Say and Seal, Volume II

"I am not going to ask you anything but what would be right."

"You do not doubt that my answer will be conformable?"

"Yes I do. It will be your 'right,' but it may not be my 'right,' you know."

"If you get what is not your right, you ought to be contented," saidMr. Linden.

"Now you have turned me and my meaning round! Endecott—you know AuntDilly gave me something?—mayn't I—won't you let me lend it to you?"

Very low and doubtfully the words came out! But if Faith had any more to say, she had little chance for a while. One quick look round at her Mr. Linden gave, but then he sprang up and came to where she stood, lifting her face and giving her her "right" in one sense at least. Other answer he made none.

"Endy—have I asked a possible thing this time?" she said under breath.

"My precious child!—Do you think it possible?"

"It ought to be possible, Endecott." And if ever an humble suggestion of a possibility was made, Faith made it then.

"I shall have to go back to my first answer," said Mr. Linden,—"I have no words for any other. Faith, dearest—don't you know that it is not needful? Will that content you, little sweet one?"

A soft "no."

"Why not?" he said, making good his threat. "What do you want me to have more than I need?"

"I fear the ways you will take to make that true. I should think you might, Endecott!"—The ellipsis was not hard to supply.

"I shall not take any unlawful means—nor any unwise ones, I hope," he said lightly. "What are you afraid I shall do?"

"Get up early in the morning," she whispered.

"But that is so pleasant! Do you suppose I get up late now, little bird?"

"Not late, with breakfast at seven. How early do you?"

"Philosophically early! Do you know you have not had your poem to-day?—what shall it be? sunrise or sunset?"

"Which you please," she said gently, with the tone of a mind upon something else. Mr. Linden looked down at her in silence for a minute.

"Dear Faith," he said, "I told you truly that there is no need. This year's work has done quite as much as I thought it would. What are you afraid of?"

"I am not afraid of much," she said, looking up at him now with a clear brow. "But Endy, I have changed my mind about something. Could you easily come down and read with me a little while every morning?—or are you busy?"

"I am never too busy to spend time with you, my child,—that is one piece of pleasure I shall always allow myself. At what hour shall I come?"

"At six o'clock, can you?" said Faith. "If you gave me a quarter of an hour then, I should still have time enough for breakfast work. This morning I was afraid—but I was foolish. This evening I want all I can get. And when you read me a ladder of verses again," she said smiling, "I shall mark them in my Bible, and then I shall have them by and by—when you are gone."

"Yes, and I can send you more. It is good to go up a ladder of Bible verses when one is afraid—or foolish," he said gently and answering her smile. "One end of it always rests on earth, within reach of the weakest and weariest."

"That is just it! Oh Endy," she said, clasping her hands sadly and wishfully before her and her eyes tilling as she spoke—"I wish there were more people to tell people the truth!"

CHAPTER XV

It was a fair, fair May morning when Mr. Linden and Faith set forth on their expedition to Kildeer river. After their early rising and early breakfast, they took their way down to the shore of the Mong, where the little sail-boat lay rocking on the incoming tide, her ropes and streamers just answering to the morning breeze. The soft spring sunlight glinted on every tree and hillside. The "Balm of a Thousand Flowers"—true and not spurious—was sprinkled through the air, under the influence of which unseen nectar the birds became almost intoxicated with joy; pouring out their songs with a sort of spendthrift recklessness,—the very fish caught the infection, and flashed and sparkled in the blue water by shoals at a time.

In the sailboat now stood baskets and shawls, a book or two, an empty basket for wild flowers, and by the tiller sat Faith—invested with her new dignity but not yet instructed therein. Mr. Linden stood on the shore, with the boat's detaining rope in his hand, looking about him as if he had a mind to take the good of things as he went along. Up the hill from the shore, trotted Jerry and Mr. Skip.

"Endecott," said Faith joyously,—"Goethe would have more than enough if he was here."

She was not a bad part of the picture herself; fair and glad as she looked, as fair as the May morning and the birds and the sunlight.—

"Isn't this air sweet?"

