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Queechy

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"Who said so?"

"Jesus Christ. Don't _you_ believe it, Mr. Carleton?"

She saw he did not, and the shade that had come over her face was
reflected in his before he said "No."

"But perhaps I shall believe it yet, Elfie," he said kindly. "Can you shew
me the place in your Bible where Jesus says this of himself?"

Fleda looked in despair. She hastily turned over the leaves of her Bible
to find the passages he had asked for, and Mr. Carleton was cut to the
heart to see that she twice was obliged to turn her face from him and
brush her hand over her eyes, before she could find them. She turned to
Matt. xxvi. 63, 64, 65, and without speaking gave him the book, pointing
to the passage. He read it with great care, and several times over.

"You are right, Elfie," he said. "I do not see how those who honour the
authority of the Bible and the character of Jesus Christ can deny the
truth of his own declaration. If that is false so must those be."

Fleda took the Bible and hurriedly sought out another passage.

"Grandpa shewed me these places," she said, "once when we were talking
about Mr. Didenhover--_he_ didn't believe that. There are a great many
other places, grandpa said; but one is enough;"--

She gave him the latter part of the twentieth chapter of John.--

"You see, Mr. Carleton, he let Thomas fall down and worship him and call
him God; and if he had _not_ been, you know----God is more displeased
with that than with any thing.'

"With what, Elfie?"

"With men's worshipping any other than himself. He says he 'will not give
his glory to another.'"

"Where is that?"

"I am afraid I can't find it," said Fleda,--"it is somewhere in
Isaiah, I know"--

She tried in vain; and failing, then looked up in Mr. Carleton's face to
see what impression had been made.

"You see Thomas believed when he _saw_" said he, answering her;--"I will
believe too when I see."

"Ah if you wait for that--" said Fleda.

Her voice suddenly checked, she bent her face down again to her little
Bible, and there was a moment's struggle with herself.

"Are you looking for something more to shew me?" said Mr. Carleton kindly,
stooping his face down to hers.

"Not much," said Fleda hurriedly; and then making a great effort she
raised her head and gave him the book again.

"Look here, Mr. Carleton,--Jesus said, 'Blessed are they that have _not_
seen and yet have believed.'"

Mr. Carleton was profoundly struck, and the thought recurred to him
afterwards and was dwelt upon.--"Blessed are they that have _not_ seen,
and yet have believed." It was strange at first, and then he wondered that
it should ever have been so. His was a mind peculiarly open to conviction,
peculiarly accessible to truth; and his attention being called to it he
saw faintly now what he had never seen before, the beauty of the principle
of _faith_;--how natural, how reasonable, how _necessary_, how honourable
to the Supreme Being, how happy even for man, that the grounds of his
trust in God being established, his acceptance of many other things should
rest on that trust alone.

Mr. Carleton now became more reserved and unsociable than ever. He wearied
himself with thinking. If be could have got at the books, he would have
spent his days and nights in studying the evidences of Christianity, but
the ship was bare of any such books, and he never thought of turning to
the most obvious of all, the Bible itself. His unbelief was shaken; it was
within an ace of falling in pieces to the very foundation; or rather he
began to suspect how foundationless it had been. It came at last to one
point with him;--If there were a God, he would not have left the world
without a revelation,--no more would he have suffered that revelation to
defeat its own end by becoming corrupted or alloyed, if there was such a
revelation it could be no other than the Bible;--and his acceptance of
the whole scheme of Christianity now hung upon the turn of a hair. Yet he
could not resolve himself. He balanced the counter-doubts and arguments,
on one side and on the other, and strained his mind to the task;--he could
not weigh them nicely enough. He was in a maze; and seeking to clear and
calm his judgment that he might see the way out, it was in vain that he
tried to shake his dizzied head from the effect of the turns it had made.
By dint of anxiety to find the right path reason had lost herself in the
wilderness.

Fleda was not, as Mr. Carleton had feared she would be, at all alienated
from him by the discovery that had given her so much pain. It wrought in
another way, rather to add a touch of tender and anxious interest to the
affection she had for him. It gave her however much more pain than he
thought. If he had seen the secret tears that fell on his account he would
have been grieved; and if he had known of the many petitions that little
heart made for him--he could hardly have loved her more than he did.

