The black ship: With Other Allegories and Parables

Once Hope had said to her—

"Mother, how beautiful our country is! And I think it is so happy always to be in sight of the sea. How dull those lands must be you tell us of which are so large that many people have to live out of hearing of the waves! I could not bear to live there; it must seem so narrow and close to be shut in on the land with nothing beyond. But here we can never get out of sight of the sea. May and I always find, wherever we roam among the hills, we never lose the sea. When we wander far back from the shore, the beautiful blue waters seem to follow us as if they loved us; and in the inmost recesses of the mountains we always see beneath us some glimpse of bright water in the creeks, which run up among the hills, or the rivers which come down to meet them. The sea seems to love every corner of our country, mother, and penetrate everywhere."

A cold shudder passed over the mother's frame, and tears gathered in her eyes.

"The sea is indeed everywhere, my children," she murmured, and then with a burst of irresistible emotion she clasped them to her heart, and added bitterly, "Happy the country which that sea cannot approach!"

May and Hope wondered greatly at her words; but there was something in her manner which awed them into silence. For some time after that, they often speculated together as to what her words could mean, a vague terror seemed to murmur in the ripple of the waves. But gradually the impression wore off in the happy forgetfulness of childhood, and their old schemes were resumed with the same zest as before.

One evening, however, as they were busied with their treasures in the cave, the tide surprised them, and when they set out to return home, they found the rocky point which separated them from their cottage surrounded with deep water. The sides of the cliff in the little cove where their cave lay were sheer precipices of smooth rock, too steep to climb, so that the children had to wait some hours before they could creep round the point. Eagerly they watched the declining sun and the retreating tide, and when the waves were only ankle-deep they bounded through them, and in a few minutes were at the cottage door.

It was not yet dark, and the children were dancing into the cottage full of spirits at their adventure, when they were startled at the appearance of their mother. She was leaning, stony and motionless, with fixed eyes and clasped hands, against the doorpost, and for a moment the sight of her darlings did not seem to rouse her. Then springing up with a wild cry, she strained them to her heart, covered them with kisses, laughed a wild laugh, broken with convulsive sobs, and at last fell fainting on the floor.

The children knelt beside her, and gradually she revived, and fell into a sleep. But every now and then she started as if with some terrible dream, and murmured in her sleep, "The ship—the Black Ship; not now, not yet; take me, not them; or take us all—take us all!"

The terrified children could not sleep, and all the next day they clung close to their mother, and scarcely spoke a word. In the evening, however, she rallied, and tried to speak cheerfully and account for her alarm.

"You were late, darlings; and I knew you were by the sea—the terrible sea."

But the children could not be comforted. They felt the weight of some vague apprehension; they could not be tempted to leave their mother; they crept noiselessly about, watching her movements. Until at last one night they whispered together, and resolved to take courage and ask their mother what made her dread the sea; and then they consulted long as to the best way of introducing the forbidden subject.

The next evening, as they sat together by the fireside, Hope began, and forgetting all the speeches they had prepared, fixed his large eyes on his mother's, and said abruptly, "Mother, what is there terrible in the sea?"

She paused a moment, her face grew deadly pale, and her lips trembled.

"Children, why should you wish to know? You will learn too soon without my telling you."

"O mother, tell us," said May. "We can bear anything from you. Do not let any one else tell us."

A sudden thought seemed to flash across her, and she said, "Children, you are right."

Then folding one arm around Hope as he stood by her, and taking May on her knee, she said, "It is not the sea I dread; it is the Black Ship. That is the terrible secret; and it is, indeed, better you should learn it from my lips than learn it by losing me, and no one be left to tell you how.

"My children," she continued, making a great effort to speak calmly, "this is the one sorrow of our country. From time to time a Black Ship, without sails or oars, glides silently to our shores, and anchors there. A dark, veiled Figure lands from it, and seizes any one of our people whom it chooses, without violence, without a sound, but with irresistible power, and quietly leads the victim away to the Ship, which immediately glides away again from our coasts as swiftly and noiselessly as it came; but no one ever sees those who are thus borne away any more."

"Whence does the Ship come, mother?" asked Hope, after a long silence. "And whither does it go?"

"No one knows, my child. That is the terrible thing about it. There is no sound nor voice. The agonised cries of those who are thus bereaved avail not to bring one word of reply from those lips, or to raise one fold of that dark veil. If we only knew, we could bear it."

"Have you ever seen it, mother?" asked Hope, determined bravely to plunge to the bottom of the terrible mystery, while May could only cling round her mother's neck and cry.

"I have seen it twice," she replied, speaking low and rapidly. "We did not always live here. Your father was rich and a man of rank, and loving us most dearly, he resolved to do all in his power to keep the terrible Form away. For this end, he built that castle you have often seen above the white tower. It is far above the sea; the rocks are perpendicular; it is built of solid stone; the doors were of oak, studded with iron; the windows barred with iron. No one was ever to be permitted to cross the moat without being strictly scrutinised. The gates were always to be closed.

"When it was finished, he made a feast. And after it, when the guests had left, and every bolt was drawn, we stood at the window of the room where you slept, and looked down triumphantly on the sea. A little sister of yours was sleeping in my arms. In the bay at our feet was moored the Black Ship. Our eyes seemed fascinated to it, and we could not speak. We saw the Veiled Figure; descend the side, and slowly scale the precipice beneath us, as if it had been a road made for it to tread. It walked over the waters of the castle moat, which did not seem to wet its feet. It stood on the balcony outside our window, and we could not stir. It passed through the iron bars. It laid its hand on my sleeping babe.

"Your father's strong arm was around us both, but before we could utter a cry, the darling had glided like a shadow from our embrace. The bright face of our baby was hidden from us under the folds of that impenetrable veil. We watched the terrible Form noiselessly descend the steep, re-enter the ship, and not until the Black Ship was already gliding swiftly out of sight could we overcome the terrible fascination. Then my cries of agony awoke the household, boats were manned in pursuit, but in vain, in vain—we felt it was in vain. We never saw the babe again."