XXVIII. "JOHN CROPPER," AHOY!
"A wet sheet and a flowing sea, A wind that follows fast And fills the white and rustling sail, And bends the gallant mast! And bends the gallant mast, my boys, While, like the eagle free, Away the good ship flies, and leaves Old England on the lee." --ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.
Mary had not understood that Charley was not coming with her. Infact, she had not thought about it, till she perceived his absence,as they pushed off from the landing-place, and remembered that shehad never thanked him for all his kind interest in her behalf; andnow his absence made her feel most lonely--even his, the littlemushroom friend of an hour's growth.
The boat threaded her way through the maze of larger vessels whichsurrounded the shore, bumping against one, kept off by the oars fromgoing right against another, overshadowed by a third, until atlength they were fairly out on the broad river, away from eithershore; the sights and sounds of land being heard in the distance.
And then came a sort of pause.
Both wind and tide were against the two men, and labour as theywould they made but little way. Once Mary in her impatience hadrisen up to obtain a better view of the progress they had made; butthe men had roughly told her to sit down immediately, and she haddropped on her seat like a chidden child, although the impatiencewas still at her heart.
But now she grew sure they were turning off from the straight coursewhich they had hitherto kept on the Cheshire side of the river,whither they had gone to avoid the force of the current, and after ashort time she could not help naming her conviction, as a kind ofnightmare dread and belief came over her, that everything animateand inanimate was in league against her one sole aim and object ofovertaking Will.
They answered gruffly. They saw a boatman whom they knew, and weredesirous of obtaining his services as a steersman, so that bothmight row with greater effect. They knew what they were about. Soshe sat silent with clenched hands while the parley went on, theexplanation was given, the favour asked and granted. But she wassickening all the time with nervous fear.
They had been rowing a long, long time--half a day it seemed, atleast--yet Liverpool appeared still close at hand, and Mary beganalmost to wonder that the men were not as much disheartened as shewas, when the wind, which had been hitherto against them, dropped,and thin clouds began to gather over the sky, shutting out the sun,and casting a chilly gloom over everything.
There was not a breath of air, and yet it was colder than when thesoft violence of the westerly wind had been felt.
The men renewed their efforts. The boat gave a bound forwards atevery pull of the oars. The water was glassy and motionless,reflecting tint by tint of the Indian-ink sky above. Mary shivered,and her heart sank within her. Still, now they evidently weremaking progress. Then the steersman pointed to a rippling line onthe river only a little way off, and the men disturbed Mary, who waswatching the ships that lay in what appeared to her the open sea, toget at their sails.
She gave a little start, and rose. Her patience, her grief, andperhaps her silence, had begun to win upon the men.
"Yon second to the norrard is the John Cropper. Wind's right now,and sails will soon carry us alongside of her."
He had forgotten (or perhaps he did not like to remind Mary) thatthe same wind which now bore their little craft along with easy,rapid motion, would also be favourable to the John Cropper.
But as they looked with straining eyes, as if to measure thedecreasing distance that separated them from her, they saw her sailsunfurled and flap in the breeze, till, catching the right point,they bellied forth into white roundness, and the ship began toplunge and heave, as if she were a living creature, impatient to beoff.
"They're heaving anchor!" said one of the boatmen to the other, asthe faint musical cry of the sailors came floating over the watersthat still separated them.
Full of the spirit of the chase, though as yet ignorant of Mary'smotives, the men sprung to hoist another sail. It was fully as muchas the boat could bear, in the keen, gusty east wind which was nowblowing, and she bent, and laboured, and ploughed, and creakedupbraidingly as if tasked beyond her strength; but she sped alongwith a gallant swiftness.
They drew nearer, and they heard the distant "ahoy" more clearly.It ceased. The anchor was up, and the ship was away.
Mary stood up, steadying herself by the mast, and stretched out herarms, imploring the flying vessel to stay its course, by that muteaction, while the tears streamed down her cheeks. The men caught uptheir oars and hoisted them in the air, and shouted to arrestattention.
