Story of Chester Lawrence

CHAPTER XIX.

And thus it came about that the par­ty of three vis­it­ing with Cap­tain An­drew Brown, de­cid­ed to sail with him to New York. A few more days on the wa­ter was of no con­se­quence, ex­cept as Chester said to Lucy, to en­joy a lit­tle longer the af­ter-​sea­sick­ness pe­ri­od of the voy­age. As for Chester him­self, he was very pleased with the propo­si­tion.

A vis­it to the com­pa­ny's of­fice in Wa­ter Street com­plet­ed the ar­range­ment. “Yes,” said the agent, “we can take care of you. There will be a very small list of pas­sen­gers, which gives you all the more room. Be­sides, it's worth while to cross with Cap­tain Brown.”

As the boat did not lay up to the Land­ing Stage, but put di­rect­ly to sea from the dock, the pas­sen­gers were stowed safe­ly away in­to their com­fort­able quar­ters the evening be­fore sail­ing. When they awoke next morn­ing, they were well out in­to the Irish sea, the Welsh hills slow­ly dis­ap­pear­ing at the left. Chester was the first on deck. He tipped his cap to Cap­tain Brown on the bridge as they ex­changed their morn­ing greet­ings. The day was bright and warm, the sea smooth. Chester stood look­ing at the van­ish­ing hills, glanc­ing now and then at the com­pan­ion­way, for Lucy. As he stood there, he thought of the time, on­ly a few days since, when he had caught his first sight of those same green hills. What a lot had hap­pened to him be­tween those two points of time! A jour­ney be­gun with­out dis­tinct pur­pose had brought to him fa­ther and sweet­heart. Out­ward bound he had been alone, emp­ty and void in his life; and now he was go­ing home with heart full of love and life rich with no­ble pur­pose.

Chester's fa­ther ap­peared be­fore Lucy. The son met him and took his arm as they paced the deck slow­ly. The fa­ther de­clared to Chester that he was feel­ing fine; and, in fact, he looked re­mark­ably well.

“I am sor­ry we did not hear from Gilbert be­fore we sailed,” said the fa­ther; “but I sup­pose the fault was ours in not writ­ing to him soon­er.”

“He bare­ly had time to get the let­ter,” said Chester.

“I sup­pose so. But it doesn't mat­ter. We should on­ly have just stopped off at Kil­dare Vil­la to say good­bye, any way.”

“It's a pity we don't stop at Queen­stown. He could have come out on the ten­der.”

“Per­haps he would, and then per­haps he wouldn't. It would de­pend on just how he felt--hal­loo, Lucy--you up al­ready?”

“I couldn't lay abed longer this beau­ti­ful morn­ing,” ex­claimed Lucy as she came up to them. “Isn't this glo­ri­ous! Is Wales be­low the sea yet?”

“No; there's a tip left. See, there, just above the wa­ter.”

“Good­bye, dear old Eu­rope,” said Lucy, as she waved her hand­ker­chief. “I've al­ways loved you--I love you now more than ev­er.”

Fa­ther and son looked and smiled know­ing­ly at her. Then they all went down to break­fast.

Just about that same time of day, Thomas Strong's de­layed let­ter reached his broth­er in Cork. Un­cle Gilbert read the let­ter while he ate his break­fast, and Aunt Sarah won­dered what could be so dis­turb­ing in its con­tents; for he would not fin­ish his meal.

“What is it, Gilbert?” she asked.

“Thomas, Lucy, and that young fel­low, Chester Lawrence are go­ing to--yes, have al­ready sailed from Liv­er­pool with Cap­tain Brown.”

“And they're not com­ing to see us be­fore they leave?”

“Didn't I say, they're al­ready on the wa­ter--or should be--off to New York with Cap­tain Brown--and he doesn't touch at Queen­stown, and in that boat--”

Un­cle Gilbert wiped his fore­head.

“I'm sor­ry that they did not call,” com­ment­ed Aunt Sarah com­pla­cent­ly; “but I sup­pose they were in a hur­ry, and Cap­tain Brown will take care of them.”

