Several fishing-boats were already entering the port, laden with the spoils of the previous night, and Rosalie watched them coming in one by one and running quickly ashore. One of them passed close by the spot where the child was sitting. An old man and two boys were in it, and they were singing as they went by, in clear, ringing voices. Rosalie could hear the words of the song well, as she sat on the ridge of rocks—
'Last night, my lads, we toiled away,
Oh! so drearily, drearily;
But we weighed our anchor at break of day,
Oh! so cheerily, cheerily;
So keep up heart and courage, friends!
For home is just in sight;
And who will heed, when safely there,
The perils of the night?
Just so we toil through earth's dark night,
Oh! so wearily, wearily;
Yet we trust to sail at dawn of light,
Oh! so cheerily, cheerily;
So keep up heart and courage, friends!
For home is just in sight;
And who will heed, when safely there,
The perils of the night?'
There was something in the wild tune, and something in the homely words, which soothed Rosalie's heart. As she walked back to the caravan, she kept saying to herself—
'So keep up heart and courage, friends!
For home is just in sight.'
'Just in sight; that must be for my mammie,' thought the child, 'and not for me; she is getting very near home!'
Her mother was awake when Rosalie opened the caravan door, but she seemed very weak and tired, and all that long day scarcely spoke. The child sat beside her, and tried to tempt her to eat, but she hardly opened her eyes, and would take nothing but a little water.
In the afternoon the noise of the fair began, the rattling of the shooting galleries, the bells of the three large whirligigs, and two noisy bands playing different tunes, and making a strange, discordant sound, an odd mixture of the 'Mabel Waltz,' and 'Poor Mary Ann.' Then, as the crowds in the fair became denser, the shouts and noise increased on all sides, and the sick woman moaned to herself from time to time.
Augustus was far too busy preparing for the evening's entertainment to spend much time in the caravan. He did not know or he would not see, that a change was passing over his wife's face, that she was even then standing on the margin of the river of death. And thus, about half an hour before the theatre opened, he called to Rosalie to dress herself for the play, and would listen to none of her entreaties to stay with her dying mother.
Her dying mother! Yes, Rosalie knew that it had come to that now. Child as she was, she could tell that there was something in her mother's face which had never been there before. Her eyes were opened to the truth at last, and she felt that death was not very far away.