“Hoot, man, Geordie! Cut it short.” But the folk—who had listened in a silence so absolute that the “click, click” of Mrs Cairnie’s crutch could be heard on the stone causeway—stirred a little and murmured, and then waited for more. And George had more to give them.
“And now, men of Portie—sailors and fishers—ay, and sutors and saddlers, masons and merchants—every man among you, I have just one word more to say to you all—but chiefly to you sailors. Willie here has whispered two words in my ear, and one of them I’ll give you.
“Never through all that terrible storm that beat upon them, nor after it, when the bitter thought that the ship must be forsaken was forced upon them, nor during the long doubtful days—harder to bear—that followed, when in the morning none could say whether hope or fear was to win the day, or at night whether there was to be another day to them—through all that time, I say, not a man among them looked to the devil for courage to dare his fate, or deaden his fears. There passed not the lips of a man among them a drop of that which has lost more ships, and broken more hearts, and beguiled more sailors from their duty, than you and I, and all here could count in a day.”
“Is that so, Willie?” cried a voice from the crowd. “Ay, is it. And no man here needs me to point the moral.”
Willie had had enough of it by this time. He would not be beguiled into answering questions or telling tales. So he slipped his shoulder from under George’s hand and withdrew a little from him.
But George did not move. He stood with glad eyes looking down on the familiar faces of his townsfolk and with a sweet and kindly gravity which was better to see than a smile, and when he lifted his hand, the movement in the crowd and the murmur of talk that had risen were hushed.
The last word had been from his friend. This was from himself. It was only a word. It was not about the courage or skill or immovable patience of the young commander that he spoke; but of something that lay behind all these, and rose above them—the living belief in an eye that saw him, in a hand that held him, in a will that controlled and guided and kept him through all, and in a love and care that could avail in shipwreck and loss; ay, in death itself.
It was this living belief in the Lord above as a living Lord that had stood him in such stead in those terrible days.
“Was Willie feared, think ye?” said George, coming back to their common speech in his earnestness. “Some o’ ye ha’e come through, and mair than aince, the terrors o’ storm and threatened shipwreck, and ye ha’e seen how strength and courage, and common humanity itself, whiles fails before the blackness and darkness and tempest; and it’s ilka ane for himsel’, be he master or man.
“But, with this belief in a living Lord who has called Himself and proved Himself friend and brother in one, was there danger of this to Captain Calderwood and those whom he commanded?