr. Carleton!"

The fresh air began to restore her immediately; she was no more sick, her
appetite came back; and from that time, without the help of beef and
sea-biscuit, she mended rapidly. Mr. Carleton proved himself as good a
nurse on the sea as on land. She seemed to be never far from his
thoughts. He was constantly finding out something that would do her good
or please her; and Fleda could not discover that he took any trouble
about it; she could not feel that she was a burden to him; the things
seemed to come as a matter of course. Mrs. Carleton was not wanting in
any shew of kindness or care, and yet, when Fleda looked back upon the
day, it somehow was Guy that had done everything for her; she thought
little of thanking anybody but him.

There were other passengers that petted her a great deal, or would have
done so, if Fleda's very timid retiring nature had not stood in the way.
She was never bashful, nor awkward; but yet it was only a very peculiar,
sympathetic, style of address that could get within the wall of reserve
which in general hid her from other people. Hid, what it could; for
through that reserve a singular modesty, sweetness, and gracefulness of
spirit would shew themselves. But there was much more behind. There were
no eyes however on board that did not look kindly on little Fleda,
excepting only two pair. The Captain shewed her a great deal of flattering
attention, and said she was a pattern of a passenger; even the sailors
noticed and spoke of her and let slip no occasion of shewing the respect
and interest she had raised. But there were two pair of eyes, and one of
them Fleda thought most remarkably ugly, that were an exception to the
rest; these belonged to her cousin Rossitur and Lieut. Thorn. Rossitur had
never forgiven her remarks upon his character as a gentleman and declared
preference of Mr. Carleton in that capacity; and Thorn was mortified at
the invincible childish reserve which she opposed to all his advances; and
both, absurd as it seems, were jealous of the young Englishman's advantage
over them. Both not the less, because their sole reason for making her a
person of consequence was that he had thought fit to do so. Fleda would
permit neither of them to do anything for her that she could help.

They took their revenge in raillery, which was not always good-natured.
Mr. Carleton never answered it in any other way than by his look of cold
disdain,--not always by that; little Fleda could not be quite so unmoved.
Many a time her nice sense of delicacy confessed itself hurt, by the deep
and abiding colour her cheeks would wear after one of their ill mannered
flings at her. She bore them with a grave dignity peculiar to herself, but
the same nice delicacy forbade her to mention the subject to any one; and
the young gentlemen contrived to give the little child in the course of
the voyage a good deal of pain. She shunned them at last as she would the
plague. As to the rest Fleda liked her life on board ship amazingly. In
her quiet way she took all the good that offered and seemed not to
recognise the ill.

Mr. Carleton had bought for her a copy of The Rape of the Lock, and
Bryant's poems. With these, sitting or lying among her cushions, Fleda
amused herself a great deal; and it was an especial pleasure when he would
sit down by her and read and talk about them. Still a greater was to watch
the sea, in its changes of colour and varieties of agitation, and to get
from Mr. Carleton, bit by bit, all the pieces of knowledge concerning it
that he had ever made his own. Even when Fleda feared it she was
fascinated; and while the fear went off the fascination grew deeper.
Daintily nestling among her cushions she watched with charmed eyes the
long rollers that came up in detachments of three to attack the good ship,
that like a slandered character rode patiently over them; or the crested
green billows, or sometimes the little rippling waves that shewed old
Ocean's placidest face; while with ears as charmed as if he had been
delivering a fairy tale she listened to all Mr. Carleton could tell her of
the green water where the whales feed, or the blue water where Neptune
sits in his own solitude, the furtherest from land, and the pavement under
his feet outdoes the very canopy overhead in its deep colouring; of the
transparent seas where the curious mysterious marine plants and animals
may be clearly seen many feet down, and in the North where hundreds of
feet of depth do not hide the bottom; of the icebergs; and whirling great
fields of ice, between which if a ship gets she had as good be an almond
in a pair of strong nut crackers. How the water grows colder and murkier
as it is nearer the shore; how the mountain waves are piled together; and
how old Ocean, like a wise man, however roughened and tumbled outwardly by
the currents of Life, is always calm at heart. Of the signs of the
weather; the out-riders of the winds, and the use the seaman makes of the
tidings they bring; and before Mr. Carleton knew where he was he found
himself deep in the science of navigation, and making a star-gazer of
little Fleda. Sometimes kneeling beside him as he sat on her mattress,
with her hand leaning on his shoulder, Fleda asked, listened, and looked;
as engaged, as rapt, as interested, as another child would be in Robinson
Crusoe, gravely drinking in knowledge with a fresh healthy taste for it
that never had enough. Mr. Carleton was about as amused and as interested
as she. There is a second taste of knowledge that some minds get in
imparting it, almost as sweet as the first relish. At any rate Fleda never
felt that she had any reason to fear tiring him; and his mother
complaining of his want of sociableness said she believed Guy did not like
to talk to anybody but that little pet of his and one or two of the old
sailors. If left to her own resources Fleda was never at a loss; she
amused herself with her books, or watching the sailors, or watching the
sea, or with some fanciful manufacture she had learned from one of the
ladies on board, or with what the company about her were saying and doing.

