CHAPTER IV

CHARLIE'S RAFT

FAITH lost all feeling of shyness in her desire to help this sick woman. She came up to the bedside, and looked at her with her eyes full of pity.

"I'm Faith Blair. We've only just come to live in a cottage here. Can I get you a drink of water?"

The woman pointed to a jug on a shell.

"There's a drop o' cold tea there. I'm never to get up no more, the doctor's told me. He's going to try to get me in the 'Firmary, an' I will not go. My Jim has had to join up, but I promised him I'd keep the van till he comes back, and I want Dan back. He must put the horse in and we must be off!"

She spoke breathlessly. Her cheeks were sunken and she was so thin that all her bones showed through her skin.

Faith got the jug of tea, and poured it out into a cup. She gave it to the woman, who drank it eagerly, then sank back on her pillow as if she were quite exhausted. Then as Faith watched her, the tears came to her eyes, and rolled down her cheeks. She wiped them away with the corner of the sheet.

"Nobody to care for me!" she muttered. "My Jim is away, and when he comes home, I'll be lyin' under the earth like a dog!"

"Oh, but you'll be in heaven," said Faith eagerly; "that will be only your body, and may I just tell you what old Timothy has told me? You needn't be alone or unhappy, for the Comforter will come and stay with you. He is God, you know, and He loves unhappy people. He dries their tears and comforts them. Would you like Him to come to you now? He lives in our world, nowhere else and nobody wipes tears away like Him, Timothy said so."

The woman looked at Faith's eager little face. "I used to hear about them things. I weren't born in a van. I lived proper with my father and mother in a small farm, and Jim used to mend our pots and pans. Oh, he were a handsome boy! An' we was wild to marry, so we just stole off, and I've never been home since. I used to go to Sunday school and church!"

"And have you got a father and mother?" asked Faith.

"No, they've both died."

"Then you're like us; our father and mother died, but we live with Granny. Oh, don't cry! You're beginning again. Do have the Comforter. Timothy says you ask Him to come, and He comes——do ask Him!"

The woman shook her head.

"I haven't said my prayers for years, but I'm scared to die, an' the doctor says both my lungs is gone; you say a little prayer, dearie. It won't do no harm, and p'raps God will be merciful."

So Faith knelt down. She was so much in earnest that all shyness had left her.

"Please, Lord Jesus, will you tell the Comforter to come here quick, for He's wanted. Timothy says You promised to send Him to everybody when You went away. And please let Him comfort this poor sick woman, for Jesus' sake. Amen."

It was only a child's prayer, but it reached Heaven as all such prayers do, and a look of relief and peace crept over the woman's face.

"A prayer said over one always does good," she murmured; and then they heard little Dan clambering up into the van with milk.

She drank it eagerly, and told the boy to put the horse in the van, and drive on as fast as he could.

"I won't be taken into the 'Firmary," she muttered.

So Faith wished her good-bye, and slipped down, and went home.

Charity and Hope were in the garden. She told her story to them. Charity was very interested.

"What was the van like inside? Oh, I wish I had been there! How did you dare to do it? They might have driven off with you, and we should never have heard of you again."

"I should like to have gone," said Faith. "The poor woman had no little girl to do anything for her. The inside wasn't nearly as nice as the outside, it was stuffy and untidy, and not very clean. There seemed no room for anything."

"Here's Granny. Let's tell her about it."

Granny was coming to the cottage door to get a breath of fresh air, but when she heard Faith's story, she did not look very pleased.

"You ought not to have gone in, Faith. She might have been ill of an infectious fever. I don't like it at all. You must never do such a thing again! You are getting too independent."

Faith hung her head.

"What did she say to you?"

Faith told as much as she remembered; but she was shy of telling anybody about her little prayer or of what she herself had said to the woman, and Granny said:

"It was your spirit of curiosity which led you there; and if the woman hadn't been very ill, she might have been very angry at your going in, when you had not been asked to do so. You must never do such a thing again—promise me. Has the van gone away?"

Faith nodded.

"I saw Dan get the horse and fasten it in. They had a grey donkey, too. It followed the van all by itself. They were just moving away before I came into our lane. I'm sorry, Granny, I won't go in again, but I expect I shall never see another van."

"You may see several," said Granny. "I hear there is a common near here where they always encamp, and I won't have any of you go near them."

"Do gipsies steal children now?" asked Hope.

"They wouldn't steal any of you," said Granny with a little laugh; "you are not worth the risk!"

She went indoors again, and Charity said a little indignantly:

"Granny thinks nothing at all of us, but they might steal us, and make us their servants."

"Wouldn't it be fun?" said Hope with gleaming eyes. "And we would eat rabbits in a pot over a bonfire, and live in the fields always. Oh, I wish our home was a van!"

