THE SAILORS RETURN. 119

THE SAILORS RETURN.

ae

OD for-
give
him,”
murmured the
sick woman,

“ay, and God

eee
ON

was lying in
bed with her
baby, and form-
eda strong con-
trast with the
short, thick-set,

bless him swher- elder woman
ever he may be. who with me
Hewasalwaysa irreproachable
zood man to me cap upon her
before, and per- head,yellowand
haps, when Jam white handker-

gone, he will
think better of
me, and the
poor children.”

«There now;
dear,” said the
murse, who was
her mother-in-
law, old Mrs.
Runeckles,
“there now, dear; don’t take on so: you're weak, and
all that, and that’s only natural, but don’t you make weak
weaker by fretting. Why there were the doctor here this
very mornin’, and he say, says he, ‘ Mrs. Runeckles,’ he
says, ‘you'll be all right,’ says he, ‘only don’t you fret ;
do, you'll do yourself a mischief,’ he say. And that’s
what I say too.”

“Well, may be, mother-in-law,” replied the younger
woman, “but it’s hard not to fret. Fretting come, the
easiest. Look at that poor babe a laying by my side, and
look at our Polly, with her grandfather downstairs.
What's to become of them, please God take me 2 You've
heen a real father and mother to me. But you're old,
and your time can’t be long; and what are they to do,
when you're gone, and their father gone Lord knows
where; and won’t take no notice of them? Not that I
think so much of the baby, he’s such a poor little thing,
and he can’t go no better.” :

“Nonsense, child,” answered her mother-in-law, “ the
babe’s all right. He don't match our Polly, surely ; but
he'll do. Why, what did the parson say, when he came
about the naming of the child? ‘ Mrs. Runeckles,’ he
say to me, ‘if you tell me that child’s likely to die, Pll
baptize it at once. But,’ says he, ‘though I aint no great
judge, I say that child aint a dier,’ he say. ‘Look at
his little fists,’ says he, ‘Inever seea dier clench his little
fists like that, he say. ‘And mind, Mary,’ says he to
you, ‘that there child depend on you, he do; and if you
give way, you'll be sorry for it, says he. ‘ You've a sore
trial,’ says he, ‘but you mind me, you'll come out right
at last, only you put your trust in God, says he. And
so say 1; my boy aint such a bad one as that. I can’t

T do believe that the Lord will make a way for you, and for
all of us, though I don’t know how.”

This conversation took place in a darkened chamber
of a little old-fashioned farm-house in one of the Eastern
eounties of England. The younger woman, lcoking pale
and delicate, and with 2 somewhat refined cast of features,

RUNECKLES’ HOUSE.

ynake he out now, but a better boy than him never was,

4ill he took these strange fancies in his head; and now | sailor he was to be by choice; and the poor old lady had

chief across her
shoulders, and
blue check
apron oyer her
dark stuffgown,
was bustling
about the room,
and setting
things to rights
—“bettying
about,” as she would have called it herself, “and just
tittivating up the chamber.”

Many a long year had she lived in that house. It was
there that Runeckles had brought her as his bride, There
she had brought up her children, and a proud mother she
had been among them, proud especially of her fair-haired,
blue-eyed Willie, the only boy and the flower of the
flock. Almost her first trouble had been when Willie, true
to his ancestral instincts, and strong in the indulgence
with which he had been treated, announced his determina-
tion of going tosea. “ What has my boy done,” she com-
plained, “ that he skould have to go to foreign parts, just
like a sheepstealer?” And it was only when she saw
how idle and reckless he was growing, how he began to
associate with bad companions, who would be likely
enough to have qualified him for a voyage to the other
side of the world at the Queen’s expense (for she had
never quite realized that Botany Bay was a bygone
institution), that she at last unwillingly gave in to the
lad’s wishes, and to her husband’s judgment—that the
boy was doing no good at home, and never would, and so

| he had better go to sea; perhaps a voyage would sicken

him of it, and then he would settle down quietly at home;
or perhaps he might be right, a sea life might be his true
calling, andjthen he would do better in it than in any
other station.

So Willie went, and Willie came back, browned and
hearty. “Sick of the sea? Not a bit of it. It was
somewhat hard work, to be sure, and he had had a deal

| to put up with. But he should have a boy under him

next time. Cap’en had told him he should, if he sailed

with him.”
So his fate was sealed, a sailor he was by nature, and a

to put up with it as well as she could, hungering after
him in his absence, and prouder and prouder of him every
time that he came home, which he never did without

| bringing her some little present—strange stuffed birds,

wonderful shells, a jar of preserved ginger, a model of his

| . : ® us . :
ship, or some quaint article of foreign manufacture—all