'Yes, yes,' said John, interposing anxiously. 'We don't care for more just at this moment.'
'We DO care for more!' said Anne vehemently. 'Tell it all, sailor.
That is a very pretty name, Caroline. When are they going to be married?'
'I don't know as how the day is settled,' answered Jim, even now scarcely conscious of the devastation he was causing in one fair breast. 'But from the rate the courting is scudding along at, I should say it won't be long first.'
'If you see him when you go back, give him my best wishes,' she lightly said, as she moved away. 'And,' she added, with solemn bitterness, 'say that I am glad to hear he is making such good use of the first days of his escape from the Valley of the Shadow of Death!. She went away, expressing indifference by audibly singing in the distance--'Shall we go dance the round, the round, the round, Shall we go dance the round?'
'Your sister is lively at the news,' observed Jim Cornick.
'Yes,' murmured John gloomily, as he gnawed his lower lip and kept his eyes fixed on the fire.
'Well,' continued the man from the Victory, 'I won't say that your brother's intended ha'n't got some ballast, which is very lucky for'n, as he might have picked up with a girl without a single copper nail. To be sure there was a time we had when we got into port. It was open house for us all!. And after mentally regarding the scene for a few seconds Jim emptied his cup and rose to go.
The miller was saying some last words to him outside the house, Anne's voice had hardly ceased singing upstairs, John was standing by the fireplace, and Mrs. Loveday was crossing the room to join her daughter, whose manner had given her some uneasiness, when a noise came from above the ceiling, as of some heavy body falling. Mrs.
Loveday rushed to the staircase, saying, 'Ah, I feared something!' and she was followed by John.
When they entered Anne's room, which they both did almost at one moment, they found her lying insensible upon the floor. The trumpet-major, his lips tightly closed, lifted her in his arms, and laid her upon the bed; after which he went back to the door to give room to her mother, who was bending over the girl with some hartshorn.
Presently Mrs. Loveday looked up and said to him, 'She is only in a faint, John, and her colour is coming back. Now leave her to me; I will be downstairs in a few minutes, and tell you how she is.'
John left the room. When he gained the lower apartment his father was standing by the chimney-piece, the sailor having gone. The trumpet-major went up to the fire, and, grasping the edge of the high chimney-shelf, stood silent.
'Did I hear a noise when I went out?' asked the elder, in a tone of misgiving.
'Yes, you did,' said John. 'It was she, but her mother says she is better now. Father,' he added impetuously, 'Bob is a worthless blockhead. If there had been any good in him he would have been drowned years ago!'
'John, John--not too fast,' said the miller. 'That's a hard thing to say of your brother, and you ought to be ashamed of it.'
'Well, he tries me more than I can bear. Good God! what can a man be made of to go on as he does. Why didn't he come home; or if he couldn't get leave why didn't he write. 'Tis scandalous of him to serve a woman like that!'
'Gently, gently. The chap hev done his duty as a sailor; and though there might have been something between him and Anne, her mother, in talking it over with me, has said many times that she couldn't think of their marrying till Bob had settled down in business with me.
Folks that gain victories must have a little liberty allowed 'em.
Look at the Admiral himself, for that matter.'
John continued looking at the red coals, till hearing Mrs. Loveday's foot on the staircase, he went to meet her.
'She is better,' said Mrs. Loveday; 'but she won't come down again to-day.'
Could John have heard what the poor girl was moaning to herself at that moment as she lay writhing on the bed, he would have doubted her mother's assurance. 'If he had been dead I could have borne it, but this I cannot bear!'