"I like this cottage better," said Faith gravely; "that woman looked most uncomfortable, and her bed was all in a muddle!"

Faith heard no more of Dan and his mother, but she did not forget them, and every night prayed for the sick woman.

Lady Melville was as good as her word. She came to see Granny, and Aunt Alice went over to the neighbouring town to see this governess who might help them.

Every day got warmer and longer. The children soon became friends with the neighbours round. The rector had no family. He was an old man, and his wife was very rheumatic, so was confined to the house a great deal, but the doctor, who lived at the other end of the village, had a little boy who was very delicate, and one day Hope and Faith met him in the village shop buying sweets.

Hope made friends with him by telling him which sweets she thought were the nicest. He was a slim little boy, with brown hair and pale face, and when he come out of the shop, he said:

"My name is Charlie Evans. What's yours? I saw you all in church last Sunday. I don't always come to church. I have headaches."

He said it with an air of pride. Faith looked at him pityingly.

"And don't you go to school?"

"No. I do lessons with mother, and she hates them, and so do I."

"And so do I!" said Faith eagerly. "But we shall have to begin them soon."

"Come and see my rabbits," Charlie said.

The little girls hesitated.

"We won't come to-day, till we ask Granny," said Hope; "but we'll come to-morrow, if she'll let us. Faith went to see some gipsies the other day and she didn't like it."

Charlie turned to Faith.

"Did you? What were they like? Dad told mother he was going to get a sick gipsy out of her van into hospital. She had nobody to look after her, but she went off before he could move her. Gipsies hate being taken care of!"

"Yes," said Faith; "that was the woman I saw. I'm so sorry she went away so quick! She seemed so ill, and so alone."

"I wish you were boys," said Charlie, looking at them with dissatisfaction. "I do want boys to play with so much. Do you know Lionel and Fairfax at the Hall?"

"No," said Hope. "I expect we shall know them, when they come home for the holidays."

"They won't think anything of you," said Charlie rather rudely; "they won't even let me play cricket with them, because I can't run fast enough."

"P'raps we can run faster than you?" Hope said.

Charlie looked gloomily at her, then he brightened up.

"I've got a lovely raft I made all myself on a stream under the willows," he said; "sometimes I go out on it all day to escape Indians."

Hope and Faith pressed nearer him.

"If Granny says we may play with you, will you let us play that?"

"It isn't play," said Charlie with sparkling eyes; "it's a real hard work. I take cargo with me—live cargo!"

Then he walked off and waved his cap in the air.

"If you want to join Captain Charles on his voyage to the Treasure Islands, you'll have to sign on before next Wednesday. The voyage begins on Thursday. That's the first day of my Easter holidays, and Mother and I mean to have three weeks' holidays if Father agrees, and the voyage will last three weeks."

Hope and Faith ran home in the greatest excitement. When Charity heard of the raft, she was determined to know Charlie as soon as possible. And when Aunt Alice heard of it, she said to Granny:

"Mrs. Evans told us of her delicate boy when she called the other day; there is no harm in the children playing together."

So when a little note came from Mrs. Evans, asking the three little girls to lunch on the next Wednesday, they were allowed to go, and went off to the doctor's house in high spirits.

Charlie welcomed them warmly. He took them to his schoolroom and showed them some silkworms and guinea pigs.

"Are these your live cargo?" asked Hope.

He looked at her sharply.

"I have a good deal more than these. Are you going to sign on?"

"I am," cried Hope delightedly.

Faith echoed her words, but Charity demurred.

"Look here," she said; "I always like fair play. One man doesn't want three servants."

"Crew," said Charlie; "you'll be the crew."

"Yes, I know," said Charity, her nose rather high in the air, "and if the Captain chooses, he can flog his crew and put them in irons. I've read all about it, and if they mutiny, what then?"

"They'll have to walk the plank," said Charlie, loftily.

"Oh, what fun!" exclaimed Hope.

"Well, you can do it," said Charity, "but I'm not going to do it; so I shall just be the Captain's wife."

Her audacity struck the three other children dumb.

"Then the wife stops at home," said Charlie, when he had recovered himself.

He had a weak body but a strong spirit.

"A Captain never takes his wife to sea, never!" he said.

"Oh, yes," said Charity, "when he finds her on a desert island and marries her, he brings her to his ship and they sail on together. You found me on the island. Don't you remember? You went to sleep, and when you woke up and you saw a strange shoe, it was too small for any man so you knew it was a woman's, and then you took it in your hand and went along to look, and suddenly you came upon me sitting in a bower with a crown of flowers in my hair, and I told you I had been shipwrecked, and I was Queen of the Island, and if you dared hurt me, I had an army of monkeys who would come down from the trees and kill you. And then we settled together to get married, and you took me away in your ship the next day."

