The Middy and the Moors - Robert Michael Ballantyne (best ebook reader android .TXT) 📗

to get ill and send for Minnie just three weeks after my return from slavery!--But what do you mean by her having fallen on the right scent? Surely she has not found leisure and strength both to hunt and nurse at the same time!"

"Yes, indeed, she has. Our last winter in that charming south of France has so completely restored her--through the blessing of God--that she has found herself equal to almost anything. It happens that Aunt Jeanette has got a friend living close to her who is an enthusiastic worker amongst the poor of the town, and she has taken your sister several times to visit the districts where the very poor people live. It was while she was thus engaged, probably never thinking of poor Laronde's wife at all, that she--but here is the letter. Read it for yourself, you need not trouble yourself to read the last page--just down to here."

Retiring to the window the middy read as follows:--

"Darling Mother,--I must begin at once with what my mind is full of,
just remarking, by the way, that Aunt Jeanette is improving steadily,
and that I hope to be home again in less than a week.

"Well, I told you in my last that Miss Love--who is most appropriately
named--had taken me out once or twice on her visits among the poor.
And, do you know, it has opened up a new world of ideas and feelings
to me. It is such a terrible revelation of the intensity of sorrow
and suffering that is endured by a large mass of our fellow-creatures!
I am persuaded that thousands of the well-to-do and the rich have no
conception of it, for it must be seen to be understood. I feel as if
my heart had become a great fountain of pity! And I can well--at
least better--understand how our dear Saviour, when He wanted to give
evidence of the truth and character of His mission, said, `The poor
have the gospel preached unto them,' for if any class of beings on the
face of this earth stand in need of good news it is the poor. God
help and bless them!

"Well, the other day Miss Love came to ask me to go out with her to
visit some of her poor people, among others one--a very singular
character--a woman who was reported to be a desperate miser, insomuch
that she starved herself and her child for the sake of saving money.
It was said that she was very ill at the time--thought to be dying--
and seemed to be in a wretched state of destitution. Her name, Miss
Love told me, was Lundy.

"As Auntie was pretty well that day I gladly accompanied my friend to
her district. And it _was_ an awful place! I shudder even now when I
think of the sights and sounds and dreadful language I saw and heard
there--but I must not turn aside from what I have to tell. I pass
over our visits to various families and come at once to the reputed
miser. She was in bed, and from her flushed face and glittering eyes
I could see that she was in high fever. She started, raised herself
on an elbow, and glared at us as we entered.

"I was deeply interested in her from the first moment. Although worn
and thin, with lines of prolonged suffering indelibly stamped on her,
she had a beautiful and refined face. Her age appeared to be about
thirty-five. A lovely, but wretchedly clothed girl, of about fourteen
years of age, sat on a low stool at her bedside. And oh! such a bed
it was. Merely a heap of straw with a piece of sacking over it, on a
broken bedstead. One worn blanket covered her thin form. Besides
these things, a small table, and a corner cupboard, there was
literally nothing else in the room.

"The girl rose to receive us, and expressed regret that she had no
chairs to offer. While Miss Love went forward and talked tenderly to
the mother, I drew the girl aside, took her hand affectionately, and
said, `You have not always been as poor as you now are?'

"`No indeed,' she said, while tears filled her eyes, `but work failed
us in London, where we once lived, and mother came to Liverpool to a
brother, who said he would help her, but he died soon after our
arrival, and then mother got ill and I had to begin and spend our
savings--savings that darling mother had scraped and toiled so hard to
gain--and this made her much worse, for she was _so_ anxious to save
money!'

"This last remark reminded me of the reports about the mother's
miserly nature, so I asked a question that made the poor girl reply
quickly--

"`Oh! you mustn't think that darling mother is a miser. People so
often fall into that mistake! She has been saving for ever so many
years to buy father back--'

"`Buy father back!' I repeated, with a sudden start.

"`Yes, to buy him from the Algerine pirates--'

"I waited for no more, but, running to the bedside, looked the poor
woman steadily in the face. There could be no doubt about it. There
was the fair hair, blue eyes, and clear complexion, though the last
was sadly faded from ill-health.

