Willis the Pilot

CHAPTER XVIII.

BA­CON AND BIS­CUIT--LET SLEEP­ING DOGS LIE--THE PA­TER­NAL BENE­DIC­TION--AN AP­PARI­TION--A MOTH­ER NOT EAS­ILY DE­CEIVED--THE ADIEU--THE EM­PER­OR CON­STAN­TINE--IN HOC SIG­NO VINCES--THE SAILOR'S POSTSCRIPT--CÆSAR AND HIS FOR­TUNES--REC­OL­LEC­TIONS--MRS. BECK­ER PLUCKS STOCK­INGS AND KNITS OR­TOLANS--HOW DE­LIGHT­FUL IT IS TO BE SCOLD­ED--THE BOD­IES VAN­ISH, BUT THE SOULS RE­MAIN.

On their re­turn from Shark's Is­land, Fritz and Jack were deeply af­fect­ed, not by the dread of the per­ils they were des­tined to en­counter--these nev­er gave them a mo­ment's un­easi­ness--but by the knowl­edge that a mer­ci­less vul­ture was prey­ing up­on the vi­tals of their beloved moth­er.

Willis on the con­trary, ap­peared as live­ly as if he had just re­ceived no­tice of pro­mo­tion; but whether the idea of again dwelling on the open sea had re­al­ly el­evat­ed his spir­its, or whether this gai­ety was on­ly as­sumed to en­cour­age Beck­er and his sons, was best known to him­self.

It was ar­ranged amongst them that no one, un­der any cir­cum­stances, should be made ac­quaint­ed with the de­sign they had in con­tem­pla­tion. By this means all op­po­si­tion would be van­quished, and the re­grets of sep­ara­tion would, in some de­gree, be avoid­ed. Be­sides, if the project were di­vulged, might not Frank and Ernest in­sist up­on their right to share its dan­gers? This even­tu­al­ity alone was suf­fi­cient to im­press up­on them all the ur­gen­cy of se­cre­cy. The re­al­ly strong man knows his weak­ness, and there­fore dis­likes to run the risk of ex­pos­ing it, so Beck­er dread­ed the tears and en­treaties that this des­per­ate un­der­tak­ing would in­evitably ex­er­cise, were it gen­er­al­ly known be­fore­hand to the rest of the fam­ily; where­as, if once the pin­nace were fair­ly at sea, it could not be re­called, and time would do the rest.

Since, then, all the prepa­ra­tions had to be made in such a way as not to ex­cite sus­pi­cion that any thing ex­traor­di­nary was on foot, the progress was nec­es­sar­ily slow. Willis, un­der pre­text of amus­ing him­self, re­fit­ted the pin­nace, and strength­ened it so far as he could with­out im­pair­ing its sail­ing ef­fi­cien­cy. He called to mind that, when Cap­tain Cook reached Batavia, af­ter his first voy­age round the world, he ob­served with as­ton­ish­ment that a large por­tion of the sides of his fa­mous ship the _En­deav­or_ was, un­der the wa­ter line, no thick­er than the sole of a shoe.

As soon as the weath­er had set­tled, and the trop­ical heats set in, the Wol­stons re­sumed their abode at Fal­con's Nest; whilst, un­der some plau­si­ble pre­text or oth­er, Willis, Fritz, and Jack took up their quar­ters at Rock­house. This ar­range­ment gave the des­tined nav­iga­tors the means of car­ry­ing on their op­er­ations un­ob­served, es­pe­cial­ly as re­gards salt­ing pro­vi­sions and bak­ing for the voy­age.

Along with the stores, a por­tion of the valu­ables, that still re­mained in the mag­azines of Rock­house, were placed on board the pin­nace; for, though gold and pre­cious stones were not of much val­ue in New Switzer­land, Beck­er had not for­got­ten that such was not the case in oth­er por­tions of the world; he re­flect­ed that his sons must be fur­nished with the means of re­turn­ing to the colony with com­fort. There was al­so a man of sci­ence and ed­uca­tion to be bought, and that, he knew, could not be done with­out as the French proverb has it, hav­ing some hay in one's boots.

