When they had been under canvas a few weeks the cholera disappeared, and Captain Woodward quitted the island, and ran down to Shanghae, where he received orders to proceed at once to Hong-Kong, which he reached after a quick passage, and there found, thanks to his immense popularity, no difficulty in filling up the vacancies in his crew.
Clare, who had by this time recovered, was offered the post of boatswain, but declined, saying he could not fill the rate. The commander then strongly recommended Thompson for the appointment, whereupon the admiral directed him to be made acting warrant-officer until he was confirmed by the admiralty, and within a month after Mr. Shever's death Jerry, who was thoroughly competent, piped, and bellowed orders as naturally as though he had always owned the silver call and chain.
Mrs. Shever was duly notified of her husband's decease, and received the balance of his pay, and a pension from the government, and we must say, that considering the nature of her bereavement, she bore up remarkably well. "He were a good man for many things," she observed, "but a woman might as well be a widder as to have her husband at sea all the time," so after wearing very deep mourning for six months, the boatswain's relict moderated her grief and crape at the same time, and came out in such killing costume, that three ardent admirers offered her their hands and hearts within as many weeks of the change. Strange to say, she refused them, and informed the world about her that it would have to be a remarkably bright fellow who would be taken into Mr. Shever's place in her heart. She held undoubted sway as belle of Crumpton Street, until one unlucky day, the widow of a "retired dustman" took lodgings in the opposite house, and, as Mrs. Shever expressed it, laid herself out to angle for her lovers. Much to the disgust of the late boatswain's widow, the new arrival managed to captivate a young hairdresser, who finding the dustman's widow had more money than his first flame, not only cut the acquaintance of the latter, but irritated her by sitting at her rival's parlour window and playing upon a concertina such airs as "All's Well," "The Girl I left behind me," and several others strongly suggestive of her forlorn state.
It was very aggravating to her when she saw this, and heard what she denominated his "setarical" tunes, but the boatswain's widow was revenged. The perfidious ones billed and cooed for a few months, then got married, went to live in a fashionable street, lost money, fell out, she scolded, he beat her and took to drink, she drove the concern, he eloped with the young girl who sold cosmetics in the front shop, she bolted with the foreman hairdresser by the back door—and—the concern was sold out, and turned into a dressmaking establishment, over the door of which was this name in letters of gold:
Mrs. Shever,
Dressmaker.
Ladies own materials made up.
It was a better situation than her former one, and the business prospered in it; but, poor thing, she was lonely, and was on the point of despairing, when one morning she heard the wonderful news of Jerry's return to his ship, and from that moment was an altered woman. Mary Ann was duly informed of the state of affairs, and congratulated her sister upon the same.
"He was always fond of you, you know, 'Melia."
"Me? Mr. Thompson fond of me? Oh lor, Mary Ann, how silly you do talk. Why, I don't know if I would accept him if he was to offer this moment."
"Oh nonsense, 'Melia. He ain't here. You knows that, or you'd not go on in that way."