The Mighty Atom | Page 3

his eyes. There were hundreds of delicate little shells knitted into it, as fragile and fine as pearls, and every such tiny casket held a life as frail. Ample material for meditation was there in this tangle of mysterious organisms marvellously perfect, and while he minutely studied the dainty net-work of ocean's weaving, across the young boy's mind there flitted the dark shadow of the inscrutable and unseen. He asked within himself, just as the oldest and wisest scholars have asked to their dying day, the 'why' of things,--the cause for the prolific creation of so many apparently unnecessary objects, such as a separate universe of shells for example,--what was the ultimate intention of it all? He thought earnestly,--and thinking, grew sorrowful, child though he was, with the hopeless sorrow of Ecclesiastes the Preacher and his incessant cry of 'Vanitas vanitatem!' Meantime the heavens were ablaze with glory,--the two rims of the friendly planets, earth and the sun, seemed to touch one another on the edge of the sea,--then, the bright circle was covered by the dark, and the soft haze of a purple twilight began to creep over the 'Hangman's Hills' as they are curiously styled,--the Great and the Little Hangman. There is nothing about these grassy slopes at all suggestive of capital punishment, and they appear to have derived their names from a legend of the country which tells how a thief, running away with a stolen sheep tied across his back, was summarily and unexpectedly punished for his misdeed by the sheep itself, who struggled so violently, as to pull the cord which fastened it close round its captor's throat in a thoroughly 'hangman' like manner, thus killing him on the spot. The two promontories form a bold and picturesque headland as seen from the sea, and Willie Montrose, resting for a moment on his oars, looked up at them admiringly, and almost with love in his eyes, just because they reminded him of a favourite little bit of coast scenery in his own more romantic and beautiful Scottish land. Then he brought his gaze down to the curled-up small figure of his pupil, who was still absorbed in the contemplation of his treasure-trove of sea-weed and shells.
"What have you got there, Lionel?" he asked.
The boy turned round and faced him.
"Thousands of little people!" he answered, with a smile,--"All in pretty little houses of their own too,--look!"and he held up his dripping trophy,--"It's quite a city, isn't it?--and I shouldn't wonder if the inhabitants thought almost as much of themselves as we do." His eyes darkened, and the smile on his young face vanished. "What do you think about it, Mr. Montrose? I don't see that we are a bit more valuable in the universe than these little shell-people."
Montrose made no immediate reply. He pulled out a big silver watch and glanced at it.
"Tea-time!" he announced abruptly--"Put the shell-people back in their own native element, my boy, and don't ask me any conundrums just now, please! Take an oar!"
With a flush of pleasure, Lionel obeyed,--first dropping the seaweed carefully into a frothy billow that just then shouldered itself up caressingly against the boat, and watching it float away. Then he pulled at the oar manfully enough with his weak little arms,--while Montrose, controlling his own strength that it might not overbalance that of the child, noted his exertions with a grave and somewhat pitying air. The tide was flowing in, and the boat went swiftly with it,--the healthful exercise sent colour into Lionel's pale cheeks and lustre into his deep-set eyes, so that when they finally ran their little craft ashore and sprang out of it, the boy looked as nature meant all boys to look, bright and happy-hearted, and the sad little furrow on his forehead, so indicative of painful thought and study, was scarcely perceptible. Glancing first up at the darkening skies, then at his own clothes sprinkled with salt spray, he laughed joyously as he said,
"I'm afraid we shall catch it when we get home, Mr. Montrose!"
"I shall,--you won't;" returned Montrose imperturbably, "But,--as it's my last evening,--it doesn't matter."
All the mirth faded from Lionel's face, and he uttered a faint cry of wonder and distress.
"Your last evening?--oh no!--surely not! You don't,--you can't mean it!" he faltered nervously.
Willie Montrose's honest blue eyes softened with a great tenderness and compassion.
"Come along, laddie, and have your tea!" he said kindly, his tongue lapsing somewhat into his own soft Highland accentuation; "Come along and I'll tell you all about it. Life is like being out on the sea yonder,--a body must take the rough with the smooth, and just make the best of it. One mustn't mind a few troubles now and then,--and--and--partings and the like; you've often heard that the best of friends must part, haven't you?