father, and heard him give certain orders to the officers
of the watch. He had never heard orders given in such
a way: he spoke so quietly, so directly, so simply! The
night was gusty and dark, threatening foul weather. The
captain measured the quarter-deck as when first Clare saw
him, but with a mien how different! He walked as slow
and stately as before, but with a look almost of triumph in
his eyes, glancing often at the clouds. The thought of
having such a father made Clare tremble with delight from
head to foot. His father was the power of the sea-planet
that bore them! Him the great vessel, and all aboard of
her, obeyed! He was the life of her motions, the soul of
her! At his pleasure she bowed her obedient head, and
swept over the seas! Clare's heart swelled within him.
But this father had, the night before, knelt with him in
the presence of one unseen, worshipping and thanking a
higher than himself! As the captain of the Panther
sailed his frigate through the seas, so the great father, the
father of his father, the father of all fathers, to whom the
captain kneeled as a little child, sailed through the
heaven of heavens the huge ship of the world, guided
fleet upon fleet innumerable through trackless space!
And over an infinitely grander sea than the measureless
ocean of worlds, the Father was carrying navies of human
souls, every soul a world whose affairs none but the
Father could understand, through many a storm, and
waterspout, and battle with the powers of evil, safe to
the haven of the children, the Father's house ! And Clare
began to understand that so it was.
One day his father said to him
384 A ROUGH SHAKING.
" Clare, whatever you forget, whatever you remember,
mind this that you and I and your mother are the
children of one father, and that we have all three to be
good children to that father. If we do as he tells us, he
will bring us all at length to the same port. Our admiral
is Jesus Christ. We take our orders from him. But
each has to sail his own ship."
The boatswain shook in his wide shoes, but Clare never
showed him the least disfavour. He recognized at once
the two officers he had seen at the menagerie, but beyond
giving each a look he could hardly mistake, he showed no
sign of having any knowledge of them.
He set himself to be a sailor, and learned fast. I need
scarcely say he was as precise in obeying any superior
officer as the best sailor on board. In a few weeks he
felt and looked to the manner born as indeed he was,
for not only his father, but his grandfather, and his great-
grandfather, and more yet of his ancestors, how many
I do not know, were sailors.
He had had a rough shaking. The earthquake had
come and gone, and come again and gone a many times.
But the shaking earth was his nurse, and she taught him
to dwell in a world that cannot be shaken.
THE END.
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