Somehow her undefined wishes took shape in visions of John Storm, and
one day she heard he was home again. She went out on the hill that
evening and, being seen only by the gulls, she laughed and cried and
ran. It was just like poetry, for there he was himself lying on the
edge of the cliff near the very spot where she had been used to lie. On
seeing him she went more slowly, and began to poke about in the
heather as if she had seen nothing. He came up to her with both hands
outstretched, and then suddenly she remembered that she was wearing her
old jersey, and she flushed up to the eyes and nearly choked with shame.
She got better by-and-bye and talked away like a mill-wheel, and then
fearing he might think it was from something quite different, she began
to pull the heather and to tell him why she had been blushing. He did
not laugh at all. With a strange smile he said something in his deep
voice that made her blood run cold.
“But I'm to be a poor man myself in future, Glory. I've quarrelled with
my father. I'm going into the Church.”
It was a frightful blow to her, and the sun went down like a shot. But
it burst open the bars of her cage for all that. After John Storm had
found a curacy in London and taken Orders, he told them at Glenfaba that
among his honorary offices was to be that of chaplain to a great West
End hospital. This suggested to Glory the channel of escape. She would
go out as a hospital nurse. It was easier said than done, for hospital
nursing was fashionable, and she was three years too young. With great
labour she secured her appointment as probationer, and with greater
labour still overcame the fear and affection of her grandfather. But the
old parson was finally appeased when he heard that Glory's hospital was
the same that John Storm was to be chaplain of, and that they might go
up to London together.
III.
“Dear Grandfather Of Me, And Everybody At Glenfaba: Here I am at last,
dears, at the end of my Pilgrim's Progress, and the evening and the
morning' are the first day. It is now eleven o'clock at night, and I
am about to put myself to bed in my own little room at the hospital of
Martha's Vineyard, Hyde Park, London, England.
“The captain was quite right; the morning was as fresh as his flattery,
and before we got far beyond the Head most of the passengers were spread
out below like the three legs of Man. Being an old sea-doggie myself, I
didn't give it the chance to make me sick, but went downstairs and lay
quiet in my berth and deliberated great things. I didn't go up again
until we got into the Mersey, and then the passengers were on deck,
looking like sour buttermilk spilt out of the churn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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