Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader by R. M. Ballantyne (guided reading books txt) 📕

Chapter Nineteen. Sorrow and Sympathy—The Widow Becomes a Pleader, and Her Son Engages in a Single Combat.

There are times in the life of every one when the heart seems unable to bear the load of sorrow and suffering that is laid upon it;—times when the anguish of the soul is such that the fair world around seems enshrouded with gloom, when the bright sun itself appears to shine in mockery, and when the smitten heart refuses to be comforted.

Such a time was it with poor Frederick Mason when, after his return to Sandy Cove, he stood alone, amid the blackened ruins of his former home, gazing at the spot which he knew, from the charred remnants as well as its position, was the site of the room which had once been occupied by his lost child.

It was night when he stood there. The silence was profound, for the people of the settlement sympathised so deeply with their beloved pastor’s grief that even the ordinary hum of life appeared to be hushed, except now and then when a low wail would break out and float away on the night wind. These sounds of woe were full of meaning. They told that there were other mourners there that night—that the recent battle had not been fought without producing some of the usual bitter fruits of war. Beloved, but dead and mangled forms, lay in more than one hut in Sandy Cove.

Motionless—hopeless—the missionary stood amid the charred beams and ashes, until the words “Call upon me in the day of trouble and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me,” descended on his soul like sunshine upon ice. A suppressed cry burst from his lips, and, falling on his knees, he poured forth his soul in prayer.

While he was yet on his knees, a cry of anguish arose from one of the huts at the foot of the hill. It died away in a low, heart-broken wail. Mr Mason knew its meaning well. That cry had a special significance to him. It spoke reproachfully. It said, “There is comfort for you, for where life is there is hope; but here there is death.”

Again the word of God came to his memory, “Weep with them that weep.” Starting up hastily, the missionary sprang over the black beams, and hurried down the hill, entered the village, and spent the greater part of the remainder of that night in comforting the bereaved and the wounded.

The cause of the pastor’s grief was not removed thereby, but the sorrow itself was lightened by sympathy, and when he returned at a late hour to his temporary home, hope had begun to arise within his breast.

The widow’s cottage afforded him shelter. When he entered it Harry and his mother were seated near a small table on which supper was spread for their expected guest.

“Tom Armstrong will recover,” said the missionary, seating himself opposite the widow and speaking in a hurried excited tone. “His wound is a bad one given by a war-club, but I think it is not dangerous. I wish I could say as much for poor Simon. If he had been attended to sooner he might have lived, but so much blood has been already lost that there is now no hope. Alas! for his little boy. He will be an orphan soon. Poor Harry’s wife is distracted with grief. Her young husband’s body is so disfigured with cuts and bruises that it is dreadful to look upon, yet she will not leave the room in which it lies, nor cease to embrace and cling to the mangled corpse. Poor, poor Lucy! she will have to be comforted. At present she must be left with God. No human sympathy can avail just now, but she must be comforted when she will permit any one to speak to her. You will go to her to-morrow, Mrs Stuart, won’t you?”

As this was Mr Mason’s first meeting with the widow since the Sunday morning when the village was attacked, his words and manner shewed that he dreaded any allusion to his own loss. The widow saw and understood this, but she had consolation for him as well as for others, and would not allow him to have his way.

“But what of Alice?” she said, earnestly. “You do not mention her. Henry has told me all. Have you nothing to say about yourself—about Alice?”

“Oh! what can I say?” cried the pastor, clasping his hands, while a deep sob almost choked him.

“Can you not say that she is in the hands of God—of a loving Father?” said Mrs Stuart, tenderly.

“Yes, yes, I can say that—I—have said that, but—but—”

“I know what you would say,” interrupted the widow, “you would tell me that she is in the hands of pirates, ruthless villains who fear neither God nor man, and that, unless a miracle is wrought in her behalf, nothing can save her—”

“Oh! spare me, Mary; why do you harrow my broken heart with such a picture?” cried Mr Mason, rising and pacing the room with quick unsteady steps, while with both hands on his head he seemed to attempt to crush down the thoughts that burned up his brain.

“I speak thus,” said the widow, with an earnestness of tone and manner that almost startled her hearers, “because I wish to comfort you. Alice, you tell me, is on board the Foam—”

“On board the pirate schooner!” cried Henry almost fiercely, for the youth, although as much distressed as Mr Mason, was not so resigned as he, and his spirit chafed at the thought of having been deceived so terribly by the pirate.

