“Not as I know of; what they did inside I don’t know, but I never heard them.”
“It seems very strange to me that a boy brought up to know and respect all good things taught in the Catechism, and who never went to bed a night in his life, till he went from home, without saying his prayers, and having his mother pray with him, should be on a raft in the ocean, starving, death staring him in the face, and not call upon God. I can’t understand it; I should think that would be just the time, if ever in the world.”
“Well, it ain’t, mother, though it may seem strange to you. It seems strange to myself now; but I suppose, if I was in the same place, I should do just so again. I did think of my prayers, and said them, as I told you; but whenever I thought of doing anything more, it seemed to me so mean to pray to God because I was in a hard place, when I never did it when I wasn’t, that I couldn’t—I didn’t dare to. Then I was thinking, most of the time, about being taken off, watching for some vessel, or dreaming and thinking about eating and drinking.”
“Dreaming about eating?”
“O, yes, mother, that was the worst of it; when my tongue was so swelled, as big as two tongues, and I was so weak from hunger that I could hardly move, I’d fall into a doze, and dream that there was a great table set full of everything that I loved, and then wake up, and find it all a dream. One time I dreamed I was travelling on a road in a real hot day, and saw a little wood on the side of a hill. I went to it, and right between two great maple trees was a barrel sunk down in the ground, and full of clear, cold water. It was a boiling spring, and a flat stone right beside it. I thought I knelt down on the stone, and looked way down into the clear, beautiful water, saw grains of sand rolling over and over in it, and tried to drink; but whenever I got my parched lips close to the water, it went away, and in my struggles to reach it I woke; and there right before me was poor James Watts’s dead face, and Mr Brown looking so pale and ghostly I thought he was dead, and I all alone on the wide ocean. When I saw it was all a dream, I burst into tears; after that, began to grow stupid and wandering, and didn’t sense anything more till I found myself in a bed, and somebody putting water in my mouth; and don’t you think, mother, I went right back where I left off in my dream, and thought I was drinking out of that spring? but it was Charlie Bell’s wife putting water in my mouth. I tell you what it is, mother; people may think so who don’t know; but if they were in such a place, they would find it wasn’t a very nice time to be good.”
“My dear boy,” replied his mother, affected to tears by the narration, “now that God has restored you to us, you have suffered so much, and seen what the life of a sailor is, and what they are exposed to, I hope you will never leave us again. You are all the son I have got—do stay with us and your sisters. You have had a good education; your father will take you right into the store with him, or he will set you up in business, when you are old enough. There is Henry Bradshaw, that you used to sit with in school; your old playmate; you used to love him, and was just like a brother with him. He is going into business soon. You can go with him, or you can learn a trade. Your father will send you to college—he will do anything for you to keep you at home. If you could only know what we underwent, after we heard the vessel was lost, and thought you were lost in her, and what a thanksgiving there was in the house after we got Captain Rhines’s letter, you certainly never would leave us again.”
Ned was not taken by surprise, for he knew his mother’s heart, and loved her. It was no easy task to deny the plea of such a mother, under such circumstances, and the very first night of getting home, too. He lay a long time silent, with eyes shut fast. His mother saw the tears come out from under the closed lids, and, as she wiped them away, began to hope her desires were to be realized.
“Mother,” at length he said, “you will think I am the worst, most hard-hearted boy that ever was in the world.”
The mother trembled, but made no reply.