"And it is all clear between you? I see,—there was some misunderstanding, my dear. Remember that my boy is sometimes very quick; 't is a hasty temper, but a warm and true heart. Is it all clear now?"
Mary wished to answer, but she could not, for all her trying, manage to speak a word; she did not wish to show the deep feeling that was moving her, and first looked seaward again, and then took up her needlework. Her hand touched the bosom of her gown, to feel if the letter were there and safe. Madam Wallingford smiled, and was happy enough in such a plain assurance.
"Oh yes!" Mary found herself saying next moment, quite unconsciously, the wave of happy emotion having left her calm again. "Oh yes, I have come to understand everything now, dear Madam, and the letter was written while the Ranger lay in the port of Brest. They were sailing any day for the English coast."
"Sometimes I fear that he may be dead; this very sense of his living nearness to my heart may be only— The dread of losing him wakes me from my sleep; but sometimes by day I can feel him thinking to me, just as I always have since he was a child; 't is just as if he spoke," and the tears stood bright in Madam Wallingford's eyes.
"No, dear, he is not dead," said Mary, listening eagerly; but she could not tell even Roger Wallingford's mother the reason why she was so certain.
XXXIII
THEY COME TO BRISTOL
"The wise will remember through sevenfold births the love of those who wiped away their falling tears."
Miss Mary Hamilton and the captain of the Golden Dolphin walked together from the busy boat landing up into the town of Bristol. The tide was far down, and the captain, being a stout man, was still wheezing from his steep climb on the long landing-stairs. It was good to feel the comfort of solid ground underfoot, and to hear so loud and cheerful a noise of English voices, after their four long weeks at sea, and the ring and clank of coppersmiths' hammers were not unpleasant to the ear even in a narrow street. The captain was in a jovial temper of mind; he had some considerable interest in his cargo, and they had been in constant danger off the coast. Now that he was safe ashore, and the brig was safe at anchor, he stepped quickly and carried his head high, and asked their shortest way to Mr. Davis's house, to leave Mary there, while he made plans for coming up to one of that well-known merchant's wharves.
"Here we are at last!" exclaimed the master mariner. "I can find my way across the sea straight to King's Road and Bristol quay, but I'm easy lost in the crooked ways of a town. I 've seen the port of Bristol, too, a score o' times since I was first a sailor, but I saw it never so dull as now. There it is, the large house beyond, to the port-hand side. He lives like a nobleman, does old Sir Davis. I 'll leave ye here now, and go my ways; they 've sarvents a plenty to see ye back to the strand."