Chapter IV: "i'll Be a Sailor or a Soldier."

As she bent over the bed in grief and sorrow, Mrs. Malony was rewarded and startled at the same time. For the poor patient heaved a sigh, and slowly opened her eyes.

Then a faint smile stole over her lips.

"I had such a happy dream!" she whispered.

"Hush, dear; don't spake another word."

It wasn't the first, nor the second patient either, that Mrs. Malony had nursed, so she had all her wits about her.

She knew that at this very moment Mrs. Mackenzie's life was hanging by the merest thread, and there was no time to lose.

She quickly squeezed some of the juice of the meat into a saucer, and mixing it with a little wine, put it tea-spoonful after tea-spoonful into her patient's mouth.

Mrs. Mackenzie slept after this, a real not a dreamful sleep, and towards evening she awoke refreshed. A cupful of warm beef-tea was ready, and she smiled her thanks as she sipped it.

All that night Mrs. Malony sat up and nursed her, and when next day the doctor came, he was more than satisfied.

"She will do now," he told Mrs. Malony on the landing--"do for a time. If she could only be got down the Clyde to a cottage hospital I know of--Well, I'll do what I can."

"Do, sorr; and may heaven be your portion evermore!"

* * * * *

"I'll tell you how I think it can be managed," said Dr. Gregory, a few days after this. "There is a cottage hospital, or rather a home for poor convalescents, down the water. It is partly supported by voluntary contributions, but the patients have to pay a little themselves."

"But," interrupted Mrs. Malony, "the crayture here is as poor as a church-mouse, sorr, and not able to pay. Och, and och!"

"Wait a minute, Mrs. Malony. I have noticed how deft and handy little Maggie here is. She seems really cut out for a nurse. Now, at the home they want just such a wee lass, and she would have food and keep, and wages enough to maintain her mother at the hospital.--Would you like to go, dear?"

"Oh," cried Maggie, "I would be so delighted."

"All right then; I'll see about it at once."

And the doctor did see about it. For a fortnight, however, if not more, Mrs. Mackenzie was not strong enough to be moved. But during all this time she was slowly improving. This was perhaps as much from the fact that she now had hope as from the extra nourishment she received.

Little Johnnie Greybreeks, however, much to his sorrow, was to remain in Glasgow, and live for a time with the Malonies.

Johnnie kept up very bravely, though. He wouldn't have shed a tear before his mother or sister, not even when the day of parting came, for anything. But when in his little bed at night--ah! then I must confess the lad did give way to grief. We must remember he was little more than a child after all.

"I'm going to learn to be a big man," he told his mother proudly on the last evening, "and Mr. Malony says I'll soon be able to shoe a horse. And, O mother," he added, rather sadly, "shoeing horses is a fine thing, but I would rather be a Highland soldier and wear a feather bonnet, like what father wears in his picture."

"Dear boy," replied his mother, "we must all try to do our duty in the line of life God has appointed us to."

* * * * *

Mrs. Malony had a friend who was skipper of a small sailing schooner. Old Skipper Ross used to pride himself in the beauty and sailing qualities of his little craft, and had rebaptized her _Queen of the Clyde_.

When this honest, red-faced seaman heard the story of poor Mrs. Mackenzie, he took his pipe from his mouth, and his face puckered with smiles under the blue Kilmarnock night-cap he always wore.

"Dear Mrs. Malony," he said, "instead of the puir lady gaun doon the Clyde in a smoke-jack steam-boat, I'll tak her mysel'. Splinter my jib-boom if I dinna."

This was very good of the skipper, and Mrs. Malony gladly accepted the offer.

Malony himself got a day off. They were all to go down the Clyde together, and make a kind of pleasure-trip of it. They would even take Little Peter with them, to give them music during the voyage.

Well, it wasn't very often that a cab was seen to draw up at 73 Summer Loaning, so when the jarvey stopped and turned his horse at the "close mou',"* young and old flocked out and lined the pavement. When the poor wan invalid was got inside, many a rough voice wished her God-speed, and they even raised a cheer as the cab drove off and away.

* Mouth of the court.

It was a lovely spring morning when the _Queen of the Clyde_ caught the light breeze, and began manoeuvring down the river, Skipper Ross himself holding the tiller. The old man declared he could steer his ship through a hundred herring-boats and never run foul of anything.

Mrs. Mackenzie and party had seats on the deck. And everything was as clean and tidy, too, as the duke's yacht itself, not a rope's end or belaying-pin out of place, and the paint-work as bright as a gipsy's caravan.

The invalid heaved a sigh of relief when at long last the great noisy ship-building yards were left behind, with the awful din of their ringing hammers, and the bonnie river began to open out before them broad and wide, with the sunshine glittering on its bosom, and the greenery of trees and far-off hills bounding the horizon.

Mrs. Mackenzie was thinking sadly of her dear departed husband, who was buried at the lovely town of Helensburgh, and Maggie and Jack were seated on deck at her feet. Then Peter drew out his fiddle.