Storms are usu­al­ly her­ald­ed by some pre­mon­ito­ry symp­toms: the at­mo­sphere be­comes op­pres­sive, the clouds in­crease in den­si­ty, the sky grad­ual­ly be­comes ob­scure and large drops of rain be­gin to fall, then fol­lows the del­uge, and the el­ements com­mence their strife. It is much the same with im­pend­ing mis­for­tunes: gloom gath­ers on the coun­te­nance, our move­ments be­come con­strained, our thoughts wan­der, and a tear lingers in the cor­ner of the eye. Fritz and Jack en­deav­ored in vain to ap­pear un­con­cerned, but, in spite of their ef­forts, it was painful­ly ev­ident that their minds were bur­dened by some heavy weight. They were more ten­der and more af­fec­tion­ate, par­tic­ular­ly to­wards their moth­er. To­wards evening, when they quit­ted the fam­ily cir­cle for Rock­house, their adieus were so earnest, so warm, and so of­ten re­peat­ed, that it al­most ap­peared as if they were lay­ing in a stock of them for their voy­age, to store up and pre­serve with the ba­con and bis­cuits. Even the an­imals came in for an ex­tra share of ca­ress­es, and, if they were ca­pa­ble of re­flec­tion, it must have puz­zled them sore­ly to ac­count for all the en­dear­ments that were lav­ished up­on them by the two broth­ers.

Beck­er him­self was no less af­fect­ed than his sons; some­times, when the lat­ter were busi­ly oc­cu­pied with some prepa­ra­tion for the voy­age, he would fix his eyes sad­ly up­on them, just as if ev­ery trait of these cher­ished fea­tures had not al­ready been deeply graven on his soul.

Dur­ing the pre­ced­ing rainy sea­son, the two young men felt the days long and te­dious, and wished in their in­most hearts that they would pass away more swift­ly; now, the hours seemed to fly with un­ac­count­able ra­pid­ity, and they would glad­ly have length­ened them if they had had the pow­er. But no one can ar­rest

Le temps, cette im­age mo­bile De l'im­mo­bile éter­nité.

And time is right in hold­ing on the even tenor of its way; for if it once yield­ed to the de­sires of mor­tals, there would be no end of con­fu­sion and per­plex­ity. It takes un­to it­self wings and flies away, say the for­tu­nate; it lags at a snail's pace, say the un­for­tu­nate. The idler knows not how to pass it away. The man of ac­tion does not ob­serve its progress. Those who are look­ing for­ward to some fa­vorite amuse­ment ex­claim, “Would that it were to-​mor­row!” but how many there are that might well ejac­ulate, from the bot­tom of their souls, “Would that to-​mor­row may nev­er ar­rive!” How, then, could such wish­es be met in a way to sat­is­fy all?

A day at length ar­rived when ev­ery­thing was ready for de­par­ture, and when noth­ing was want­ed to weigh an­chor but courage on the part of the voy­agers. The pin­nace was laden to the gun­wale, the com­pass was in its place, the casks were filled with fresh wa­ter from the Jack­al Riv­er, and Willis re­port­ed that both wind and sea were pro­pi­tious for a start.

The morn­ing of that day was love­ly in the ex­treme. Willis, Fritz, and Jack were ear­ly at Fal­con's Nest; the two fam­ilies break­fast­ed to­geth­er un­der the trees in the open air. Af­ter break­fast an ad­journ­ment to the um­bra­geous shade of the ba­nanas was pro­posed and agreed to.

“Moth­er,” said Fritz, tak­ing Mrs. Beck­er's arm, “I want you all to my­self.”

“I ob­ject to that, if you please,” cried Jack, tak­ing her oth­er arm.

“Why, you boys seem ex­trav­agant­ly fond of your moth­er to-​day,” said Mrs. Beck­er, gai­ly.

“Well, you see, moth­er, we have the right to have an idea now and then--Willis has one ev­ery week.”

“So long as your ideas are about my­self, I have no rea­son to ob­ject to them,” said Mrs. Beck­er, smil­ing.

“We have al­ways been du­ti­ful sons, have we not, moth­er?” in­quired Fritz.

“Yes, al­ways.”

“You are well pleased with us then?”

“Yes, sure­ly.”

