“I’m——I’m feared thar be a storm comin’ up, Miss. Those clouds over the water do look ugly, and the gulls be all flyin’ land’ard.”
“Never mind, I’m not afraid of the storm!” she said, impatiently.
“Why you be all wet now, standin’ out in this nasty drizzle.”
“No, no, I don’t care! I want to know if you heard any thing from the Nereid. Why don’t you tell me?” an alarm gathering quickly in her voice as the first sickening suspicion came over her. “O Stephen,” she said, with a terrified cry that fairly frightened the man, “you have, and there is something wrong! O the Nereid—the Nereid is not lost! Say it is not lost!”
She had caught the man’s arm in her wild excitement, and clung to him trembling like a leaf from head to foot.
“Why, no, no!” he said, scared by the girl’s dreadful agitation; “the Nereid be all right, she be all right! I didn’t think of sich an idee comin’ to you, or I’d a said afore she be all right. Thar beant nothin’ the matter with her, nothin’, I was aboard o’ her myself—I’m afeard it’ll make you sick, Miss, a standin’ here in the drizzle like this, an’ with nothin’ to keep off the wet,”—trying to appear as if he had settled the trouble, but all the time keeping his face turned carefully from her.
In the first instant of relief Hannah had let go of his arm and put her hands to her head without one word, so intense had been the strain; then, looking up suddenly, and drawing a quick breath, she faced round to him.
“Stephen, is this the truth that you have told me? You are not deceiving me? Is there nothing the matter?”
“Lord, no, Miss, it beant no lie,” but the old sailor hesitated painfully while she looked at him, worked his hands nervously about his neck, put them irresolutely to his pockets once or twice, till unable to stand it any longer, he suddenly made an end to his indecision by jerking out a letter, at the same time muttering some half-coherent sentence about how it had been given to him for her on board the Nereid.
“O, a letter!” she cried, joyfully, breaking the seal, while her face that had been so clouded lighted up radiantly.