WHATEVER evils may happen unto me, may Heaven spare my reason,” was the heartfelt prayer of a wise and reverent man. He might have added—for he was one of those who thought it no harm to ask of Him who watches the sparrow's fall, for particular blessings—“And however I be racked with pain by day, by night may I still enjoy my sleep.” Next to madness, and like enough with some folks to end in that, is the want of rest during that period which should be the season of slumber, and which, if it be not so, is a dread and dreary time indeed. There is many an honest soul in the autumn of life who will protest in the morning, in the course of a very tolerable breakfast, that she has not had a wink of sleep all night, because she has heard a few consecutive hours recorded by the church clock; but to lie awake indeed from eve to mom is not, thank God, a very common experience, and still less often are any of us compelled to endure it night after night for years. To live an existence the converse of the rest of their fellow-creatures is the lot of more than one trade—editors of daily newspapers, for instance, and burglars; but to work by night is a very different affair from the lying awake unemployed, but thinking, thinking, while nothing breaks the silence of the muffled world save the howl of the watchdog and the weird monotony of the wind. Yet there are some of us doomed to this sad fate, who scarcely know what it is to spend an easeful night, and who snatch their scanty dole of sleep by day.

Poor Jacob Forest was one of these. A long life of reckless exposure to the elements, not, perhaps, unassisted by hard drinking, had brought him to this sad pass. Thanks to his daughter, he wanted for nothing that money could give him; but the once hale and venturous mariner was now bedridden and racked at most times, but especially by night, with rheumatic twinges. Mary herself never failed to visit him every summer; and three days out of four some ancient comrade would painfully climb the hill that led to his cosy little house, and hob and nob with him by his bedside. But he was still sadly in want of company during the night-watches; true, a nurse was paid to minister to his comforts during that season, but she generally “dropped off” into a doze, sooner or later; and even if she was awake, her gossip was of the tea-and-muffin sort, rather than that description of talk which goes best with hot grog, and was more suitable to a seasoned vessel, though laid up in extra-ordinary, like old Jacob. Therefore it was, as the waiter at the Royal Marine had observed, that visitors calling at ultrafashionably late hours at the Guard-ship, as it was the proprietor's fancy to term his place of residence, were especially welcome.

The home of this old veteran had been built, at his own request, of wood, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his medical attendant, who ascribed part of his patient's ailments to the fact, that his cottage on the shore had been constructed of that material. But Mr Forest had insisted upon having his way: next to one's own boat, he had argued, there was nothing like a wooden house to make one feel at home in; nor could he be moved from that position by the caustic rejoinder, that in that case he might just as well get into his coffin at once. Nay, the Guard-ship had been made still less air-tight than it otherwise would have been by the ingenious introduction of a hinge running along one side of the old man's bedroom on the ground-floor, the very wall of which, in summer-time, could thereby be lowered flap-wise, exposing the whole arrangement of his bower after the maimer of the better class of doll's houses. With the eccentricity of taste so often exhibited in the possessors of unexpected wealth, Mr Forest had “gone in,” as the phrase runs, in his prosperous old age, for curious poultry; and up his slanting shutter (exactly as horses are introduced into a railway train) used to be driven from the yard for his immediate inspection, as he lay in bed, every sort of feathered fowl after their kind, as into a poultry ark. The earliness of the season, combined with the lateness of the hour, denied this exhibition (afforded to all visitors whenever practicable) to Ralph Derrick, but the ancient mariner gave him the heartiest of welcomes, as had been predicted. He had heard of Mr Derrick more than once from Mary, and was exceedingly pleased to do him honour; at which hint the nurse at once set forth the “materials” for a drinking-bout on a little table which stood at the invalid's elbow, and betook herself to an adjoining cabin, where she instantly went to bed with her clothes on. Next to the danger from draughts, to which the captain of the Guard-ship had already succumbed, he lay in nightly peril of perishing by fire, since he smoked in bed almost unceasingly; and in case of a spark igniting where it should not, the whole two-decker would not have taken a quarter of an hour to become a heap of ashes; but this apprehension, as the old woman was glad to think, was groundless upon this occasion, when her master had a gentleman to keep him company, and she left them with an easy conscience to their pipes and grog.

“So I hear you are rather sweet upon my good Mary,” observed the old sailor slyly, as soon as they were left alone. “She writes to me more than most girls do to their fathers, you see, Mr Derrick, knowing I'm all alone here, and so pleased to hear any news.”

“Very right and very proper,” returned Ralph quietly, “and a very good girl, as you say, she is—although she is not a very young one.”

“Young enough for some folks, at all events—eh, eh, sir?” chuckled the old man. “Come, come—I know all about you, and what you're come here about; I'm wide awake enough, I can tell you, although I'm abed. You've run down to Coveton, sir, to 'ask papa.' There, haven't I hit it?”

