Evelyn Everett-Green

“ Don't cry, little prince. As soon as ever a boat can come from shore we will find out all about it."
"I don't want to cry," answered the child, whose wondering eyes were quite dry. "I like being here. I like you, and Pat, and Jim, and the gull, and everybody. I fink I'll stay here always. My papa and mamma can come and live with us if they want to; and if they don't, I'll go and see them sometimes. I don't live with them ever—only now and then. I'd like to be a lighthouse keeper, with Jim to help me. I fink I'll live always with you." ”

“ He followed Jim up into the upper room, and went out upon the gallery to watch the great fog-bank creep slowly down upon them. The sun was so bright and clear that it seemed impossible that that slowly moving white mass should ever obscure it; but soon a few little light vapour wreaths drifted up against the rocks, and very quickly the sun looked dull and red, and little by little the sky and the sea seemed all to be blotted out, and Pat could not tell which way he was looking, nor where the land lay. ”

“ Mother, Jim is a very kind man. He isn't a bit like what I thought; I'm going to have him for a friend. I think by-and-by he will like me perhaps. I like him very much. He was very kind last night."
"Well, if anybody can come at his heart, it will be the child," thought Eileen, whose own advances had been steadily rejected and ignored. She was sorry for the lonely man with the sad history, and was a little afraid of him too; but when she whispered a word of her fear to her husband, Nat stoutly declared it was "all right." Pat could do as he liked, and make what advances he chose. ”

“ And then he and the child knew the secret about the creatures being alive, when everybody else thought it merely a machine. Jim always spoke of it as "her," and Pat learned to do the same, and to wonder sometimes why she never awoke by day, but was always so quiet and still [ 49 ] when the sun was shining, though when the dusk fell upon the land she would wake up and shine, and go round and round with that strange monotonous noise he had learned to heed as little as the ceaseless plash of the waves. That secret knowledge shared by both made another link between the man and the child. ”

“ Eileen was smiling at her little boy's request, but she did not give him any direct answer. She set the child on his feet, and he promptly ran across to Pat with a shout of glee; and as the pair scrambled to the floor for a renewed romp together, she watched them a few minutes, and then said—
"Poor little boy; he's too young to miss his mother yet, but I fear she may be in a terrible state of fear for him if she be living, poor soul. We must not think of ourselves, little son. We must think first of others. ”

“ No one could fail to regard the little prince with admiration; and the sailors laughed together, and told Nat he had done a good thing for himself in befriending such a boy as that.
"He comes of fine folks—any one can see that, and they must be real set on such a smart little chap as him," said one, as they began to make their way to the lighthouse, where Eileen stood in the doorway smiling a welcome. "You won't be the loser by being good to him. He's a fine little fellow, and no mistake!" ”

“ Hark at the wind! It is rising every moment!"
It was indeed, and Pat soon became too excited to do anything but wander up and down the stairs, watching the wild strife of the wind and waves, first from one place and then from another, not knowing whence the best view was obtained. He might not open the door upon the gallery to go out there, as he would have liked. Jim told him he would not be able to stand there in such a night; and that the air rushing and sweeping in would be bad for the lamp; and to-night, above all nights, she must be studied and thought of. ”

“ It was just possible that life might be restored. Sailors have wonderful experiences of such returns to life after long immersion in the water. Pat could not believe the little boy was dead, and with breathless eagerness he watched Jim quietly slip into the water, and strike out in strong vigorous strokes for the floating spar. Eileen put her hands before her eyes for one moment at the plunge, and then stood up calm and strong. ”

“ There was a moaning sound all around the walls of his home, rising sometimes to a mournful shriek. The little boy was glad to get on his clothes, and find a glowing fire burning in the living room. There had come a chilliness into the air, and it seemed as if summer had suddenly taken flight. His mother looked up at him as he came, and greeted him with a smile.
"Well, Pat; so father is right after all, and here are the gales come upon us all sudden-like at the last. ”

“ Why should we not let them come in and warm themselves here?"
"They would only be worse scared than they are, Pat," answered his father, "and would fly into the lamp and hurt themselves and it. Poor foolish things! they don't know what they come for themselves; it's just the light attracts them. We'll get feathers enough to stuff a pillow for your mother to-morrow, if Jim is right about what we shall find outside."
But Pat was quite unhappy about the poor foolish wild birds driven seawards by the gale, and coming to the lighthouse, as it were, for shelter. ”

“ Yon spar will not be washed upon the reef; it will be carried just beyond round the point where we stand. I shall spring off yonder into deep water as it is swept by and seize it, and you will pull me in—for with that burden in my arms I cannot swim. I have not lived all the years on Lone Rock not to know what may and may not be done. It will not be certain death——" He stopped suddenly short. He could not say that it might not be death, and already he had spoken more freely than he had been known to do to any one but the child.
Pat rushed up to Jim, and flung his arms round his knees. ”