They were seen by the men aboard the larger craft; but they were toobusy with all the confusion prevalent in an outward-bound vessel topay much attention. There were coils of ropes and seamen's cheststo be stumbled over at every turn; there were animals, not properlysecured, roaming bewildered about the deck, adding their pitifullowings and bleatings to the aggregate of noises. There werecarcases not cut up, looking like corpses of sheep and pigs ratherthan like mutton and pork; there were sailors running here and thereand everywhere, having had no time to fall into method, and withtheir minds divided between thoughts of the land and the people theyhad left, and the present duties on board ship; while the captainstrove hard to procure some kind of order by hasty commands given ina loud, impatient voice, to right and left, starboard and larboard,cabin and steerage.
As he paced the deck with a chafed step, vexed at one or two littlemistakes on the part of the mate, and suffering himself from thepain of separation from wife and children, but showing his sufferingonly by his outward irritation, he heard a hail from the shabbylittle river boat that was striving to overtake his winged ship.For the men fearing that, as the ship was now fairly over the bar,they should only increase the distance between them, and being nowwithin shouting range, had asked of Mary her more particular desire.
Her throat was dry, all musical sound had gone out of her voice; butin a loud, harsh whisper she told the men her errand of life anddeath, and they hailed the ship.
"We're come for one William Wilson, who is wanted to prove an alibiin Liverpool Assize Courts to-morrow. James Wilson is to be triedfor a murder done on Thursday night when he was with William Wilson.Anything more, missis?" asked the boatman of Mary, in a lower voice,and taking his hands down from his mouth.
"Say I'm Mary Barton. Oh, the ship is going on! Oh, for the loveof Heaven, ask them to stop."
The boatman was angry at the little regard paid to his summons, andcalled out again; repeating the message with the name of the youngwoman who sent it, and interlarding it with sailors' oaths.
The ship flew along--away--the boat struggled after.
They could see the captain take his speaking-trumpet. And oh! andalas! they heard his words.
He swore a dreadful oath; he called Mary a disgraceful name! and hesaid he would not stop his ship for any one, nor could he part witha single hand, whoever swung for it.
The words came in unpitying clearness with their trumpet-sound.Mary sat down looking like one who prays in the death agony. Forher eyes were turned up to that heaven, where mercy dwelleth, whileher blue lips quivered, though no sound came. Then she bowed herhead, and hid it in her hands.
"Hark! yon sailor hails us."
She looked up, and her heart stopped its beating to listen.
William Wilson stood as near the stern of the vessel as he couldget; and unable to obtain the trumpet from the angry captain, made atube of his own hands.
"So help me God, Mary Barton, I'll come back in the pilot-boat timeenough to save the life of the innocent."
"What does he say?" asked Mary wildly, as the voice died away in theincreasing distance, while the boatmen cheered, in their kindledsympathy with their passenger.
"What does he say?" repeated she. "Tell me. I could not hear."
She had heard with her ears, but her brain refused to recognise thesense.
They repeated his speec
h, all three speaking at once, with manycomments; while Mary looked at them and then at the vessel far away.
"I don't rightly know about it," said she sorrowfully. "What is thepilot-boat?"
They told her, and she gathered the meaning out of the sailors'slang which enveloped it. There was a hope still, although soslight and faint.
"How far does the pilot go with the ship?"
To different distances, they said. Some pilots would go as far asHolyhead for the chance of the homeward-bound vessels; others onlytook the ships over the Banks. Some captains were more cautiousthan others, and the pilots had different ways. The wind wasagainst the homeward-bound vessels, so perhaps the pilot aboard theJohn Cropper would not care to go far out.
"How soon would he come back?"
There were three boatmen, and three opinions, varying from twelvehours to two days. Nay, the man who gave his vote for the longesttime, on having his judgment disputed, grew stubborn, and doubledthe time, and thought it might be the end of the week before thepilot-boat came home.
They began disputing and urging reasons; and Mary tried tounderstand them; but independently of their nautical language, aveil seemed drawn over her mind, and she had no clear perception ofanything that passed. Her very words seemed not her own, and beyondher power of control, for she found herself speaking quitedifferently to what she meant.
One by one her hopes had fallen away, and left her desolate; andthough a chance yet remained, she could no longer hope. She feltcertain it, too, would fade and vanish. She sank into a kind ofstupor. All outward objects harmonised with her despair--the gloomyleaden sky--the deep dark waters below, of a still heavier shade ofcolour--the cold, flat yellow shore in the distance, which no raylightened up--the nipping, cutting wind.
