Having come to this resolution, he hurried on, wishing to reach Keyhaven soon after dark, as he had no desire to be seen by any one. He reached Susan’s cottage.
“Who’s there?” asked a voice from within, in reply to his knock.
“Open the door, and I’ll tell you,” he answered.
Susan herself admitted him, though he would scarcely have known her, so pale and wan did she look. She did not know him, and he had to tell her who he was. She then began to make inquiries about “her good man.”
Dick had no very satisfactory account to give. All he could say was that Ben had intended to desert and come home, but that in all probability he had been caught and kept on board. “He did not forget you, however,” said Dick, presenting ten guineas to the poor woman.
At the sight of the money Susan’s countenance brightened. “Bless him! he was always kind and ready to give when he had it; but it is the last, I much fear, I shall ever get from him!” she exclaimed, and then burst into tears.
“I hope not,” said Dick. “The ship will be paid off some day, and then he will be able to come home, with plenty more in his pocket. I have sometimes wished that I had stopped, but he advised me to run with him; and it might have been better if I had been caught, and he got away.”
“It cannot be helped, Dick,” said Susan, inclined to take the matter very philosophically; “though when the ten guineas are gone—and they can’t last for ever—I don’t know what I shall do. If it hadn’t been for them, I should have been in the workhouse next week.”
“I must tell my mother about you,” said Dick; “maybe she’ll send some food for you and the children.”
“Your mother will be a long way off, Dick. You haven’t heard, maybe, that they are going to leave the farm next week, and have taken one the other side of Christchurch. Your father, after all, accepted Lord Elverston’s offer, though it was what my good man always said he would not do if he was in his place, and the farm is to be taken into the park. It was a sore trial to your father and mother, but after you went they seemed not to care what became of them.”