It's my fourth voyage in the same ship and with the same captain, and he's promised he'll make me a second mate after this trip; then I shall have something to offer Margaret; and her father, and Aunt Alice, shall live with her, and keep her from being lonesome while I'm at sea. I'm speaking as if she cared for me, and would marry me; d'ye think she does care at all for me, Mary?" asked he anxiously. Mary had a very decided opinion of her own on the subject, but she did not feel as if she had any right to give it. So she said-- "You must ask Margaret, not me, Will; she's never named your name to me."
His countenance fell. "But I should say that was a good sign from a girl like her; I've no right to say what I think; but, if I was you, I would not leave her now, without speaking." "No! I cannot speak! I have tried. I've been in to wish them good-bye, and my voice stuck in my throat. I could say nought of what I'd planned to say; and I never thought of being so bold as to offer her marriage till I'd been my next trip, and been made mate. I could not even offer her this box," said he, undoing his paper parcel and displaying a gaudily ornamented accordion; "I longed to buy her something, and I thought, if it were something in the music line, she would maybe fancy it more. So, will you give it to her, Mary, when I'm gone? and, if you can slip in something tender,--something, you know, of what I feel,--maybe she would listen to you, Mary?" Mary promised that she would do all that he asked. "I shall be thinking on her many and many a night, when I'm keeping my watch in mid-sea; I wonder if she will ever think on me, when the wind is whistling, and the gale rising. You'll often speak of me to her, Mary?
And if I should meet with any mischance tell her how dear, how very dear, she was to me, and bid her, for the sake of one who loved her well, try and comfort my poor aunt Alice. Dear old aunt! you and Margaret will often go and see her, won't you? She's sadly failed since I was last ashore.
And so good as she has been! When I lived with her, a little wee chap, I used to be wakened by the neighbours knocking her up; this one was ill, or that body's child was restless; and for as tired as ever she might be, she would be up and dressed in a twinkling, never thinking of the hard day's wash afore her next morning. Them were happy times! How happy I used to be when she would take me into the fields with her to gather herbs!
I've tasted tea in China since then, but it wasn't half so good as the herb tea she used to make for me o' Sunday nights. And she knew such a deal about plants and birds, and their ways! She used to tell me long stories about her childhood, and we used to plan how we would go some time, please God (that was always her word), and live near her old home beyond Lancaster; in the very cottage where she was born, if we could get it. Dear! and how different it is! Here is she still in a back street o' Manchester, never likely to see her own home again; and I, a sailor, off for America next week. I wish she had been able to go to Burton once afore she died." "She would maybe have found all sadly changed," said Mary, though her heart echoed Will's feeling. "Aye! aye! I dare say it's best. One thing I do wish though, and I have often wished it when out alone on the deep sea, when even the most thoughtless can't choose but think on th' past and th' future; and that is, that I'd never grieved her. Oh Mary! many a hasty word comes sorely back on the heart, when one thinks one shall never see the person whom one has grieved again!" They both stood thinking. Suddenly Mary started. "That's father's step. And his shirt is not ready!" She hurried to her irons, and tried to make up for lost time. John Barton came in. Such a haggard and wildly anxious-looking man, Will thought he had never seen. He looked at Will, but spoke no word of greeting or welcome. "I'm come to bid you good-bye," said the sailor, and would in his sociable friendly humour have gone on speaking. But John answered abruptly, "Good-bye to ye, then." There was that in his manner which left no doubt of his desire to get rid of the visitor, and Will accordingly shook hands with Mary, and looked at John, as if doubting how far to offer to shake hands with him. But he met with no answering glance or gesture, so he went his way, stopping for an instant at the door to say, "You'll think on me on Tuesday, Mary. That's the day we shall hoist our Blue Peter, Jack Harris says." Mary was heartily sorry when the door closed; it seemed like shutting out a friendly sunbeam. And her father! what could be the matter with him?
He was so restless; not speaking (she wished he would), but starting up and then sitting down, and meddling with her irons; he seemed so fierce, too, to judge from his face. She wondered if he disliked Will being there; or if he were vexed to find that she had not got further on with her work.