“Well, the fact is, Mr Forest, the love seems rather more on my side than hers. I don't deny that I had a great liking for your daughter, but when a man knows that his love is not returned”——

“Eh, eh,” interrupted the old Salt, pursing his lips and giving his tasselled night-cap a pull upon one side, which gave him an expression of much aimless intelligence; “but I don't understand this. You must have done something, sir, to forfeit the good opinion of my Mary; for certainly, at one time——But there, perhaps I'm saying too much. If it ain't agreed between you and my Mary, then, may I ask, sir—not but that I'm uncommon glad to see you, or any other gentleman, from nightfall to any one of the small-hours, I'm sure—but may I ask what the dickens brings you here?”

“Well, sir,” replied Ralph, forcing a smile, “I happened to find myself in these parts, and did not like to pass by without looking in upon the father of Mary Forest, even though all should be off between us; and, besides, I was told you are the likeliest man to be able to give me some information about the wreck of the North Star, which happened about thirty years ago, and the particulars of which, for a reason, I want to know.”

“Fill your pipe, then, and mix yourself another glass,” cried the old man, delighted to be called upon for his favourite yarn, “for it's a story as you can't tell in a five minutes, nor in ten neither. The ship you speak of, sir, was an emigrant vessel of more than a thousand tons, as sailed on September 10, 1832”——

“I know all about the ship,” interrupted Derrick impatiently, “for I had a passage in her myself. I want to hear about the bodies that came on shore.”

“You were a passenger by the North Star?” ejaculated the old man with amazement. “Why, it was said that every soul on board her perished in the storm in which she went to pieces. Derrick, Derrick! Well, now you mention it, I do remember the name, for I used to have that passenger-list by heart. I cut it out of one of the papers at the time, and having been so much concerned in the matter myself, though little knowing that I should owe this house to that same wreck—built out of its very timbers, as I might say—and almost all I have in this world. But you know how all that came about, and what Sir Robert did for me and mine, I dare say, mate?”

“Yes, yes—I have heard something of that. But can you tell me nothing of what came ashore? You have said not a soul was saved; I suppose, then, it was the surviving relatives who put up the gravestones to the memory of the drowned, which I saw as I came through the churchyard?”

“That was just it. There were five men and three women—poor souls—laid under the big stone next the yew-tree; nobody knew who they were. Sir Robert paid for that too, if I remember right—let's see”——

“I hear of nothing but 'Sir Robert' and 'Sir Robert' in this village of yours,” interrupted Ralph impatiently. “Nobody has a story to tell in Coveton but manages to bring that man's name in by head and shoulders. Why the deuce do they do it?”

“Because he's been the making of the place—that's why, and because there's a little gratitude left in our village still, I am glad to say, sir, although it may have died out in the world,” replied the old sailor firmly. “Why, he not only built the roof that is now sheltering us, but the village school, and the little pier at the Cove foot that has sheltered many a fishing-smack since the time when my Lady”——

“Well, he didn't put up that great bit of painted glass in the church, I suppose,” broke in Derrick testily, “to the memory of Frank Meade and others, did he? for that's what I want to get at, and nothing else.”

“Did he not? Then who did it, I should like to know?” answered Mr Forest sarcastically. “Who but himself and my Lady; and if it had been the old times as I've heard tell of instead of now, there would have been priests paid to pray for their poor souls until this day; ay, that there would. He was never tired of shewing his thankfulness for the joy that came to himself, and his pity for the woe that befell others upon that awful night. It's an ill wind that blows nobody good, they say, and the storm that carried the North Star to the bottom with all on board save one—or two, I should now say, since I have no reason to doubt your word, Mr Derrick”——

“Ay, tell me about the storm,” said Ralph in an altered voice, and with a face grown very white and still. “I will not interrupt you again, I will not indeed. One poor creature came ashore alive, you said?”

“What! do you mean to say my Mary never told you? She must be a good un to keep a secret even from her sweetheart; not that it's any secret here, however they may treat it at Mirk; and if I didn't tell you myself, you would hear it from the first man you met in Coveton, and asked how Sir Robert Lisgard got his bride.”

“Just so,” said Derrick in a hoarse whisper; “therefore please to tell me.”

“Then help yourself to grog, mate, for you look cold. Some landlubbers will have it that this room is cold, because of the hinge yonder; but a seafaring chap like you——There, that should warm you. Well, on the 10th of September 1832, an emigrant ship of more than a thousand tons”——

“A thousand devils!” cried Derrick, starting to his feet; “do you wish to drive me mad? I tell you I was on board of her myself. Tell me about the woman that came ashore lashed to the spar.”

“What! then, you do know about it after all?” grumbled the old man, removing his pipe from the corner of his mouth, an action which represented the greatest amount of astonishment of which he was capable. “Why the deuce did you bother me to spin you the yarn, then? A man at my time of life ain't got much breath to throw away, I can tell you.”