“In a hur­ry! No. Cap­tain Brown--” but the re­mark was lost to his wife. He cut short his eat­ing, hur­ried to town, and, in faint hopes that it might be in time, sent a tele­gram to his broth­er in Liv­er­pool which read:

“Don't sail with Cap­tain Brown. Will ex­plain lat­er.”

This tele­gram was de­liv­ered to Cap­tain Brown's house­keep­er, who sent it to the steamship com­pa­ny's of­fice, where it was safe­ly pi­geon-​holed.

The morn­ing passed at Kil­dare Vil­la. The tele­gram brought no re­ply. In fool­ish des­per­ation, hop­ing against hope, Un­cle Gilbert took the first fast train north­ward, crossed by mail steam­er to Holy­head, thence on to Liv­er­pool, where he ar­rived too late. The boat had sailed. He went to the steamship com­pa­ny's of­fice in Wa­ter Street, and passed, with­out ask­ing leave, in­to the man­ag­er's of­fice. That of­fi­cial was alone, which was to Gilbert Strong's pur­pose.

“Why did you per­mit my broth­er to sail with Cap­tain Brown?” asked he abrupt­ly.

“My dear Mr. Strong,” said the man­ag­er, “calm your­self. I do not un­der­stand.”

“Yes, you do. You know as well as I do that his ship is--is not in the best con­di­tion. You ought not to have al­lowed pas­sen­gers at all.”

“Sit down, Mr. Strong. The boat is good for many a trip yet, though it is true, as you know, that she is to go in­to dry dock for over­haul­ing on her re­turn. Has your broth­er sailed on her?”

“He has, my broth­er, his daugh­ter and her young man. I sup­pose there were oth­er pas­sen­gers al­so?”

“Yes; a few--per­haps twen­ty-​five all told. Don't wor­ry; Cap­tain Brown will bring them safe­ly through.”

“Yes,” said Gilbert Strong, as he left the of­fice, “yes, if the Lord will give him a show--but--”

He could say no more, for did he not know full well that at a meet­ing of com­pa­ny di­rec­tors at which he had been present, it had been de­cid­ed to try one more trip with Cap­tain Brown in com­mand, and the fact that the boat was not in good con­di­tion was to be kept as much as pos­si­ble from the cap­tain. A lit­tle tin­ker­ing be­low and a ju­di­cious coat of paint above would do much to help the ap­pear­ance of mat­ters, one of the smil­ing di­rec­tors had said. And so--well, he would try not to wor­ry. Of course, ev­ery­thing would be well. Such things were done right along, with on­ly oc­ca­sion­al­ly a dis­as­ter or loss--ful­ly cov­ered by the in­sur­ance.

But for all his ef­forts at self as­sur­ance, when he went home to Aunt Sarah he was not in the most easy frame of mind.

* * * * *

The lit­tle com­pa­ny un­der Cap­tain Brown's care was hav­ing a de­light­ful time. The weath­er was so pleas­ant that there was very lit­tle sick­ness. Chester again es­caped and even his fa­ther and Lucy were in­dis­posed for a day or two on­ly. Af­ter that the long sun­ny days and much of the star­ry nights were spent on deck. The mem­bers of the com­pa­ny soon be­came well ac­quaint­ed. Cap­tain Brown called them his “hap­py fam­ily.”

And now Chester and Lucy had op­por­tu­ni­ty to get near to each oth­er in heart and mind. With steam­er chairs close to­geth­er up on the prom­enade deck where there usu­al­ly were none but them­selves, they would sit for hours, talk­ing and look­ing out over the sea. “Shady bow­ers 'mid trees and flow­ers” may be ide­al places for lovers; but a qui­et pro­tect­ed cor­ner of a big ship which plows ma­jes­ti­cal­ly through a change­less, yet ev­er-​chang­ing sea, has al­so its charms and ad­van­tages.

