"Mind you do. Mr. Herford goes from home at the end of the week, and I don't know how long he may be away. It would hurry everything up too closely to wait till he returns, when all the Pelican's cargo will be in course of loading, and everything else to settle."
Captain Rogers had intended to make the evening pleasant to his sister and her young folks, but fate was too strong for him on that occasion. Mrs. Denham's eyes were full of tears, and she kept silence as the only way to prevent their overflow. Agnes was little better, and the repressed agitation of their elders checked all the younger ones' chatter.
He went away early; but Ralph would not talk to any of them even when his uncle had left them. He went to his room, and spent the night in thinking, thinking, thinking; trying to make out what his father would have wished,—what was best for his mother,—where his strongest duty lay.
At last he took to prayer; and, for the first time in his young life, really sought help and counsel from his Father in heaven. Such seeking is never unanswered; he slept, woke up clear in his mind as to what he ought to do, and told his uncle that he would go.
"You decide rightly," said his uncle. "People cannot very often do just what they would like best. If I could, I would have got you a start in life nearer home, so that your mother might keep you to be a comfort to her; but she will not mind so much when you are once gone, and you will sooner be of real use to her and to your brothers in this way than in any other which any of us can command. But, remember, you must take life as it comes, and work hard for yourself once you are started."
"I will, uncle, God helping me."
"Well said, my boy."
After that, all was hurry to prepare him for this important change in his life; his mother cried incessantly; his sister Agnes went about with red eyes, which could scarcely see the stitches that she set in his clothes; his uncle drove him about hither and thither; there was no time to think until the adieux were all made, and they had been towed out of dock.
The Pelican of the North was a barque-rigged, three-masted vessel, laden with coal for Moulmein; and the day was bright when she dropped down the river Mersey. The crew were in good spirits, for the weather, which had been extremely dull and wet for some weeks, cleared up suddenly on the day of sailing. The chilly wind had veered into a balmy quarter, the drenching rain ceased, the sun broke out, and all the little tossing waves seemed to be dancing with joy to see its beams sparkling upon their crests. Great masses of clouds were driving away, farther and farther, overhead, losing their heavy grey colour, and fast becoming soft and snowy white; while the flocks of seagulls, swooping about upon widespread pinions high in the air, might be imagined to be fleecy morsels detached from them on their course, so pure and silvery was their plumage.
Ralph stood by the capstan, looking back to the fort and lighthouse on the New Brighton Point with mixed feelings.