“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, said:
“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 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.
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 heard 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 everything 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 a 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 everything.
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 sky above. Mary shivered, and her heart sank
within her. Still, now they evidently were making progress. Then the
steersman pointed to a rippling line on the river only a little way off,
and the men disturbed Mary, who was watching the ships that lay in what
appeared to her the open sea, to get at their sails.
She gave a little start and rose. Her patience, her grief, and perhaps
her silence, had begun to win upon the men.
“Yon second to the norrard is the _John Cropper_. Wind’s right now, and
sails will soon carry us alongside of her.”
He had forgotten (or perhaps he did not like to remind Mary) that the
same wind which now bore their little craft along with easy, rapid
motion, would also be favourable to the _John Cropper_.
But as they looked with straining eyes, as if to measure the decreasing
distance that separated them from her, they saw her sails unfurled and
flap in the breeze, till, catching the right point, they bellied forth
into white roundness, and the ship began to plunge and heave, as if she
were a living creature, impatient to be off.
“They’re heaving anchor!” said one of the boatmen to the other, as the
faint musical cry of the sailors came floating over the waters that still
separated them.
Full of the spirit of the chase, though as yet ignorant of Mary’s
motives, the men sprang to hoist another sail. It was fully as much as
the boat could bear, in the keen, gusty east wind which was now blowing,
and she bent, and laboured, and ploughed, and creaked upbraidingly as if
tasked beyond her strength; but she sped along with a gallant swiftness.
They drew nearer, and they heard the distant “ahoy” more clearly. It
ceased. The anchor was up, and the ship was away.
Mary stood up, steadying herself by the mast, and stretching out her
arms, imploring the flying vessel to stay its course, by that mute
action, while the tears streamed down her cheeks. The men caught up their
oars, and hoisted them in the air, and shouted to arrest attention.
They were seen by the men aboard the larger craft; but they were too busy
with all the confusion prevalent in an outward-bound vessel to pay much
attention. There were coils of ropes and seamen’s chests to be stumbled
over at every turn; there were animals not properly secured, roaming
bewildered about the deck, adding their pitiful lowings and bleatings to
the aggregate of noises. There were carcases not cut up, looking like
corpses of sheep and pigs rather than like mutton and pork; there were
sailors running here and there and everywhere, having had no time to fall
into method, and with their minds divided between thoughts of the land
and the people they had left, and the present duties on board ship; while
the captain strove hard to procure some kind of order by hasty commands
given, in a loud, impatient voice, to right and left, starboard and
larboard, cabin and steerage.
As he paced the deck with a chafed step, vexed at one or two little
mistakes on the part of the mate, and suffering himself from the pain of
separation from wife and children, but showing his suffering only by his
outward irritation, he heard a hail from the shabby little river boat
that was striving to overtake his winged ship. For the men fearing that,
as the ship was now fairly over the bar, they should only increase the
distance between them, and being now within shouting range, had asked of
Mary her more particular desire.
Her throat was dry, all musical sound had gone out of her voice; but in
a loud harsh whisper she told the men her errand of life and death, and
they hailed the ship.
“We’re come for one William Wilson, who is wanted to prove an _alibi_
in Liverpool Assize Courts to-morrow. James Wilson is to be tried for a
murder done on Thursday night when he was with William Wilson. Anything
more, missis?” asked the boatman of Mary, in a lower voice, and taking
his hands down from his mouth.
“Say I’m Mary Barton. Oh, the ship is going on! Oh, for the love of
Heaven, ask them to stop.”
The boatman was angry at the little regard paid to his summons, and
called out again; repeating the message with the name of the young woman
who sent it, and interlarding it with sailors’ oaths.
The ship flew along—away—the boat struggled after.
They could see the captain take his speaking-trumpet. And oh! and alas!
they heard his words.
He swore a dreadful oath; he called Mary a disgraceful name; and he said
he would not stop his ship for anyone, nor could he part with a single
hand, whoever swung for it.
The words came in unpitying clearness with their trumpet-sound. Mary
sat down looking like one who prays in the death agony. For her eyes
were turned up to that heaven where mercy dwelleth, while her blue lips
quivered, though no sound came. Then she bowed her head and hid it in her
hands.
“Hark! yon sailor hails us.”
She looked up. And her heart stopped its beating to listen.
William Wilson stood as near the stern of the vessel as he could get; and
unable to obtain the trumpet from the angry captain, made a tube of his
own hands.
“So help me God, Mary Barton, I’ll come back in the pilot-boat time
enough to save the life of the innocent.”
“What does he say?” asked Mary wildly, as the voice died away in the
increasing distance, while the boatmen cheered, in their kindled sympathy
with their passenger.
“What does he say?” repeated she. “Tell me. I could not hear.”
She had heard with her ears, but her brain refused to recognise the sense.
They repeated his speech, all three speaking at once, with many comments;
while Mary looked at them and then at the vessel far away.
“I don’t rightly know about it,” said she sorrowfully. “What is the
pilot-boat?”
They told her, and she gathered the meaning out of the sailors’ slang
which enveloped it. There was a hope still, although so slight and faint.