On the fourth day out. The wa­ter was smooth, the day so warm that the shade was ac­cept­able. Chester and Lucy had been up on the bridge with Cap­tain Brown, who had told them sto­ries of the sea, and had showed them pic­tures of his wife and ba­by, both safe in the “Port of For­ev­er,” he had said. All this had had its ef­fect on the two young peo­ple, and so when they went down to es­cape the glare of the sun on the ex­posed bridge, they sought a shady cor­ner amid-​ships. When they found chairs, Chester al­ways saw that she was com­fort­able, for though well as she ap­peared, she was nev­er free from the dan­ger of a trou­ble­some heart. The light shawl which she usu­al­ly wore on deck, hung loose­ly from her shoul­ders across her lap, pro­vid­ing a cov­er be­hind which two hands could clasp. They sat for some time that af­ter­noon, in si­lence, then Lucy asked abrupt­ly:

“Chester, you haven't told me much about that girl out West. You liked her very much, didn't, you?”

“Yes,” he ad­mit­ted, af­ter a pause. “I think I can truth­ful­ly say I did; but this fur­ther I can say, that my lik­ing for her was on­ly a sort of in­tro­duc­tion to the stronger, more ma­tured love which was to fol­low,--my love for you. I think I have told you be­fore that you bear a close re­sem­blence to her; and it oc­curs to me now that there­in is an­oth­er of God's won­der­ful prov­idences.”

“How is that?”

“Had you not looked like her I would not have been at­tract­ed to you, and very like­ly, would have missed you and my fa­ther, and all this.”

“I'm glad your ex­pe­ri­ence has been turned to such good ac­count. Now, I for ex­am­ple, nev­er had a beau un­til you came.”

“What?”

“Oh, don't feign sur­prise. You know, I'm no beau­ty, and I nev­er was pop­ular with the boys. Some­one once told me it was be­cause I was too re­li­gious. What do you think of that?”

“Too re­li­gious! Non­sense. The one thing above an­oth­er, if there is such, that I like about you is that your beau­ty of heart and soul cor­re­sponds to your beau­ty of face--No; don't con­tra­dict. You have the high­est type of beau­ty--”

“Beau­ty is in the eyes that see,” she in­ter­rupt­ed.

“Cer­tain­ly; and in the heart that un­der­stands. As I said, the high­est type of beau­ty is where the in­ner and the out­er are har­mo­nious­ly com­bined. I think that is an­oth­er ap­pli­ca­tion of the truth that the spir­itu­al and the mor­tal, or 'el­ement' as the rev­ela­tion calls it, must be eter­nal­ly con­nect­ed to in­sure a per­fect be­ing. Some­how, I al­ways sym­pa­thize with one whose beau­ti­ful spir­it is taber­na­cled in a plain body. And yet, my pity is a hun­dred times more pro­found for one whom God has giv­en a beau­ti­ful face and form, but whose heart and soul have been made ug­ly by sin--but there, if I don't look out, I'll be preach­ing.”

“Well, your con­gre­ga­tion likes to hear you preach.”

Space will not per­mit the record­ing of the num­ber of times em­pha­sis was giv­en to var­ious ex­pres­sions in this con­ver­sa­tion by the hand pres­sure un­der the shawl.

“Now,” con­tin­ued he, “I can't con­ceive of your not hav­ing any ad­mir­ers.”

“I didn't say ad­mir­ers--I said beaux.”

“Well, I sup­pose there is a dif­fer­ence,” he laughed.

“Of course, I have known a good many young men in my time, but those mat­ri­mo­ni­al­ly in­clined usu­al­ly passed by on the oth­er side.”

“Per­haps they knew I was com­ing on this side.”

“Per­haps--There's pa­pa. He looks lone­some. We ought to be ashamed of our­selves to hide from him as we did yes­ter­day.”

“I agree; but he'll find us now.”

Lucy drew the fa­ther's at­ten­tion, and he found a chair near them.

“Isn't the sea beau­ti­ful,” said Lucy, by way of be­gin­ning the con­ver­sa­tion prop­er­ly, now a third per­son was present. “And what a lot of wa­ter there is!” she con­tin­ued. “What did Lin­coln say about the com­mon peo­ple? The Lord must like them, be­cause he made so many of them. Well, the Lord must like wa­ter al­so, as He has made so much of it.”

“Wa­ter is a very nec­es­sary el­ement in the econ­omy of na­ture,” said the fa­ther. “Like the flow of blood in the hu­man body, so is wa­ter to this world. As far as we know, wher­ev­er there is life there is wa­ter.”