One evening Mr. Carleton had been a long while pacing up and down the deck
in front of little Fleda's nest, thinking and thinking, without coming to
any end. It was a most fair evening, near sunset, the sky without a cloud
except two or three little dainty strips which set off its blue. The ocean
was very quiet, only broken into cheerful mites of waves that seemed to
have nothing to do but sparkle. The sun's rays were almost level now, and
a long path of glory across the sea led off towards his sinking disk.
Fleda sat watching and enjoying it all in her happy fashion, which always
made the most of everything good, and was especially quick in catching any
form of natural beauty.

Mr. Carleton's thoughts were elsewhere; too busy to take note of things
around him. Fleda looked now and then as he passed at his gloomy brow,
wondering what he was thinking of, and wishing that he could have the same
reason to be happy that she had. In one of his turns his eye met her
gentle glance; and vexed and bewildered as he was with study there was
something in that calm bright face that impelled him irresistibly to ask
the little child to set the proud scholar right. Placing himself beside
her, he said,

"Elfie, how do you know there is a God?--what reason have you for thinking
so, out of the Bible?"

It was a strange look little Fleda gave him. He felt it at the time, and
he never forgot it. Such a look of reproach, sorrow, and _pity_, he
afterwards thought, as an angel's face might have worn. The _question_ did
not seem to occupy her a moment. After this answering look she suddenly
pointed to the sinking sun and said,

"Who made that, Mr. Carleton?"

Mr. Carleton's eyes, following the direction of hers, met the long bright
rays whose still witness-bearing was almost too powerful to be borne. The
sun was just dipping majestically into the sea, and its calm
self-assertion seemed to him at that instant hardly stronger than its
vindication of its Author.

A slight arrow may find the joint in the armour before which many
weightier shafts have fallen powerless. Mr. Carleton was an unbeliever no
more from that time.




Chapter XII



He borrowed a box of the ear of the Englishman, and swore he would pay
him again when he was able.--Merchant of Venice.


One other incident alone in the course of the voyage deserves to be
mentioned; both because it served to bring out the characters of several
people, and because it was not,--what is?--without its lingering
consequences.

Thorn and Rossitur had kept up indefatigably the game of teasing Fleda
about her "English admirer," as they sometimes styled him. Poor Fleda
grew more and more sore on the subject. She thought it was very strange
that two grown men could not find enough to do to amuse themselves
without making sport of the comfort of a little child. She wondered they
could take pleasure in what gave her so much pain; but so it was; and
they had it up so often that at last others caught it from them; and
though not in malevolence yet in thoughtless folly many a light remark
was made and question asked of her that set little Fleda's sensitive
nerves a quivering. She was only too happy that they were never said
before Mr. Carleton; that would have been a thousand times worse. As it
was, her gentle nature was constantly suffering from the pain or the fear
of these attacks.

"Where's Mr. Carleton?" said her cousin coming up one day.

"I don't know," said Fleda,--"I don't know but he is gone up into one of
the tops."

"Your humble servant leaves you to yourself a great while this morning, it
seems to me. He is growing very inattentive."

"I wouldn't permit it, Miss Fleda, if I were you," said Thorn maliciously.
"You let him have his own way too much."

"I wish you wouldn't talk so, cousin Charlton!" said Fleda.

"But seriously," said Charlton, "I think you had better call him to
account. He is very suspicious lately. I have observed him walking by
himself and looking very glum indeed. I am afraid he has taken some fancy
into his head that would not suit you. I advise you to enquire into it."

"I wouldn't give myself any concern about it!" said Thorn lightly,
enjoying the child's confusion and his own fanciful style of
backbiting,--"I'd let him go if he has a mind to, Miss Fleda. He's no such
great catch. He's neither lord nor knight--nothing in the world but a
private gentleman, with plenty of money I dare say, but you don't care for
that;--and there's as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. I don't
think much of him!"

He is wonderfully better than _you_, thought Fleda as she looked in the
young gentleman's face for a second, but she said nothing.

"Why, Fleda," said Charlton laughing, "it wouldn't be a killing affair,
would it? How has this English admirer of yours got so far in your
fancy?--praising your pretty eyes, eh?--Eh?" he repeated, as Fleda kept a
dignified silence.

"No," said Fleda in displeasure,--"he never says such things."

"No?" said Charlton. "What then? What does he say? I wouldn't let him make
a fool of me if I were you. Fleda!--did he ever ask you for a kiss?"

"No!" exclaimed Fleda half beside herself and bursting into tears;--"I
wish you wouldn't talk so! How can you?"

