Story of Chester Lawrence

CHAPTER VII.

But next morn­ing there was no time to talk of ei­ther love or re­li­gion for Chester and Lucy.

The coast of Ire­land had been sight­ed ear­li­er than had been ex­pect­ed, and there was the usu­al strain­ing of eyes land­ward. Chester was among the first to see the dark points on the hori­zon which the sea­men said was the Irish coast, and which as the ves­sel ap­proached, ex­pand­ed to green hills, dot­ted with whitened hous­es. This then was Eu­rope, old, his­toric Eu­rope, land of our fore­fa­thers, land of the sto­ries and the songs that have come down to us from the dis­tant past.

“Good morn­ing. What do you think of Ire­land?” Lucy touched his arm.

“Oh, good morn­ing. You are up ear­ly.”

“I am feel­ing so fine this morn­ing that I had to get up and join in the cry of 'Land ho.' No mat­ter how pleas­ant an ocean voy­age has been, we are al­ways pleased to see the land. Be­sides, we get off at Queen­stown.”

“What!” ex­claimed Chester. “I thought you were bound for Liv­er­pool?”

“Yes, lat­er; but we are to vis­it some of our peo­ple in Ire­land first. Pa­pa has a broth­er in Cork. We in­tend to re­main there a few days, then go on to Dublin, Liv­er­pool, Lon­don, Paris, etc., etc.,” laughed the girl.

Chester's heart sank. The sep­ara­tion was com­ing soon­er than he had thought. On­ly a few more hours, and this lit­tle sun-​kissed voy­age would end. He looked at the girl by him; that ac­tion was not un­der em­bar­go. Yes; she was un­com­mon­ly sweet that morn­ing. Per­haps it was the Irish blood in her quick­en­ing at the near­ness of the land of her fore­fa­thers. Cheeks and lips and ears were rosy red, and the breeze played with the some­what di­sheveled hair. There was a press of peo­ple along the rail which caused Lucy's shoul­ders to snug­gle close­ly to his side. Chester was silent.

“Yes;” she went on, “there's dear old Ire­land. You see, this is my sec­ond vis­it, and it's like com­ing home. You go on to Liv­er­pool, I un­der­stand.”

“I have a tick­et to Liv­er­pool,” he said; “but I sup­pose they would let me off at Queen­stown, wouldn't they?”

“Why, cer­tain­ly--how fast we are near­ing land. I'll have to go down now and awak­en fa­ther. We haven't much time to get ready.”

He would have held her, had he dared. She was gone, and there were a hun­dred and one ques­tions to ask her. She must not get away from him like this. He must know where they were go­ing--get ad­dress­es by which to find them. He had no plans but what could be eas­ily changed. See­ing Eu­rope with­out Lucy Strong would be a dull, prof­it­less ex­cur­sion. Chester's thoughts ran along this line, when Lucy ap­peared again. The col­or had left her face.

“Fa­ther is very sick,” she said to Chester. “He seems in a stu­por. I can't wake him. Will you find the doc­tor?”

“I'll get him,” he said. “Don't wor­ry. We'll be down im­me­di­ate­ly.”

Chester and the doc­tor found Lucy rub­bing her fa­ther's hands and fore­head, plead­ing soft­ly for him to speak to her. The doc­tor af­ter a hur­ried ex­am­ina­tion, said there was noth­ing se­ri­ous. A ner­vous break-​down of some kind on­ly--no or­gan­ic trou­ble--would be all right again short­ly.

“But doc­tor, we get off at Queen­stown,” ex­plained Lucy.

“Well, I think you can man­age it. By the time you are ready to leave, he will be strong enough. This young man seems able to car­ry him ashore, if need be. Are you land­ing al­so,” he asked of Chester.

“Well--yes.”

Lucy looked at the young man, but said noth­ing. The doc­tor promised to bring some medicine, then left.

“But Mr. Lawrence--” be­gan Lucy.