“And that re­minds me,” said Lucy ea­ger­ly, as if a new thought had come to her, “that wa­ter is al­so a sign of pu­ri­ty. Wa­ter is used, not on­ly to pu­ri­fy the body, but as a sym­bol to wash away the sins of the soul. Paul, you re­mem­ber, was com­mand­ed to 'arise, and be bap­tized, and wash away thy sins'.” Lucy looked at Chester as if giv­ing him a cue.

“In the econ­omy of God,” said Chester, “it seems nec­es­sary that we must pass through wa­ter from one world to an­oth­er. In like man­ner, the gate­way to the king­dom of heav­en is through wa­ter. 'Ex­cept a man be born of wa­ter and of the spir­it, he can­not en­ter in­to the King­dom of God' is de­clared by the Sav­ior him­self.”

Whether or not the fa­ther un­der­stood that this brief ser­mo­niz­ing was in­tend­ed pri­mar­ily for him, he did not show any re­sent­ment. He lis­tened at­ten­tive­ly, then added:

“Yes; wa­ter has al­ways held an im­por­tant place among na­tions. Ci­cero tells us that Thales the Mile­sian as­sert­ed God formed all things from wa­ter--Out in Utah, Chester,” said the fa­ther, turn­ing abrupt­ly to the young man, “you have an il­lus­tra­tion of what wa­ter can do in the way of mak­ing the desert to blos­som.”

“Yes; it is tru­ly won­der­ful, what it has done out there,” agreed Chester. Then be­ing urged by both his fa­ther and Lucy, he told of the West and its de­vel­op­ment. He was adroit­ly led to talk of Piney Ridge Cot­tage and the peo­ple who lived there, their home and com­mu­ni­ty life, their tri­als, their hopes, their ide­als. Ere he was aware, Chester was again in the canyons, and crags and moun­tain peaks, whose wild­ness was akin to the wild­ness of the ocean. Then when his sto­ry was told, Lucy said:

“I know where I could get well.”

“Where?” asked Chester.

“At Piney Ridge Cot­tage.”

Chester nei­ther agreed nor de­nied. Just then a steam­er came in­to sight, east­ward bound. It proved to be an “ocean gray­hound,” and Cap­tain Brown com­ing up, let them look at it through his glass.

“She's go­ing some,” re­marked the cap­tain; “but I'll war­rant the pas­sen­gers are not rid­ing as easy as we.”

“Some­how,” said the fa­ther, “a pass­ing steam­er al­ways brings to me pro­found thoughts. Now, there, for ex­am­ple, is a spot on the vast ex­panse of wa­ter. It is but a speck, yet with­in it is a lit­tle world, teem­ing with life. The ship comes in­to our view, then pass­es away. Again, the ship is just a part of a great ma­chine--I use this fig­ure for want of a bet­ter one. Ev­ery in­di­vid­ual on the ship bears a cer­tain re­la­tion­ship to the ves­sel; the steam­er is a part of this world; this world is a cog in the ma­chin­ery of the so­lar sys­tem; the so­lar sys­tem is but a small group of worlds, which is a part of and de­pends on, some­thing as much vaster as the world is to this ship. This men call the Uni­verse; but all ques­tions of what or where or when per­tain­ing to this uni­verse are unan­swer­able. We are lost--we know noth­ing about it--it is be­yond our fi­nite minds.”

Cap­tain Brown stood lis­ten­ing to this ex­po­si­tion. His eyes were on the speak­er, then on the pass­ing steam­er, then on the speak­er again.

“Mr. Strong,” said he, “at the last church ser­vice I at­tend­ed in Liv­er­pool, the min­is­ter was try­ing to ex­plain what God is,--and just that which you have said is be­yond us, that vast, un­known, un­know­able some­thing he called God.”

“Oh,” ex­claimed Lucy, in­vol­un­tar­ily.

“I'll ad­mit the def­ini­tion is not very plain,” con­tin­ued the cap­tain. “We get no sense of near­ness from it. I would not know how to pray to or wor­ship such a God; but what are we to do? I have nev­er heard any­thing more sat­is­fac­to­ry, ex­cept--well, on­ly when I read my Bible.”