“How was she dressed? What had she on?” inquired Derrick, upon whose ears his short-winded host's remonstrance had fallen unheeded.

“Devilish little,” returned the old fellow gruffly: “nothing but a petticoat, and what my Mary calls a body—but which I should call a bust—and a sailor's pea-jacket, and that was not rightly upon her, but tied between her and the spar, to save her dainty limbs, poor girl; and it is my opinion that he was an honest-hearted chap as put it there, and almost deserved to have her for himself. But there they were, brother and sister, so that couldn't be. Moreover, she couldn't have got better off than she did, that's certain. Lord, to think that there poor, friendless, penniless, clotheless creature—as I had thought to be almost lifeless too, when me and Sir Robert dragged her in from the hungry waves—should come to be Lady Lisgard of Mirk Abbey—— What's the matter with the man? Hi, nurse, hi! Confound the woman, how she sleeps! Where the devil's my stick?”

Mr Jacob Forest's temper was hasty, but he had no intention of inflicting corporal punishment on the respectable female who was too deeply plunged in slumber to attend to his cries. He desired his stick in order that he might smite the battered gong that hung at his bedside, and upon which (besides using it as a gentle indication of her presence being required) he was accustomed to execute an imitation of ship's “bells” throughout the watchful night. Before, however, he could lay his crippled fingers upon the instrument required, Ralph Derrick, who had fallen from his chair upon the carpetless floor, began to recover his senses, and with them his speech.

“Don't be alarmed, sir—don't call your nurse,” said he, gathering himself up; “it is only a sort of fainting-fit to which I am subject—indeed I was born with them.”

“And you'll die with them too, some day,” thought old Jacob to himself, as he stared with undisguised apprehension at his visitor's white face and shaking limbs. “Don't you think you had better take a little more rum—or stay, perhaps it's that that's done the mischief?”

“No, it's not that,” answered Derrick bitterly, as he filled himself a wine-glass of the liquor neat. “I'm better now, and I shan't give way again. But I remember the man that took such care of the woman you speak of, just before the vessel parted; and your mention of it gave me quite a turn. I didn't know he was her brother; but he was much more careful about her safety than his own—God knows.”

“Very like,” rejoined the old fellow, “and what I should have expected, even if they had not been so near related. She was just the sort of woman that any man worth his salt would be willing to lay down his life for. His Christian name was Ralph, was it not, the same as yours?”

“Yes, it was,” answered the other gravely. “Who was it that told you that? I forgot, though; it is painted in the church-window.”

“I found it out for myself,” continued the old fellow cunningly, “long before that there memorial window was put up; for my Lady never talked about it even to Mary. But there was Ralph Gavestone written inside the collar of the pea-cot, and I kept it for many a year myself until the moth got in it, because I thought the sight of it might distress the poor lady.”

“Women soon get over that sort of thing,” said Ralph in a grating voice.

“Well, yes; sooner or later, I daresay they do. And a very fortunate thing it is, in my opinion, that such is the case. It would be very bad for us all, and particularly for seafaring folk, if we never smiled again because a party as we liked happened to be drownded, like some king of England as my Mary once read about to me when I was down with my first fit of the rheumatiz. Why, I've lost a couple of brothers myself in that same way, and very good chaps they were; but why should I make myself wretched because they're gone to Heaven? Take another pipe, man. Why, you're not going to leave me surely?”

“Yes, I am, Jacob Forest,” answered Derrick gloomily. “I have heard all that I want to know, and more—much more! If you have any message for your daughter, I'll take it to her. I am going off to Mirk at once.”

“You may tell her—but no; I'll tell her myself, and not trouble you,” answered the old fellow hastily, purple at least as much with rage as rum. “I don't wish to be under the slightest obligation to a fellow as looks in upon a poor cripple under pretence of friendship, and then directly he's heard all he wants, and drank all he can, and had one of his fits as he was born with, all as snug as can be—Hi, nurse, hi! Damme, if the fellow hasn't actually left the front-door open!” And the invalid applied himself to his gong with a fury that would have roused the Seven Sleepers, had they chanced to have been slumbering (let alone taking a nap with their clothes on) in the adjacent room. “Push my table nearer,” cried he to his terrified attendant, “and give me paper and pens. Yes, my Mary particularly begged of me to let her know at once in case he called, and I will do so; but I will also take leave to tell her what a selfish scoundrel, in my opinion, he is; and I'll mention his alarming fits. If she has found any reason to be dissatisfied with the beggar, I'll give her some more; and mind, Nurse, this is posted before seven o'clock. He shall find a cool reception at Mirk Abbey, or my name is not Jacob Forest!”

Epistolary composition was not an accomplishment in which the old sailor was an adept, and the mechanical part of the operation was a very slow one with him, by reason of his infirmities; but nevertheless he managed to indite a missive more or less to his mind, long before the early mail went out from Coveton, and his faithful attendant did his bidding by posting the same.