The Coldstreams were soon treading the deck of the Dolphin, but the plank which connected the vessel with the shore was not yet raised. Smith came to see his friend and benefactor depart, and again express hopes of his happy return. Smith had not seen the newspapers; he never read them till business hours were over.
“Would that we were fairly off!” thought Oscar; but another good-bye was before him yet ere the keel of the Dolphin should plough the green waves.
“Ah, Mr. Lawrence!” exclaimed Io.
The chaplain crossed the plank, pale with suppressed emotion. He walked up straight to Oscar, and took his hand in both his own.
“You know all, and yet you do not turn from me,” said Oscar.
“I have come to give you my parting blessing—to unite with you, perhaps for the last time, in prayer.” The chaplain could scarcely command his voice as he added, “I honour you for having done all that you could do to—” Here Mark Lawrence fairly broke down; he could not finish the sentence.
“Clear boards. You’d better be off, sir, unless you mean to make the voyage with us,” said the captain of the Dolphin gruffly. “We’re weighing anchor, you see.”
There was no more time for conversation, for nothing but cordial pressure of hands. The plank was raisedthe minute after Mark Lawrence had passed over. The wind swelled the sails, and the vessel moved on, leaving a brief track on the waters behind her.
“Even as those bubbles on the waves will earth’s darkest trials pass away,” thought the chaplain as he watched the departing ship. “There goes a man who is as a gallant vessel that has suddenly struck on a rock and been almost wrecked, that has all but sunk below the billows, but which, through God’s grace, has been given power to rise above them. Its cargo of earthly reputation and earthly joy is indeed lost; but it is bravely struggling on, though with torn sail and shattered mast, towards that port where the rock cannot crush nor the tempest toss, where the pardoned penitent finds peace for ever.”
Mark Lawrence turned homewards, repeating to himself the well-known verse:—