One evening she had been some time alone, looking out upon the restless
little waves that were tossing and tumbling in every direction. She had
been afraid of them at first and they were still rather fearful to her
imagination. This evening as her musing eye watched them rise and fall her
childish fancy likened them to the up-springing chances of
life,--uncertain, unstable, alike too much for her skill and her strength
to manage. She was not more helpless before the attacks of the one than of
the other. But then--that calm blue Heaven that hung over the sea. It was
like the heaven of power and love above her destinies; only this was far
higher and more pure and abiding. "He knoweth them that trust in him."
"There shall not a hair of your head perish."

Not these words perhaps, but something like the sense of them was in
little Fleda's head. Mr. Carleton coming up saw her gazing out upon the
water with an eye that seemed to see nothing.

"Elfie!--Are you looking into futurity?"

"No,--yes,--not exactly," said Fleda smiling.

"No, yes, and not exactly!" said he throwing himself down beside her.--"
What does all that mean?"

"I wasn't exactly looking into futurity," said Fleda.

"What then?--Don't tell me you were 'thinking;' I know that dready. What?"

Fleda was always rather shy of opening her cabinet of thoughts. She
glanced at him, and hesitated, and then yielded to a fascination of eye
and smile that rarely failed of its end. Looking off to the sea again, as
if she had left her thoughts there, she said,

"I was only thinking of that beautiful hymn of Mr. Newton's."

"What hymn?"

"That long one, 'The Lord will provide.'"

"Do you know it?--Tell it to me, Elfie--let us see whether I shall think
it beautiful."

Fleda knew the whole and repeated it.

"Though troubles assail,
And dangers affright,
Though friends should all fall,
And foes all unite;
Yet one thing secures us
Whatever betide,
The Scripture assures us
'The Lord will provide.'

"The birds without barn
Or storehouse are fed;
From them let us learn
To trust for our bread.
His saints what is fitting
Shall ne'er be denied,
So long as 'tis written,
'The Lord will provide.'

"His call we obey,
Like Abraham of old,
Not knowing our way,
But faith makes us bold.
And though we are strangers,
We have a good guide,
And trust in all dangers
'The Lord will provide.'

"We may like the ships
In tempests be tossed
On perilous deeps,
But cannot be lost.
Though Satan enrages
The wind and the tide,
The promise engages
'The Lord will provide.'

"When Satan appears
To stop up our path,
And fills us with fears,
We triumph by faith.
He cannot take from us,
Though oft he has tried,
This heart-cheering promise,
'The Lord will provide.'

"He tells us we're weak,
Our hope is in vain,
The good that we seek
We ne'er shall obtain;
But when such suggestions
Our spirits have tried,
This answers all questions.
'The Lord will provide.'

