"If you are good, my child," said Gertrude, gently, "you need not be terrified at anything-not even at death itself." 66 Why must father go after those ugly brown men ?" asked Sophy. "Why could not he stay here with us?" "The poor brown men are very unhappy, my child," said Gertrude, "and your father is anxious to help them if he possibly can." "Do tell him when he goes next to them, mother, to bring me a little brown child back with him," said Sophy. "I would wash it and comb it every day, and try and make it white and clean; and then I would feed it and coax it, and show it my pictures, and tell it about the black sheep." Here the pastor's wife was obliged to put an end to the conversation, for little Caroline had become hungry, and would not lie quiet any longer. Although Egede and his party remained absent longer than the appointed time, Gertrude was not uneasy, because she had, as I have said before, such a firm confidence in the protecting hand of an all-seeing Providence. On the afternoon of the fourth day, after the pastor and his followers had reached the Greenlanders' huts, the four women in the colony were busy preparing the dinner. The men who still remained at home had gone across to the ship, to fetch many things they wanted, with the exception of the book-keeper, who was doing accounts in his room. "Our people will be sure to come home to-day," said Hannah, who was kneeling before the fire, "if they have met with no disaster." At that moment a hoarse sort of howl was heard at the door of the room, and a heavy body knocked against it and made the boards crack. "That is Aaron, the funny fellow," exclaimed Catty. "I know the tricks he plays to announce his approach. He must have smelt the dinner, and ran on before the others to have the first taste." So saying, Catty went to open the door. In an instant she flung it to again with a terrible scream; but not quickly enough to prevent a huge hairy white foot, armed with long claws, from inserting itself through the opening, while Catty squeezed the door upon it with all her strength. "Help, help! for heaven's sake!" she shrieked in the utmost terror. "Here is a white bear forcing me back." Two of the women rushed to her assistance, and pressed their shoulders against the door, while the third struck the paw as hard as she could with a wooden shovel she had snatched it seemed to make no impression. up; but Gertrude, meantime, had first hidden her youngest child as carefully as she could behind the great stove; and then, just at the moment when, with a violent struggle, the huge beast shook the women a yard away from the door, and poked his long head into the room, Gertrude made her appearance before him, with a pot of boiling gruel in her trembling hands. Bruin opened his black jaws just at that moment, showing his white teeth and red tongue; and the pastor's wife instantly flung the whole contents of the pot into his face, covering his eyes and nose and open mouth with a thick salve of the boiling mess. The weapon was well chosen. Master Bruin soon had enough of his first specimen of European cookery, and in a moment his head and paw were withdrawn, and the door flung to, locked and bolted. The danger, however, was by no means over. The infuriated animal, maddened by the pain, raged up and down the gallery into which the four divisions of the house opened in the most fearful way; and the terrified inhabitants expected every moment to see their frail wooden partition torn down, and the monster satisfying his hunger with their blood. At last all was quiet, and he seemed gone. Then Gertrude had time to look around her. Ohle, the merchant, was sitting perched upon the stove, clinging on with his left hand, and holding a loaded gun in his right. Catty stood bravely prepared to fight, armed with a firebrand she had snatched out of the flames. Hannah had crept into one of the beds, and Susan into a huge linen-trunk, where her voice was faintly heard entreating to be helped out before she was suffocated. Little Caroline was very snugly seated behind the stove, playing with her own feet, and endeavouring to kiss each tiny toe successively. The pastor's wife took all this in with one rapid glance, and then exclaimed, "Where is my child my Sophy?" Without waiting for an answer, however, she rushed out of the room, and all over the house, returning in a few moments, still uttering her agonized cry of "My child! my child!” "She went out into the front of the house," muttered Hannah's voice from behind the bed, "to fetch some wood." 66 Give me your gun," exclaimed Gertrude, springing up upon the stove to take possession of the merchant's weapon. Mr. Ohle however declined, fearing the bear might return and find him defenceless. "Do be reasonable, madam!" he said, changing his gun alternately from hand to hand, to keep it out of her reach. "The gun is loaded; if you are so vehement, it may go off and kill you! Won't you listen to me?" "Only give me the gun!" cried the pastor's wife, all out of breath, but continuing to struggle with the merchant, who found himself compelled to leap down against his will, and continue the battle on flat ground. But Gertrude left the cowardly fellow in possession of his weapon, and hastened to the door to unlock it, and go to the assistance of her child-all unarmed as she was, and unstrengthened, save by the all-powerful panoply of maternal love. The only two people in the room, however, who were on their legs-not either behind the bedclothes or in the chest-resisted her efforts to escape, but the strength of love conquered. Mr. Ohle fell