"You should have seen the look of surprise she gave me. But I had
been foolishly precipitate. Her mind had been wandering a little
before we came in. The shock seemed to throw it further off the
balance, for she suddenly looked at me with a calm sweet smile.

"`Yes,' she said, `he always called me Marie, though my name was Mary,
being a Frenchman, you know--his little Marie he called me! I often
think how pleased he will be to see another little Marie grown big
when we get him back--but oh! how long--how _long_ they are about
sending him, though I have sent the money over and over again. Hush!'

"She looked round with a terrified expression and clutched my shawl
with her thin hand. `You won't tell, will you?' she went on; `you
have a kind face, I am sure you will not tell, but I have been
saving--saving--saving, to send more money to the Moors. I keep it in
a bag here under my pillow, but I often fear that some one will
discover and steal it. Oh! these Moors must have hard, hard hearts to
keep him from me so long--so _very_ long!'

"Here she thrust me from her with unexpected violence, burst into a
wild laugh, and began in her delirium to rave against the Moors. Yet,
even in the midst of her reproaches, the poor thing prayed that God
would soften their hearts and forgive her for being so revengeful.

"Now, mother, I want to know what is to be done, for when we sent for
a doctor he said that not a word must be said about the return of her
husband until she is out of danger and restored to some degree of
health."

Thus far the middy read the letter.

"Mother," he said, firmly, "the doctor may say what he likes, but I am convinced that the best cure for fever and every other disease under the sun is joy--administered judiciously, in small or large doses as the patient is able to bear it! Now, the primary cause of poor Marie's illness is the loss of her husband, therefore the removal of the cause-- that is, the recovery of her husband--"

"With God's blessing," interjected Mrs Foster.

"Admitted--with the blessing of the Great Physician--that is the natural cure."

"Very true, George, but you wisely spoke of small doses. I am not sure that it would be safe to tell Monsieur Laronde that we have actually found his wife and child. He also is too weak to bear much agitation."

"Not so weak as you think, mother, though the sufferings of slave-life and subsequent anxiety have brought him very near to the grave. But I will break it to him judiciously. We will get my dear little Hester to do it."

"_Your_ Hester!" exclaimed Mrs Foster, in surprise. "I trust, George, that you, a mere midshipman, have not dared to speak to that child of--"

"Make your mind easy, mother," replied the middy, with a laugh, "I have not said a word. Haven't required to. We have both spoken to each other with our eyes, and that is quite enough at present. I feel as sure of my little Hester as if we were fairly spliced. There goes the breakfast-bell. Will you be down soon?"

"No. I am too happy to-day to be able to eat in public, George. Send it up to me."

The breakfast-room in that seaside villa presented an interesting company, for the fugitives had stuck together with feelings of powerful sympathy since they had landed in England. Hugh Sommers was there, but it was not easy to recognise in the fine, massive, genial gentleman, in a shooting suit of grey, the ragged, wretched slave who, not long before, had struggled like a tiger with the janissaries on the walls of Algiers. And Hester was there, of course, with her sunny hair and sunny looks and general aspect of human sunniness all over, as unlike to the veiled and timid Moorish lady, or the little thin-nosed negress, as chalk is to cheese! Edouard Laronde was also there, and he, like the others, had undergone wonderful transformation in the matter of clothing, but he had also changed in body, for a severe illness had seized him when he landed, and it required all Mrs Foster's careful nursing to "pull him through," as the middy styled it. Brown the sailor was also there, for, being a pleasant as well as a sharp man, young Foster resolved to get him into the Navy, and, if possible, into the same ship with himself. Meanwhile he retained him to assist in the search for Marie Laronde and her daughter. Last, but by no means least, Peter the Great was there--not as one of the breakfast party, but as a waiter.

Peter had from the first positively refused to sit down to meals in a dining-party room!

"No, Geo'ge," he said, when our middy proposed it to him, on the occasion of their arrival at his mother's home--"No, Geo'ge. I _won't_ do it. Das flat! I's not