"You go upstairs backwards," said Cherry an hour later. "It don't
matter our going together, only you mustn't speak a word for ever so.
You undress in the dark, and turn each thing inside out as you take
it off. Prayers? Yes, you can say your prayers if you like; but to
yourself, mind. 'Twould be best to say 'em backwards, I reckon; but I
never heard no instructions about prayers."
"And then?"
"Why, then you go to sleep and dream of your sweetheart."
"Oh! is that all?"
"Plenty enough, _I_ should think! I dessay it don't mean much to you;
but it means a lot to me, who han't got a sweetheart yet an' don't
know if ever I shall have one."
So the two girls solemnly mounted the stairs backwards, undressed in
the dark, and crept into bed. But Hester could not sleep. She lay for
an hour quite silent, motionless lest she should awake Cherry, with
eyes wide open, staring at a ray of moonlight on the ceiling, and from
that to the dimity window-curtains and the blind which waved ever so
gently in the night breeze. All the while she was thinking of the
dance; and by-and-by she sighed.
"Bain't you asleep?" asked Cherry.
"No."
"Nor I. Can't sleep a wink. It's they children overhead: they 'm up to
some devilment, I know, because Matthew Henry isn't snoring. He always
snores when he's asleep, and it shakes the house. I'll ha' gone to
see, only I was afeard to disturb 'ee. I'll war'n' they 'm up to some
may-games on the roof."
"Let me come with you," said Hester.
They rose. Hester slipped on her dressing-gown, and Cherry an old
macintosh, and they stole up the creaking stairs.
"Oh, you anointed limbs!" exclaimed Cherry, coming to a halt on the
top.
The door of the children's garret stood ajar. On the landing outside a
short ladder led up to a trapdoor in the eaves, and through the open
trapway a broad ray of moonlight streamed upon the staircase.
"That's mother again! Now I know where Amelia got that cold in her
head. I'll war'n' the door hasn't been locked since Tuesday!"
She climbed the ladder, with Hester at her heels. They emerged through
the trap upon a flat roof, where on Mondays Mrs. Mayow spread her
family "wash" to dry in the harbour breezes. Was that a part of the
"wash" now hanging in a row along the parapet?
No; those dusky white objects were the younger members of the Mayow
family leaning over the tideway, each with a stick and line--fishing
for conger Matthew Henry explained, as Cherry took him by the ear; but
Elizabeth Jane declared that, after four nights of it, she, for her
part, limited her hopes to shannies.
Cherry swept them together, and filed them indoors through the trap
in righteous wrath, taking her opportunity to box the ears of each.
"Come'st along, Hester."
Hester was preparing to follow, when she heard a subdued laugh. It
seemed to come from the far side of the parapet, and below her. She
drew her dressing-gown close about her and leaned over.
She looked down upon a stout spar overhanging the tide, and thence
along a vessel's deck, empty, glimmering in the moonlight; upon
mysterious coils of rope; upon the dew-wet roof of a deck-house; upon
a wheel twinkling with brass-work, and behind it a white-painted
taffrail. Her eyes were travelling forward to the bowsprit again,
when, close by the foremast, they were arrested, and she caught her
breath sharply.
There, with his naked feet on the bulwarks and one hand against the
house-wall, in the shadow of which he leaned out-board, stood a man.
His other hand grasped a short stick; and with it he was reaching
up to the window above him--her bedroom window. The window, she
remembered, was open at the bottom--an inch or two, no more. The man
slipped the end of his stick under the sash and prised it up quietly.
Next he raised himself on tiptoe, and thrust the stick a foot or so
through the opening; worked it slowly along the window-ledge, and
hesitated; then pulled with a light jerk, as an angler strikes a fish.
And Hester, holding her breath, saw the stick withdrawn, inch by inch;
and at the end of it a garment--her petticoat!
"How dare you!"
The thief whipped himself about, jumped back upon deck, and stood
smiling up at her, with the petticoat in his hand. It was the young
sailor she had danced with.
"How dare you? Oh, I'd be ashamed!"
"Midsummer Eve!" said he, and laughed.
"Give it up at once!" She dared not speak loudly, but felt herself
trembling with wrath.
"That's not likely." He unhitched it from the fish-hook he had spliced
to the end of his stick. "And after the trouble I've taken!"
"I'll call your captain, and he'll make you give it up."
"The old man's sleeping ashore, and won't be down till nine in the
morning. I'm alone here." He stepped to the fore-halliards. "Now I'll
just hoist this up to the topmast head, and you'll see what a pretty
flag it makes in the morning."
"Oh, please...!"
He turned his back and began to bend the petticoat on the halliards.
"No, no ... please ... it's cruel!"
He could hear that she was crying softly; hesitated, and faced round
again.
"There now ... if it teases you so. There wasn' no harm meant. You
shall have it back--wait a moment!"
He came forward and clambered out on the bowsprit, and from the
bowsprit to the jib-boom beneath her. She was horribly afraid he would
fall, and broke off her thanks to whisper him to be careful, at which
he laughed. Standing there, and holding by the fore-topmast stay, he
could just reach a hand up to the parapet, and was lifting it, but
paused.
"No," said he, "I must have a kiss in exchange."
"Please don't talk like that. I thank you so much. Don't spoil your
kindness."
"You've spoilt my joke. See, I can hoist myself on the stay here. Bend
over as far as you can, I swear you shall have the petticoat at once,
but I won't give it up without."
"I can't. I shall never think well of you again."
"Oh, yes, you will. Bend lower."
"Don't!" she murmured, but the moonlight, refracted from the water
below, glimmered on her face as she leaned towards him.
"Lower! What queer eyes you've got. Do you know what it means to kiss
over running water?" His lips whispered it close to her ear. And with
that, as she bent, some treacherous pin gave way, and her loosely
knotted hair fell in dark masses across his face. She heard him laugh
as he kissed her in the tangled screen of it.
The next moment she had snatched the bundle and sprung to her feet and
away. But as she passed by the trapdoor and hurriedly retwisted her
hair before descending, she heard him there, beyond the parapet,
laughing still.