“ I fink I like a sea-gull best. He makes such nice noises and he dances, too. I fink I shall dig a great big ditch all round the garden, and fill it with the sea, and put a lighthouse in the middle, and Pat and his daddy and my Nan can live with me there; and the sea-gull, too, and then we should have everything, and it would be quite con-wenient for everybody. ”

“ I do believe—praise the Lord!—that the darling is living still. If he is, and if he gets a bit better, a hot bath will restore him quicker than anything. And get that box of dried herbs and sea-weed from the cupboard. There are some rare good things there for rubbing the skin with. I've seen wonderful cures with them in my young days."
Pat was intensely excited as he watched his mother's quick and clever ministrations to the little boy, who already began to look different—less like a child of marble, and more like one of flesh and blood. ”

“ Pat was not a shy child as a rule, but he had always stood in awe of "Surly Jim." He could eat better and chatter more freely when the man was not present at table. He shrank a little into himself always when Jim entered the living room. It was not often that he did this, save when called to meals, for when not on duty, he was either sleeping in his own room, or sitting in the boat smoking a short black pipe, and Pat had never attempted to approach him at these times. ”

“ It did not seem dark now, for the silver moon rode high in the sky, and though the sea beneath looked black in places, there was a great track of silver light right across it where the moonlight lay, and sometimes a white sea-bird would fly athwart the silver track, and for that moment its beautiful white wings seemed to shine like silver too. ”

“ God help all those poor souls who will be out at sea to-night!"
The woman spoke with so much earnestness and feeling, that Pat looked up in her face with wide-open, questioning eyes.
"What makes you say that, mother? Is it going to be what Jim would call a real big storm? I rather wanted to see one. Is it [ 88 ] naughty to feel so? I won't, if it is; but I thought a lighthouse boy ought to know what a real storm was like. Are we going to have one to-night, mother?"
"I fear we are, my child. And terrible it will be for those who are afloat, exposed to the mercy of the wind and the waves. ”

“ We shall have to make up our minds to a deal of moaning and tossing and tumbling if we are to live all the winter in a lighthouse! You'll be a brave boy, my little son, and not mind the wind and the rain and the dashing of the waves? It'll not frighten [ 71 ] you to hear it day after day and week after week, will it, honey?"
"Frighten me?" asked Pat, almost indignantly. "Why, mother, no! I'm almost a man now, and men aren't frightened by noises. I shall help father and Jim to take care of the lighthouse, and I'll help you down here when I'm not too busy upstairs with her. ”

“ Look! do you see them flying against the glass? It's the light as brings them these stormy nights. They know they'll get perching-room somewhere round, if they get nothing else. See their white wings flitting to and fro, Pat? Jim says in the morning we shall pick up a score or so of dead birds in the gallery, as have dashed their lives out flying straight against the glass. ”

“ But when he gets better he will again."
"I'd like to go and see Jim," said the child, suddenly scrambling to his feet. "I fink Jim must be a very good man. I'll go and tell him so."
"Yes, do!" answered Pat eagerly. "I'm sure he would like it. I tell him about you every day, Prince Rupert. He likes to hear about you, I know, though he can't talk hardly at all. You must talk to him. He can't say hardly anything himself. It hurts him so; and mother says he mustn't."
"I'll talk," answered the little prince serenely. "I can talk very well, if I like. ”

“ Nat saw that his strong and skilled comrade had just a chance of doing what he meditated, and yet escaping with his own life, and he would not seek to hold him back. Every seaman, at one time, or another, risks his life for his fellow-men, and Nat had not been backward in deeds of bravery in his own time. But as keeper of the lighthouse now, and with a wife and child to think for, he could not have taken his life in his hand to-night as Jim purposed to do. Still, he could aid and assist his comrade by his skill and strength, and judicious management of the rope ”

“ He wanted to see the little stranger before he was himself seen. He wanted to have a good look at him, and in this he was not disappointed.
The living-room looked very neat and trim. All the disorder and mess which had been brought in the previous day was cleared away. The table was spread for a meal, and Eileen [ 124 ] herself was sitting comfortably in her rocking-chair, with a laughing little boy perched upon her knee, laughing and crowing lustily at the movement of the chair. He was a great many years younger than Pat—this little waif of the ocean—perhaps not more than four years old. ”

“ He keeps fast hold of the little boy. Oh, they are coming nearer! Do make haste! Do make haste! Oh, I hope they will not both be dead! Oh, hold on strong, Jim! Daddy will pull you in soon; but the sea is so strong! Oh, how I wish the sea was not so cruel! I know now why mother said that it would be a blessed thing when there was no more sea!"
Pat was too excited not to keep talking all the time, though some of his words were piped out in shrill tones to his parents below, and some were said beneath his breath to himself. ”

“ I think God must love them for it. I think Jesus must smile at them, for He did just the same for us; and if He knows that they do it because they want to be like Him and do something for Him, I think He would be pleased. People don't always die because they are willing to; sometimes they are saved too. But Jesus would know that they were willing to die for Him. I think, when I grow to be a man, if I might choose, I should like best to serve Him like that."
Whilst Pat was speaking, Jim's eyes had been fixed earnestly upon his face. ”