“Is it not a solemn warning to us, not to leave England?” said Flora.
“I was certain that would be your interpretation of the matter,” returned her husband; “but having put my hand to the plough, Flora, I will not turn back.”
The sailors now took to their oars, the dead calm precluding the use of the sail, and began to steer their course homewards. The fog was so dense and bewildering that they made little way, and the long day was spent in wandering to and fro without being able to ascertain where they were.
“Hark!” cried one of the men, laying his ear to the side of the boat, “I hear the flippers of the steamer.”
“It is the roar of the accursed Barnet,” cried the other. “I know its voice of old, having twice been wrecked upon the reef—we must change our course; we are on a wrong tack altogether.”
It was near midnight before a breeze sprang up and dispelled the ominous fog. The moon showed her wan face through the driving scud, the sail was at last hoisted, and cold and hungry, and sick at heart, our voyagers once more returned to their old port.
This time, however, the beach was silent and deserted. No friendly voice welcomed them back. Old Kitson looked cross at being roused out of his bed at one o’clock in the morning, to admit them into the house, muttering as he did so, something about “unlucky folks, and the deal of trouble they gave; that they had better give up going to Canada altogether, and hire their old lodgings again; that it was no joke, having his rest broken at his time of life; that he could not afford to keep open house at all hours, for people who were in no ways related to him.”
With such consoling expressions of sympathy in their forlorn condition, did the hard, worldly old man proceed to unlock the door of their former domicile; but food, lights, and firing, he would not produce, until Lyndsay had promised ample remuneration for the same.
Exhausted in mind and body, for she had not broken her fast since eight o’clock that morning, Flora for a long time refused to partake of the warm cup of tea her loving partner had made with his own hands for her especial benefit; and her tears continued to fall involuntarily over the sleeping babe which lay upon her lap.
Mr. Hawke saw that her nerves were completely unstrung by fatigue, and ran across the green, and called up Flora’s nurse to take charge of the infant.