"Ah! man, ay," cried the skipper. "Play up, lad, do. Sweeter to me is the soond o' the fiddle and its lang-drawn melody than the cry o' the sea-birds, sailin' tack and half-tack roond ma wee bit shippie. Play, laddie, play!"

So down the Clyde they dropped, floating as easily as cormorant on the wave, past villages, past towns, and wilds and woodlands green, and it was quite near eventide when the _Queen_ at last got alongside the pier.

They had indeed enjoyed the voyage. And Jack had spread the banquet on the white planks of the deck, and everybody enjoyed that also.

Just after it was done and cleared away, Skipper Ross drew out a black bottle from a handy locker.

"Ye'll tak a wee skyte, Malony; winna ye?"

But Malony shook his head.

"I've sworn off," he said. "Indade, it's the truth that I'm tellin' ye. For this wee lad here has now to look on Patrick Malony as his father. But thank ye all the same."

* * * * *

The parting was over, and Mrs. Mackenzie was alone in a delightful little ward with her daughter Maggie. They had brought the canary, and he began to sing the very next morning. And no wonder; for everything around was sweet and white and clean, and honeysuckle waved its dark-green foliage around the window, while afar off were the grand old purple hills, with many a glen and wood between.

The cottage home was near to the sea too, for flocks of gulls and rooks together could be seen out in the fields yonder.

"You feel better to-day, mother?"

"Yes, dearie; I feel I shall get well now. But, child, I dread to think of the future."

"Ah! that is only because you are ill, you know. God provides for the rooks and gulls yonder, mother, and he won't forget us surely."

Maggie spoke cheerfully and sincerely. She was not one of your old-old-fashioned children, nor was she given to preaching either. The girl was tall and ladylike, though very young, and pretty besides; but she had a thoughtful and serious look in her eyes, that showed she had not been reared in the stern school of poverty and adversity in vain.

Maggie's faith was very simple. Her little Bible had for many a day been her friend and companion. She went to it for consolation and guidance at all times and under all circumstances, opening it at random, and believing that the very first verse her eyes fell upon was an answer to the thoughts that filled her mind.

There really is much to be said for this simplicity of faith, often present not only in the very young but in their elders. Science as yet is but groping in the dark, although it seems inspired, and may be. But here, in this Book, we have all we appear to want for our happiness laid down in a way that goes straight to the heart. It was concerning such simple wee folks as Maggie, surely, that our Saviour spoke when he said, "Suffer little children to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

* * * * *

When little Johnnie Greybreeks returned to Glasgow, he found life for a time very dull indeed, though the kind-hearted Mrs. Malony and her husband did all they could to cheer him up. But he used to lie in his bed at night, awake and thinking, till long past twelve. What should he be? That was the question that puzzled him to answer.

To tell the truth, Johnnie, as for the time being we may continue to call him, was just a trifle ambitious. At all events, working in the blacksmith's shop was very monotonous, although he did all he could, and really earned his food. He didn't like it though, and told himself so every night of his life, he considering himself dreadfully ungrateful to the good people with whom he lived for doing so.

Whenever Johnnie had an hour or so to spare, Little Peter and he used to go wandering away down by the Broomielaw to look at the ships. Our young hero was better clad now; for since good Tom Morgan had given him that Sunday's suit, his former Sunday's clothes became his week-day wear, and he looked by no means a gutter-snipe or tatterdemalion.

Little Peter was as fond of ships as Johnnie, and as he always took his fiddle with him, the Jackie-tars used to invite him on board sometimes, to play to them while they danced or sang.

"O Johnnie," said Peter one day, as they were going back towards Summer Loaning, "if I wasna a miserable little hunchback, I'd be a sailor mysel'."

Johnnie felt sorry for Peter, so to comfort him he made answer,--

"Well, Peter, if I could play the fiddle as well as you, I wouldn't care what my back was like. Anyhow, I've made up my mind either to be a sailor or a soldier. I'd like to wear a feather bonnet.--Hark!" he continued. "Peter, here come the Highlanders. Can't you hear them?"

"Ay, fine can I hear them. The skirl o' the bagpipes maks my bluid run dancin' through ilka vein in my body, and if I had a sword and was big enough, I could fight to music like that."

A few minutes after, the Highlanders came marching and swinging along, their glittering bayonets flashing in the evening sunshine high above their nodding plumes. Even Peter pulled himself an inch taller as the two lads marched side by side with the regiment all the way to the barracks.

Then they came sadly away.

"Which is it now?" said Peter.

"Oh, a soldier; but I'll have to wait till I grow."

"Unless you learn the drum, Johnnie Greybreeks, Then you could go at once."

But Johnnie only shook his head.

"No, no, Peter," he said; "I must be a real fighting soldier, just as poor father was."

Little did Johnnie know that at that very time there was a tidal wave advancing towards him that might lead on to fortune. Or on to death, who could tell? So true is it what Shakespeare says,--

"There is a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them how we will."