Every one, indeed, knew of the Black Ship. That was but too obvious to all. But who entertains longer than can be helped the thought of an inevitable misery?
Once transmute this fact of sorrow into a revelation of joy, and surely every one would delight to keep it in view.
In the first fervent joy of the discovery of that great Continent of life lying close around them unseen, nothing seemed worth doing but either to tell every one of it, or themselves to watch if perchance some glimpses of it might be vouchsafed to their own eager gaze.
Hope chose the first part of the work. The mother and the maiden the second.
With a pilgrim's wallet hastily filled with such provision as was ready, and with his staff in his hand, Hope went joyously forth, while the mother and sister followed him with their eyes until he waved a farewell to them from the edge of a cliff and they turned back to the cottage.
Months passed by ere they met again. Meantime the mother and sister kept ceaseless watch by the shore. Every night they lingered, longing that the veil of daylight, whose withdrawing revealed to them the stars, and all the hidden world of night, might enable them to pierce that other veil which hid a world always there, and so much nearer, and so much more their own.
Every morning they rose with the earliest dawn, hoping that the morning winds might rend some little rift in the curtain of mist, and give if but one glimpse of the everlasting hills which were so surely rising at that very hour crowned with sunlight above. When a tempest swept across the sea they rejoiced; for in the scroll there were strange hints of a day when all at once, in the twinkling of an eye, the whole intervening volume of mist should be broken up and swept aside, and through the glorious break should come, not one dark, mysterious, solitary ship, for one solitary emigrant, but the whole array of the King's armies, and at their head the Prince, the Deliverer, and with Him all the beloved who had gone before to Him.
And who could say which thunders and lightnings might be the heralds of that liberating storm?
Nor did the mother and daughter remain always alone. The fire of that joy was one that could not burn in any heart without shining, and many a mourner gathered around the cottage threshold to listen to their tidings and to share their vigils. Together they looked towards the Fatherland. And as they gazed, their longings broke into song.
"Come," they sang, in low chants. "Come, O King! why tarriest Thou? Thou hast suffered and overcome! Thou hast won us back, and Thou wilt take us Home. Since we have heard of Thee, what can we do but long for Thee? Since we have learned of our home, what do we here any longer? Since we know where our beloved are gone, how can we bear this exile any more? Exiles on this broken fragment of thy Land, which is ours,—why dost Thou keep us here? All beautiful sights and sounds, henceforth, to us are but faint echoes of our home-music; and but fill us with home-sickness. The mountains of our home stand round about us, and we know it. How can we rest longer on these shores of exile? Exile is for those whose hearts are estranged from Thee. Our hearts are won back to Thee, Deliverer and King. When wilt Thou come for us and take us Home?"