"No strength of our own,
Or goodness we claim;
But since we have known
The Saviour's great name
In this, our strong tower,
For safety we hide;
The Lord is our power!
'The Lord will provide.'

"When life sinks apace,
And death is in view,
This word of his grace
Shall comfort us through.
No fearing nor doubting,
With Christ on our side,
We hope to die shouting,
'The Lord will provide.'"

Guy listened very attentively to the whole. He was very far from
understanding the meaning of several of the verses, but the bounding
expression of confidence and hope he did understand, and did feel.

"Happy to be so deluded!" he thought.--"I almost wish I could share the
delusion!"

He was gloomily silent when she had done, and little Fleda's eyes were so
full that it was a little while before she could look towards him and ask
in her gentle way, "Do you like it, Mr. Carleton?"

She was gratified by his grave, "Yes!"

"But, Elfie," said he smiling again, "you have not told me your
thoughts yet. What had these verses to do with the sea you were looking
at so hard?"

"Nothing--I was thinking," said Fleda slowly,--"that the sea seemed
something like the world,--I don't mean it was like, but it made me think
of it; and I thought how pleasant it is to know that God takes care of
his people."

"Don't he take care of everybody?"

"Yes--in one sort of way," said Fleda; "but then it is only his children
that he has promised to keep from everything that will hurt them."

"I don't see how that promise is kept, Elfie. I think those who call
themselves so meet with as many troubles as the rest of the world, and
perhaps more."

"Yes," said Fleda quickly, "they have troubles, but then God won't let the
troubles do them any harm."

A subtle evasion, thought Mr. Carleton.--"Where did you learn that,
Elfie?"

"The Bible says so," said Fleda.

"Well, how do you know it from that?" aid Mr. Carleton, impelled, he
hardly knew whether by his bad or his good angel, to carry on the
conversation.

"Why," said Fleda, looking as if it were a very simple question and Mr.
Carleton were catechising her,--"you know, Mr. Carleton, the Bible was
written by men who were taught by God exactly what to say, so there could
be nothing in it that is not true."

"How do you know those men were so taught?"

"The Bible says so."

A child's answer!--but with a child's wisdom in it, not learnt of the
schools. "He that is of God heareth God's words." To little Fleda, as to
every simple and humble intelligence, the Bible proved itself; she had no
need to go further.

Mr. Carleton did not smile, for nothing would have tempted him to hurt
her feelings; but he said, though conscience did not let him do it
without a twinge,

"But don't you know, Elfie, there are some people who do not believe
the Bible?"

"Ah but those are bad people," replied Fleda quickly;--"all good people
believe it."

A child's reason again, but hitting the mark this time. Unconsciously,
little Fleda had brought forward a strong argument for her cause. Mr.
Carleton felt it, and rising up that he might not be obliged to say
anything more, he began to pace slowly up and down the deck, turning the
matter over.

Was it so? that there were hardly any good men (he thought there might be
a few) who did not believe in the Bible and uphold its authority? and
that all the worst portion of society was comprehended in the other
class?--and if so, how had he overlooked it? He had reasoned most
unphilosophically from a few solitary instances that had come under his
own eye; but applying the broad principle of induction it could not be
doubted that the Bible was on the side of all that is sound, healthful,
and hopeful, in this disordered world. And whatever might be the character
of a few exceptions, it was not supposable that a wide system of hypocrisy
should tell universally for the best interests of mankind. Summoning
history to produce her witnesses, as he went on with his walk up and down,
he saw with increasing interest, what he had never seen before, that the
Bible had come like the breath of spring upon the moral waste of mind;
that the ice-bound intellect and cold heart of the world had waked into
life under its kindly influence and that all the rich growth of the one
and the other had come forth at its bidding. And except in that
sun-lightened tract, the world was and had been a waste indeed. Doubtless
in that waste, intellect had at different times put forth sundry barren
shoots, such as a vigorous plant can make in the absence of the sun, but
also like them immature, unsound, and groping vainly after the light in
which alone they could expand and perfect themselves; ripening no seed for
a future and richer growth. And flowers the wilderness had none. The
affections were stunted and overgrown.

