CHAPTER IV.—UNCLE MARK PARTS WITH THE OLD BARGE.

When Madeline slipped from her bed on the Tuesday after Easter Monday, drew aside the chintz curtains from her little window and looked forth, she was astonished to see that the sunshine of the preceding days had been followed by a drizzling rain. The river looked black and very solemn as it slipped between its sedgy banks; the marshes, turning a white face to the sullen sky, looked dreary enough as they drank in the falling rain, and the red tiles on the houses of Grayfleet were redder than ever with the ceaseless washing of the showers.

She had slept heavily, but had not yet wholly recovered from the depression caused by the preaching of the past few days, and of so many hours spent in the sanctuary of the best room.

She dressed hastily, ran down stairs, and peeped into the parlour at the ‘weather cottage.’ Alas! Joan was under shelter, and Darby was outside. So it was to be a wet day indeed!

The house was very quiet. The front door stood open and a clammy breeze swept into the passage and kissed her cheeks. The parlour had been cleared out an hour before by Aunt Jane’s industrious hands, and was carefully prepared for next Sunday. But a clear fire burned in the kitchen, casting its light on the bright paven floor, and upon the buxom figure of Aunt Jane herself, who stood by the table preparing breakfast.

‘Eh, bless the child, how you did make me jump!’ she exclaimed, as Madeline put her* head in at the door.

‘Come, lass, and get your breakfast; ’tis near time you were starting for school.’

After bestowing a hearty kiss on Mrs. Peartree’s sunburnt cheek, Madeline took her seat at the table; then suddenly looking round she asked:—

‘Why, Aunt Jane, where be Uncle Luke?’

‘Gone away two hours or more wi’ Uncle Mark; they sailed up wi’ the tide an hour afore thou was out o’ thy bed!’

‘Gone to London without me!’ cried Madeline, her large eyes filling with tears. ‘Uncle Luke did promise to take me with him this time!’

‘There, there, ha’ done wi’ your crying, like a good lass!’ said Aunt Jane, soothingly. Your Uncle Luke he did want to take ye, but I would have none on’t this woyage. A pretty like morning to take you from your bed!—why the rain was falling and the wind blowing enough to give you your death. But if you are a good lass and learn your lessons well you shall go next time. They’ll bring down the barge to-morrow, and likely they’ll be for taking her back o’ Thursday. Then you shall go.’

With this assurance Madeline was fain to content herself. She had been on the barge once or twice when it had lain in Gray fleet basin, opposite the ferry; she had seen it spread out its great red wings and glide along the track of the river—until it looked like a great black swan—passing silently between the marshes, and fading behind the grey mist which for ever hung about them like a cloud; and her childish imaginations had often conjured up pictures of the strange scenes towards which the great black swan was drifting. London was to her the great world, the mysterious city, so different to the dark slimy river and low-lying marshes of Grayfleet. Ever since she could remember, this magic word ‘London’ had been the one which had ever urged her on to good deeds, the final goal to which all her virtuous deeds were to lead. Whenever she was bad, Aunt Jane never forgot to repeat the awful words—

‘There, Madlin, if you can’t be a better lass, you shall never go to London with me and Uncle Mark.’

And when she had been unusually good she never failed to hear the timeworn promise—

‘You’ve been downright good! You shall go to London with me, and see the great waxwork wi’ the kings and queens, and the Sleepin’ Beauty as large as life.’

When this magical visit was to be paid seemed somewhat indefinite. That Aunt Jane was strongly opposed to what she called ‘gadding about,’ may be gathered from the fact that during the six-and-twenty years of her married life she had spent only two days out of her own home. But Madeline had been content to hope and wait on—and dream over the many things she would do when at length the happy day did come. Just before Easter, however, she went half wild with ecstasy—for Uncle Luke in the exuberance of his gratitude to her for not laughing at him when his curiosity induced him to cut open a cheap concertina, ‘to see where the music came from,’ promised to take her immediately on to the barge and show her himself the wonderful sights of the great City.

It was a great blow to Madeline to learn that her uncles had departed to the magical place without her, but by the time she had finished her breakfast the sadness caused by the disappointment had worn away. She bestowed another impulsive kiss on Aunt Jane’s brown cheek, and taking her books under her arm, trotted off gleefully through the rain towards the great red-brick public school where most of her days were spent.

She was wonderfully light-hearted all day, and when evening came she firmly refused Polly Lowther’s invitation to take another dancing lesson, and trotted home to keep Aunt Jane company. She found the kitchen neat and clean as usual, with plates sparkling on the dresser, dishes smiling from the walls, and Mrs. Peartree sitting in their midst with a skein of worsted round her neck, and her busy fingers darning Uncle Mark’s guernsey. When Madeline came she laid her work aside and got the tea. The two sat down together.

