Chapter IX: News From Ralph

"Oh, that I had never allowed him to go!" wailed Mrs. Denham, the morning after the alarming telegram arrived, rocking herself to and fro in her misery, tears streaming down her face. "My dear, dear boy! He went to help me, and this is the end of it. The best, the dearest, the most unselfish boy in the world! How can I bear it! how can I bear it!"

But Agnes, when she recovered, showed much sense and strength of mind.

"Mother," said she, "it only says that the boat is missing, it does not say it is lost. Those seas are full of vessels, please God some ship has picked them up, and dear Ralph is safe yet. Do not despair, God is good."

"You are my only comfort, Agnes," sobbed Mrs. Denham; "but, oh, if I had only refused to let him go!"

"Agnes is right," said the sensible Miss Mason. "Your son did his duty in taking the chance offered to him, and God is merciful. You must trust to Him, Mrs. Denham. Agnes, my dear, you are not fit to go to your pupils to-day. I have written a note, and Jack can take it before he goes to school."

"No, thank you, ma'am," said Agnes. "Mrs. Dallas is particular. I am quite well enough this morning; the walk will do me good. I mean to be brave, and keep up heart."

She smiled, but it was a wan smile.

"Perhaps you are right," replied the little old lady, with secret admiration of the girl's resolution. "Duty and work are a real help in trouble."

Miss Mason became a firm friend to Agnes from that time. She was a lonely woman. Death had lately robbed her of all who were near and dear to her; it had lessened her means, and taken her home from her; but she had an affectionate heart, into which she took her young acquaintance from that time, and found an unexpected source of happiness in so doing.

Many were the little ways of relieving the strain upon Agnes which she found. She allowed Lisa to bring her school-work into her parlour for preparation; and the quiet harbour of refuge proved to be an immense boon, and lessened the constant irritation of the girl's temper.

She often took Cicely to walk with her; she taught her to read, and quite took her off her mother's hands.

In another week, a second telegram assured the family of Ralph's safe arrival at Moulmein; but all particulars had to be sent by post, and before they arrived all the children were down with measles.

Lisa and the baby were excessively ill. Lisa's lungs were much affected, she had been growing very fast, and the time of year was against her; while the complaint seemed to bring out latent mischief in the baby's constitution: spinal disease asserted itself, and the medical man pronounced that, if he lived, he must be a hopeless cripple.

Agnes, who had taken the measles in the first instance from her pupils, was left with a cough which every east wind aggravated, and she became thin and pale.

The assurance of Ralph's safety was a great cordial, but the letters which arrived by post, in due course of time, brought with them renewed anxiety. They related only the bare facts of the escape from the ship, and that of Ralph's severe illness.

Captain Rogers had sailed from Rangoon so quickly as to have missed Mr. Gilchrist's account of particulars, addressed to him there and reposted to him in Liverpool. Thus, though he himself arrived very soon after his own letter to the firm, he knew little or nothing further.

The Messrs. Herford wished him to go out again as soon as possible. They had every confidence in him, attributing no blame whatever to him for the loss of his ship; but an official inquiry into the circumstances was inevitable, and all the appliances for Gilchrist's orchid hunting had to be renewed, besides the usual business of loading his new ship. He ran down to Cornwall to see his wife, and was obliged to be in London about the business, so could scarcely spare time to see his sister.

As soon, however, as Mr. Gilchrist's letter arrived, a copy of it was sent to Mrs. Denham; and the same post brought one to her saying that her son was out of danger, and relating details of his recovery.

These letters did more than relieve the terrible suspense of Mrs. Denham and her family, they aroused the deepest interest in the minds of all in the office of Messrs. Herford Brothers.

Mr. Augustus Herford, talking over the matter with the captain, complimented him highly upon the conduct of his nephew.

"He must be a lad worth helping," said he; "and the mother, for whose sake he has plunged into so much danger, shall not be forgotten. What other family has she, Rogers?"

"Two more sons, sir, younger, and whose education is difficult to accomplish,--a crippled infant, who must always be a burden,--and three daughters."

"Six young children!" exclaimed Mr. Herford. "Poor soul, poor soul!"

He was a rich and liberal man, and acted upon his impulse. A situation was offered to Ralph in the house at Rangoon, where he might rise more rapidly than in England. Reginald was put into Christ's Hospital; and Jack should be apprenticed to his uncle as soon as he was fourteen. This would not be for nearly a year; but Reginald went soon, which relieved the crowd in the house,--and Ralph's heroism, the illness at home, and the dreadful suspense as to his brothers fate, had exerted a very favourable influence over the boy's character.

He saw how Ralph was respected and admired; he witnessed how much he was beloved and missed at home, and determined to win the same regard if possible. At anyrate, he would not disgrace his brother. The hope of soon entering upon a manly career added to his improvement; his last few months at home should be useful in leaving a good impression behind him, and little annoyances which would so soon be over were more easily borne.

Ralph would have been more surprised than anyone had he realised how widespread the consequences of his own simple adherence to duty had become, or how his own dear ones benefited through it.

Time passed on, the invalids improved in health; spring advanced, and a letter arrived from Ralph himself, saying little of his troubles, but full of the kindness he had received, and the pleasure with which he was anticipating his journey with Mr. Gilchrist.

"Kershaw, my friend, is on his way home," he wrote in conclusion. "He has promised to call and see you, dear mother. I have sent a few trifles for you from the bazaar here, and he will tell you much which I am hardly strong enough yet to write about."

It was not long after receipt of this letter before a tall, good-looking, sunburnt, and extremely grave young man called one evening. He proved to be Ralph's friend, the mate Kershaw, and he was received with effusion. Tea was just ready, and he was at once invited to remain to partake of it.