"Very! But Goethe would choose my point of view. So much depends, in a picture, upon the principal light!"

"I wonder which is the principal light to-day!" said Faith laughing. "How it sparkles all over the river, and then on the young leaves and buds;—and then soft shining on the clouds. And they are all May! Look at those tiny specks of white cloud scattered along the horizon, up there towards Neanticut."

"The principal light to-day," said Mr. Linden, "is one particular sunbeam, which as it were leads off the rest. It's a fair train, altogether!" and he threw the rope into the little vessel, and jumped in himself; then lifting Faith a little from her place, and arranging and disposing of her daintily among shawls and cushions, and putting her unwonted fingers upon the tiller.

"Now Miss Derrick," he said, "before we go any further, I should like to know your estimate and understanding of the power at present in your hands."

"I know what a rudder is good for," said Faith merrily. "I know that this ship, 'though it be so great, and driven of fierce winds, yet is it turned about with a very small helm whithersoever the governor listeth.' That is what you may call theoretical knowledge."

"Clearly your estimate covers the ground! But you perceive, that while you take upon yourself the guiding of the boat—(if I might venture to suggest!—our course lies up the Mong, and not out to sea)—I, with my sail, control the motive power."

"You mean that if I don't go right, you'll drop the sail?"—

"Not at all!—I shall navigate, not drift. Do you suppose I shall surrender at the first summons?"

"What would you consider a 'summons'?" said Faith with a funny look. "I don't think your sail can do much against my rudder."

"My sail regulates the boat's headway—which in its turn affects the rudder. (If we run down those fishermen the damages may be heavy.) But you see I have this advantage,—I know beforehand your system of navigation—you don't know mine. Let me inform your unpractised eyes, Miss Derrick, that the dark object just ahead of us is a snag."

"My eyes don't see any better for that information," said Faith; with great attention however managing to guide their little craft clear of both snag and fishermen, and almost too engaged in the double duty to have leisure for laughing. But practice is the road to excellence and ease; Faith learned presently the correspondence between the rudder and her hand, and in the course of a quarter of an hour could keep the north track with tolerable steadiness. The wind was fair for a straight run up the Mong. The river stretching north in a diminishing blue current (pretty broad however at Pattaquasset and for some miles up) shewed its low banks in the tenderest grading of colour; very softly brown in the distance, and near the eye opening into the delicate hues of the young leaf. The river rolled its bright blue, and the overarching sky was like one of summer's. Yet the air was not so,—spicy from young buds; and the light was Springy; not Summer's ardour nor Summer's glare, but that loveliest promise of what is coming and oblivion of what is past. So the little boat sailed up the Mong. Mr. Linden's sail was steady, Faith's rudder was still.

"Faith," Mr. Linden said suddenly, "have you made up your mind to my letter plan?"

"About Reuben? O yes. I am willing."

"You know you are to send me every possible question that comes up in the course of your studies, and every French exercise, and every doubt or discomfort of any kind—if any should come. I shall not be easy unless I think that."

"But you won't have time for my French exercises!"

"Try me. And you are to take plenty of fresh air, and not a bit of fatigue; and in general are to suppose yourself a rare little plant belonging to me, which I have left in your charge for the time being. Do you understand, Mignonette?"

Her blush and smile, of touched pleasure, shewed abundance of understanding.

"But I want you to tell me, Endecott, all the things in particular you would like to have me do or attend to while you are away—besides my studies. I have been thinking to ask you, and waiting for a good time."

"'All the things'?—of what sort, dear child?"

"Aren't there some of your poor people you would like to have particularly attended to? I could get Reuben to go with me, you know, where it was too far for me to go alone—or mother."

"Yes, there are some things you might do," said Mr. Linden, "for me and for them, though more in the way of sending than going; the places are too far off. But I should like to know that Mrs. Ling's mother had a bunch of garden flowers now and then, and that another went to that little lame girl on the Monongatesak road; and once in a great while (not often, or they will lose their charm) you may send the Roscoms two fresh eggs!—not more, on any account. Reuben will go for you, anywhere—and the Roscoms are old protégées of his."

