第73章

So Margaret began Some of her noble o]d-fashioned songs. She knew no modern music, for which her auditors might have been thankful, but she poured her rich voice out in Some of the old canzonets she had lately learnt while accompanying the musical lecturer on his tour. Mary was amused to see how the young sailor sat entranced; mouth, eyes, all open, in order to catch every breath of sound. His very lids refused to wink, I as if afraid in that brief proverbial interval to lose a particle of the rich music that floated through the room. For the first time the idea crossed Mary's mind that it was possible the plain little sensible Margaret, so prim and demure, might have power over the heart of the handsome, dashing, spirited Will Wilson. Job, too, was rapidly changing his Opinion of his new guest. The flying fish went a great way, and his undisguised admiration for Margaret's singing carried him still further. It was amusing enough to see these two, within the hour so barely civil to each other, endeavouring now to be ultra-agreeable. Will, as soon as he had taken breath (a long, deep gasp of admiration) after Margaret's song, sidled up to Job, and asked him in a sort of doubting tone, "You wouldn't like a live Manx cat, would ye, master?" "A what?" exclaimed Job. "I don't know its best name," said Will, humbly. "But we call 'em just Manx cats. They're cats without tails." Now Job, in all his natural history, had never heard of such animals; so Will continued, "Because I'm going, afore joining my ship, to see mother's friends in the island, and I would gladly bring you one, if so be you'd like to have it.

They look as queer and out o' nature as flying fish, or"--he gulped the words down that should have followed. "Especially when you see em walking a roof-top right again the sky, when a cat, as is a proper cat, is sure to stick her tail stiff out behind, like a slack-rope dancer a-balancing; but these cats having no tail, cannot stick it out, which captivates some people uncommonly. If yo'll allow me, I'll bring one for Miss there," jerking his head at Margaret. Job assented with grateful curiosity, wishing much to see the tailless phenomenon. "When are you going to sail?" asked Mary. "I cannot justly say; our ship's bound for America next voyage, they tell me. A messmate will let me know when her sailing-day is fixed; but I've got to go to th' Isle o' Man first. I promised uncle last time I were in England to go this next time. I may have to hoist the Blue Peter any day; so make much of me while you have me, Mary." Job asked him if he had ever been in America. "Haven't I? North and South both! This time we're bound to North. Yankee-Land, as we call it, where Uncle Sam lives." "Uncle who?" asked Mary "Oh, it's a way sailors have of speaking. I only mean I'm going to Boston, U.S., that's Uncle Sam." Mary did not understand, so she left him and went to sit by Alice, who could not hear conversation unless expressly addressed to her. She had sat patiently the greater part of the night, and now greeted Mary with a quiet smile. "Where's yo'r father?" asked she. "I guess he's at his Union? he's there most evenings." Alice shook her head; but whether it were that she did not hear, or that she did not quite approve of what she heard, Mary could not make out. She sat silently watching Alice, and regretting over her dimmed and veiled eyes, formerly so bright and speaking. As if Alice understood by some other sense what was passing in Mary's mind, she turned suddenly round, and answered Mary's thought. "Yo're mourning for me, my dear; and there's no need, Mary. I'm as happy as a child. I sometimes think I am a child, whom the Lord is hushabying to my long sleep. For when I were a nurse-girl, my missis always telled me to speak very soft and low, and to darken the room that her little one might go to sleep; and now all noises are hushed and still to me, and the bonny earth seems dim and dark, and I know it's my Father lulling me away to my long sleep. I'm very well content, and yo mustn't fret for me. I've had wellnigh every blessing in life I could desire." Mary thought of Alice's long-cherished, fond wish to revisit the home of her child hood, so often and often deferred, and now probably never to take place. Or if it did, how changed from the fond anticipation of what it was to have been! It would be a mockery to the blind and deaf Alice. The evening came quickly to an end. There was the humble cheerful meal, and then the bustling, merry farewell, and Mary was once more in the quietness and solitude of her own dingy, dreary-looking home; her father still out, the fire extinguished, and her evening's task of work lying all undone upon the dresser. But it had been a pleasant little interlude to think upon. It had distracted her attention for a few hours from the pressure of many uneasy thoughts, of the dark, heavy, oppressive times, when sorrow and want seemed to surround her on every side: of her father, his changed and altered looks, telling so plainly of broken health, and an embittered heart; of the morrow, and the morrow beyond that, to he spent in that close monotonous workroom, with Sally Leadbitter's odious whispers hissing in her ear; and of the hunted look, so full of dread, from Miss Simmonds' door-step up and down the street, lest her persecuting lover should be near; for he lay in wait for her with wonderful perseverance, and of late had made himself almost hateful, by the unmanly force which he had used to detain her to listen to him, and the indifference with which he exposed her to the remarks of the passers-by, any one of whom might circulate reports which it would be terrible for her father to hear-and worse than death should they reach Jem Wilson. And all this she had drawn upon herself by her giddy flirting. Oh! how she loathed the recollection of the hot summer evening, when, worn out by stitching and sewing, she had loitered homewards with weary languor, and first listened to the voice of the tempter. And Jem Wilson! Oh, Jem, Jem, why did you not come to receive some of the modest looks and words of love which Mary longed to give you, to try and make up for the hasty rejection which you as hastily took to be final, though both mourned over it with many tears. But day after day passed away, and patience seemed of no avail; and Mary's cry was ever the old moan of the Moated Grange, "Why comes he not," she said, "I am aweary, aweary. I would that I were dead."