“We have nev­er caused you any un­easi­ness, have we?” in­quired Jack.

“That is to say, in­ad­ver­tent­ly,” added Fritz; “de­signed­ly is out of the ques­tion.”

“No, not even in­ad­ver­tent­ly,” replied their moth­er.

“Were you very sor­ry when Frank and Ernest were go­ing to leave us?”

“Yes, my chil­dren, the tears still burn my cheek.”

“Nev­er­the­less, you knew that it was for the com­mon wel­fare, and you felt re­signed to the sep­ara­tion.”

“But why do you ask such a ques­tion now?”

“Well, _à pro­pos de rien_, moth­er,” replied Jack, “sim­ply be­cause we love you, and, like mis­ers, we trea­sure your love.”

To­wards the af­ter­noon both fam­ilies were again as­sem­bled un­der the trees at Fal­con's Nest This time it was din­ner that brought them to­geth­er; the repast con­sist­ed of cold meats of var­ious kinds, but the chief dish was a won­der­ful sal­ad, the rich, fresh odor of which per­fumed the air. Wol­ston, Frank, and Ernest kept up a live­ly con­ver­sa­tion, yet, though all seemed hap­py and pleased, there were burst­ing hearts at the ta­ble that day."

“I am go­ing to take a turn in the pin­nace to-​mor­row,” said Willis, qui­et­ly; “who will go with me?”

“I will!” cried all the four broth­ers.

“I shall re­quire you, Frank and Ernest, to take a look at the rice plan­ta­tion to-​mor­row,” said Beck­er, “so I wish you to put off the ex­cur­sion till an­oth­er time.”

“We are at your or­ders, fa­ther,” replied the two young men.

“Where are you go­ing, Willis?” in­quired Mrs. Wol­ston.

“Well, I am anx­ious to dis­cov­er whether we in­hab­it an is­land or a con­ti­nent, and may, con­se­quent­ly, ex­tend the sur­vey be­yond the points al­ready known; so you must not be dis­ap­point­ed should we not re­turn the same night.”

“But what is the good of such an ex­pe­di­tion?” in­quired Mrs. Beck­er.

“The coun­try may be in­hab­it­ed, or there may be in­hab­it­ed is­lands in the vicin­ity,” replied Willis.

“If there be na­tives any­where near,” said Mrs. Beck­er, “they have left us at peace hith­er­to, and, in my opin­ion, since the dog sleeps, it will be pru­dent for us to let it lie.”

“It is not a ques­tion of cre­at­ing any in­con­ve­nience,” sug­gest­ed Beck­er, “but on­ly to as­cer­tain more ac­cu­rate­ly our ge­ograph­ical po­si­tion: such a knowl­edge can do us no pos­si­ble harm, but, some day, it may be of im­mense ser­vice to us.”

“What if you should fall in with a ship?” in­quired Mrs. Wol­ston.

“In that case we shall give your com­pli­ments to the com­man­der,” replied Jack.

“You may do that if you like, but try and bring it back with you if you can.”

“Do you wish to leave us?”

“I do not mean that,” hasti­ly added Mrs. Wol­ston, “but I am be­gin­ning to get anx­ious about my son, poor fel­low. If the _Nel­son_ has not ar­rived at the Cape, then he will sup­pose we are all drowned, and I should like to fall in with some means of as­sur­ing him of our safe­ty.”

“Oh yes,” cried the two girls, “do try and fall in with a ship; our poor broth­er will be so wretched.”

“You might say our broth­er as well,” added the two young men.

Here the two moth­ers in­ter­changed a glance of in­tel­li­gence, which might mean very lit­tle, but which like­wise might sig­ni­fy a great deal.

A mo­ment of in­tense anx­iety had now ar­rived for Beck­er and his two sons; they could scarce­ly re­frain from shed­ding tears, but they felt that the slight­est im­pru­dence of that na­ture would di­vulge ev­ery­thing.

“Come now, my lads, look alive,” cried Willis, in a voice which he meant to be gruff; “if you in­tend to take a few hours' re­pose be­fore we start in the morn­ing, it is time to be off.”

