‘Will, I have an idea, and I want you to help me to carry it out.’
‘What is it?’
‘Do you love me?’
‘With all my heart, and will do anything I can or dare do for you and Tom.’
‘Tom is sure to sail in your ship, and I must sail in her too.’
‘But how? But how?’ said he, a little petulantly. ‘Haven’t I told you that the ship won’t book passengers? They’ll reconstruct her below decks fore and aft, and every inch of her is hired for the lodging of convicts and soldiers and sailors.’
‘I mean to sail in her for all that. It’s to be done, and I’ll tell you how I mean to do it.’ And here I got up and began to pace about the room with excitement whilst I talked. ‘I can’t ship as a woman, but I can ship as a boy and as a stowaway.’
His face screwed itself up into a strange expression of mingled mirth and amazement.
‘I’ll make a smart-looking boy,’ I continued. ‘I saw a lad this morning that might well have been a girl. The sight of him put this scheme into my head. I’ll get my hair cut close and dress as you do. I’ll have a story ready; I’ll take a name, and when I’m discovered I’m just a common runaway, one of the scores of lads and grown men who every year sneak into ships and coil themselves out of sight and turn up far out at sea. And you tell me, Will, this isn’t to be done?’
‘You’d do anything. You’d scrub Old Nick white. What wouldn’t you do for Tom?’ said he, still preserving his kind of gaping look. ‘But you’re never in earnest, Marian?’