"I didn't mean to forget the Roscoms," said Faith. "But must one manage with them so carefully?"

"In matter of favours, yes. And even in matter of visits, to a certain degree,—their life is so monotonous that novelty has a great charm. Reuben used to go and read to them almost every day on his way from school, but I found it best to make my coming an event."

"Can I do anything for Reuben?"

"Nothing new that I know of, at present—you are doing something for him all the while,—and it will be a wonderful delight to him to bring you letters. Then if you are ever driving down that Monongatesak road, with nothing to hinder, take the little lame child with you for a mile or two,—she so pines to be out of the house and moving. Would it be disagreeable to you?—there is nothing but what is pleasant in her appearance."

"What if there were?" she said with a wistful look at him. "Do you mind disagreeablenesses? and do you want to have me mind them?"

"No, dear child, but you must get wonted by degrees,—and some temperaments can never bear what others can. What if we were to overhaul those fishermen?"

"What do you want?" said Faith, as she carefully set the boat's head that way. "A fish for dinner?"

"No"—said Mr. Linden,—"I have too much respect for that basket at my feet. But you know, Faith, we are having a sort of preliminary play-practice at seeking our fortune, to-day—we must carry it out. Just imagine, my dear, that we are adrift in this boat, with nothing at all for dinner, and supper a wild idea!—not the eastern fisherman who for four fish received from the Sultan four hundred pieces of gold, would then appear so interesting as these."

"If you wanted dinner from them—but you say you don't," said Faith laughing. "Endecott, I don't understand in the least! And besides, you said you wouldn't 'drift' but navigate!"

And her soft notes rolled over the water, too soft to reach the yet somewhat distant fishermen.

"And so because I turn navigator you turn Siren!" said Mr. Linden. "ButI have you safe in my boat—I need not stop to listen."

"But what did you mean?"

"By what?"

"All that."

"Short and comprehensive!" said Mr. Linden—"come up on the other side, Faith, the current is less strong. All about seeking our fortune, do you mean? Did you never hear of any other extraordinary prince and princess who did the same?"

"If I am not adrift in the boat, I am in my wits!" said Faith,—"and with no sail nor rudder either. Why are those fishermen interesting, Endecott?"

"Why my child," he said, "in the supposititious case which I put, they were interesting as having fish, while we had none. But in the reality—they were picturesque in the distance,—what they are near by we will see," he added with a smile at her, as the sail came round and the little boat shot up alongside of her rough-looking relation. "Well friends, what cheer?—besides a May morning and a fair wind?"

The fishermen slowly dragging their net, hoarsely speculating on its probable weight of fish, paused both their oars and tongues and looked at him. One of the men had the oars; the other at the end of the boat was hauling in, hand over hand.

"That's about all the cheer you want, I guess,—aint it?" said this man. It was said freely enough, but with no incivility.

"Not all I want," said Mr. Linden,—while the oarsman, rolling his tobacco in his mouth, came out with—

"Shouldn't wonder, now, if 'twan't much in your line o' business!—guess likely you be one o' the mighty smart folks that don't do nothin'."

"I've no objection to being 'mighty smart'," said Mr. Linden, belaying his rope with a light hand, "but I shouldn't like to pay such a price for it. Smartness will have to come down before I'm a purchaser."

The man looked at him with a queer little gleam crossing his face—

"Shouldn't wonder if you hadn't took it when it was down!" he said.

"It's a great thing to know the state of the market," said Mr. Linden."I suppose you find that with your fish."

"Gen'lly do, when we take 'em,"—said the man at the net, who never took his eye off the overhauling boat and its crew. He was not a young man, but a jovial-looking fellow. "What fish be you arter, stranger?"

"Somewhat of a variety," Mr. Linden said with a smile. "What makes the fish come into your net?"

"Haven't an idee!" said the man—"without it bees that fish is very onintelligent creturs. I don't suppose fish has much brains, sir. And so they goes further and fares worse." Which statement of the case he appeared to think amusing.

