And Tom accompanied the Lieutenant on his dreary errand that day, and several days after, through depositions before a justice, interviews with Lloyd’s underwriters, and all the sad details which follow a wreck.  Ere the week’s end, forty bodies and more had been recovered, and brought up, ten or twelve at a time, to the churchyard, and upon the down, and laid side by side in one long shallow pit, where Frank Headley read over them the blessed words of hope, amid the sobs of women, and the grand silence of stalwart men, who knew not how soon their turn might come; and after each procession came Grace Harvey, with all her little scholars two and two, to listen to the funeral service; and when the last corpse was buried, they planted flowers upon the mound, and went their way again to learn hymns and read their Bible—­little ministering angels to whom, as to most sailors’ children, death was too common a sight to have in it aught of hideous or strange.

And this was the end of the good ship Hesperus, and all her gallant crew.

Verily, however important the mere animal lives of men may be, and ought to be, at times, in our eyes, they never have been so, to judge from floods and earthquakes, pestilence and storm, in the eyes of Him who made and loves us all.  It is a strange fact, better for us, instead of shutting our eyes to it because it interferes with our modern tenderness of pain, to ask honestly what it means.

CHAPTER V.

THE WAY TO WIN THEM.

So, for a week or more, Tom went on thrivingly enough, and became a general favourite in the town.  Heale had no reason to complain of boarding him; for he had dinner and supper thrust on him every day by one and another, who were glad enough to have him for the sake of his stories, and songs, and endless fun and good-humour.  The Lieutenant, above all, took the new-comer under his especial patronage, and was paid for his services in some of Tom’s incomparable honey-dew.  The old fellow soon found that the Doctor knew more than one old foreign station of his, and ended by pouring out to him his ancient wrongs, and the evil doings of the wicked admiral; all of which Tom heard with deepest sympathy, and surprise that so much naval talent had remained unappreciated by the unjust upper powers; and the Lieutenant, of course, reported of him accordingly to Heale.

“A very civil spoken and intelligent youngster, Mr. Heale, d’ye see, to my mind; and you can’t do better than accept his offer; for you’ll find him a great help, especially among the ladies, d’ye see.  They like a good-looking chap, eh, Mrs. Jones?”

On the fourth day, by good fortune, what should come ashore but Tom’s own chest—­moneyless, alas! but with many useful matters still unspoilt by salt water.  So, all went well, and indeed somewhat too well (if Tom would have let it), in the case of Miss Anna Maria Heale, the Doctor’s daughter.