“I would give my right hand to save Dolly from these tears, grandmother,” said John, “but it is her love that frets. By-and-by her eyes will grow bright, for she will know that every hour which passes after I have left her is bringing us nearer to next summer, when we shall be together again.”
“But a year is such a long time,” wailed Dolly. “It is four times over again the months we have been together, and it seems ages ago since you came home, John. And granny doesn’t know the dangers of the sea. You have never talked to her as you have to me. Haven’t you told me of shipwrecks, and how men fall overboard, and how some ships catch fire and not a creature saved of all a great ship’s crew?”
“Yes, Dolly,” he answered, smoothing her bright hair; “but I have always said that the sea isn’t more dangerous than the land. There’s danger everywhere for the matter of that, isn’t there, grandmother?”
“Oh dear yes,” groaned the old lady; “there are deaths going on all about us, on the dry land, quick as our pulses beat.”
“Ay, true enough, grandmother,” rejoined John; “more deaths are going on ashore than are going on at sea. But why do we talk of death? People part and meet again—why shouldn’t we? There is no end to trouble if once we begin to think of what may happen. A man should put his trust in God”——
“Yes, that first, that chiefly,” interrupted the grandmother.
“And fight his way onward with as much courage and hope and resolution to win as though there were no such thing as death in the world at all. When I bid you good-bye, Dolly, I shan’t say good-bye, perhaps for ever; no! no! I will say good-bye till next summer. Summer is sure to come, and why shouldn’t it bring me back?”
“We will pray God that it will,” exclaimed the grandmother.