Fritz and Jack, had it been to save their lives, could not now have helped throw­ing more than usu­al en­er­gy in­to their part­ing em­braces that par­tic­ular af­ter­noon; but they passed through the or­deal with tol­er­able firm­ness, and then with heavy hearts turned to­wards the door.

“I think I will walk with you as far as Rock­house,” said Beck­er.

All four then de­part­ed; and when the par­ty were about fifty yards from Fal­con's Nest, Fritz and Jack turned round and waved a fi­nal adieu to those loved be­ings whom prob­ably, they might nev­er see again.

“It is well,” said Beck­er. “I am sat­is­fied with your con­duct through­out this try­ing in­ter­val.”

It was now an hour when there is some­thing in­de­scrib­ably som­bre about the coun­try; day was de­clin­ing, the out­lines of the larg­er ob­jects in the land­scape were be­com­ing less dis­tinct, and the trees were as­sum­ing any sort of fan­tas­ti­cal shape that the mind chose to as­sign to them. Here and there a bird rus­tled in the fo­liage, but oth­er­wise the si­lence was on­ly bro­ken by foot­steps of the four men.

In or­di­nary life chil­dren quit the parental home by easy and al­most im­per­cep­ti­ble gra­da­tions. First, there is the school, then col­lege; next, per­haps, the re­quire­ments of the pro­fes­sion they have adopt­ed. Thus they read­ily aban­don the do­mes­tic hearth; friends, in­ter­course, and so­ci­ety di­vide their af­fec­tion, and the sep­ara­tion from home rarely, if ev­er, costs them a pang. Not so with Beck­er's two sons; their world was New Switzer­land; there­fore, like the rays of the sun ab­sorbed by the mir­ror of Archimedes, all their af­fec­tions were con­cen­trat­ed on one point.

On the for­mer oc­ca­sion when the fam­ily ties were on the eve of be­ing rent asun­der, the case was very dif­fer­ent. It is true, Frank and Ernest were about to leave for an in­def­inite pe­ri­od of time; but then, ev­ery com­fort that the most fas­tid­ious voy­ager could de­sire was await­ing them on board the _Nel­son_; for a well-​ap­point­ed ship is like a well-​ap­point­ed inn on shore, all your wants are min­is­tered to with the ut­most celer­ity. Be­sides, Cap­tain Lit­tle­stone had tak­en the young men un­der his spe­cial pro­tec­tion, and had promised to see them prop­er­ly in­tro­duced and cared for in Eu­rope. How dis­sim­ilar was the po­si­tion of Fritz and his broth­er; they were about to tum­ble in­to the old world should they be so for­tu­nate as to reach it, much as if they had dropped from the skies, with­out a guide and with­out a friend. They were about to en­trust them­selves to the ocean, sep­arat­ed from its treach­er­ous floods by a few wretched planks; to be ex­posed for months, al­most un­shel­tered, to wind, rain, and the mer­cy of piti­less storms.

“If God in His mer­cy pre­serves you, my sons,” said Beck­er, break­ing at last the si­lence, “you will find your­selves launched in an ocean still more tur­bu­lent than that you have es­caped--an ocean where false­hood and cun­ning as­sume the names of pol­icy and tact; where re­sults al­ways jus­ti­fy the means, what­ev­er these may be; where ev­ery­thing is sac­ri­ficed to per­son­al in­ter­est and am­bi­tion; where for­tune is hon­ored as a virtue that dis­pens­es with all oth­ers, and where profli­ga­cies of the most odi­ous kinds are dec­orat­ed with gay and se­duc­tive col­ors. It is dif­fi­cult for me to fore­see the var­ious cir­cum­stances amidst which you may be placed; but there are cer­tain rules of con­duct that pro­vide for near­ly ev­ery emer­gen­cy. I have no need to urge loy­al­ty or courage--these qual­ities are in­sep­ara­ble from your hearts. Strive on­ly for what is just and hon­est. Sub­mit to be cheat­ed rather than be cheats your­selves; ill-​got­ten gains nev­er made any one rich. Put your trust in Prov­idence. Seek aid from on high, when you find your­selves sur­round­ed with dif­fi­cul­ties. Nev­er for­get that there is no cor­ner on the earth's sur­face, how­ev­er ob­scure, that the eyes of the Lord are not there to be­hold your ac­tions. Act prompt­ly and with en­er­gy. Bear in mind that ev­ery mo­ment lost will be to your moth­er an age of suf­fer­ing, and that her life is sus­pend­ed on the frag­ile thread of your re­turn.”

