“Nay, nay, nobry towd me—nobbut hissel’. His mates was all drownded, too; naught was niver heerd on ’em at arter ship sailed that last time. Noan of ’em ever coom back—nobbut him, and he coomed to nobry but me.”
“Do you mean that his spirit came back?” I asked, half-incredulously, half awe-stricken.
“Ma’am, I can’t reetly tell you how he coom back, but it was him. He coomed to tell me he wur dead, and to let me know as he’d forgive me.”
“Was nothing ever heard of his ship?” I enquired.
“Naught was niver heerd of ship, nor captain, nor crew,” she said. “Noan of ’em coom back, nobbut my Will.”
The wind raging round the house drove the rain fiercely against the little window, and I glanced towards it fearfully; then, laughing inwardly at my own folly, I turned to the woman again.
“Don’t you think it may have been fancy?” I said. “You are so lonely here, you see, and you had been fretting perhaps because of your little quarrel, and because you had, I suppose, no news of him. And then you imagined you saw his face—at the window—was it? he used perhaps to come to the window—”
“Ah,” she interrupted, “he all’ays coom theer—all’ays fro’ the time when he wur a little lad. He’d coom theer, and press his face to the window, and tap three times same as yo’ did to-neet—he all’ays tapped three times. And I used to look up from my little stool i’ the corner and nod at him, and at arter a bit get up and stale out when feyther and moother wurna lookin’—fur they’d all’ays barge if they cotched me playin’ wi’ Will Davis. The Davises were cocklin’ folk—very rough—a bad lot ’twas said, and my feyther didn’t reckon to let me go wi’ ’em. But my Will, he was never same as t’others—a gradely little lad he wur, good at’s books and never up to no mischeef. ‘I’ll noan be a cocklemon same as my feyther,’ he’d say; ‘when I goo to say I’ll goo a bit fur’er off. I’ll sail fur, wheer theer’s no lond an’ no houses, an’ no naught, nobbut wayter, wayter, wayter—same as it says in my book.’ Folks thought it a wonderful thing to see a little chap same as him goin’ so reg’lar to school. But t’other lads ’ud laugh at him for goin’ barefoot; poor Will, he hadn’t niver a shoe to his foot.”
She broke off to laugh softly to herself; her eyes were again fixed, on the fire, and her mind had evidently conjured up a vivid picture of the lad as he had been in bygone days.
“Eh, I mind when he’d coom patterin’ ower th’ weet sand to this place he’d leave tracks o’s little bare feet all round the house; and my feyther ’ud barge and sauce me terrible if he coom out and saw them.