CHAPTER IV.
"I was a perfect stranger. The captain was attentive to my wants, and made me as comfortable as he could. You will remember how neat and quiet all appeared when, with my friend Jenks, you called on me. All of the passengers took an interest in my welfare, and made up a purse for me; but they could not remain long with me. They had been long absent from home, and were desirous of seeing their families and friends, or else they had business in this or some other place. One of them introduced my friend Jenks to me; and, O, sir, he has been, indeed, a good friend to one having so few claims on his attention. He told me one night of you, and, agreeable to his promise, he brought you to the cabin of the vessel. The rest you know."
Egbert had regained his strength to a great degree, and gave me the close of his narrative while we were having a pleasant drive through the country. A month had passed since we first met, and though many of the passengers had been heard from, the names of Evelina and her father had not been reported.
When we reached our home, from our afternoon's drive, I took up an evening paper, and the first paragraph I read was the following:
"MORE FROM THE WHITE WING.-The Orion, which arrived at this port this morning, brought fifteen passengers, rescued from the boats of the 'White Wing.' Among the names mentioned in the above notice were these: "Mrs. Evelina Lawrence and her father, of England;" and, at the conclusion, was the following item:
"The case of Mrs. Lawrence and her father is one of those that loudly call for a bestowal of public sympathy and aid in her behalf. She has lost a beloved husband,—one who, judging from the heavy sorrow that oppresses her, and the sighs and tears that break her recital of the events of their last hours together, was bound with the closest bonds of soul affinity to her own spirit. They must have been one, and are, indeed, one now, though to mortal eyes separated. We commend her to the kind charities of those who would follow the golden rule of doing unto others as they, in like circumstances, would have others do unto them."
Egbert noticed my interest in that which I was reading; indeed, it would have been strange if he had not; for I could not suppress my joy, and it found expression in an occasional exclamation.
At length, I handed him the paper.
"My God! my wife!" he exclaimed, and he actually danced with joy and thankfulness. He would have rushed into the street, and by sudden exposure have caused a relapse of disease, had not I taken him by the hand, and forcibly, for a few moments, restrained him. So excessive was his happiness that, for a short time, he was delirious with joy. He laughed and wept by turns: at one moment extending his arms, and folding them as if clasping a beloved form; the next, trembling as if in some fearful danger. But this did not long continue. He soon became calm and rational, and we called a carriage for the purpose of going to the vessel on board of which he expected to greet his wife and her father.
My neighbor Jenks accompanied us, and, as we rode hastily along, my mind reverted to the night when first I met Egbert. That eventful evening came more vividly to mind as we found ourselves on the same wharf, and the carriage door was opened, and we alighted on nearly the same spot that we did at that time.
Egbert leaped from the carriage, and at one bound was on the vessel's deck. He flew to the cabin, and in a moment I heard the loud exclamations on either side, "My Evelina!" "My Egbert!" Mr. Jenks and myself followed below. An old gentleman met us, and, though a stranger, he grasped a hand of ours in each of his, and wept with joy as he bade us welcome. The cabin was witness of a scene which a painter well might covet for a study. In close embrace Egbert and Evelina mingled joys that seldom are known on earth. The old man held our hands, his face raised, eyes turned upward, while tears of happiness, such as he had never before known, coursed down his features. The officers of the ship came hurrying in, and the crew darkened the gangway with their presence. What a joyous time was that! The evening was passed in recounting the adventures of each; and even I had something to add to the general recital. It appeared that the boat in which Egbert had placed his charge was safely cleared of the wreck; and, after being floated about two days, was met by an English ship bound to London. They, together with about twenty others who were in the boat, were soon comfortably cared for. At the expiration of a few weeks, they reached London, and were there placed on board a vessel bound to Boston, at which place they in due season arrived. The grief of Mrs. L. during all this time I will not attempt to describe. The mind of my reader can better depict it than I can with pen. Hope buoyed her up. And, though she had seen him swept from her side into the waters where waves towered up to the skies and sank again many fathoms below, yet she did hope she might see him again on earth.
In the silent hour of night, as she lay and mused of those things, she thought she could hear a sweet voice whispering in her ear, "Berty lives, and you will meet him once again." And, as if in response to the voice, she said in her own mind, "I know he lives; but it may be in that bright world where, unencumbered with these mortal frames, we roam amid ever-enduring scenes." The voice again said, "On earth, on earth."
But now they had met. It was no mere vision now, and the truth flashed upon her mind that that voice she had heard and thought a dream was not all a dream. And then she mused on as she was wont to do, and, after relating to us the incident, she said, "May it not be that much of our life that we have thought passed in dreamland, and therefore among unreal things, has been spent with actual existences? For what is an 'unreal thing'? It would not be a 'thing' had it no existence; and what is the 'it' that we speak of? Can we not then conclude that there is nothing but what is and must have an existence, though not so tangible to our senses as to enable us to handle it or see it? What we call 'imagination' may be, after all, more real than the hard stones beneath our feet-less indestructible than they."
Thus she spake, and her theory seemed very plausible to me, though my friend Jenks, who was an exceedingly precise, matter-of-fact man, could not see any foundation for the theory.
It was a late hour when Mr. Jenks and myself passed to our homes. The next day Evelina and her father were coseyly quartered at the house in which Egbert had boarded.
In the course of a a few weeks they arranged to go to the west, and locate in a flourishing town on the banks of the Ohio, not many miles above Cincinnati.
Mr. Jenks and myself accompanied them to the cars; and, amid our best wishes for their success, and their countless expressions of gratitude to us, the train started, and in a few moments the Disinherited was going to an inheritance which God had provided, and which lay in rich profusion awaiting their possession.
Our hearts went with them. We could truly say they were worthy God's blessing; yet we had not need ask him to bestow it upon them; for their very existence was a proof that he gave it to them.