Miss Mason was fetched down, and questions about the dear absent one poured out upon him. He replied to everyone with the most demure politeness, but it was not long before Agnes, as well as some of the others, observed a twinkle in the bright eyes, not exactly in accordance with the gravity of his manner. Also some of his calm observations were, to say the least of them, startling.

There was home-made saffron-cake on the table, and Mrs. Denham offered him the plate.

"Ah!" said he, "no wonder that Denham is a little dissatisfied with Burmese cookery, when he gets such cake as this at home."

"I am glad that you like it, for it is a kind of cake which we Cornish people particularly affect. Do you happen to have Cornish connections, Mr. Kershaw?"

"No, madam, I am of Irish extraction."

"Irish!" cried Lisa. "I should so like to visit Ireland. I want to see Fingal's Cave and the Giant's Causeway."

"I suppose you know, Miss Lisa, that the Causeway is supposed not to be a freak of nature but of man's manufacture."

"No, I never heard that," said Lisa. "What ground is there for supposing such a thing?"

"There are so many sham rocks in Ireland," said he sadly.

"Stuff!" said Lisa rudely. The others laughed.

"I suppose you heard that Ralph is to go up into the jungle, orchid hunting, with Mr. Gilchrist?" said Mrs. Denham.

"Yes; it will be a most interesting expedition. I could have wished to have joined it, only it was necessary to come home and pass my examination for master. Without my master's certificate I cannot take a berth as first mate, you know. Otherwise I should have liked to have gone with them, natural history is my great forte,--particularly Burmese natural history. I should have liked to have seen the Kain-no-ree, which inhabit lonely parts of the jungle."

"What sort of creature is that?" asked Jack.

"It is the missing link between birds and men, which Mr. Darwin failed to discover. It has the body of a bird, and the face of a man, and can talk away like anything."

"What a strange creature! I never heard of such a thing before. Are they pretty?"

"No, rather queer old birds, but conscientious. They have tongues which never told a lie. Then the links between the monkeys and the orchids are as much a question of degree, only upon one side, as those between monkeys and natives on the other."

"I believe," said Miss Mason quietly, "that we occasionally see the latter peculiarity at home. I have observed it in sailors."

Mr. Kershaw looked up at her. "Present company always excepted, of course," said he.

"Oh, certainly so! particularly when the company present is of Irish extraction," she replied.

"Miss Denham," appealed the young man, in injured innocence, "this lady is very severe upon me. Will you not take my part?"

"But, Mr. Kershaw, you did take even me in for a minute. How can I believe you again?"

"Even you? Was it so? I cry, _Peccavi_. _Even_ you."

"And now you are laughing at me."

"I? I would not laugh for the world, not even at you."

"I wish I could be even with you, Mr. Kershaw."

"And I wish that I could be evened to you, Miss Denham."

All laughed there; then Mr. Kershaw's accounts of Burma began again, in a curious medley of truth and fiction difficult to separate.

"The Burmese are a very strictly religious sort of folks. They kick off their shoes to pray, and sit upon their heels. They must not take life, not even kill their fleas or their black-beetles; yet they are the most determined murderers on the face of the earth. There is no country in which human life is less considered where offence has been offered."

"But does the English Government allow this?" asked Mrs. Denham.

"Well, madam, the murderers make such good and cheap servants, you see. Of course they must not kill the English."

"I do not know how to believe you, Mr. Kershaw."

"Other ladies have the same difficulty at times, ma'am, but I may assure you that it is a fact. English people are perfectly safe from them. Other customs are peculiar. Whenever they wish for a wet day, they send a white elephant out to take his walks abroad, and the rain is sure to come."

"Now, Mr. Kershaw!"

"It is quite true, madam. It would be done more frequently were there more white elephants, but there are very few, and it does not answer to whitewash them. Unfortunately it is one of those cases where the converse of a fact does not work in an opposite manner. There would not be six months of rain at a stretch if sending out a black elephant would stop it."

"I daresay not," remarked Miss Mason drily. "Will you take some honey, Mr. Kershaw?"

"No, I thank you, ma'am. Burma has cured me from a boyish taste for honey. They embalm their dead with honey there; and, after a time, tap the mummies, in a spirit of true economy, and sell the honey in the bazaars to Englishmen unsuspecting of guile. Such honey is said to be peculiarly nourishing,--to eat it from the tomb of your fathers is to taste all the sweetness of friendship with your venerated ancestors. It is a poetical idea."

"Mr. Kershaw! How can you talk so? Have you no pleasanter or really beautiful things about which to tell us?"

"The most beautiful idea of which I have heard there, is the notion that people's souls are like butterflies, and that when you dream of an absent friend, it is really because your butterfly and his have escaped, for a time, from their prison-houses, and meet in dreamland for a chat."

"Oh," sighed Agnes, "I wish that my brother's butterfly would escape this very night, and tell me what he is doing at this moment!"

"Don't wish that, Agnes dear," said Miss Mason. "Should he be in pain or difficulty, and you could not help him, it would be better for you not to know of it."

"How can you say so!" cried Agnes. "I should always know when he is happy, and if troubles came I could give him my sympathy."

"Suppose you give it to me, Miss Denham, to keep for him. I would take great care of it."

"I fear that you would put it away so carefully that you would not know where to find it at need," said Agnes.

So they chatted on, now in joke, now in earnest, and an atmosphere of youthful brightness came into the house with the sailor and dispersed much of its gloom.

He often called to spend a few hours with them, for he had few friends in Liverpool, and liked all the family. To Jack he became very useful; and Mrs. Denham grew to regard him almost in the light of another son.