They had carried the game pretty far that time, and thought best to leave
it. Fleda stopped crying as soon as she could, lest somebody should see
her; and was sitting quietly again, alone as before, when one of the
sailors whom she had never spoken to came by, and leaning over towards her
with a leer as he passed, said,

"Is this the young English gentleman's little sweetheart?"

Poor Fleda! She had got more than she could bear. She jumped up and ran
down into the cabin; and in her berth Mrs. Carleton found her some time
afterwards, quietly crying, and most sorry to be discovered. She was
exceeding unwilling to tell what had troubled her. Mrs. Carleton, really
distressed, tried coaxing, soothing, reasoning, promising, in a way the
most gentle and kind that she could use.

"Oh it's nothing--it's nothing," Fleda said at last eagerly,--"it's
because I am foolish--it's only something they said to me."

"Who, love?"

Again was Fleda most unwilling to answer, and it was after repeated urging
that she at last said,

"Cousin Charlton and Mr. Thorn."

"Charlton and Mr. Thorn!--What did they say? What did they say,
darling Fleda?"

"O it's only that they tease me," said Fleda, trying hard to put an end to
the tears which caused all this questioning, and to speak as if they were
about a trifle. But Mrs. Carleton persisted.

"What do they say to tease you, love? what is it about?--Guy, come in
here and help me to find out what is the matter with Fleda."

Fleda hid her face in Mrs. Carleton's neck, resolved to keep her lips
sealed. Mr. Carleton came in, but to her great relief his question was
directed not to her but his mother.

"Fleda has been annoyed by something those young men, her cousin and Mr.
Thorn, have said to her;--they tease her, she says, and she will not tell
me what it is."

Mr. Carleton did not ask, and he presently left the state-room.

"O I am afraid he will speak to them!" exclaimed Fleda as soon as he was
gone.--"O I oughtn't to have said that!"--

Mrs. Carleton tried to soothe her and asked what she was afraid of. But
Fleda would not say any more. Her anxious fear that she had done mischief
helped to dry her tears, and she sorrowfully resolved she would keep her
griefs to herself next time.

Rossitur and Thorn were in company with a brother officer and friend of
the latter when Mr. Carleton approached them.

"Mr. Rossitur and Mr. Thorn," said he, "you have indulged yourselves in a
style of conversation extremely displeasing to the little girl under my
mother's care. You will oblige me by abandoning it for the future."

There was certainly in Mr. Carleton's manner a sufficient degree of the
cold haughtiness with which he usually expressed displeasure; though his
words gave no other cause of offence. Thorn retorted rather insolently,

"I shall oblige myself in the matter, and do as I think proper."

"I have a right to speak as I please to my own cousin," said Rossitur
sulkily,--"without asking anybody's leave. I don't see what you have to
do with it."

"Simply that she is under my protection and that I will not permit her to
be annoyed."

"I don't see how she is under your protection," said Rossitur.

"And I do not see how the potency of it will avail in this case,' said his
companion.

"Neither position is to be made out in words," said Mr. Carleton calmly.
"You see that I desire there be no repetition of the offence. The rest I
will endeavour to make clear if I am compelled to it."

"Stop, sir!" said Thorn, as the young Englishman was turning away, adding
with an oath,--"I won't bear this! You shall answer this to me, sir!"

"Easily," said the other.

"And me too," said Rossitur. "You have an account to settle with me,
Carleton."

"I will answer what you please," said Carleton carelessly,--"and as soon
as we get to land--provided you do not in the mean time induce me to
refuse you the honour."

However incensed, the young men endeavoured to carry it off with the same
coolness that their adversary shewed. No more words passed. But Mrs.
Carleton, possibly quickened by Fleda's fears, was not satisfied with the
carriage of all parties, and resolved to sound her son, happy in knowing
that nothing but truth was to be had from him. She found an opportunity
that very afternoon when he was sitting alone on the deck. The
neighbourhood of little Fleda she hardly noticed. Fleda was curled up
among her cushions, luxuriously bending over a little old black Bible
which was very often in her hand at times when she was quiet and had no
observation to fear.

"Reading!--always reading?" said Mrs. Carleton, as she came up and took a
place by her son.

"By no means!" he said, closing his book with a smile;--"not enough to
tire any one's eyes on this voyage, mother."

