The Complete Novels of Elizabeth Gaskell. Elizabeth Gaskell
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a sight of her in the offing. If she's weighed her anchor no use for your going, you know."
Mary assented quietly to this speech, as if she were as careless as Charley seemed now to be about her overtaking Will; but in truth her heart was sinking within her, and she no longer felt the energy which had hitherto upheld her. Her bodily strength was giving way, and she stood cold and shivering, although the noon-day sun beat down with considerable power on the shadeless spot where she was standing.
"Here's Tom Bourne!" said Charley; and altering his manner from the patronising key in which he had spoken to Mary, he addressed a weather-beaten old sailor who came rolling along the pathway where they stood, his hands in his pockets, and his quid in his mouth, with very much the air of one who had nothing to do but look about him, and spit right and left; addressing this old tar, Charley made known to him his wish in slang, which to Mary was almost inaudible, and quite unintelligible, and which I am too much of a land-lubber to repeat correctly.
Mary watched looks and actions with a renovated keenness of perception.
She saw the old man listen attentively to Charley; she saw him eye her over from head to foot, and wind up his inspection with a little nod of approbation (for her very shabbiness and poverty of dress were creditable signs to the experienced old sailor); and then she watched him leisurely swing himself on to a ship in the basin, and, borrowing a glass, run up the mast with the speed of a monkey.
"He'll fall!" said she, in affright, clutching at Charley's arm, and judging the sailor, from his storm-marked face and unsteady walk on land, to be much older than he really was.
"Not he!" said Charley. "He's at the mast-head now. See! he's looking through his glass, and using his arms as steady as if he were on dry land. Why, I've been up the mast, many and many a time; only don't tell mother. She thinks I'm to be a shoemaker, but I've made up my mind to be a sailor; only there's no good arguing with a woman. You'll not tell her, Mary?"
"Oh, see!" exclaimed she (his secret was very safe with her, for, in fact, she had not heard it). "See! he's coming down; he's down. Speak to him, Charley."
But unable to wait another instant she called out herself,
"Can you see the John Cropper? Is she there yet?"
"Ay, ay," he answered, and coming quickly up to them, he hurried them away to seek for a boat, saying the bar was already covered, and in an hour the ship would hoist her sails and be off. "You've the wind right against you, and must use oars. No time to lose."
They ran to some steps leading down to the water. They beckoned to some watermen, who, suspecting the real state of the case, appeared in no hurry for a fare, but leisurely brought their boat alongside the stairs, as if it were a matter of indifference to them whether they were engaged or not, while they conversed together in few words, and in an under-tone, respecting the charge they should make.
"Oh, pray make haste," called Mary. "I want you to take me to the John Cropper. Where is she, Charley? Tell them—I don't rightly know the words,—only make haste!"
"In the offing she is, sure enough, miss," answered one of the men, shoving Charley on one side, regarding him as too young to be a principal in the bargain.
"I don't think we can go, Dick," said he, with a wink to his companion; "there's the gentleman over at New Brighton as wants us."
"But, mayhap, the young woman will pay us handsome for giving her a last look at her sweetheart," interposed the other.
"Oh, how much do you want? Only make haste—I've enough to pay you, but every moment is precious," said Mary.
"Ay, that it is. Less than an hour won't take us to the mouth of the river, and she'll be off by two o'clock!"
Poor Mary's ideas of "plenty of money," however, were different to those entertained by the boatmen. Only fourteen or fifteen shillings remained out of the sovereign Margaret had lent her, and the boatmen, imagining "plenty" to mean no less than several pounds, insisted upon receiving a sovereign (an exorbitant fare, by the bye, although reduced from their first demand of thirty shillings).
While Charley, with a boy's impatience of delay, and disregard of money, kept urging,
"Give it 'em, Mary; they'll none of them take you for less. It's your only chance. There's St. Nicholas ringing one!"
"I've only got fourteen and ninepence," cried she, in despair, after counting over her money; "but I'll give you my shawl, and you can sell it for four or five shillings,—oh! won't that much do?" asked she, in such a tone of voice, that they must indeed have had hard hearts who could refuse such agonised entreaty.
They took her on board.
And in less than five minutes she was rocking and tossing in a boat for the first time in her life, alone with two rough, hard-looking men.
Chapter XXVIII.
"John Cropper, Ahoy!"
"A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
A wind that follows fast
And fills the white and rustling sail,
And bends the gallant mast!
And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
While, like the eagle free,
Away the good ship flies, and leaves
Old England on the lee."
Allan Cunningham.
Mary had not understood that Charley was not coming with her. In fact, she had not thought about it, till she perceived his absence, as they pushed off from the landing-place, and remembered that she had never thanked him for all his kind interest in her behalf; and now his absence made her feel most lonely—even his, the little mushroom friend of an hour's growth.
The boat threaded her way through the maze of larger vessels which surrounded the shore, bumping against one, kept off by the oars from going right against another, overshadowed by a third, until at length they were fairly out on the broad river, away from either shore; the sights and sounds of land being lost in the distance.
And then came a sort of pause.
Both wind and tide were against the two men, and labour as they would they made but little way. Once Mary in her impatience had risen up to obtain a better view of the progress they had made, but the men had roughly told her to sit down immediately, and she had dropped on her seat like a chidden child, although the impatience was still at her heart.
But now she grew sure they were turning off from the straight course which they had hitherto kept on the Cheshire side of the river, whither they had gone to avoid the force of the current, and after a short time she could not help naming her conviction, as a kind of nightmare dread and belief came over her, that every thing animate and inanimate was in league against her one sole aim and object of overtaking Will.
They answered gruffly. They saw a boatman whom they knew, and were desirous of obtaining his services as steersman, so that both might row with greater effect. They knew what they were about. So she sat silent with clenched hands while the parley went on, the explanation was given, the favour asked and granted. But she was sickening all the time with nervous fear.
They had been rowing a long, long time—half a day it seemed, at least—yet Liverpool appeared still close at hand, and Mary began almost to wonder that the men were not as much disheartened as she was, when the wind, which had been hitherto against them, dropped, and thin clouds began to gather over the sky, shutting out the sun, and casting a chilly gloom over every thing.
There was not a breath of air, and yet it was colder than when the soft violence of the westerly wind had been felt.
The men renewed their efforts. The boat gave a bound forwards at every pull of the oars. The water was glassy and motionless, reflecting tint by tint of the Indian-ink