John Rosedew felt his cares and fears vanish like the dew–cloud among the quivering tree–tops; and bright upon him broke the noon, the heaven wherein our God lives. Earth and its fabrics may pass away; but that which came from heaven shall not be without a home.
Meditating, comforted, strengthened on the way, John Rosedew came to his little hearth, and was gladdened again by little things, such as here are given or lent us to amuse our exile life. Most of us, with growing knowledge and keener sense of honesty, more strongly desire from year to year that these playthings were distributed more equally amongst us. But let us not say “equably.” For who shall impugn the power of contrast even in heightening the zest of heaven?
Amy met him, his own sweet Amy, best and dearest of all girls, a thoroughly English maiden, not salient like Eoa, but warmly kind, and thoughtful, and toned with self–restraint. But even that last she threw to the winds when she saw her father returning, and ran with her little feet pattering, like sweet–gale leaves, over the gravel, to the unpretentious gate.
“Darling father!” was all she said; and perhaps it was quite enough.
Of late she had dropped all her little self–will (which used to vex her aunt so), and her character seemed to expand and ripen in the quiet glow of her faithful love.
Thenceforth, and for nearly a fortnight, Amy Rosedew, if suddenly wanted, was sure to be found in a garret, whose gable–window faced directly towards the breadth of sea. When a call for her came through the crazy door, she would slam up with wonderful speed her own little Munich telescope, having only two slides and a cylinder, but clearer and brighter than high–powered glasses, ten stories long perhaps, and of London manufacture: and then she would confront the appellant, with such a colour to be sure, and a remark upon the weather, as sage as those of our weather–clerks, who allow the wind so much latitude that they never contrive to hit it. But which of the maids knew not, and loved her not the more for knowing, that she was a little coast–guard, looking out for her eau de vie? Of course she saw fifty Taprobanes—every one more genuine than its predecessor—and more than fifty Cradocks, some thirty miles away, leaning over hearts of oak, with a faint sweet smile, waving handkerchiefs as white as their own unsullied constancy, and crying with a heavy sigh, “My native land, good night!”
Facts, however, are stubborn things, and will not even make a bow to the sweetest of young ladies. And the fact was that the Ceylon trader fetched away to the southward before a jovial north–east wind, and, not being bound to say anything to either Plymouth or Falmouth, never came near the field of gentle Amyʼs telescope.
That doctor knew something of his subject—the triple conglomerate called man—who prescribed for Cradock Nowell, instead of noxious medicines—medicina a non medendo—the bounding ease and buoyant freedom of a ship bound southward.
Go westward, and you meet the billows, headers all of them, staggering faith even in the Psalmistʼs description (for he was never in the Bay of Biscay), and a wind that stings patriotic tears with the everlasting brine. Go eastward, and you meet the ice, or (in summer) shoals and soundings, and a dreary stretch of sand–banks. Go northward, and the chances are that you find no chance of return. But go full–sail to the glorious south, and once beyond the long cross–ploughings and headland of the Gulf Stream, you slide into a quiet breast, a confidence of waters, over which the sun more duly does his work and knows it, and under which the growth of beauty clothes your soul with wonder.