To such-like pleading Dan finds no reply, and so they go on as usual.
To Dan, as he sits with his birds, comes Ellen with her peaceful sad face. She has not found happiness, but she has found peace. Solomon Fewster is not her only suitor. Every single man in the village is enamoured of her, and would be glad to make her his wife. But she tells her story to all with a womanly purpose. She is married, and her husband went out as third mate of the "Merry Andrew," and the ship was lost and all hands, as it is supposed. But she cannot believe that her husband is dead; something tells her that he is alive--living upon some uninhabited shore mayhap, and looking forward to the time when, by the mercy of God, they shall be together again. Her story is repeated from one to another; and some kind souls who have been in the colony a few years come to her and Dan with little scraps of information concerning the "Merry Andrew," such as the finding of a piece of a figure-head which belonged to her husband's ship, and other similar evidence, which convince them that the "Merry Andrew" was lost off the Australian coast. "Is it not possible," asks Dan, "that some of the crew may have been saved, and may be dwelling now on some part of the uninhabited Australian coast?" "Quite possible," they answer: and they relate such instances as they know of vessels being wrecked, and of some of the sailors being saved and found years after they were supposed to be lost. Dan and Ellen derive much comfort from these narrations.
Ellen's little child Maggie is the pet of the village. At the present moment she is playing with her goat in the paddock at the back of the house, breathing in health with fresh air. To-night, when she says her prayers, she will pray that God will please send her father home--a prayer joined in by all of them every night.
Who is this? Susan. In no whit changed. With the same strange watchful manner upon her as in the old days in Stepney, but never uttering a word concerning Joshua. Sometimes she will go for days without speaking to a soul, and a smile never crosses her lips.
And this gentle woman, going about the house quietly, doing her work cheerfully, with a sweet smile for every one she comes across, and by whose side the little Maggie is content to sit in silence with her hands folded in her lap? This is Mrs. Marvel. You would know her if you had only seen her once, although her hair is nearly white now; for hers is one of the peaceful faces that dwell in your memory and remind you of your mother. As for her hair being nearly white--for the matter of that, so is Mr. Marvel's. It would not do for him to pay for every white hair that is pulled out of his head, as at the commencement of this story.
They sit together on this evening, as is their wont, and as they used to do in the dear old kitchen in Stepney, and talk of Joshua. And George Marvel smokes his pipe, and his wife darns--more slowly than in the old days, for her sight is not so strong as it was--and Dan trains his birds and reads to his friends. They have been sorely afflicted, but faith and love have banished despair.
On this very evening, hundreds of miles away, Joshua is sitting on the ground in his gunyah, amusing himself and Minnie with his birds. She is reclining on her 'possum-skin rug, looking affectionately and gratefully at Joshua, who has grown very wise in the different habits and natures of the strange birds he has before him. With what care he has collected them! Here is the quaint kingfisher, flitting about as contentedly as it used to flit among the dead trees that lie on the banks of creeks. Joshua, watching it one day, saw it suddenly dart into the water with such eagerness that it was completely submerged; he thought it was drowned, but the next instant it appeared above the surface with a small fish in its mouth, with which it hopped, exultant, into the woodland again. It is a handsome bird, and a singular-looking one too, with its beak about a quarter as long as its body, and its light crimson breast and azure back and shrewd brown eyes. Here is the mountain bee-eater, the wondrous blending of colors in whose plumage suggests the fancy that its feathers must have been dyed in the glorious sunsets of the South, and that it first saw the light when rainbows were shining. Here are the honeysuckers, yellow-eared, blue-cheeked, and golden-crowned; and the crimson-throated manakin, with its pleasant song; and the spotted finch, with red eyes; and the scarlet-backed warbler and the pretty thrush, black-crowned and orange-breasted, whose piping in the early morning was the cheerfullest of all the birds; and the yellow-rumped fly-catcher, fussing about, and chattering like a magpie. All these are here, and many others; and Joshua often thinks how delighted Dan would be with them. Joshua and Minnie are clothed completely in fur garments; all their civilized clothes are gone. Joshua's hair has grown so, that his face is quite covered with it.
"Would they know me at home, Minnie, if they could see me as I am?" he asks.
"I doubt it," she replies; "but they would know your voice."
"Shall we ever see them again?" he asks, more of himself than of her.