‘Madlin, what in the world be you a-laughing at?’ asked Aunt Jane presently, astonished at the continual outbursts and half-smothered laughter of the child.

But for the life of her Madeline would not tell—she only knew that she felt within her a strange hysterical sort of joy which would not be suppressed. Everything made her laugh; the gleaming dishes, the glancing firelight, the cat purring on the hearth, Aunt Jane’s sunburnt face, and even her looks of astonishment and frowns of reproach.

Mrs. Peartree looked distressed; for she was superstitious.

‘As sure as you’re alive, Madlin,’ she cried reprovingly, ‘that laugh o’ yourn means no good. I mind the day my poor brother Jim were drowned dead—I was laughing like a mad thing afore I got the news. Them as laughs i’ the morning will cry before night, I’m thinking.’

At this solemn warning Madeline’s hilarity received a sudden check, only to burst out again with renewed vehemence.

‘’Tis not on account of bad news, Aunt Jane!’ she said, ‘’tis because I’m soon going with Uncle Mark to London!’

But Aunt Jane was not to be convinced. She gravely shook her head, and a few hours later when she put the child to bed she said:—

‘There, Madlin, try to go to sleep, do, and give o’er that giggling—’tain’t nature for a child to laugh so—and ‘twill take all the sleep from my eyes wi’ thinkin’ o’ my poor dear brother that’s gone to heaven.’

Madeline promised implicit obedience, and nestled her dark little head into the snowy pillow. When she found herself alone, she slipped from her bed, drew aside the window curtain and looked out, half expecting to see the great black barge sail, like a spectre, through the hazy mist of rain. But no such vision appeared—the faint ray of the young moon showed her the silently sleeping river, through the silvery threads of rain which still fell from the ever-darkening sky.

‘Uncle Mark, Uncle Luke!’ exclaimed Madeline, clapping her hands, ‘make haste and come home, and I’ll try not to laugh any more.’

At that moment the barge, with Uncles Mark and Luke on board, was gliding slowly up the river, ten miles away. The wind had been fair all day and the barge had made good speed, but as night came on and the rain fell faster, the breeze completely died.

The barge lay heavily on the shining river, with the great red sail flapping listlessly above and black shadows all around. They had hoisted the side-lights, and now and then through the impenetrable blackness a faint light answered them—this was the only indication of human life which came to them at all.

Uncle Luke was at the helm, peering with his small keen grey eyes into the blackness; and Uncle Mark was below, eating his supper. Presently the latter passed his red night-capped head out of the hatchway, and gave 8 sharp glance around him; then his whole long body emerged, and he strolled to Luke’s side.

‘Well, mate,’ he said, ‘there don’t seem much wind, and I’m a-feared there ain’t much a-coming; suppose you go and turn in?’

But Uncle Luke shook his head decidedly.

‘No, no, Mark!’ he answered; ‘reckon you’re more knocked up nor what I be. Just you turn in for a bit while ’tis calm—and when the wind comes I’ll sing out.’

After a little more discussion as to which should get the first spell of sleep, Uncle Mark descended to the cabin and Luke was left alone.

It was very dreary above, very dark and wet; but Uncle Luke, who was generally in a happy state of mind, seemed quite contented. He grasped the tiller firmly in his hard, horny hand, and fixed his eyes with wonderful keenness upon the moving lights around him.

There was scarcely any wind at all now, and the barge lay like a log; but ever and anon she was lifted up as on a bosom in gentle breathing, while the great sail flapped listlessly above, and the side-lights shone out like glimmering stars in the darkness, and flashed their brightness at the sky which loomed so darkly overhead.

An hour or so passed thus, and then the rain gradually ceased to fall, the black in the sky began to float gently on before a cold, light wind, which bellied out the sail, swung the heavy boom over the side, and made the barge glide softly on.

Uncle Luke, holding the tiller more firmly, rapped sharply on the deck with his hob-nailed shoes, and in a very short space of time Uncle Mark emerged, fresh and active, from the cabin hatchway.

‘Ah, we shall get a goodish bit o’ wind before morning, mate,’ he said as he took possession of the tiller; ‘get the sheets clear, Luke, we mustn’t lose much time i’ working round;—remember the old barge ain’t been over spry sin’ she got water-logged, and there be goodish bit o’ traffic here.’

Uncle Luke trotted aft obediently, and now that Mark had relieved him of all responsibility, he turned his mind again to solve the great problem which had been worrying him ever since he left home—whether he should take Madeline a present from the great City, or allow her to buy it for herself when she got there.

While he was speculating thus, his eyes were dreamily surveying the scene around him, and his hands were busy hauling in the sheets, for the breeze was coming more and more ahead, and less upon the quarter.

As the night passed off and day began to dawn, the breeze grew fresher and fresher, until it spread quite fiercely over the surface of the water, driving it up into little crisp wavelets fringed with foam.