“I'll lis­ten to no ob­jec­tions,” in­ter­rupt­ed he. “I couldn't think for a mo­ment of leav­ing you two in this con­di­tion. You're hard­ly able to lift a glass of wa­ter, and now you fa­ther's ill al­so. No; I am go­ing with you, to be your body guard, your ser­vant. Lis­ten! I'm out to see the old world. I should very much like to be­gin with Queen­stown and Cork.”

The fa­ther moved, opened his eyes, then sat up He passed his hand over his face, then looked at the two young peo­ple. “It's all right,” he mut­tered, then lay down again on the pil­low. The doc­tor came with his medicine. There were now heard the noise of trunks be­ing hoist­ed from the hold and the bus­tle of get­ting ready to leave the ship.

“Fa­ther,” said Lucy. “We must soon get ready to leave. Will you be able?”

“Yes, yes, child”--it seemed dif­fi­cult for the old man to speak.

“And Chester--Mr. Lawrence--here is to go with us and help us.”

“Yes.” He nod­ded as if it was eas­ier to give as­sent in that way.

“We'll make all things ready, dad­dy. Don't you wor­ry. Rest as long as you can. It will be some time yet be­fore you will need to get up.”

The sick man nod­ded again.

“I'll re­main here while you get ready,” said Chester. "Then you may at­tend while I do what lit­tle is nec­es­sary. I'll let my trunk go right on to Liv­er­pool.

Lucy hur­ried away and Chester sat down by the bed. As he smoothed out the cov­er­let, the min­is­ter reached out and took Chester's hand which he held in his own as if to get strength from it. There came in­to the old man's face an ex­pres­sion of con­tent­ment, but he did not try to talk.

Lucy re­turned, and Chester hur­ried to his own room where he soon packed his few be­long­ings and was ready. He found the el­ders on deck watch­ing the ap­proach to Queen­stown, and ex­plained to them what had hap­pened to change some­what his plans. “I'll sure­ly hunt you up,” he said to El­der Mal­by, “and vis­it with you;” and the El­der wished him God-​speed and gave him his bless­ing.

Slow­ly the big ship sailed in­to Queen­stown har­bor, and then stopped. The an­chor chains rat­tled, the big iron grasped the bot­tom, and the ves­sel was still. What a sen­sa­tion to be once more at rest! Now out from the shore came a ten­der to take Queen­stown pas­sen­gers ashore. Small boats came along­side from which came shrill cries to those far above on deck. A small rope was thrown up which was caught and hauled in by the in­ter­est­ed spec­ta­tors. At the end of the small rope there dan­gled a heav­ier one, and at the end of that there was a loop in­to which a good-​sized Irish wom­an slipped. “Pull away,” came from be­low, and half a dozen men re­spond­ed. Up came the wom­an, her feet climb­ing the sides of the steam­er. With great good-​na­ture the men pulled un­til the wom­an was on deck. Then she im­me­di­ate­ly let down the lighter rope to her com­pan­ion in the small boat, where a bas­ket was fas­tened and drawn up. From the bas­ket came ap­ples, or “re­al Irish lace,” or sticks of pe­cu­liar Irish woods, all of which found a ready sale among the pas­sen­gers.

From one of the low­er decks of the steam­er, a gang-​way was pushed on to the raised deck plat­form of the ten­der, and even then the in­cline was quite steep. This bridge was well fas­tened by ropes, and then the pas­sen­gers be­gan to de­scend, while their heav­ier bag­gage was piled on the decks of the ten­der.

Lucy and her fa­ther soon ap­peared. Chester met them be­low and helped the sick man up, along the deck, and down the gang-​way to the ten­der, where he found a seat. Lucy fol­lowed, stew­ards car­ry­ing their hand bag­gage. From their new po­si­tion they looked up to the steam­er. How big it was!