to the ground so suddenly that all his ribs cracked, and Catty's whole length was soon reposing on the boards. They lost no time, however, in jumping up to bar the door again, after the pastor's wife's hasty departure. "The devil's in the woman, I do believe !" said the merchant, shaking himself; "she is nearly as dangerous as the bear. Mrs. Catty, who is knocking? calling so out of that trunk? suppose it can't be the girl for whose sake all this scene has taken place?" It must be supposed extreme fear takes away the eyesight, otherwise the merchant, who had himself seen Susan get into the trunk, from which Catty now rescued her, would never have asked such a question. "I cannot see," continued the merchant (while he ventured a cautious glance through the little window), "what the woman can do! Either the bear has devoured the child, or he has not. In the first event she is past help, in the second she would not require any." Gertrude, meantime, did not pause to look at the bear outside, who, sometimes howling, sometimes sneezing, was still endeavouring to rub away the hot plaster with his paws, but hastened to the pile of wood, which was built up near the dwelling-house, looking earnesly around in an agony of anxiety, to ascertain if she could discover any traces of her unhappy child. She had not long to look, for there was Sophy, alive and uninjured, cowering down in a sort of shed, made by three great billets of wood. "Hush! hush!" cried the rejoicing mother, very softly, "or the white bear will find us out!" and she took her restored child into her arms, kissing it tenderly with floods of joyful tears, though the danger was by no means over. Master Bruin was not at all calmed, but continued raging about, and frequently passed close in front of the protecting logs. Moreover, the burnt bear, it appeared, was but a young one, for an old she-bear, followed by another young one, soon came up to the spot, attracted by his howls; and first alternately licked his wounded face, and then turned their rage against the house, the inhabitants of which were ignorant of the extent of their danger. "Why does the bear howl so?" asked Sophy in a whisper. "Hush!" replied her mother; "for heaven's sake keep quite If the bears find us out we shall be lost." still. "But you told me we should rise again if a bear did eat us,” replied the child. "It hurts, though," said her mother, "to die such a death. It hurts very much, and what would papa say if he came back and could not find us?" "How many times would a bear bite at me, if he wanted to eat my head?" asked Sophy. "Would he take two bites to it?" Gertrude felt as if the bear's long teeth were actually in her flesh, as she listened to these childish questions of Sophy's. She pressed her convulsively to her heart, and whispered, “Pray, my dear child, pray to God that He may send His angels to watch over us." "I am hardly at all afraid," replied the child, "now you are with me. And even when the bear came close by this piece of wood "A crash interrupted her-for the old she-bear with one spring and blow of her paw had burst in one of the windows of the house. Immediately after there was a flash of light in the opening, and a bullet sent by the merchant's unskilful hand whistled close to Gertrude's arm, but missed the head of the she-bear, who, as well as her young ones, was excited to fresh anger by the shot; and, indeed, it was almost a miracle that the roving eye of the prowling monster did not detect the hiding-place of the mother and her child. Gertrude still retained her presence of mind, and had determined, if she really saw the bear had discovered her, to overturn the pile of wood, and run the risk of being buried with her child in the fragments rather than become the prey of the wild beast. She had even twice clutched one of the lower billets to execute her desperate intentions, when shouts from two opposite directions at the same moment convinced her help was at hand. Egede with his companions came up at the same time with the men who had been to the vessel, and immediately a hot fire was opened upon the unbidden guests they discovered breaking into their house. Gertrude was still in imminent peril, however, if not from the bears, at least from the balls; from which she strove to shelter Sophy with her own body. One young bear soon trotted off, with several balls buried in his thick hide. His brother fell with one through his heart, and expired with a growl. The old shebear remained licking her dying child, till she too was shot; and the victors approached with a cry of triumph. Suddenly the smith, pointing with his lance to the pile of wood where Gertrude, speechless with emotion, was creeping out of her hiding-place with the child, exclaimed, "Present your pieces, there is another beast in there!" Gertrude's white sheepskin jacket might truly have been the cause of her death, had she not recovered her powers of speech before the balls could arrive, and thereby convinced them she was not a white bear, to her husband's great joy. When, after this happy meeting, they stood contemplating their fallen enemies, fearful even in death, the pastor remarked, pointing as he spoke to the she-bear, "This poor beast puts many a Christian to shame by the strength of her maternal love." But the pastor's wife had no need to blush, for she had done more for her child than even the she-bear! INNOCENT PLEASURES. FEW rightly estimate the worth Of joys that spring and fade on earth : He who never relaxes into sportiveness is a wearisome companion, but beware of him who jests at everything. |