And in less than five minutes she was rocking and tossing in a boat for the first time in her life, alone with two rough, hard-looking men.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
"JOHN CROPPER, AHOY!"
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"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. In fact, she had not thought about it, till she perceived his absence, as they pushed off from the landing-place, and remembered that she had never thanked him for all his kind interest in her behalf; and now his absence made her feel most lonely—even his, the little mushroom friend of an hour's growth.
The boat threaded her way through the maze of larger vessels which surrounded the shore, bumping against one, kept off by the oars from going right against another, overshadowed by a third, until at length they were fairly out on the broad river, away from either shore; the sights and sounds of land being lost in the distance.
And then came a sort of pause.
Both wind and tide were against the two men, and labour as they would they made but little way. Once Mary in her impatience had risen up to obtain a better view of the progress they had made, but the men had roughly told her to sit down immediately, and she had dropped on her seat like a chidden child, although the impatience was still at her heart.
But now she grew sure they were turning off from the straight course which they had hitherto kept on the Cheshire side of the river, whither they had gone to avoid the force of the current, and after a short time she could not help naming her conviction, as a kind of nightmare dread and belief came over her, that every thing animate and inanimate was in league against her one sole aim and object of overtaking Will.