The Good Ship Rover

by Robina F. Hardy

Walter was removed to a sofa-bed in the parlour, so as to give Harry more room and

air, since the little attic must be his sole abode for long weeks in all probability.

And so it proved. Harry lay there day after day, hardly daring even to sit half up in bed for meals, and compelled to lie mostly on his back. There stood the unfortunate ship Rover, whose piratical wanderings had also been cruelly frustrated. It stood on a table just below the skylight, so that Harry could see it easily where he lay; but now the sight rather added to his vexation than otherwise. Would he ever be able to sail it before they left Kingshaven and returned to Rosehampton? It seemed very unlikely.

Their kind friend Dr. Hammond came down at once on hearing of Harry’s illness—which was of course a great comfort, as he knew so well about his little patient; but he only confirmed Dr. Bell’s verdict, and declared Harry must continue in the

quiet quarters of “Blanket Bay,” as his mother called it. The unfortunate thing of this Blanket Bay was that it did not look to the sea, nor indeed to anything but the sky.

The days passed wonderfully, however. Harry was fond of reading, and plenty of nice books were got for him; the younger children were, of course, perfectly happy digging houses and castles in the sand; and Walter did the best he could to amuse himself companionless, or with any boys who seemed friendly and ready to play with him. He did all he could to amuse Harry, too, by coming home with stories of all he had seen, and would sit for hours on the bedside chatting to him, if allowed; but Mrs. Leslie said it was very wrong to waste his holidays that way, and generally packed him off to the shore again.

Harry Leslie knew that to Walter as well as to himself it was a great disappointment

not to see the Rover floated. He thought over it many a time, and being a kind-hearted boy in general, it did vex him not a little that Walter also should be disappointed. But the idea of his telling Walter to take the Rover down himself to the rocks, and have the delight of seeing it ride proudly on the waves—oh, that was too much for Harry! If the idea ever did really present itself plainly to his mind as a thing that might be done—and I am not at all sure that it did—then it was put aside at once as a plan quite ridiculous and not to be encouraged. Harry had read of Sir Philip Sidney passing the cup of water from his own parched lips to the dying-soldier who had still greater need of it than himself, and he had thought it a grand and beautiful action; but then it had never occurred to him that in his own little common life—the every-day life of home and

school, or it might be sick-room—deeds of the same kind of heroism, though not by any means so likely to be spoken of, were possible to and even required of him and every one who wished to lead a brave and noble life.

It was not till nearly a fortnight had come and gone—half the time they were to spend at Kingshaven—that some words of his father’s set Harry thinking of this very subject, and the thing struck him as it had never done before.