"I wish you liked intercourse with living society," said Mrs. Carleton,
leaning her arm on his shoulder and looking at him rather wistfully.

"You need not wish that,--when it suits me," he answered.

"But none suits you. Is there any on board?"

"A small proportion," he said, with the slight play of feature which
always effected a diversion of his mother's thoughts, no matter in what
channel they had been flowing.

"But those young men," she said, returning to the charge,--"you hold
yourself very much aloof from them?"

He did not answer, even by a look, but to his mother the perfectly quiet
composure of his face was sufficiently expressive.

"I know what you think, but Guy, you always had the same opinion of them?"

"I have never shewn any other."

"Guy," she said speaking low and rather anxiously,--"have you got into
trouble with those young men?"

"_I_ am in no trouble, mother," he answered somewhat haughtily; "I cannot
speak for them."

Mrs. Carleton waited a moment.

"You have done something to displease them, have you not?"

"They have displeased me, which is somewhat more to the purpose.

"But their folly is nothing to you?"

"No,--not their folly."

"Guy," said his mother, again pausing a minute, and pressing her hand more
heavily upon his shoulder, "you will not suffer this to alter the friendly
terms you have been on?--whatever it be,--let it pass."

"Certainly--if they choose to apologize and behave themselves."

"What, about Fleda?"

"Yes."

"I have no idea they meant to trouble her--I suppose they did not at all
know what they were doing,--thoughtless nonsense,--and they could have had
no design to offend you. Promise me that you will not take any further
notice of this!"

He shook off her beseeching hand as he rose up, and answered haughtily,
and not without something like an oath, that he _would_.

Mrs. Carleton knew him better than to press the matter any further; and
her fondness easily forgave the offence against herself, especially as her
son almost immediately resumed his ordinary manner.

It had well nigh passed from the minds of both parties, when in the
middle of the next day Mr. Carleton asked what had become of Fleda?--he
had not seen her except at the breakfast table. Mrs. Carleton said she
was not well.

"What's the matter?"

"She complained of some headache--I think she made herself sick
yesterday--she was crying all the afternoon, and I could not get her to
tell me what for. I tried every means I could think of, but she would not
give me the least clue--she said 'no' to everything I guessed--I can't
bear to see her do so--it makes it all the worse she does it so
quietly--it was only by a mere chance I found she was crying at all, but I
think she cried herself ill before she stopped. She could not eat a
mouthful of breakfast."

Mr. Carleton said nothing and with a changed countenance went directly
down to the cabin. The stewardess, whom he sent in to see how she was,
brought back word that Fleda was not asleep but was too ill to speak to
her. Mr. Carleton went immediately into the little crib of a state-room.
There he found his little charge, sitting bolt upright, her feet on the
rung of a chair and her hands grasping the top to support herself. Her
eyes were closed, her face without a particle of colour, except the dark
shade round the eyes which bespoke illness and pain. She made no attempt
to answer his shocked questions and words of tender concern, not even by
the raising of an eyelid, and he saw that the intensity of pain at the
moment was such as to render breathing itself difficult. He sent off the
stewardess with all despatch after iced water and vinegar and brandy, and
himself went on an earnest quest of restoratives among the lady passengers
in the cabin, which resulted in sundry supplies of salts and cologne; and
also offers of service, in greater plenty still, which he all refused.
Most tenderly and judiciously he himself applied various remedies to the
suffering child, who could not direct him otherwise than by gently putting
away the things which she felt would not avail her. Several were in vain.
But there was one bottle of strong aromatic vinegar which was destined to
immortalize its owner in Fleda's remembrance. Before she had taken three
whiffs of it her colour changed. Mr. Carleton watched the effect of a few
whiffs more, and then bade the stewardess take away all the other things
and bring him a cup of fresh strong coffee. By the time it came Fleda was
ready for it, and by the time Mr. Carleton had administered the coffee he
saw it would do to throw his mother's shawl round her and carry her up on
deck, which he did without asking any questions. All this while Fleda had
not spoken a word, except once when he asked her if she felt better. But
she had given him, on finishing the coffee, a full look and half smile of
such pure affectionate gratitude that the young gentleman's tongue was
tied for some time after.

With happy skill, when he had safely bestowed Fleda among her cushions on
deck, Mr. Carleton managed to keep off the crowd of busy inquirers after
her well-doing, and even presently to turn his mother's attention another
way, leaving Fleda to enjoy all the comfort of quiet and fresh air at
once. He himself, seeming occupied with other things, did no more but keep
watch over her, till he saw that she was able to bear conversation again.
Then he seated himself beside her and said softly,

[Illustration: Then he seated himself beside her.]