The day was beau­ti­ful­ly warm. Well wrapped in his coat, the fa­ther rest­ed eas­ily, watch­ing with some in­ter­est the busy scene around him. He be­ing among the last to leave the lin­er, they were soon ready to be off. The gang-​way was drawn in again, and the ten­der steamed away to­wards the in­ner har­bor. The big ship weighed its an­chor, then pro­ceed­ed on its course to Liv­er­pool, car­ry­ing away its lit­tle world of a week's ac­quain­tance, to which Chester and Lucy waved farewell.

Queen­stown, in ter­raced ranks, now rose be­fore them. The pier was soon reached, from which most of the trav­el­ers con­tin­ued their jour­ney by rail. The min­is­ter and his par­ty, how­ev­er, took pas­sage again on a small boat for Cork. Ev­ery­thing be­ing new to Chester, and the fa­ther be­ing quite un­able to do any­thing, the ini­tia­tive, at least, rest­ed on Lucy. With Chester's help, she man­aged quite well.

For an hour they sailed on the placid wa­ters of the har­bor and up in­to the riv­er Lee. The wood­ed hills, on ei­ther hand, dot­ted with farm-​hous­es and vil­las, pre­sent­ed a pleas­ing pic­ture. The boat drew up to a land­ing at St. Patrick's Bridge, where Un­cle Gilbert met them, great­ly sur­prised and alarmed at his broth­er's con­di­tion.

Car­riages were wait­ing. Chester was in­tro­duced by Lucy in a way which led to the in­fer­ence that he was a par­tic­ular friend of the fam­ily picked up, per­haps, in their time of need. Bag and bag­gage was piled in be­sides them and they drove away through the streets of Cork and in­to the sub­urbs. Slow­ly the horse climbed the hill, but in a short time they were at Un­cle Gilbert's home, one of the beau­ti­ful ones sit­uat­ed among the green of rolling hill­side and the deep­er green of trees.

There was an­oth­er warm wel­come by Aunt Sarah, who took im­me­di­ate and per­son­al charge of the sick man.

“It's a break-​down through over­work,” she de­clared. “You Amer­icans live at such fever heat that it is no won­der you have no nerves. They're burned out of you. But it's rest on­ly he wants, poor man; and here's where he'll get it. Don't you wor­ry, Lucy.”

Aunt Sarah's mas­ter­ful treat­ment of cas­es such as these took much care and anx­iety from them all. Away from the bus­tle and roar of hur­ry­ing hu­man­ity and traf­fic, rest­ing amid the sooth­ing green, and breath­ing the mild air of the coun­try; the min­is­ter ought sure­ly to get well again soon.

He would not go to bed, but chose to sit in a big chair with a pil­low un­der his head, look­ing out of the up­stairs win­dow which af­ford­ed a view of the town. The sun came in rather strong­ly dur­ing the af­ter­noon and the fa­ther mo­tioned Lucy to part­ly draw the blind. She did so, then drew a stool to his chair and seat­ed her­self near him. He placed his hands on her head, pat­ted it ca­ress­ing­ly, smiled at her, but said noth­ing. It was still dif­fi­cult for him to speak.

Present­ly, there came a light tap at the door. Lucy arose. It was Chester.

“Ex­cuse me,” he said, “but the peo­ple be­low are some­what con­fused over the trunks. I came to in­quire.”

“Come in,” said Lucy. “Let the 'con­fu­sion' con­tin­ue for a lit­tle while. Come in to where there is peace. Fa­ther is feel­ing bet­ter, I am sure.”

The in­valid turned to­wards the speak­ers, then with a move­ment of his head told them to come near. Lucy took her for­mer po­si­tion, while Chester drew up a chair. Yes; he did seem bet­ter, there be­ing some col­or in his face to add life to his faint smile.

“Chester,” he whis­pered with ef­fort, as he reached out and took the young man's hand, “Chester--my boy--I--am--so--glad--you--came--with--us.”