Ida Glenwood - Lily Pearl and The Mistress of Rosedale

"She is alive , boys," he said a few minutes after; "here Mike – pass me that little bottle I saw you put in your pocket this morning, it looked to me like very good brandy," he continued with a laugh, at the same time reaching out for it.

"Sorra a bit of brandy !"

"Never mind, pass it over, whatever it is. For once I'll not expose you for the good it may do now." The small bottle was passed and the kind man placed it to the lips of the insensible girl.

"Drink it, child," he said in tones as low and soft as a woman's; "it will make you well."

She did not hear him; yet she did swallow the few drops that were turned into her mouth, and the good man's predictions proved correct, for in a few moments she opened her eyes, but turned her head, hid her face in the blankets on which she was lying.

"She is afraid of our hard old faces," remarked the sailor who was bending over her; "but we will soon be where there will be more agreeable ones. Give way, boys, they are waiting for us," and rising, he left the "wee" stranger to herself.

"I should think she would have got used to ugly faces if she has been where there's a glass," remarked the third of the party, rather cruelly, but laughing and good-natured. They reached the schooner, and the wearied child was handed on board, amid many exclamations and intermingling remarks of sympathy and astonishment.

There were two women down in the small cabin; one the wife of Mike, who, in accordance with the kindness natural to her people, took the little outcast mariner under her especial care, and, with feminine instincts, provided for her wants.

The next few days the diminutive figure of Phebe Blunt sat upon the dark, dingy chest beneath the small narrow window in the cabin, looking out upon the blue, blue sea her beating heart so much loved, as it gathered up the jewels of emerald, and gold, and crystal pearls which the sunbeams scattered upon the wavelets' snowy crests, and with them her fancy built a palace of its own, to which in after years memory would often return and bear away some precious stones to adorn her sober real life.

"Ye're a strange child," said Cathreen, one day, after watching her for a long time, as she sat coiled up on the heavy chest, her large eyes peering from the window at the dark waters over which they were sailing. "What makes ye look so much at the sea? I'd rather see the land any time; and I wouldn't care a farthing if I never put my eyes on a bit of water again as long as I live." The child turned her beaming face towards the speaker with an expression of wonder and incredulity playing over it.

"How can it?" she asked at last, as her little brown hands brushed back the mass of dark hair from her broad forehead.

"Can what?" and the two women laughed heartily.

"Walk on the water. I couldn't, and I don't believe He could," and the bewildered gaze was turned again out of the narrow window.

" Who , child? Are you beside yourself?"

" He! Lutie Grant's mother said He walked on the great sea, but I don't believe it. How could He? I can't."

"Ye don't know what ye're talking about."

"Yes she does," interrupted the other. "It's Christ, the Bible tells about."

"And he used to love little girls, and took 'em up and kissed 'em; she said so; but, pshaw! that's nothing! Maria kissed me once, but 'twasn't much. I'd like to walk on the water, though," and again the eyes sought the far-off, and dropping her head upon her arms sat motionless as before.

"She's a puzzle," remarked Cathreen as she went about her work.

"I'd just like to know who she is and where she came from," remarked her companion, musingly. "I can almost believe that she did come up out of the sea, as she says, and that her name is 'Lily-Pearl'," and she laughed.

There was a third one who had been listening to the conversation from the narrow stairway that led to the deck, and entering at this moment, said, gently:

"I think I know some one who would enjoy working out this 'puzzle'," and he laid his hand tenderly on the bushy head of the little girl.

"Would you like to go home with me and live?" he asked. "You will find one there who can tell you all about Him who walked on the sea and loved little children, and I imagine he would love you , too, for there is more in this little heart and brain than is generally given to one so young and ignorant," he continued, as he turned to the wondering women who were listening.

"Ye're not going to take her home with ye sure , Mr. Evans? Mike said that he guessed we'd take her; she's no trouble and likes the water."

Phebe shrugged her shoulders and looked toward her friend who said, pleasantly:

"I think I will take her home with me; and perhaps we will hear from her mother or somebody who will want her, some day," and patting the rounded cheek, left the cabin and ascended to the deck while Phebe went on with her musings, and the two women commented on her future and the "strange conduct of the mate." Yet, all unseen a hand was tenderly leading the little stray lamb back to its fold through "pastures green" and "by the still waters," where the thorns and the briars were scattered along its banks, and where the poor feet would many times get torn, and the heart grow faint; but her way is onward, for the Father leadeth her. Somebody has said that "God will make the blind bird's nest," and Faber once declared that "there is hardly ever a complete silence in our souls. God is whispering to us well nigh continually. Whenever the sounds of the world die out, then we hear these whisperings of God." Was He not doing this to our little mariner? "They talk to me," she would say, and in her innocence it was the waves that talked – it was the billows that called, but the Father's tender voice was whispering, and his loving care was continually over her.

"The wind is coming up again pretty brisk, Mate, and I guess we shall have another rough night," said the captain, as he met the other on his rounds just as the darkness began to settle down about the vessel.

"If it will keep in the northeast, all right; we will reach the harbor by to-morrow," and he walked thoughtfully on.

This prediction was true. In less than a half hour the gale was tossing the billows high about the ship, and the sky was dark and lead-colored. Phebe would not leave the little window, although the white foam dashed against the small panes and the gloom without was impenetrable.

"Come away, child," commanded one of the women, sharply, "what makes you keep sitting there, when you can't see the nose on your face?"

"I don't want to see it," was the quick reply; "I want to see them roll and tumble over each other. He couldn't walk on it now?" she queried, turning to the mate who had entered.

"But He could do something more wonderful than that," he said, coming to her and laying his hand on her head.

The wondering eyes that were looking into the face of the speaker grew larger and brighter and she said —

"I don't believe it!"

"The Bible says so, Phebe, and Willie believes it. Hark – how the wind blows and the waves roar! but He could say to them all, 'Peace, be still !' and they would mind him."

"Stop blowing?"

"Yes, and the sea stop rolling."

She looked at the smiling face for a moment and then with a shrug of the shoulders turned her eyes again out of the window. The ship was plunging madly in the darkness, and the occupants in the little cabin were obliged to hold tightly on to the railing around it to prevent being dashed together, but Phebe kept her seat on the old weather-beaten chest, clinging to the window for power to hold her position, yet her face did not lose its quiet expression for a moment.