"Partly for that reason, and partly because I am interested in the man himself," answered Andrew. "He is one who, under good teaching, would have made a brave seaman. If I read him aright, he is one of those people who need grand motives—more than the mere living and working from day to day, and I have been trying in my stupid way to set before him something of the sort. He was as much astonished when I told him that God was his Father, and was pleased when he did well and grieved when he did ill, as if he had been brought up among the heathen I have seen in the Indian seas. But I beg your pardon, sir; I did not mean to preach."
And Andrew caught himself up and blushed like a girl, for, like other young men, he was dreadfully ashamed of having any one think he was trying to be good.
"I do not see why you should beg my pardon, dear son," said my father, with a smile—that sweet, sudden smile which does so light up a usually grave face, and which I see again sometimes on my sober little Armand. "Surely it is a blessed work, and one which God will own. But I must warn you that it is not without danger. You may be accused proselyting, which is one of our deadliest sins in the eyes of our enemies."
"Well," said Andrew, with a great sigh, "I think I shall appreciate it, if I reach a land where a man may open his mouth. Why should you delay any longer? Why not fly to-night?"
"Because my arrangements are not yet complete," said my father.
"If you wait till everything is ready, you will never go at all," said Andrew.
"That is true; but there are certain things yet to be arranged concerning those who stay behind. I must see our friends at Avranches, and leave with them some means of raising funds to help themselves withal. To-morrow I shall go thither, and the day after I hope to go—but why should I say hope?" he murmured, in the sad voice I knew so well. "Weep not for the dead, neither bemoan him, but weep, son, for him that goeth away, for he shall return no more, nor see his native country."
"If my native country was such a step-dame as this, I don't think I should bemoan it very much," muttered Andrew between his teeth.
"Don't the people who have gone away and settled in America long to see England again?" I asked.
"No, I don't believe they do," he said. "They are as self-satisfied as any people I ever saw. And yet I don't know," he added. "The names they give their children are very touching, especially those on the stones in their burying-ground."