University of Virginia Library

28. CHAPTER XXVIII.
ANOTHER RELIC FOUND.

THE bed stood in the little room at Skipper
George's, unchanged except in having been
made up; and so all other things, there, were as
the maiden left them; nor was the door of that room
shut.

After a sickness has been finished in a death, and after
the burial is done, those who are left miss very much the
round of duties that is so utterly at an end. They start
at fancied calls; they find themselves putting their hands
to things no longer needed; they lower the voice; they
listen sometimes, and then recollect that there is no one
now whose light sleep may be broken, or whose throbbing
head may thrill at a slight sound; there is none now
whose breathing may give token of rest from pain, or
whose faint words can scarcely wing a flight in the still
air.

And then the thought of earlier hours, and happier,
comes up, when the departed one had the same home and
the same household things with them, and shared their
joys and sorrows. Now it is not so. One form—whose
head has lain upon our bosom, whose hair our fingers
played with, whose eyelids we have kissed, whose
lips have found our cheeks, whose arms have held us,

whose hands have done so many pretty things or played
us such sweet tricks of merryhood—whose look, whose
laugh, whose sleep, whose waking, had each such beauty
of its own—has gone like morning mist melted in air,
like the blue cloud of smoke scattered forever; like the
word spoken, like the bubble broken.

Skipper George knew nothing of the speculations and
suspicions of his friends and neighbors, and of their information
gained. They knew him well enough never to
speak of these to him; and it was specially enjoined and
urged on all occasions, by the Minister and constable,
that nothing should be said to him about them. His wife
heard more—hoped and feared more, no doubt, but yet
took her prevailing feeling from the strong, steady character
of her husband, and never told him of her hopes
and fears.

The need of sorrowing hearts (as, indeed, men's need
at all times) is faith in God, and work; this they both
knew and acted on; yet she would sometimes sit down
quietly to weep, and he would sometimes lean against the
door-post of the little room, and lose himself in sad memories.

During this time of planning and consultation in Peterport,
and searching for information, another memorial of
the lost girl came to hand; such evidence as it contributed
was from an unwished-for quarter. This was a silk
neck-kerchief, taken from the water a little farther down,
toward Castle-Bay Point, than where the former relic
had been recovered.

The man who brought it said that he had seen it in
passing with his punt along that shore, as it clung to a
rock, and was tossed up and down with the wash. The
cloth was wet with brine, and torn in many places; but

some old fishermen, who saw and handled it after it had
been recognized as having belonged to Lucy, asserted
without hesitation that it had never been a week in the
water. Its fabric was sound and good, though it was a
good deal smeared with sea-weed; and the rents must
have been made before it had ever gone into the deep.

The finder showed the place where it was found; and
it seemed strange that it could have been descried in such
a place, unless by one searching. So reasoned the plain
fishermen, and they looked with much suspicion at the
thing (at last) because the man, though he told an honest
story and was counted an honest neighbor, was a Roman
Catholic, as it happened; and though they did not doubt
his word, they “considered,” as they said, that “he might
have been put upon it unknowingly,” to keep up the opinion
that the Missing was drowned. They said, “her
body was not in the sea, but somewhere else.”

The neighbors consulted whether they could keep the
knowledge of this new discovery from Skipper George,
and determined at least to try it. They gave the kerchief,
therefore, in trust to the Minister. The news,
however, got to the father, as news always will, and the
next day he presented himself, with his request:—

“Ef 'ee thinks best to give me what 'ee've got, sir, I'd
be thankful over it.”

He took the relic in his hand, wiped off the tears that
fell upon it, and at length, handing it over, said—

“Those are cruel, grinding teeth, if they holes were
made by the rocks.”

Nothing could be more expressive than what he said,
and his way of saying it, and saying nothing more. The
grinding of the tender body of the innocent, sweet girl,
upon those sharp rocks!

There are worse teeth in the water than those of the
sharp rocks:—Did the father think of those, as another
would think of them, from his words? Were his thoughts
for his lost child as quick as other men's?

“I cannot think her lost yet, Skipper George,” the
Minister answered, saying as much as he would venture.
The father still held the kerchief under his eyes, as he
said:—

“There was a coat of many colors that had been
on a dear child, brought home to his father, and 'e
thought an evil beast had devoured un; but the lad was
n' dead,—thank God!—I don' know where my child
is, but He've got her.”

He looked up in Mr. Wellon's face, as he finished this
sentence, and it was like the clearing off of the dark sky,
that broad, peaceful look of his.

He folded the cloth tenderly, and bestowed it in his inner
jacket-pocket and departed. He had now two recovered
memorials of his Lucy, since her loss.

His errand was up the harbor; and as he passed out
of the drung from Mr. Wellon's, young Urston, who was
thin and pale, but had thrown himself into hard work at
Messrs. Worner, Grose & Co.'s, met him, and having
respectfully saluted him, walked silently at his side, answering
questions only. At length the young man broke
the silence for himself.

“I think we can trace her, now,” he said, hurriedly, as
if he thought he scarcely had a right to speak of Lucy to
her father. Skipper George turned upon him an eye
mild as a woman's, and said,—

“James, thou doesn' know, yet, what an old father's
heart is. See, here's an old hull wi' a piece knocked
into her side; and I've laid her over upon the t'other tack,

and after a bit I'll mubbe get all mended up, and tight
again, and then I'll go about, an' never fear; but ef 'ee
keeps her on the broken side, James, afore we've patched
her and stanched her, in comes the sea, James, and she'll
go down, heavy and solid, afore 'ee can make land. I
mus' n't think o' they oncertain things—” His eyes looked
forth, as he spoke, open and broad, like another sky;—
“but ef 'ee 've any thing, go to the Pareson, lovie—our
Pareson,—an' 'e'll hear it;” and so James Urston spoke
of his hope no more.