"But then why do they sometimes stay out?" said Mr. Linden,—"because I have read of men who 'toiled all the night and caught nothing'."

"Wall, you see," said the fisher, "they goes in shoals or flocks like, and they's notional. Some of 'em won't come at one time o' tide, and some won't come at another—and they has their favourite places too. Then if a man sets his nets where the fish aint, all creation might work and catch nothin'. This side the river is better now than over there."

"These men that I was talking of," said Mr. Linden, "once found a difference even between the two sides of their ship. But the other time, when they had caught nothing all the night, in the morning they caught so many that their net broke and both their ships began to sink."

"What kind o' folks was them?" said the oarsman a little scornfully.

"Why they were fishermen," said Mr. Linden. "They followed your calling first, and then they followed mine."

"What's yourn?" said the other, in his tone of good-humoured interest."Guess you're a speaker o' some sort—aint ye?"

"Yes—" Mr. Linden said, with a little demure gesture of the head,—"I am—'of some sort,' as you say. But I've got an account of these men in my pocket—don't you want to hear it?—it's more interesting than any account you could have of me."

"Like to hear it well enough—" said the man at the net, setting himself astride the gunwale to listen, with the net hanging from his hand.

"I wouldn't mind knowing how they worked it—" said the other man, while Mr. Linden threw a rope round one of the thole-pins of the fishing boat and gave the other end to Faith, and then took out his book. And Faith was amused at the men's submissive attention, and the next minute did not wonder at all!—as she noted the charm that held them—the grace of mingled ease, kindliness, and power, in Mr. Linden's manner and presence. Nothing could have greater simplicity, and it was not new to Faith, yet she looked at him as if she had never seen him before.

"A great many years ago," he said, "when the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, was in this world, he went about healing sick people, and teaching every one the way to heaven; and the people came in great numbers to hear him.

"'And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesareth, and saw two ships standing by the lake; but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets.'"

"We wash our'n by pullin' 'em through the water," said the net man.

"The Lord entered one of the ships, which belonged to a man named Simon, and asked him to push out a little from the shore. 'And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship. Now, when he had left speaking, he unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught. And Simon answering, said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing; nevertheless, at thy word I will let down the net.'"

"In course! whether 'twas any use or not,"—the man with the net said approvingly. "So he had oughter."

"Yes, and he knew it would be of use in some way, for God never gives a command without a reason. And when they had let down the net, 'they enclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.'"

"That was a bigger haul than ever I see, yet," remarked the man.

"Neither had Simon ever seen anything like it—he knew that it was brought about by the direct power of God.

"When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, 'Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.' For he was astonished, and all they that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken."

"Can't see what he said that fur," said the oarsman.

"No more don't I!" said the other. "He had got a good haul o' fish, anyway—if he was ever so!—and we aint none of us white lilies."

"But then Peter knew that he ought to be a white lily—and such a new view of God's power and greatness made him feel it more than ever. So that he was both afraid and ashamed,—he thought himself unworthy to have the Lord in his ship, and was afraid to have him stay there."

"I wouldn't have asked him to go out, if he had been in mine,—I don't think!"—said the elder fisher slowly. "I don't see as that chap need to ha' been afeard—he hadn't done nothin' but good to him."

"But it's what we do ourselves that makes us afraid," said Mr. Linden. "So it was with Adam and Eve in the garden, you know—God had talked to them a great many times, and they were never afraid till they disobeyed him—then the moment he spoke they ran and hid themselves."

The oarsman was silent, the other man gave a sort of grunt that betokened interest.

"What shines had this feller been cuttin' up?"

"Why!" said Mr. Linden, starting up and taking his stand by the mast, as the little boat curtseyed softly over the waves, "if you tell one of your boys always to walk in one particular road, and you find him always walking in another—I don't think it matters much what he's doing there, to him or to you."

"Wall?"—said the man, with a face of curiosity for what was to come next, mingled with a certain degree of intelligence that would not confess itself.

"Well—Peter knew he was not in the way wherein the Lord commands us all to walk."