“She is on board the Foam,” repeated the widow in a tone so stern that her hearers looked at her in surprise. “And is therefore in the hands of Gascoyne, who will not injure a hair of her head. I tell you, Mr Mason, that she is perfectly safe in the hands of Gascoyne.”

“Of the pirate Durward!” said Henry, in a deep angry voice.

“What ground have you for saying so?” asked the widow, quickly. “You only know him as Gascoyne the sandal-wood trader, the captain of the Foam. He has been suspected, it is true, but suspicion is not proof. His schooner has been fired into by a war vessel, he has returned the fire—any passionate man might be tempted to do that. His men have carried off some of our dear ones. That was their doing—not his. He knew nothing of it.”

“Mother, mother,” cried Henry, entreatingly, “don’t stand up in that way for a pirate; I can’t bear to hear it. Did he not himself describe the pirate schooner’s appearance in this room, and when he was attacked by the Talisman did he not shew out in his true colours, thereby proving that he is Durward the pirate?”

The widow’s face grew pale and her voice trembled as she replied, like one who sought to convince herself rather than her hearer, “That is not positive proof, Henry. Gascoyne may have had some good reason for deceiving you all in this way. His description of the pirate may have been a false one. We cannot tell. You know he was anxious to prevent Captain Montague from impressing his men.”

“And would proclaiming himself a pirate be a good way of accomplishing that end, mother?”

“Mary,” said Mr Mason solemnly, as he seated himself at the table and looked earnestly in the widow’s face. “Your knowledge of this man and your manner of speaking about him surprises me. I have long thought that you were not acting wisely in permitting Gascoyne to be so intimate; for, whatever he may in reality be, he is a suspicious character, to say the best of him; and although I know that you think you are right in encouraging his visits, other people do not know that; they may judge you harshly. I do not wish to pry into secrets—but you have sought to comfort me by bidding me have perfect confidence in this man. I must ask what knowledge you have of him. How far are you aware of his character and employment? How do you know that he is so trustworthy?”

An expression of deep grief rested on the widow’s countenance as she replied in a sad voice— “I know that you may trust Gascoyne with your child. He is my oldest friend. I have known him since we were children. He saved my father’s life long, long ago, and helped to support my mother in her last years. Would you have me to forget all this because men say that he is a pirate?”

“Why, mother,” cried Henry, “if you know so much about him you must know that, whatever he was in time past, he is the pirate Durward now.”

“I do not know that he is the pirate Durward!” said the widow in a voice and with a look so decided that Henry was silenced and sorely perplexed—yet much relieved, for he knew that his mother would rather die than tell a deliberate falsehood.

The missionary was also comforted, for although his judgment told him that the grounds of hope thus held out to him were very insufficient, he was impressed by the thoroughly confident tone of the widow and felt relieved in spite of himself.

Soon after this conversation was concluded the household retired to rest.

Next morning Henry was awakened out of a deep sleep by the sound of subdued voices in the room underneath his own. At first he paid no attention to these, supposing that, as it was broad daylight, some of their native servants were moving about.

But presently the sound of his mother’s voice induced him to listen more attentively. Then a voice replied, so low that he could with difficulty hear it at all. Its strength increased, however, and at last it broke forth in deep bass tones.

Henry sprang up and threw on his clothes. As he was thus engaged the front door of the house opened; and the speakers went out. A few seconds sufficed for the youth to finish dressing; then, seizing a pistol, he hurried out of the house. Looking quickly round he just caught sight of the skirts of a woman’s dress as they disappeared through the doorway of a hut which had been formerly inhabited by a poor native who had subsisted on the widow’s bounty until he died. The door was shut immediately after.

Going swiftly but cautiously round by a back way, Henry approached the hut. Strange and conflicting feelings filled his breast. A blush of deep shame and self-abhorrence mantled on his cheek when it flashed across him that he was about to play the spy on his own mother. But there was no mistaking Gascoyne’s voice.

How the supposed pirate had got there, and wherefore he was there, were matters that he did not think of or care about at that moment. There he was, so the young man resolved to secure him and hand him over to justices.

Henry was too honourable to listen secretly to a conversation, whatever it might be, that was not intended for his ears. He resolved merely to peep in at one of the many chinks in the log hut for one moment to satisfy himself that Gascoyne really was there, and to observe his position. But