Natalie; Or, A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds

by Emma V. Hallett

"I's right glad to see you, young massa, 'deed I is; but where is de old fellow Neptune?"

"Yes, yes, where is the faithful creature?" asked Sea-flower; "at our joy in seeing you, we have quite forgotten him."

Just then the dog's well remembered bark was heard at the door, and on opening it, the animal marched in, and laying a little parcel which he had brought in his mouth, upon the floor, he jumped upon the Sea-flower, nearly overpowering her, in his delight frisking from one to the other as if he were mad. Harry was now, for the first time, aware that the dog had not come with him, and examining the parcel which he had brought, to his no little astonishment he found it was the identical curiously wrought block, which he had found after that dreadful night of the storm. Among the many gifts which he had brought home to his mother and sister, he had forgotten this simple one, and now he remembered that he had not seen it for a long time. Why the dog should have noticed so trifling a thing, was indeed singular. Harry related the circumstances by which he had come in possession of the curiosity, and from the presents of silks, crapes, fruits, etc., which he had brought to the Sea-flower, she turned to the mysterious little curiosity with a greater interest, examining the grotesque figures with a fascination, when accidentally pressing a pearl setting, the box (for such it was discovered to be,) flew open, and revealed to her bewildered gaze--what? good God! is it possible? Neatly lined is the box, and lying therein--a cross! the same which the Sea-flower had wrought with her own hands, and given her father when she saw him last! Carved at the head of the cross are these words,--"You will soon come to me again; then you will never leave us;" the child's last words to her father. O, how did they fall upon her heart now! It seemed as if he were speaking to her from the skies, and unconsciously she looked upward, as if she might indeed catch the tones of her father's voice, bidding her come away. "We will come," she softly whispered, "we shall soon be with you there;" and turning to her mother, she added,--"it is not far, that better land; we may hear their glad shouts, if we will listen."

Over that cross, emblematic of the Lamb who was slain that we might live, was shed tears from a widow's heart; but those tears were not of mourning for the departed, for through her who was made but a little lower than the angels, those tears had been turned into joy. The child who had ever walked in that narrow way, as if it were the only path in which the children of earth might tread, had taught her bereaved mother, that those precious words from the book of life, which she had ever recognized, but had not strength to cling thereto in the hour of trial, were truly Christ's words of tenderness; she could now smile upon the chastening rod. Those dying words, as it were of him who had gone, were as balm to the heart of Mrs. Grosvenor and the Sea-flower, for what could be more dreadful than that they should never learn of his last moments? But to Harry, who had been just upon the point of asking for his father, it was as the dark funeral pall to his soul, and he staggered to a chair.

"Where is my father?" he asked, in a hollow voice.

"In Heaven!" was the response of the Sea-flower.

There was silence in that house. Sorrow, which had reigned for a time around that hearthstone, still lingered, striving to supersede the joy which must go hand in hand with purity; but its icy touch was to be of gentler mien, its cold, cold breath mingling with that of more genial spheres, helping to swell the--"Father, thy will be done." This was a dreadful announcement to Harry, a stroke which he was not prepared to receive; and now did the past come to his remembrance with sickening frenzy. That terrific night!--he had, at the peril of his life, implored that heartless being to listen to the stranger's cry of distress, to stretch out to him the hand of brotherly love; and that cry for help was now sounding in his ear with renewed freshness, for it was from his own loved father!

"Oh, what an undutiful son I have been!" cried Harry; "had I known then what I know now! and yet, the fiend would not have turned a hand, had it been his own father! Thank God, I have his forgiveness for disobeying his last commands! 't is the one great lesson of my life, and should I live a hundred years, I will never deviate from what I think would have been my parent's wishes."

"Natalie!"--the Sea-flower gazed upon that name, the name of her father's choice,--a simple word, but Oh, what volumes did it speak! there seemed to be a very sacredness hanging about the tone. As time sped onward, leaving far behind the past, but not burying it, the sweet, child-like Sea-flower was gradually putting on the gentle, mystic form of Natalie; and though the name had become familiar to other ears, to her its impress was as when she reverently looked upon that cross of Christ, at the foot of which was traced that which she could not but associate therewith. The depth of her dreamy eyes spoke not only of him who had left them, but they told of the soul's instinct in regard to that which was as yet unrevealed.

"Well, massa, I tinks de sun make up he mind to take a look out at us once more," remarked Vingo, as seated astride a wood-horse, he was making vigorous exertions to take the nautical expression from his young master's boots.