"I guess every feller's got to pick out his own road for himself!" said the fisher, pulling up a foot or two of his net carelessly.

"That's what Peter had thought,—and so he had lived, just as he chose. But when he saw more of the glory of God, then he was afraid and confessed his sin. And what do you suppose the Lord said to him then?"

"What did Peter own up to?"

"The account gives only the general confession—that he was a sinful man, not worthy to have the Lord look upon him except in anger. You see he falls down at his feet and prays him to depart—he could not believe that the Lord would stay there to speak good to him."

"Well—what did he say to him?"

"'He said unto him, Fear not'. And no one need fear, who humbly confesses his sins at the feet of Jesus, 'for if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' Then the Lord bade Simon and all his companions to follow him—and they obeyed. And now I want to tell you what this following means."

He put one arm round the mast, half leaning against it, and gave them what Faith would have called a 'ladder'—passing from the 'Follow me,' spoken to Peter,—to the young man who being bid to follow, 'went away sorrowful',—to the description of the way given in the tenth chapter of John,—to the place whither the flock follow Christ—

"'And I looked, and lo, a Lamb stood on the mount Zion, and with him an hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father's name written in their foreheads.' 'These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.'"—

The men listened, open-mouthed and with intent eyes;—partly to the speaker, it was evident, and partly to what the speaker said. And that his words took hold, it was also evident. When he ceased, the man at the net dropped his eyes for a moment, a curious look of meditation covering his face.

"It's easy to talk of follerin'," he said with a half laugh which was not of carelessness,—"and one might like to,—but it's plaguey hard to know where to start!—"

"It's easy for God to teach you and easy to ask him to do it. If it was anything else you wanted to do, you would not stop trying till you found out," said Mr. Linden—"and that is just the way here. Now I am going to give you a copy of all this," he said, throwing his own little Bible softly into Faith's lap and stepping forward to the prow of the boat (which she thought held only lunch baskets)—"and I shall turn down a leaf at the story of the net full of good fishes—and another at a place that tells of a net full 'of every kind, both bad and good.' And I want you to read them, and think about them, and find out how to follow Christ—and then come on!" He took his seat once more in the stern of the boat, and held out the Bible to the fisherman. The other man, slowly dipping his oars in and out, met his look too, but made no answer.

The man at the net took the book and turned over the leaves with a wondering, considering air.

"What do you reckon this here's worth?" he said somewhat awkwardly, without raising his eyes from it.

"Worth daily reading and study—worth all you have in the world, if you will use it right," said Mr. Linden. "You need not think about any other value—I had it in trust to give away."

"I'm much obleeged to you,—I'll take a look at it now and then. Do you live along here, anywheres?"

"In Pattaquasset, just now," Mr. Linden said, as he prepared to make sail again. "I don't very often come to this part of the river."

"Well hold on!" said the man, beginning to pull in his net with great vivacity,—"I'm bound to give you a fish—if I've got one here. Bear a hand, Dick! Haint you got a place on board there that you can stow it, without skeerin' the lady?"—

"I'll try to find one!" said Mr. Linden, answering the proposal just as it was meant. "If the lady is scared she shall turn her face the other way."

"She'll turn it which way you say?—" ventured the fisher insinuatingly.

Faith did not seem afraid of the fish, by the way she leaned over the stern of the boat and eyed the up-coming nets which the men were drawing in. She had listened to the foregoing talk, to the full as intently as those for whom it was meant, and with a multitude of interests at work in her mind and heart of which they had never dreamed. And now her eye was bent on the net; but her thoughts were on that other kind of fishing of which she had just seen an example—the first she had ever seen of Mr. Linden's!—and her full heart was longingly thinking, among other thoughts, of the few there were to draw those nets, and the multitude to be drawn! What Faith saw in the meshes the man's hands were slowly pulling up!—

But the fisherman only saw—what pleased him greatly, some very fine fish; shad they were for the greater part; from which he selected a noble specimen and cast it over into Mr. Linden's boat. Then standing up in his own he wiped his hands on the sleeves of his coat.