The thick black clouds had drifted westwards, and left the east a mass of scarlet and grey. The landscape was still dim, as with distance, and the light was of that palpitating silvern kind which is neither daylight nor moonlight.

They had left the low-lying marshes of Essex far behind them, and already they could see dimly in the distance, like a cloud brooding over a mountain peak, the smoke which for ever rises above the great City.

The river now seemed alive with traffic, barges beating onwards, laden almost to the water’s edge—others running down—steam tugs and ocean steamers, blackening the air with smoke—all twining in and out, passing and repassing, in a bewildering maze.

Uncle Mark still grasped the tiller, and though he performed his task with skill, it was a difficult job. The bends of the river were innumerable; often the wind came dead ahead; the barge was an unwieldy sailer at all times, and now she was overloaded into the bargain. Once or twice Uncle Mark, miscalculating her power of ‘coming about,’ had brought her into danger, and had a narrow escape from collision. Then the river grew clearer and the wind came straight on the quarter. She scudded onward merrily, and the water all round her was white with foam.

‘Look out, Mark, look out!’ cried Uncle Luke presently, and Uncle Mark, stooping to look under the red mainsail, saw that a steam-tug was swiftly steaming down on their course.

‘She’s straight ahead. Ain’t ye goin’ to keep away?’ screamed Uncle Luke, for the whistling of the wind was deafening.

Mark noted the speed of the barge, then measured the distance between the two.

‘All right, mate,’ he shouted, ‘we’ll clear.’

The barge sped on, the tug advanced quickly, Uncle Mark watched, carelessly at first, then anxiously. The tug was woefully near; by swerving slightly from her course she could have passed by the barge’s stern—by keeping steadily on she seemed likely to cut it through the middle. Uncle Mark concluded that the tug would clear him; the tug calculated that the barge must ‘keep away;’ and she came straight on.

A collision seemed unavoidable, when Uncle Mark screamed:—

‘Haul in the main sheet!’ and, with a cry, he put down the helm.

He had jibbed her as the only chance of escape. The barge swept round before the shrieking wind with her bowsprit within a few inches of the tug’s side, quivering through and through as she heeled over, with a thunder crash, almost wrenching out the mast. Then there was a crash, like the bursting of a cannon, a great splash in the water—a shout from the tug.

Uncle Luke, who had been thrown flat on his face, scrambled to his feet to find the tiller abandoned, the great boom in two, the mast bending like a reed, and Uncle Mark—gone!

Abandoned by the helmsman, the barge swept round into the wind, with her great sails flapping uselessly, and her whole fabric like a drifting wreck.

Confused by the accident and the thunderous sound of shrouds and sails, Uncle Luke, who could not at any time get his ideas to work quickly, gazed about him for a few moments in horrified despair—then he saw that the tug, having reversed her engines, was close upon the barge, and that a boat which she had put out was rowing swiftly towards a figure which was floating, apparently lifeless, on the waves—the figure of Uncle Mark. Dead? It seemed so—the body was moveless, the face livid, and it floated without a struggle.

Suddenly Uncle Luke became aware that the deck of the barge was withdrawing itself from his feet. The shaking of the mast had wrenched open the timbers—the water was pouring in like a torrent, the barge was rapidly sinking. He leapt into the punt which floated behind, cut the painter with his knife, and, utterly unmindful of the barge, pulled rapidly to the spot where they were rescuing Uncle Mark.

They had got him into the boat by this time, and he lay in the stern motionless, his cheeks ashen grey, his lips bloody, his eyes half closed.

With a wild cry like that of a child, Luke leapt into the boat, abandoning his own, seized the cold wet hand, smoothed back the dripping hair, and began to cry and moan.

‘Mark, mate, open your eyes,’ he cried. ‘What ails you?—don’t you know Luke—your brother Luke?’

But Mark answered neither by sign nor word—a splinter of the boom had struck him senseless, and almost killed him at a blow.

‘We’d best take him aboard,’ said one of the men; ‘see, the barge is sinking fast.’

As he spoke the barge settled down and disappeared, leaving only the point of her topmast visible above the waves. But poor Luke thought nothing of the vessel; his thoughts were full of the injured man.

‘Where do ye live, mate?’ asked one of the sailors from the tug.

‘At Grayfleet, master,’ answered Luke, sobbing, and still chafing the cold limp hand. ‘And oh, mates, do take him aboard, and get him home quick, and then mayhap he won’t die.’

The men agreed to take the two men on board, especially as their course lay past Grayfleet. Nevertheless, as they looked on the face of Uncle Mark, they firmly believed it to be the face of a corpse. But after they had got him aboard the tug, stripped him of his wet clothes, and administered some restoratives, he heaved a little sigh, and opened his eyes.

‘Luke, mate,’ he said, recognising his brother, ‘try and say a prayer for me. I doubt I’m a dead man!’