Hannah, powerless to keep Miriam back, gave up the endeavor, and went on, with a mortal agony in her heart, beside the frail woman who, in all faith, was going to welcome home her son—her son out upon the silent sea of eternity, where even a mother’s voice could never reach. No wonder the girl’s grief made her dumb. Was there no escape? She heard the waters running in, it seemed to her for a thousand leagues, sounding their dreadful dirge. At that moment gladly would she have lain down forever in the same boundless grave with father and brother, where the waves, slow and sad, were playing for them this requiem on every shore of every land. But Miriam, in the extremity of her haste, never stopping, went on steadily over the wet ground, bending, sometimes almost staggering, before the raw March wind that swept in fierce gusts from the still frozen north.
A sudden hush fell upon all the people at the wharf as they came down. With her gray hair blown about in strands, her eyes fever-bright, and her breath coming quick and short, paying no heed to any one, the widow Aber glided silently among them, like an apparition. Unconscious of every thing but the ship, even then in the mouth of the harbor, she stood, her face so thin and worn, all quivering with excitement, and her pale lips moving constantly with some inarticulate sound. Once or twice she stretched out her trembling hands toward the vessel, then, gathering her shawl, held them tight against her breast, as if she would keep down the throbbing of her heart. Frail and shadowy, she seemed hardly human, as she waited, with her garments fluttering in the bitter wind, with her very soul reaching, struggling, looking out eagerly in her gray eyes.
Slowly the ship sailed up the harbor, slowly it reached the dock, and after almost two years’ wandering, the Nereid rested once more in her native waters. As the boat touched the wharf, Hannah had taken her mother’s arm, perhaps that she might hold her back, but Miriam made no effort to move. The girl could feel her trembling, trembling, but she only put up her hand unsteadily and brushed the hair away from her face.
Too well Hannah knew poor Tom would not be there, and, as through a mist, she saw the sailors swing themselves down. In the dreadful trouble that had come upon her, she had almost forgotten Luke. During all these weeks of anguish she had thought only of her mother, but this morning the strain had been too severe. She had given up the battle, and now waited stonily; she would have waited on all day, when Miriam, suddenly breaking loose from her, in a voice half stifled by a wild delight, cried,—
“O, Tommy, my boy, my only boy!”
It was Luke that stood beside her, whom she had strangely mistaken for her son. She would have fallen to the ground had he not caught her in his arms. Unable to speak for a moment, she clung to him trembling violently. Clasping her hands tight about his neck, she closed her eyes, and, with a quivering sigh, laid her head against his shoulder. Hannah, looking at Luke quickly, made a gesture that kept him silent, then Miriam, without moving, said, brokenly,—
“I have waited for you, Tommy. It was such a long, long time, but I knew you would come—”
She paused, while a slight struggle in her breath escaped, like a sob, from her lips, then went on once more still in an unsteady tone,—
“I am so glad, so glad! I am well and strong, Tommy. I feel a little tired now, but I am well and strong. You will never leave me, never leave me any more—”
There was another feeble struggle in her throat; then when she spoke again, her voice, growing fainter at every effort, seemed to come from some far-off distance, drifting in to them as from the desert spaces of an illimitable sea.