With this I pushed the boy forward, and he, all silly and blushing as sailors will be when they see a pretty woman above their station—he took her hand and heaved it like a pump-handle; while old Aunt Rachel, the funny old woman in the glasses, she began to talk a lot of nonsense about seamen, as she always did, and for a minute or two we might have been a party of friends met at a street corner.
"I'm glad to find you well, Captain Begg," said she. "Such a dangerous life, too, the mariner's. I always pity you poor fellows when you climb the rattlesnakes on winter's nights."
"Ratlins, you mean, ma'am," said I, "though for that matter, a syllable or two don't count either way. And I hope you're not poorly, ma'am, on this queer shore."
"I like the island," says she, solemn and stiff-like; "my dear nephew is an eccentric, but we must take our bread as we find it on this earth, Mister Begg, and thankful for it too. Poor Ruth, now, she is dreadfully distressed and unhappy; but I tell her it will all come right in the end. Let her be patient a little while and she will have her own way. She wants for nothing here—she has every comfort. If her husband chooses such a home for her, she must submit. It is our duty to submit to our husbands, captain, as the catechism teaches us."
"Aye, when you've got 'em," thought I, but I nodded my head to the old lady, and turned to my mistress, who was now speaking to me.
"You'll lunch here; why, yes, captain—you mustn't find us inhospitable, even if you leave us at once. Mr. Denton, will you please to tell them that Captain Begg lunches with me—as soon as possible?"
She turned to the yellow man to give him the order; but there was no mistaking the look which passed between them, saying on her side: "Allow me to do this," on his, "You will suffer for it afterwards." But he went up to the veranda of the house right enough, and while he was bawling to the cook, I spoke the first plain word to Mme. Czerny.
"Mistress," I said, "the ship's there—shall we go or stay?"
I had meant it to be the plain truth between us; on her part the confession whether she needed me or did not; on mine the will to serve her whatever might happen to me. To my dying day, I shall never forget her answer.
"Go," she said, so low that it was little more than a whisper, "but, oh, for God's sake, Jasper Begg, come back to me again."