HOW MARY PASSED THE NIGHT.
"To think
That all this long interminable night,
Which I have passed in thinking on two words--
'Guilty'--'Not Guilty!'--like one happy moment
O'er many a head hath flown unheeded by;
O'er happy sleepers dreaming in their bliss
Of bright to-morrows--or far happier still,
With deep breath buried in forgetfulness.
O all the dismallest images of death
Did swim before my eyes!"
WILSON.
And now, where was Mary?
How Job's heart would have been relieved of one of its cares if he
could have seen her: for he was in a miserable state of anxiety about
her; and many and many a time through that long night he scolded her
and himself; her for her obstinacy, and himself for his weakness in
yielding to her obstinacy, when she insisted on being the one to
follow and find out Will.
She did not pass that night in bed any more than Job; but she was
under a respectable roof, and among kind, though rough people.
She had offered no resistance to the old boatman, when he had
clutched her arm, in order to insure her following him, as he
threaded the crowded dock-ways, and dived up strange bye-streets. She
came on meekly after him, scarcely thinking in her stupor where she
was going, and glad (in a dead, heavy way) that some one was deciding
things for her.
He led her to an old-fashioned house, almost as small as house could
be, which had been built long ago, before all the other part of
the street, and had a country-town look about it in the middle of
that bustling back street. He pulled her into the house-place; and
relieved to a certain degree of his fear of losing her on the way, he
exclaimed,
"There!" giving a great slap of one hand on her back.
The room was light and bright, and roused Mary (perhaps the slap on
her back might help a little, too), and she felt the awkwardness
of accounting for her presence to a little bustling old woman who
had been moving about the fire-place on her entrance. The boatman
took it very quietly, never deigning to give any explanation, but
sitting down in his own particular chair, and chewing tobacco, while
he looked at Mary with the most satisfied air imaginable, half
triumphantly, as if she were the captive of his bow and spear, and
half defyingly, as if daring her to escape.
The old woman, his wife, stood still, poker in hand, waiting to be
told who it was that her husband had brought home so unceremoniously;
but, as she looked in amazement the girl's cheek flushed, and then
blanched to a dead whiteness; a film came over her eyes, and catching
at the dresser for support in that hot whirling room, she fell in a
heap on the floor.
Both man and wife came quickly to her assistance. They raised her up,
still insensible, and he supported her on one knee, while his wife
pattered away for some cold fresh water. She threw it straight over
Mary; but though it caused a great sob, the eyes still remained
closed, and the face as pale as ashes.
"Who is she, Ben?" asked the woman, as she rubbed her unresisting,
powerless hands.
"How should I know?" answered her husband gruffly.
"Well-a-well!" (in a soothing tone, such as you use to irritated
children), and as if half to herself, "I only thought you might, you
know, as you brought her home. Poor thing! we must not ask aught
about her, but that she needs help. I wish I'd my salts at home, but
I lent 'em to Mrs. Burton, last Sunday in church, for she could not
keep awake through the sermon. Dear-a-me, how white she is!"
"Here! you hold her up a bit," said her husband.
She did as he desired, still crooning to herself, not caring for his
short, sharp interruptions as she went on; and, indeed, to her old,
loving heart, his crossest words fell like pearls and diamonds, for
he had been the husband of her youth; and even he, rough and crabbed
as he was, was secretly soothed by the sound of her voice, although
not for worlds, if he could have helped it, would he have shown any
of the love that was hidden beneath his rough outside.
"What's the old fellow after?" said she, bending over Mary, so as to
accommodate the drooping head. "Taking my pen, as I've had better
nor five year. Bless us, and save us! he's burning it! Ay, I see now,
he's his wits about him; burnt feathers is always good for a faint.
But they don't bring her round, poor wench! Now what's he after
next? Well! he is a bright one, my old man! That I never thought of
that, to be sure!" exclaimed she, as he produced a square bottle of
smuggled spirits, labelled "Golden Wasser," from a corner cupboard in
their little room.
"That'll do!" said she, as the dose he poured into Mary's open mouth
made her start and cough. "Bless the man! It's just like him to be so
tender and thoughtful!"
"Not a bit!" snarled he, as he was relieved by Mary's returning
colour, and opened eyes, and wondering, sensible gaze; "not a bit!
I never was such a fool afore."
His wife helped Mary to rise, and placed her in a chair.
"All's right now, young woman?" asked the boatman, anxiously.
"Yes, sir, and thank you. I'm sure, sir, I don't know rightly how to
thank you," faltered Mary, softly forth.
"Be hanged to you and your thanks." And he shook himself, took his
pipe, and went out without deigning another word; leaving his wife
sorely puzzled as to the character and history of the stranger within
her doors.
Mary watched the boatman leave the house, and then, turning her
sorrowful eyes to the face of her hostess, she attempted feebly to
rise, with the intention of going away,--where she knew not.
