“No, I won’t refuse that, Jim; see, I am prepared to go,” she said, pointing to a wooden sea-chest which stood in the middle of the room; “my box is packed. Everything I own is in it. The furniture, clock, and bedding belong to the landlord.”
“Come then, my own poor lamb,” said the young sailor tenderly, “let us go.”
Nora rose and glanced slowly round the room. Few rooms in Ramsgate could have looked more poverty-stricken and cheerless, nevertheless, being associated in her mind with those whom she had lost, she was loath to leave it. Falling suddenly on her knees beside the bed, she kissed the old counterpane that had covered the dead form she had loved so well, and then went hastily out and leaned her head against the wall of the narrow court before the door.
Jim lifted the chest, placed it on his broad shoulders and followed her. Locking the door behind him and putting the key in his pocket, he gave his disengaged arm to Nora, and led her slowly a way.
Chapter Twenty Three.
Tells of an Unlooked-for Return, and Describes a Great Feast.
If, as we have elsewhere observed in this narrative, time and tide wait for no man, it is not less true that time and tide work wonderful changes in man and his affairs and fortunes. Some of those changes we will now glance at, premising that seven years have passed away since the occurrence of the events recorded in our last chapter.
On the evening of a somewhat gloomy day in the month of sunny showers, four men of rough aspect, and clad in coarse but not disreputable garments, stopped in front of a public-house in one of the lowest localities of London, and looked about them. There was something quite peculiar in their aspect. They seemed to be filled with mingled curiosity and surprise, and looked somewhat scared, as a bird does when suddenly set free from its cage.