All this was so,--how had he overlooked it? His unbelief had come from a
thoughtless, ignorant, one-sided view of life and human things. The
disorder and ruin which he saw, where he did not also see the adjusting
hand at work, had led him to refuse his credit to the Supreme Fabricator.
He thought the waste would never be reclaimed, and did not know how much
it already owed to the sun of revelation; but what was the waste where
that light had not been!--Mr. Carleton was staggered. He did not know what
to think. He began to think he had been a fool.

Poor little Fleda was meditating less agreeably the while. With the sure
tact of truth she had discerned that there was more than jest in the
questions that had been put to her. She almost feared that Mr. Carleton
shared himself the doubts he had so lightly spoken of, and the thought
gave her great distress. However, when he came to take her down to tea,
with all his usual manner, Fleda's earnest look at him ended in the
conviction that there was nothing very wrong under that face.

For several days Mr. Carleton pondered the matter of this evening's
conversation, characteristically restless till he had made up his mind. He
wished very much to draw Fleda to speak further upon the subject, but it
was not easy; she never led to it. He sought in vain an opportunity to
bring it in easily, and at last resolved to make one.

"Elfie," said he one morning when all the rest of the passengers were
happily engaged at a distance with the letter-bags,--"I wish you would let
me hear that favourite hymn of yours again,--I like it very much."

Fleda was much gratified, and immediately with great satisfaction
repeated the hymn. Its peculiar beauty struck him yet more the second
time than the first.

"Do you understand those two last verses?" said he when she had done.

Fleda said "Yes!" rather surprised.

"I do not," he said gravely.

Fleda paused a minute or two, and then finding that it depended on her to
enlighten him, said in her modest way,

"Why it means that we have no goodness of our own, and only expect to be
forgiven and taken to heaven for the Saviour's sake."

Mr. Carleton asked, "How_for his sake_?"

"Why you know, Mr. Carleton, we don't deserve to go there, and if we are
forgiven at all it must be for what he has done."

"And what is that, Elfie?"

"He died for us," said Fleda, with a look of some anxiety into Mr.
Carleton's face.

"Died for us!--And what end was that to serve, Elfie?" said he, partly
willing to hear the full statement of the matter, and partly willing to
see how far her intelligence could give it.

"Because we are sinners," said Fleda, "and God has said that sinners
shall die."

"Then how can he keep his word and forgive at all?"

"Because Christ has died _for us_," said Fleda eagerly;--"instead of us."

"Do you understand the justice of letting one take the place of others?"

"He was willing, Mr. Carleton," said Fleda, with a singular wistful
expression that touched him.

"Still, Elfie," said he after a minute's silence,--"how could the ends of
justice be answered by the death of one man in the place of millions?"

"No, Mr. Carleton, but he was God as well as man," Fleda said, with a
sparkle in her eye which perhaps delayed her companion's rejoinder.

"What should induce him, Elfie," he said gently, "to do such a thing for
people who had displeased him?"

"Because he loved us, Mr. Carleton."

She answered with so evident a strong and clear appreciation of what she
was saying that it half made its way into Mr. Carleton's mind by the force
of sheer sympathy. Her words came almost as something new.

Certainly Mr. Carleton had heard these things before, though perhaps
never in a way that appealed so directly to his intelligence and his
candour. He was again silent an instant, pondering, and so was Fleda.

"Do you know, Elfie," said Mr. Carleton, "there are some people who do not
believe that the Saviour was anything more than a man?"

"Yes I know it," said Fleda;--"it is very strange!"

"Why is it strange?"

"Because the Bible says it so plainly."

"But those people hold I believe that the Bible does not say it?"

"I don't see how they could have read the Bible," said Fleda. "Why he said
so himself."

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