She shivered with her depression of mind and body.
The sails were taken down, of course, on the return to Liverpool,and the progress they made, rowing and tacking, was very slow. Themen talked together, disputing about the pilots at first, and thenabout matters of local importance, in which Mary would have taken nointerest at any time, and she gradually became drowsy; irrepressiblyso, indeed, for in spite of her jerking efforts to keep awake, shesank away to the bottom of the boat, and there lay crouched on arough heap of sails, rope, and tackles of various kinds.
The measured beat of the waters against the sides of the boat, andthe musical boom of the more distant waves, were more lulling thansilence, and she slept sound.
Once she opened her eyes heavily, and dimly saw the old grey, roughboatman (who had stood out the most obstinately for the full fare)covering her with his thick pea-jacket. He had taken it off onpurpose, and was doing it tenderly in his way, but before she couldrouse herself up to thank him she had dropped off to sleep again.
At last, in the dusk of evening, they arrived at the landing-placefrom which they had started some hours before. The men spoke toMary, but though she mechanically replied, she did not stir; so, atlength, they were obliged to shake her. She stood up, shivering andpuzzled as to her whereabouts.
"Now tell me where you are bound to, missus," said the grey old man,"and maybe I can put you in the way."
She slowly comprehended what he said, and went through the processof recollection but very dimly, and with much labour. She put herhand into her pocket and pulled out her purse, and shook itscontents into the man's hand; and then began meekly to unpin hershawl, although they had turned away without asking for it.
"No! no!" said the old man, who lingered on the step beforespringing into the boat, and to whom she mutely offered the shawl."Keep it! we donnot want it. It were only for to try you,--somefolks say they've no more blunt, when all the while they've getten amint."
"Thank you," said she, in a dull, low tone.
"Where are you bound to? I axed that question afore," said thegruff old fellow.
"I don't know. I'm a stranger," replied she quietly, with a strangeabsence of anxiety under the circumstances.
"But you mun find out then," said he sharply: "pier-head's noplace for a young woman to be standing on, gapeseying."
"I've a card somewhere as will tell me," she answered, and the man,partly relieved, jumped into the boat, which was now pushing off tomake way for the arrivals from some steamer.
Mary felt in her pocket for the card, on which was written the nameof the street where she was to have met Mr. Bridgnorth at twoo'clock; where Job and Mrs. Wilson were to have been, and where shewas to have learnt from the former the particulars of somerespectable lodging. It was not to be found.
She tried to brighten her perceptions, and felt again, and took outthe little articles her pocket contained, her empty purse, herpocket-handkerchief, and such little things, but it was not there.
In fact, she had dropped it when, so eager to embark, she had pulledout her purse to reckon up her money.
She did not know this, of course. She only knew it was gone.
It added but little to the despair that was creeping over her. Butshe tried a little more to help herself, though every minute hermind became more cloudy. She strove to remember where Will hadlodged, but she could not; name, street, everything had passed away,and it did not signify; better she were lost than found.
She sat down quietly on the top step of the landing, and gazed downinto the dark, dank water below. Once or twice a spectral thoughtloomed among the shadows of her brain; a wonder whether beneath thatcold dismal surface there would not be rest from the troubles ofearth. But she could not hold an idea before her for twoconsecutive moments; and she forgot what she thought about beforeshe could act upon it.
So she continued sitting motionless, without looking up, orregarding in any way the insults to which she was subjected.
Through the darkening light the old boatman had watched her:interested in her in spite of himself, and his scoldings of himself.
When the landing-place was once more comparatively clear, he madehis way towards it, across boats, and along planks, swearing athimself while he did so for an old fool.
He shook Mary's shoulder violently.
"D--- you, I ask you again where you're bound to? Don't sit there,stupid. Where are going to?"
"I don't know," sighed Mary.
"Come, come; avast with that story. You said a bit ago you'd acard, which was to tell you where to go."
"I had, but I've lost it. Never mind."
She looked again down upon the black mirror below.
He stood by her, striving to put down his better self; but he couldnot. He shook her again. She looked up, as if she had forgottenhim.
"What do you want?" asked she wearily.
"Come with me and be d--d to you!" replied he, clutching her arm topull her up.
She arose and followed him, with the unquestioning docility of alittle child.
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