"The villain!" cried John;—and then, finding that he had not done justice to his feelings, he repeated, with great stress of indignation, "The willain! the black-hearted willain! But he never dared to lay violent—wiolent, I mean—hands onto you!"
"Dear me, how my heart wibrates!" says the woman,—"not so much with the memory of what I have suffered as that—that anybody should manifest such a—such a wery kind feeling toward me now!"
"How anybody that seen you should 'a' helpt from doin' on 't," says the boatman, "is awful curus to me!"
"Law mercy, how selfish I am, never offering you a seat all this while!" says the artful woman. And she hitched along, and smoothed out the jacket.
"Well, whatever your trouble 's been," says John, "I hope your red on 't!"
It was an ingenious method of saying he hoped the vagabond was out of the way.
He turned toward her as he spoke, and the wind once more fluttered the gay ribbons in his face. She lifted her hand to draw them back. "Don't you be a-mindin' on 'em," says John; "they're just as sweet as rose-leaves, and I like to hev em a-blowin' over me so."
You may smile, reader, if you will, but you would not smile if you had seen the soul yearning in the eyes of the man, if you had heard the pleading in the sad sincerity of his tone. He was fifty years old now, and I dare say a woman's ribbon had never touched him till then. He was wrinkled and gray, and old to look upon, but his heart in its tender sentiment was as fresh and young as a boy's.
So, with the ribbons fluttering on his cheek, and his boat drifting as it would, John Chidlaw listened to the story of the woman's life, and as Desdemona loved the Moor for the dangers he had passed, so he loved her for the sorrows she had borne.
"Yes, Captain," she says, "my troubles is over now, pretty much. I've been a widder this ten year,"—(he hitched a little closer,)—"I 've been a widder, and I 've had peace o' mind, and I 've laid up money; but, law me when a body has nobody to lay up for, what 's the use?"