Pat the Lighthouse Boy

by Evelyn Everett-Green

"I've brought you some tea, Jim," he said softly; "I'm going to stop and give it you. I'm a good hand with sick folks. Mother always says so when she's ill. You needn't move or talk if you don't want to. I'll do everything for you. You've been a hero, you know, Jim; and now we must take care of you till you're well. I wonder what it feels like to be a hero? Do you feel different from what you did before that night?"

Something like the ghost of a smile passed across the man's face, and he made a slight sign of dissent. Pat saw that he could not talk much, and he contented himself with giving him the tea, and coaxing him to try and swallow just a morsel of the toast, talking to him softly the while, and telling him how well and strong and beautiful the little boy was. Jim listened with evident interest and pleasure, but speech was visibly difficult, and the only connected words he spoke were whispered just at the end before Pat went away and left him.

"I want you to read.... Just a few verses ... about Peter ... walking on the sea, ... and what the Lord said to him;" and Pat understood in a moment, and got the Bible from the table, and quickly found the place.

As he read the simple story, a happy and satisfied look passed over Jim's face, and he closed his eyes as though he were asleep. Pat put the book back, and as he did so he could not help noticing how many signs of wear it showed, considering that it was new only a few months before; and there were bits of paper tucked into so many different places. It was plain that Jim had read it a great deal. Pat thought that it must have been that which helped Jim to be a hero that stormy night. The child knew he had risked his life to save the little boy, and he loved Jim with an admiring, reverential love, quite different from his former affection.

But since there could be no conversation, he need not linger here, and he began to want his own tea, as well as the society of the beautiful little boy. Stealing from Jim's darkened room he found his way back to his mother, and there was his tea all ready for him, and the little boy enjoying his own share mightily, perched on Eileen's knee, and chattering away to her in a babbling fashion, which she seemed to understand better than Pat did all at once.

"Mother, what is his name? Can he tell us?" asked Pat eagerly; and the question being put by Eileen to the child, was received by a gurgling baby laugh, and an answer which the listening Pat barely understood.

"He calls himself Prince Rupert, by what I can make out," she said, turning with a smile to her own boy. "I've asked him again and again, for I don't know whether that isn't a pet name, not his own——"

"Oh, but, mother, why should it be? I'm sure he's a sort of little prince—one can tell it by looking at him!" cried the delighted Pat. "Prince Rupert! What a pretty name! Oh, mother, I have wanted so often to see a real live prince. Mother, are any of the Queen's children called Prince Rupert? Do you think he might be one of them?"

Eileen smiled at the simple good faith with which Pat asked this question, and also at the wonder she saw in the boy's eyes as they were turned towards the little guest, who was busily engaged in trying to reach everything upon the table, that he might better examine its properties.

"No, dear; he's a deal too young to be our Queen's son, and there isn't a Prince Rupert amongst them; but he's plainly some well-born little boy, even if he isn't a real prince; and we must try and find out who his parents are, and where he came from, so soon as a boat can come to us, when the storm is over. Somebody must be mourning him for lost; unless, indeed, those who belong to him have found a watery grave themselves. One cannot guess how he came here, except that it must have been from some vessel, either wrecked or in great peril. He has been washed overboard—that's plain enough; but whether or not the ship went down, we cannot tell. We shall have to try and learn; but he can tell us nothing, bless him. He doesn't seem even to remember much about being on a ship. It's as if the salt water had washed everything out of his pretty head."