Hope and Faith hung on Charity's words with open mouths and eyes. Charlie set his lips firmly together.

"I don't remember anything about it," he said. "I shall want three to make the crew. One is the cook, the other the one who rows, and the other who cleans and does the dirty work."

Charity set her lips tightly too.

"I'm not going to do what I am told by a boy no taller than myself," she said. "I'm your wife, and I'll promise to be the cook too. But I must be the wife first, and you and I must consult together about everything! And if you won't make me your wife, I'll turn into an alligator and upset the raft, and pull you all into the water. I really will, I know how to do it."

Charlie looked at her with an uncertain eye. But they were called to dinner, before anything could be settled, and as Charlie sat opposite to Charity, he was weighing in his mind the desirability of making her his wife. Hope and Faith looked easy to manage, but he did not want mutiny on his raft, nor did he want it upset, for he thought of his live cargo.

After dinner, they went back to the schoolroom, for the signing on must be accomplished.

"I'll join you as your wife, and it will be ripping," said Charity. "I've lived on a desert island, so I know how to turn my hand to anything; but I won't be one of your crew. I should mutiny the first five minutes, and remember we would be three against one. And I'm sure I could tie your legs together, and arms too, if I were to try; and you would be just a bundle to be sat on, while we went on and had the most thrilling adventures!"

Charlie felt the modern woman too much for him.

"All right," he said; "but if you're my wife, and contradict my orders, I'll land you on the first island we come to, and leave you there. Now, you two crew, sign on. Your names will be Bolt and Ben."

Hope and Faith signed their names on a crumpled bit of paper which set forth that for the whole of the voyage they obeyed the Captain in every particular, and stuck to the raft through every danger. Charity looked on with smiling superiority. But Charlie produced another piece of paper for her.

"A wife has nothing to sign," she said.

"Oh, yes," said Charlie, in a masterful tone: "A wife always signs in a church book after she is married, to make sure she means what she says when she promises to obey her husband and to serve him."

Charity pouted.

"I did that when we were married on the island."

"No, you didn't, for there was no proper church or prayer-book or clergyman," said Charlie quickly, "and you'll have to do it now, and then we shall be quite ready for to-morrow. And my ship sails punctual at eleven o'clock—all aboard by half-past ten."

"Oh, sign, Charity! It will be fun!" cried Hope.

And very reluctantly Charity read and signed the following declaration:

"I promise to obey and serve my husband for the whole of the voyage and until death us do part."

But before her signature, she added the words:

"If I think well."

And as Charlie did not see what she had written till after it was done, he was after all worsted by the woman.

Then they all went out into the garden, and down to the stream where the raft was moored.

It was quite big enough to hold them all, and the stream was just wide enough to let it go floating along without touching the banks. Charlie told them that the stream turned into a river, a mile or two along the fields.

"And then the river goes into the sea; so there's nothing between us and the real ocean, and we can go on for ever."

"Till we reach the Treasure," said Hope, "I hope we shall reach something, Charlie!"

Charlie nodded mysteriously.

The little girls went home in high spirits.

Granny looked slightly alarmed when she heard of what they intended to do, but Charity relieved her mind.

"The stream is so narrow, Granny, that we could step off the raft on the bank, any minute we wanted to, and oh, it will be such fun!"

Granny remembered the pranks of the boys in olden times, when she had so many of them in her house, and smiled.

"It is good to be young," she said.

"And the poor boy is prevented from a great deal of pleasure," said Aunt Alice; "Mrs. Horn was telling me about him. He will never make a strong man, they say."

"He has got a very strong spirit," said Hope; "or is it his soul that is strong and makes him like ordering girls about?"

"What's the difference between a spirit and a soul?" asked Faith.

"Oh, children, let us get away from such discussions," said Aunt Alice laughing; "they are too difficult for us altogether."

The little girls said no more, but they anxiously looked forward to the next day. Suppose it should rain?

Faith was snubbed when she suggested such a thing.

And when the day dawned it was a sunny Spring day.

There were no happier little girls in the world than Charity, Hope and Faith, as they started for the Doctor's house. Aunt Alice gave them a package of egg sandwiches, and some thick slices of bread and jam.

"Go and enjoy yourselves," she said, "but I expect you all back by six o'clock in the evening."

"And by that time," said Faith thoughtfully; "we shall have been a long sea voyage and back, and perhaps we shall come home laden with treasures!"

"Anything may happen," said Charity with fervour, "the very best, or the very worst!"

And so they marched away to meet their adventures.