"Nay! nay! who e'er thou be'st, thou'rt not fit to go out into the
street. Perhaps" (sinking her voice a little) "thou'rt a bad one; I
almost misdoubt thee, thou'rt so pretty. Well-a-well! it's the bad
ones as have the broken hearts, sure enough; good folk never get
utterly cast down, they've always getten hope in the Lord: it's the
sinful as bear the bitter, bitter grief in their crushed hearts, poor
souls; it's them we ought, most of all, to pity and to help. She
shanna leave the house to-night, choose who she is,--worst woman in
Liverpool, she shanna. I wished I knew where th' old man picked her
up, that I do."
Mary had listened feebly to this soliloquy, and now tried to satisfy
her hostess in weak, broken sentences.
"I'm not a bad one, missis, indeed. Your master took me out to sea
after a ship as had sailed. There was a man in it as might save a
life at the trial to-morrow. The captain would not let him come, but
he says he'll come back in the pilot-boat." She fell to sobbing at
the thought of her waning hopes, and the old woman tried to comfort
her, beginning with her accustomed,
"Well-a-well! and he'll come back, I'm sure. I know he will; so keep
up your heart. Don't fret about it. He's sure to be back."
"Oh! I'm afraid! I'm sore afraid he won't," cried Mary, consoled,
nevertheless, by the woman's assertions, all groundless as she knew
them to be.
Still talking half to herself and half to Mary, the old woman
prepared tea, and urged her visitor to eat and refresh herself. But
Mary shook her head at the proffered food, and only drank a cup of
tea with thirsty eagerness. For the spirits had thrown her into a
burning heat, and rendered each impression received through her
senses of the most painful distinctness and intensity, while her head
ached in a terrible manner.
She disliked speaking, her power over her words seemed so utterly
gone. She used quite different expressions to those she intended. So
she kept silent, while Mrs. Sturgis (for that was the name of her
hostess) talked away, and put her tea-things by, and moved about
incessantly, in a manner that increased the dizziness in Mary's head.
She felt as if she ought to take leave for the night and go. But
where?
Presently the old man came back, crosser and gruffer than when he
went away. He kicked aside the dry shoes his wife had prepared for
him, and snarled at all she said. Mary attributed this to his finding
her still there, and gathered up her strength for an effort to leave
the house. But she was mistaken. By-and-bye, he said (looking right
into the fire, as if addressing it), "Wind's right against them!"
"Ay, ay, and is it so?" said his wife, who, knowing him well,
knew that his surliness proceeded from some repressed sympathy.
"Well-a-well, wind changes often at night. Time enough before
morning. I'd bet a penny it has changed sin' thou looked."
She looked out of their little window at a weather-cock, near,
glittering in the moonlight; and as she was a sailor's wife, she
instantly recognised the unfavourable point at which the indicator
seemed stationary, and giving a heavy sigh, turned into the room, and
began to beat about in her own mind for some other mode of comfort.
"There's no one else who can prove what you want at the trial
to-morrow, is there?" asked she.
"No one!" answered Mary.
"And you've no clue to the one as is really guilty, if t'other is
not?"
Mary did not answer, but trembled all over.
Sturgis saw it.
"Don't bother her with thy questions," said he to his wife. "She mun
go to bed, for she's all in a shiver with the sea air. I'll see after
the wind, hang it, and the weather-cock, too. Tide will help 'em when
it turns."
Mary went up-stairs murmuring thanks and blessings on those who took
the stranger in. Mrs. Sturgis led her into a little room redolent of
the sea and foreign lands. There was a small bed for one son, bound
for China; and a hammock slung above for another, who was now tossing
in the Baltic. The sheets looked made out of sail-cloth, but were
fresh and clean in spite of their brownness.
Against the wall were wafered two rough drawings of vessels with
their names written underneath, on which the mother's eyes caught,
and gazed until they filled with tears. But she brushed the drops
away with the back of her hand, and in a cheerful tone went on to
assure Mary the bed was well aired.
"I cannot sleep, thank you. I will sit here, if you please," said
Mary, sinking down on the window-seat.
"Come, now," said Mrs. Sturgis, "my master told me to see you to bed,
and I mun. What's the use of watching? A watched pot never boils, and
I see you are after watching that weather-cock. Why now, I try never
to look at it, else I could do nought else. My heart many a time goes
sick when the wind rises, but I turn away and work away, and try
never to think on the wind, but on what I ha' getten to do."
"Let me stay up a little," pleaded Mary, as her hostess seemed so
resolute about seeing her to bed. Her looks won her suit.
"Well, I suppose I mun. I shall catch it down stairs, I know. He'll
be in a fidget till you're getten to bed, I know; so you mun be quiet
if you are so bent upon staying up."
And quietly, noiselessly, Mary watched the unchanging weather-cock
through the night. She sat on the little window-seat, her hand
holding back the curtain which shaded the room from the bright
moonlight without; her head resting its weariness against the corner
of the window-frame; her eyes burning and stiff with the intensity of
her gaze.
The ruddy morning stole up the horizon, casting a crimson glow into
the watcher's room.
It was the morning of the day of trial!