"Elfie,--what were you crying about all yesterday afternoon?"

Fleda changed colour, for soft and gentle as the tone was she heard in
it a determination to have the answer; and looking up beseechingly into
his face she saw in the steady full blue eye that it was a determination
she could not escape from. Her answer was an imploring request that he
would not ask her. But taking one of her little hands and carrying it to
his lips, he in the same tone repeated his question. Fleda snatched away
her hand and burst into very frank tears; Mr. Carleton was silent, but
she knew through silence that he was only quietly waiting for her to
answer him.

"I wish you wouldn't ask me, sir," said poor Fleda, who still could not
turn her face to meet his eye;--"It was only something that happened
yesterday."

"What was it, Elfie?--You need not be afraid to tell me."

"It was only--what you said to Mrs. Carleton yesterday,--when she was
talking--"

"About my difficulty with those gentlemen?"

"Yes," said Fleda, with a new gush of tears, as if her grief stirred
afresh at the thought.

Mr. Carleton was silent a moment; and when he spoke there was no
displeasure and more tenderness than usual in his voice.

"What troubled you in that, Elfie? tell me the whole."

"I was sorry, because,--it wasn't right," said Fleda, with a grave
truthfulness which yet lacked none of her universal gentleness and
modesty.

"What wasn't right?"

"To speak--I am afraid you won't like me to say it, Mr. Carleton."

"I will, Elfie,--for I ask you."

"To speak to Mrs. Carleton so, and besides,--you know what you said, Mr.
Carleton--"

"It was _not_ right," said he after a minute,--"and I very seldom
use such an expression, but you know one cannot always be on one's
guard, Elfie?"

"But," said Fleda with gentle persistence, "one can always do what
is right."

The deuce one can!--thought Mr, Carleton to himself. "Elfie,--was that
all that troubled you?--that I had said what was not right?"

"It wasn't quite that only," said Fleda hesitating,--"What else?"

She stooped her face from his sight and he could but just understand
her words.

"I was disappointed--"

"What, in me!"

Her tears gave the answer; she could add to them nothing but an assenting
nod of her head.

They would have flowed in double measure if she had guessed the pain she
had given. Her questioner heard her with a keen pang which did not leave
him for days. There was some hurt pride in it, though other and more
generous feelings had a far larger share. He, who had been admired,
lauded, followed, cited, and envied, by all ranks of his countrymen and
countrywomen;--in whom nobody found a fault that could be dwelt upon amid
the lustre of his perfections and advantages;--one of the first young men
in England, thought so by himself as well as by others;--this little pure
being had been _disappointed_ in him. He could not get over it. He
reckoned the one judgment worth all the others. Those whose direct or
indirect flatteries had been poured at his feet were the proud, the
worldly, the ambitious, the interested, the corrupted;--their praise was
given to what they esteemed, and that, his candour said, was the least
estimable part of him. Beneath all that, this truth-loving,
truth-discerning little spirit had found enough to weep for. She was right
and they were wrong. The sense of this was so keen upon him that it was
tea or fifteen minutes before he could recover himself to speak to his
little reprover. He paced up and down the deck, while Fleda wept more and
more from the fear of having offended or grieved him. But she was soon
reassured on the former point. She was just wiping away her tears, with
the quiet expression of patience her face often wore, when Mr. Carleton
sat down beside her and took one of her hands.

"Elfie," said he,--"I promise you I will never say such a thing again."

He might well call her his good angel, for it was an angelic look the
child gave him. So purely humble, grateful, glad,--so rosy with joyful
hope,--the eyes were absolutely sparkling through tears. But when she saw
that his were not dry, her own overflowed. She clasped her other hand to
his hand and bending down her face affectionately upon it, she wept,--if
ever angels weep,--such tears as they.

"Elfie," said Mr. Carleton, as soon as he could,--"I want you to go down
stairs with me; so dry those eyes, or my mother will be asking all sorts
of difficult questions."

Happiness is a quick restorative. Elfie was soon ready to go where he
would.

They found Mrs. Carleton fortunately wrapped up in a new novel, some
distance apart from the other persons in the cabin. The novel was
immediately laid aside to take Fleda on her lap and praise Guy's nursing.

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