“O, never mind what people would say who do not see and hear us: but I do not think you cruel, uncle. Only——”
“Only what?” inquired uncle Christopher, setting his lips in a prim form, as he always did when he expected to hear something unacceptable about himself.
“Only,—very pious people expect other people to feel exactly as they do, and make out that every difference is a difference of trust in God. Now, I trust in God that my father will be supported, and my poor mother——”
She was obliged to stop a moment, and then went on,
“But all this trust does not make me the less afraid that they will have to be unhappy first.”
Uncle Christopher shook his head with a condescending smile and sigh. This was what he called trust with a reservation; but prayed that the true faith might grow out of it in time. He could suggest nothing to be done, Eldred’s recovery being quite hopeless, he considered, if he was on board the tender. All that uncle Christopher could promise, was to go and pray with the widowed wife, on the Sabbath morning;—the day that he could not conscientiously give to his own engrossing pursuit,—the invention for which he hoped to take out a patent.
Walter had no intention of waiting till Sunday. He was going now, but that Effie would not allow it. The press-gang was before her mind’s eye, whichever way she turned; and she had no apprehension so great as of her lover falling in with it. Nowhere could he be so safe as in his father’s premises,—ferrymen being everywhere exempt from impressment. He parried her request of a promise not to show himself in his garden so as to be an object of observation from the river, and now saved his father the trouble of depositing Effie on the other side. He had a few words to say to her while they were crossing. His advice was not to harass herself with running about from place to place in search of her father, (who could have no motive for concealing himself from his family,) but to acquiesce in his being made a defender of his country against his will, and to hope that he would prove a faithful and valiant seaman amidst the perils and honours of war.
Effie thought that the very way to prevent this was so to treat a man as to make him hate the government he served, and to paralyze his arm by that sickness of heart which must come over him as often as he thought of his deserted wife and unprovided children. She believed a ready will was the soul of good service, on sea or land.
She had no very ready will to go home to her mother without tidings. She lingered to see her lover recross the river, being aware that he was an inexperienced ferryman, and that the tide was now running very strong. A barge was coming up, in fine style, and it seemed likely that Walter would have landed in time to watch its course, like herself, and perhaps to suspect, as she did, that certain of his Majesty’s agents were in it, seeking whom they might entrap. But Walter mismanaged his boat, causing it to make a zig-zag course, till he brought it very near the barge, and then seeming to lose his presence of mind so as to put himself directly in the way of being run down. Effie was in momentary expectation of witnessing the clash, and there was a movement on board the barge which terrified her no less.
“They have found him out to be no ferryman,” was her agonized thought. “They will carry him off too, and then my mother and I shall be widows together!”