The par­ty had now reached the banks of the Jack­al Riv­er, where the pin­nace was moored. Fritz and Jack were shed­ding tears un­re­strained­ly, and had dropped on their knees at their fa­ther's feet.

“I call,” said Beck­er, in a trem­bling voice, “the bene­dic­tion of Heav­en up­on your heads, my sons.”

“Oh, but they must not go!” cried Mrs. Beck­er, rush­ing out from be­hind some tall brush­wood that hid her from their view; “they shall not go!”

Fritz and Jack were in­stant­ly in­closed with­in their moth­er's arms.

“Ah!” cried she, push­ing aside the hair from their brows, the bet­ter to ob­serve their fea­tures, “you thought to de­ceive your moth­er, did you?”

“Par­don!” ex­claimed both the young men.

Here Beck­er thought it nec­es­sary to in­ter­fere; and, sum­mon­ing all the courage he could muster to the task, said--

“Why should they not go? Is this the first ex­pe­di­tion they have un­der­tak­en?”

“No, it is not the first ex­pe­di­tion they have un­der­tak­en, but it is the first time their eyes and their looks be­to­kened an eter­nal adieu. It is the first time that I felt they were for­sak­ing me for ev­er, and it is the first time you ev­er ad­dressed them with the words you just now ut­tered.”

Beck­er saw that it was use­less to at­tempt to car­ry de­ceit any fur­ther; he there­fore with­drew his eyes from the pierc­ing glance of his wife. Willis, caught in the act, as it were, was com­plete­ly thrown off his guard, and had not a word to say for him­self. Fritz and Jack had again fall­en on their knees, this time at the feet of their moth­er.

“Ah! I be­gin to un­der­stand,” she screamed, as she glanced around on the scared group that sur­round­ed her, like a wound­ed li­oness whose cubs were be­ing car­ried off; “now the ban­dage be­gins to drop from my eyes. A thou­sand in­ex­pli­ca­ble things dart in­to my mind. You are send­ing the boys on an im­prac­ti­ca­ble voy­age to se­cure the safe­ty of their moth­er; but you did not think that in or­der to pro­long my ex­is­tence for a few years, you would kill me in­stant­ly with grief! What right have you to im­pose a rem­edy up­on me that is a thou­sand times worse than the mal­ady? Have I ev­er com­plained? May my suf­fer­ings not be agree­able to me? May I not like them? Is pain and suf­fer­ing not our lot from the cra­dle to the tomb? But I am not ill, I was nev­er bet­ter in my life than I am at this mo­ment.”

Here she was seized with a parox­ysm of ner­vous tremors that con­vulsed her frame most fear­ful­ly, and com­plete­ly be­lied her words. Beck­er rushed for­ward and held her firm­ly in his arms.

“God give me strength!” he mur­mured. “Go, my chil­dren, where your du­ty calls you; go, my friend, do not pro­long this ter­ri­ble scene an in­stant longer.”

Not an­oth­er word was spo­ken, the pin­nace was un­moored; Fritz, Jack, and Willis em­barked. When at some lit­tle dis­tance from the shore, there was just light enough for Fritz to no­tice that his fa­ther was di­rect­ing the fee­ble steps of his moth­er in the di­rec­tion of Fal­con's Nest. In a few mo­ments more all the ob­jects on shore were one con­fused mass of un­fath­omable shad­ow. The pin­nace dropped an­chor at Shark's Is­land, where some few fi­nal prepa­ra­tions for the voy­age had to be made. Fritz here took a pen and wrote:

"We part. We are gone. When you read this let­ter, the sea, for some dis­tance, will ex­tend be­tween us. We shall live and move else­where, but our hearts still with you. We wish that Ernest and Frank would erect a flagstaff on the spot where we last part­ed with our par­ents. It may be to us what the ce­les­tial stan­dard bear­ing the scroll, _in hoc sig­no vinces_ was to the Em­per­or Con­stan­tine. The place is al­ready sa­cred, and may be hal­lowed by your prayers for us. Our con­fi­dence in the di­vine mer­cy is bound­less. Do not de­spair of see­ing us again. We have no mis­giv­ings, not one of us but an­tic­ipates con­fi­dent­ly the pe­ri­od when we shall re­turn and bring with us health, hap­pi­ness, and pros­per­ity to you all.

