LAST HOURS.

There was but little sleep in Peter Blake’s home that night. The children slept, and more than once Peter went to look at them, and to listen to their quiet breathing. They were very dear to him, and they seemed dearer to him than ever now. Bessie, too, and his mother, it was always a hard struggle to leave them; though now the matter was settled, they said nothing to grieve him, and simply set about the necessary preparations for his departure.

The articles were signed early the next morning in Penrose’s office. Peter was careful to inquire the name of the owner of the “Dolphin,” and was told it was James Blackburn--a name quite strange to him, but it satisfied him that the ship was not the property of Penrose. Within the last few years Penrose had lost a large number of vessels, and prudent seamen fought shy of sailing in one of his boats. Peter was one of the prudent seamen. He held it to be his duty both to God and to his family not to sail in any doubtful craft, whatever might be the inducements offered to him. “No; not to be skipper,” he had often said to himself. He was afraid that his heart might fail him in a moment of peril if his conscience was not clear that he had not run into it with his eyes open.

Yet as the day wore on, busy as he and Victor were, he grew somewhat uneasy about the coming voyage. From one side of the bow-window overlooking the river he could see the lading of the “Dolphin.” Every hour she was sinking lower and lower in the water; yet still the cargo was being stowed away in every spare foot of room. If the vessel was sound and seaworthy, and if the weather was fair, the trip might be made with safety; but he could see plainly that no margin was being left for unforeseen casualties. It was quite clear, too, that there must be some cargo on deck; and he knew very well how greatly that would add to the difficulty of managing the ship. He was a brave man; and he had a sincere, hearty trust in God. But he did not look to God to work a miracle in order to avert the consequences of man’s negligence or covetousness. Perhaps he had been too hasty in signing articles; yet he had been satisfied at the time--satisfied by his own slight inspection of the “Dolphin,” and by the assurances of Captain Norcott and Fleck. Moreover, he had lately declined to go aboard two or three doubtful boats, and his funds were well-nigh exhausted. He knew that Bessie had only a few shillings in the purse before he had brought her the instalment of his wages, paid over to him as soon as he had signed his articles.

He could hardly bear to look round from the window from which he had seen the greedy overloading of the “Dolphin,” upon those dear to him in the home he was so soon to leave. His mother and wife were busy, almost too busy for sorrow. Bessie was washing, and his mother stitching away with swift fingers at the clothes he and Victor were to take with them. The baby lay on the hearth, kicking his heels against the floor and babbling soft little baby-sounds, which passed unnoticed in the general press of work. His little girl had been in his arms, clinging round his neck, while he pointed out to her the pretty ship he was going to sail down the river in. He knew that all the comfort and happiness of these helpless women and children depended upon his life; and he was about to entrust his life to the heavily-laden ship, now sinking lower and lower in the water. But there was no help for it. If he ran back now, he would not only be branded as a coward, but he would be imprisoned for three months in the common jail, among a vile horde of criminals. He felt that he could never get over that. He knew what a rowdy crew in the forecastle of a vessel was; but he shrank none the less from the degradation and contamination of a company of convicts and criminals.

“What ails you, Peter; what makes you so low?” said Bessie, the tears starting to her eyes as she asked the question.

“Why, it’s quitting thee, lass,” he answered, trying hard to speak cheerfully; “thee, and mother, and the little young creatures. How’d you like me to be as gay as a lark just now?”

“It’s nought else?” she asked again; “there’s nought against the ship, is there?”

“Everybody says she’s a good ship,” he said; “Fleck told me he’d sailed in her twice, and he’s willing to sail in her again, though he’s careful of his neck, Fleck is. And Captain Norcott’s a very cautious man; I never heard a word against our captain.”

“Fleck’s nobody to go by,” said Bessie, sadly; “he’d be no loss to anybody. But the captain spoke well; and you’re very cautious yourself, aren’t you, Peter? I’m certain sure that if it was me that was going, and you that had to stay at home with the children, thinking all the while, ‘Maybe Bessie’s lying at the bottom of the sea this very minute,’ you’d never, never let me go out in a ship that wasn’t trusty.”

“Bessie,” said her husband, tenderly, “we know who takes care of thee and me.”

“Yes,” she sobbed, “yes, my dear; but I think sometimes, if God Almighty could be worn-out and wearied, it’s with the prayers we women pray to him, to take care of our men at sea. There’s days and days when the cry is never out of my heart, like as if I was a poor helpless baby, crying and moaning to him. I know he loves us all, and cares for us all; and yet men are drowned at sea, and their wives never see them any more, and never hear their voices call to them; and they have to fight their way through the world all alone. You are sure she’s a good ship?”

“She’s a beauty,” put in Victor, eagerly; “a regular beauty. She’s the prettiest boat in the river at this minute, that’s what she is. Don’t you be afraid, Bessie; nor you, mother. There isn’t half as much danger on board as there is down High Street; not a quarter. I’m more afraid for Nannie going along the street, than you need be for us. Why, it’s certain that God is with every one of us.”

Victor’s face flushed deeply, and his eyes sparkled as he spoke. The last words were not uttered as if they were a mere form of speech. He did not even say them with that half mistrust of their truth with which Peter and Bessie had spoken of God’s care. His voice faltered and fell a little; but he felt sure of what he was saying.

“Jesus Christ knows what it is,” he went on, tremulously. “He knows what storms are, and how boats are tossed up and down, and how men are at their wits’ end; and he’s heard their cry, ‘Lord, save us, or we perish.’ It isn’t as if Jesus had never come down into this world, and been a man like us. I daresay his mother was fearfully frightened the night there was that great storm at sea, and she didn’t know how he could be saved. But he came home safe in the morning; and he’d see how terrified she’d been, and he’d comfort her and make much of her. It isn’t as if he did not know exactly. I suppose he loved his mother, the same way Peter and we do; only ten thousand times better. I’m glad Jesus knows what it was to go away and leave her; ay, and come back again too.”

“Victor speaks true,” said the old mother, lifting up her brown, wrinkled hands; “the Lord Jesus, he knows all about it, and the good God sent him to be made like us. I will make a little prayer to him many, many times by night and by day.”

There was nothing more said for a time. The last hours were slipping quickly away, and the moment for parting came too soon at last. Bessie and little Nannie clung weeping to Peter. The old mother looked pale and anxious; but she neither cried nor spoke much. Already she had lost her husband at sea; and she knew how impossible it was for her sons to guard against the same perils. She had lived among seafaring folk all her life, and was not afraid of the necessary dangers of a seafaring life; but there was always a secret dread in her heart that the vessel her sons sailed in was not seaworthy. That they might have entrusted their lives to some rotten old hull was what gave the greatest bitterness to seeing them sail from any English port.

“Is it a good ship?” were her last words to Peter, as she held his sunburnt face between both her hands, and gazed earnestly into his eyes.

“Ay, mother; don’t be afraid,” he answered, though his voice was nearly choked in speaking to her.