“Why not take the plain state­ment of the Bible, then?” sug­gest­ed Chester.

“I try to, but my think­ing of these things is not clear, be­cause of the in­ter­pre­ta­tion the preach­ers put up­on them--ex­cuse the state­ment, Mr. Strong; but per­haps you are an ex­cep­tion. I have nev­er heard you preach.”

The min­is­ter smiled good-​na­tured­ly. Then he said, “Chester here, is quite a preach­er him­self. Ask his opin­ion on the mat­ter.”

“I shall be hap­py to lis­ten to him. How­ev­er, I have an er­rand just now. Will you go with me?” this to Chester.

Chester, an­noyed for a mo­ment at this un­ex­pect­ed turn, arose and fol­lowed the cap­tain in­to his quar­ters.

“Sit down,” said the cap­tain. “I was glad Mr. Strong gave me an op­por­tu­ni­ty to get you away, for I have a mat­ter I wish to speak to you about, a mat­ter which I think best to keep from both Mr. Strong and Lucy--but which you ought to know.”

“Yes.”

The of­fi­cer seat­ed him­self near his ta­ble on which were out­spread charts and maps. About the ta­ble hung a framed pic­ture of the cap­tain's wife and child, a minia­ture of which he car­ried in his breast pock­et.

“In the first place,” be­gan Cap­tain Brown, “I want you to keep this which I tell you se­cret un­til I deem it wise to be pub­lished. I can trust you for that?”

“Cer­tain­ly.”

Al­ways in the com­pa­ny of the pas­sen­gers, Cap­tain Brown's bear­ing was one of as­sur­ance. He smiled read­ily. But now his face was se­ri­ous, and Chester saw lines of care and anx­iety in it.

“I am sor­ry that I ev­er sug­gest­ed to you and your friends--and my dear friends they are too,” con­tin­ued the cap­tain, “that you take this voy­age with me, for if any­thing should hap­pen, I should nev­er for­give my­self. How­ev­er, there is no oc­ca­sion for se­ri­ous alarm--yet.”

“What is the mat­ter, cap­tain?”

“I have been de­ceived re­gard­ing the con­di­tion of this ship. I was made to un­der­stand that she was per­fect­ly sea-​wor­thy--this is my first trip with her--but I now learn that the boil­ers are in a bad state and the pumps are hard­ly in a work­ing con­di­tion. There is--al­ready a small leak where it is near­ly im­pos­si­ble to be reached. We are hold­ing our own very well, and we can jog along in this way for some time, so there is no im­me­di­ate dan­ger.”

Chester ex­pe­ri­enced a sink­ing at the heart. From the many ques­tions which thronged in­to his mind, he put this:

“When might there be dan­ger?”

“If the leak gets bad and the pumps can not han­dle it. Then a rough sea is to be dread­ed.”

“What can we do?”

“At present, noth­ing but keep cool. You are the on­ly one of the pas­sen­gers that knows any­thing about this, and I am telling you be­cause I can trust you to be wise and brave, if nec­es­sary. If things do not im­prove, we shall soon be get­ting our boats in shape. We shall do this as qui­et­ly as pos­si­ble, but some­one might see and ask ques­tions. We shall de­pend on you--and I'll promise to keep you post­ed on the ship's true con­di­tion.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And now,” said the cap­tain as his face re­sumed its cheer­ful ex­pres­sion, “I must make a trip be­low. When you see me on the bridge again, come up and make that ex­pla­na­tion which Mr. Strong said you were able to do. I shall be mighty glad to lis­ten to you.”

Chester protest­ed, but the cap­tain would not hear it. “I'll be up in the course of half an hour,” said the sea­man. “Promise me you'll come?”

“Of course, if you re­al­ly wish it?”

“I was nev­er more earnest in my life. My boy, let me tell you some­thing'. I have lis­tened at times to your con­ver­sa­tion on re­li­gious themes--you and Lucy have talked when I could not help hear­ing--and I want to hear more--I be­lieve you have a mes­sage for me.”

There was a smile on the cap­tain's face as he hur­ried away. And Chester's heart al­so arose and was com­fort­ed, as he lin­gered for a few mo­ments on the deck and then joined Lucy and his fa­ther.