“Let me add a word,” said Jack.

"The sea is calm, our hearts are firm, our en­ter­prise is un­der the pro­tec­tion of Heav­en--there nev­er was an un­der­tak­ing com­menced un­der more fa­vor­able aus­pices. Farewell then, once more, farewell. All our as­pi­ra­tions are for you.

"FRITZ.

"JACK.

“P.S.--Willis was go­ing to write a line or two when, lo and be­hold! a big tear rolled up­on the pa­per. 'Ha!' said he, 'that is enough, I will not write a word, they will un­der­stand that, I think,' and he threw down the pen.”

“How is the let­ter to be sent on shore?” in­quired Fritz.

“There is a cage of pi­geons on board the pin­nace,” replied Jack, “but I do not want them to know that, for, if they should ex­pect to hear from us, and some ac­ci­dent hap­pen to the pi­geons, they might be dread­ful­ly dis­ap­point­ed.”

“We can re­turn on shore,” ob­served Willis, “and place it on the spot, where we em­barked; they are sure to be there to-​mor­row.”

This sug­ges­tion was in­con­ti­nent­ly adopt­ed. The let­ter was at­tached to a small cross, and fixed in the ground. The voy­agers had all re-​em­barked in the pin­nace, which was des­tined to bear even more than Cæsar and his for­tunes. Willis had al­ready loos­ened the warp, when, a thought crossed the mind of Fritz.

“I must re­vis­it Fal­con's Nest once more,” said he.

“What!” cried Willis, “you are not go­ing to get up such an­oth­er scene as we wit­nessed an hour or two ago?”

“No, Willis, I mean to go by stealth like the In­di­an trap­per, so as to be seen by no mor­tal eye. I wish to take one more look at the old fa­mil­iar trees, and en­deav­or to as­cer­tain whether my moth­er has reached home in safe­ty.”

“But the dogs?” ob­ject­ed Willis.

“The dogs know me too well to give the slight­est alarm at my ap­proach. I shall not be long gone; but re­al­ly I must go, the de­sire is too pow­er­ful with­in me to be re­sist­ed.”

“I will go with you,” said Jack.

Here Willis shook his head and re­flect­ed an in­stant.

“You are not an­gry with us, Willis, are you?”

“Not at all,” he replied, “and I think the best thing I can do, un­der the cir­cum­stances, is to go too.”

“Very well, make fast that warp again, and come along.”

The par­ty then dis­ap­peared amongst the brush­wood.

“Some time ago,” re­marked Fritz, “we fol­lowed this track about the same hour; there was dan­ger to be ap­pre­hend­ed, but the en­ter­prise was blood­less, though suc­cess­ful.”

“You mean the chim­panzee af­fair,” said Willis.

“Yes; this time we have on­ly an emo­tion to con­quer, but I am afraid it is too strong for us.”

“These are the trees,” said Jack, as they de­bouched up­on the road, “that I stuck my procla­ma­tions up­on. We had very lit­tle to think of in those days.”

As the par­ty drew near Fal­con's Nest, the dogs ap­proached and wel­comed them with the usu­al ca­nine demon­stra­tions of joy.

“I have half a mind to car­ry off To­by,” said Fritz; “but I fear Mary would miss him.”

Ex­ter­nal­ly all ap­peared tran­quil at Fal­con's Nest; this sat­is­fied the young men that their moth­er had suc­ceed­ed in reach­ing home, at least, in safe­ty; a light stream­ing through the win­dow of Beck­er's dwelling, how­ev­er, showed that the fam­ily had not yet re­tired for the night.

“If they on­ly knew we were so near them!” re­marked Jack.

The en­tire par­ty then sat down up­on a rus­tic bench, shroud­ed with flow­er­ing or­chis and Span­ish jas­mine.

