The Martyrdom of Madeline. Robert Williams Buchanan
he spoke the barge settled down and disappeared, leaving only the point of her topmast visible above the waves. But poor Luke thought nothing of the vessel; his thoughts were full of the injured man.
‘Where do ye live, mate?’ asked one of the sailors from the tug.
‘At Grayfleet, master,’ answered Luke, sobbing, and still chafing the cold limp hand. ‘And oh, mates, do take him aboard, and get him home quick, and then mayhap he won’t die.’
The men agreed to take the two men on board, especially as their course lay past Grayfleet. Nevertheless, as they looked on the face of Uncle Mark, they firmly believed it to be the face of a corpse. But after they had got him aboard the tug, stripped him of his wet clothes, and administered some restoratives, he heaved a little sigh, and opened his eyes.
‘Luke, mate,’ he said, recognising his brother, ‘try and say a prayer for me. I doubt I’m a dead man!’
CHAPTER V.—UNCLE MARK SAILS UP THE SHINING RIVER.
All that night Madeline, sleeping peacefully, had been dreaming happy dreams. Her little feet had been pattering through the busy streets of the Golden City; her wondering eyes had been feasted with all the gay sights, her ears with all the gay sounds, which the wondrous ways afford. When she awoke in the morning, she was a little disappointed, and a good deal astonished, to find herself in her little room at home.
It was broad daylight, and Madeline thought it must be late; Mrs. Peartree stood at the window, gazing dreamily forth. Madeline lay for a time and watched her; then she said suddenly:—
‘What are you looking at, Aunt Jane?’
At the sound of the voice the woman turned, and bent to impress her usual kiss on the flushed little cheek on the pillow.
‘Get up, Madlin,’ she said, ‘’tis close on eight o’clock, and you’ll be late for school again.’
‘What were you looking at?’ reiterated Madeline, after returning the caress.
‘Nought, lass, nought—’twas only one of them little steam tugs that stopped off the ferry and sent a boat ashore—but now the boat has gone back again, and the tug has steamed away.’
‘What did it stop for?’ asked Madeline, rising on her pillow.
‘Bless the lass, how can I tell? for nought that consarns us, be sure. There, get up quick, and I’ll cut the bread and butter.’
So saying, she departed, and Madeline, slipping from the bed, began to dress herself. She had pretty nearly completed her task, and had her arms raised, and her frock suspended above her head, when the sound of voices reached her from below.
She listened, and recognised the tones of Uncle Luke. Her heart bounded, her cheek flushed, a minute afterwards she flew down the stairs, thrusting her arms into the wrong sleeves, and alighted, radiant, panting, and half-dressed, on the kitchen floor.
It was Uncle Luke sure enough, but how strange he looked! His weather-beaten cheeks were ghastly—his nervous fingers worked at a big hole in his guernsey, he stared about him in perplexed silence, but when Madeline entered he quietly sat down and burst into tears.
‘It warn’t no fault o’ mine, mother,’ he sobbed; ‘don’t think it! He went on hisself, he jibbed the old barge hisself, and that’s how it all came about.’
Mrs. Peartree looked aghast, and her cheeks gradually grew pale too.
‘Mercy onus, Luke, can you not speak?’ said she, irritably. ‘What’s happened to Mark? Is he hurted?—is he—killed?’
As she spoke she grew sick at heart with apprehension, and turning at a heavy sound of footsteps came face to face with her husband. He lay upon a stretcher covered with rugs and blankets, and carried by one or two of the Brethren who used to meet in the parlour on Good Friday. His face was deathly pale, but his eyes wandered restlessly about, and when they lighted on his wife’s face they gleamed with recognition. He smiled faintly, and stretched towards her a trembling hand.
‘Don’t ’ee cry, mother,’ he said, seeing that her lips trembled and her eyes grew dim; then, seeing Madeline in the background ready to spring upon him, he added feebly, ‘Don’t come a-nigh me, little Madlin—I’m a’most worn out.’
Mrs. Peartree was a woman of strong emotions, but she had a wonderful power of self-control. She resolutely choked back the rising desire to scream and fall into hysterics—and laying her brown hand on her husband’s cold wet brow, said quietly but firmly:—
‘Why, Mark, Mark—what’s to do? I never thought to see my man brought back to me like this.’
Then motioning Madeline to keep back, she had Uncle Mark carried into the bright warm kitchen, where the breakfast was set, and, bringing in the horsehair sofa from the parlour, drew it up beside the fire, and had him placed thereon.
She had need of her resolution, for all poor Uncle Luke could do in this time of trouble was to sit in a corner and cry like a child, asserting, with strange vehemence, that he had no hand in the disaster, while Madeline, as if for sympathy, sat by his side and cried too.
The movement and excitement seemed to have completely overpowered Uncle Mark; no sooner did he get upon the couch than he sank back with his eyes closed, and seemed to breathe his last.
Meantime one of the Brethren had run off for the doctor, while another held a glass containing a little whisky, and Mrs. Peartree, taking the drooping head under her arm, poured between the livid lips a few drops of the spirit. At this he seemed to revive a little—he opened his eyes, again recognised his wife, and fixed his gaze on hers.
In a few minutes the messenger returned, flushed and panting from his run. The doctor wasn’t at home, he said; he had gone to visit a patient several miles away; when he returned they would send him on.
Uncle Mark listened, smiling faintly, then he said:—
‘Ah, I don’t want ne’er a doctor, mate. I’ve got my physic at last, Lord knows.’
‘Mark, Mark, don’t ‘ee talk so,’ said Mrs. Peartree, almost breaking down.
But Uncle Mark smiled faintly again, and reached forth his trembling hand towards her.
‘Mother,’ he said, ‘’tain’t no use denying of it, I’m agoing away. That there spar did the job for me—but nobody’s to blame for it, only me;’ then, as his wandering gaze fell upon his brother, who sat sobbing in a corner, he asked suddenly:—
‘Luke, mate, what’s come o’ th’ old barge?’
‘She be clean sunk, mate,’ returned Luke, dashing away the tears with the back of his rough, weatherbeaten hand. ‘She be sunk out there in the river, up to Southam Beacon.’
‘She was a good wessel,’ said Mark, faintly; ‘many’s the year we sailed her, you and me. And she be sunk at last!’
‘O, mate,’ cried Uncle Luke, piteously, ‘don’t take on about that. We’ll get her up again, but if you go and die we shall all be adrift together—little Madlin, and mother, and me, and all our hearts’ll be broke.’
Uncle Mark did not reply; he lay back with closed eyes, his breathing was laboured, and the hand which lay in his wife’s turned cold as stone.
For a moment Mrs. Peartree’s heart sank in dread, for she thought that he was dying, but she neither spoke nor moved; she only clasped the hand a little tighter in her own, and let the scalding tears run down her cheeks.
It was a sorrowful group, and the warmth and comfort of the surroundings seemed