“How of­ten, on re­turn­ing from the fields or the chase, we have seen our moth­er at work on this very seat,” ob­served Fritz.

“Aye,” added Jack; “once I ob­served she had fall­en asleep whilst knit­ting stock­ings. I ad­vanced on tip-​toe, re­moved gen­tly her knit­ting ap­pa­ra­tus, stock­ings, and all, and placed on her lap some or­tolans that I had caught and stran­gled; but I first plucked one of them, and scat­tered the feath­ers all about, and then re­treat­ed in­to a thick­et to watch the _dé­noue­ment_ of my scheme. She awoke, put down her hand to take up a stock­ing, and laid hold of a bird. She stared, rubbed her eyes, stared again, looked about, and could find noth­ing but the or­tolan feath­ers. I then ran for­ward and em­braced her, look­ing as if I had just come from un­earthing turnips. 'Well, I de­clare,' she said with a be­wil­dered air, 'I could have sworn that I was knit­ting just now, and here I find my­self pluck­ing or­tolans; and what is more, I have not the slight­est idea where, in all the world, the birds have come from!' Of course, I looked as in­no­cent as pos­si­ble; so that the more she stared and re­flect­ed, the less she could make the mat­ter out. At last, she went on pluck­ing the birds, and when this was done she stuck them on the spit. When the or­tolans were roast­ed and ready to be served up, I went in­to the kitchen, car­ried them off, and put my moth­er's knit­ting ap­pa­ra­tus on the spit. Imag­ine her sur­prise when she be­held her worsted and stock­ings at the fire, know­ing, at the same time, that four hun­gry stom­achs were wait­ing for their din­ners! At last, fear­ing that she was go­ing to as­cribe the meta­mor­pho­sis to some hal­lu­ci­na­tion of her own, I went up to her, threw my arms round her neck, told her the whole sto­ry, and we both of us en­joyed a hearty laugh over it.”

“Aye, Jack, those were laugh­ing times,” said Fritz, sad­ly.

“Not on­ly that, but our moth­er was al­ways so even--tem­pered; she was nev­er ruf­fled in the slight­est de­gree by my non­sense; though she of­ten had the right to be very an­gry, yet she nev­er once took of­fence. On an­oth­er oc­ca­sion, Mary and Sophia Wol­ston were work­ing here at those mys­te­ri­ous em­broi­deries which they al­ways hid when we came near.”

“To­by's col­lar, I sup­pose,” re­marked Fritz.

“My to­bac­co pouch,” sug­gest­ed Willis.

“I ap­proached,” con­tin­ued Jack, “with the muf­fled soft­ness of a cat, and was just on the point of dis­cov­er­ing their se­cret, when my mon­key, Knips, who was crack­ing nuts at their feet, made a spring, and drew a bob­bin of silk af­ter it; this caused them to look round, and great was my as­ton­ish­ment to find my­self caught at the very mo­ment I ex­pect­ed to sur­prise them. They com­menced scold­ing me at an im­mense rate, but then it was so de­light­ful to be scold­ed!”

“Aye,” mur­mured Fritz, “that is all over now.”

Like a file of sheep, one rec­ol­lec­tion dragged an­oth­er af­ter it, so that the whole of the past re­curred to their mem­ories. Some faint streaks of light now warned them that day was about to break; the cocks be­gan to crow one af­ter the oth­er, and to fill the air with their shrill voic­es.

“Now,” said Willis, “it is high time to be off.”

Jack hasti­ly gath­ered two bou­quets of flow­ers, which he sus­pend­ed to the lin­tel of each dwelling.

“These,” said he, “will show them that we have paid them an­oth­er vis­it.”

They then bent down all three on their knees, ut­tered a short prayer, and af­ter­wards dis­ap­peared amidst the shad­ows of the chest­nut trees.

“Lis­ten!” said Willis, see­ing that his com­pan­ions were about to make a halt, “if you stop again, or speak of re­turn­ing any more, I will cease to re­gard you as men.”

Half an hour af­ter­wards, on the morn­ing of the 8th March, 1812, the pin­nace bore out to sea, and when day broke, the crew could not de­scry a sin­gle trace of New Switzer­land on any point of the hori­zon.