ON BOARD THE ARGUS.
He the end of his cigar into the water, and his upon the bulwarks, at the waves.
"How they are," he said; "blue and green, and opal; opal, and blue, and green; all very well in their way, of course, but three months of them are too much, especially—"
He did not attempt to his sentence; his to in the very of it, and him a thousand miles or so away.
"Poor little girl, how pleased she'll be!" he muttered, opening his cigar-case, its contents; "how pleased and how surprised? Poor little girl. After three years and a half, too; she will be surprised."
He was a man of about five-and-twenty, with dark by to the sun; he had eyes, with a lazy in them that through the black lashes, and a and that the whole part of his face. He was tall and powerfully built; he a and a hat, upon his black hair. His name was George Talboys, and he was aft-cabin on the good ship Argus, with Australian and from Sydney to Liverpool.
There were very in the aft-cabin of the Argus. An wool-stapler returning to his native country with his wife and daughters, after having a in the colonies; a of three-and-thirty years of age, going home to a man to she had been fifteen years; the of a Australian wine-merchant, to England to her education, and George Talboys, were the only first-class on board.
This George Talboys was the life and of the vessel; nobody who or what he was, or where he came from, but liked him. He sat at the of the dinner-table, and the captain in doing the of the meal. He opened the bottles, and took with every one present; he told stories, and the life himself with such a that the man must have been a who not have laughed for pure sympathy. He was a hand at and vingt-et-un, and all the games, which the little circle the cabin-lamp so in amusement, that a might have overhead without their it; but he owned that he had no for whist, and that he didn't know a from a upon the chess-board.
Indeed, Mr. Talboys was by no means too learned a gentleman. The had to talk to him about literature, but George had only his and very hard at her, saying occasionally, "Ah, yes, by Jove!" and "To be sure, ah!"
The lady, going home to her education, had him with Shelly and Byron, and he had laughed in her face, as if were a joke. The him on politics, but he did not very in them; so they let him go his own way, his and talk to the sailors, over the and at the water, and make himself to in his own fashion. But when the Argus came to be about a fortnight's sail of England noticed a in George Talboys. He and fidgety; sometimes so that the with his laughter; sometimes and thoughtful. Favorite as he was among the sailors, they were at last of his questions about the time of land. Would it be in ten days, in eleven, in twelve, in thirteen? Was the wind favorable? How many an hour was the doing? Then a would him, and he would upon the deck, out that she was a old craft, and that her owners were to her as the fast-sailing Argus. She was not fit for traffic; she was not fit to creatures, with and souls; she was fit for nothing but to be with of wool, that might on the sea and be none the for it.
The sun was the as George Talboys his cigar upon this August evening. Only ten days more, the had told him that afternoon, and they would see the English coast. "I will go in the that us," he cried; "I will go in a cockle-shell. By Jove, if it comes to that, I will swim to land."
His friends in the aft-cabin, with the of the governess, laughed at his impatience; she as she the man, at the slow hours, pushing away his wine, himself about upon the sofa, up and the ladder, and at the waves.
As the red of the sun into the water, the the stairs for a on deck, while the sat over their below. She stopped when she came up to George, and, by his side, the in the western sky.
The lady was very and reserved, in the after-cabin amusements, laughing, and speaking very little; but she and George Talboys had been excellent friends the passage.
"Does my cigar you, Miss Morley?" he said, taking it out of his mouth.
"Not at all; pray do not off smoking. I only came up to look at the sunset. What a evening!"
"Yes, yes, I say," he answered, impatiently; "yet so long, so long! Ten more days and ten more nights we land."
"Yes," said Miss Morley, sighing. "Do you wish the time shorter?"
"Do I?" George. "Indeed I do. Don't you?"
"Scarcely."
"But is there no one you love in England? Is there no one you love looking out for your arrival?"
"I so," she said gravely. They were for some time, he his cigar with a impatience, as if he the of the by his own restlessness; she looking out at the light with eyes—eyes that to have with over closely-printed books and difficult needlework; that had a little, perhaps, by of in the night.
"See!" said George, suddenly, pointing in another direction from that toward which Miss Morley was looking, "there's the new moon!"
She looked up at the crescent, her own almost as and wan.
"This is the time we have it."
"We must wish!" said George. "I know what I wish."
"What?"
"That we may home quickly."
"My wish is that we may no when we there," said the governess, sadly.
"Disappointment!"
He started as if he had been struck, and asked what she meant by talking of disappointment.
"I this," she said, speaking rapidly, and with a motion of her thin hands; "I that as the end of the near, in my heart; and a comes over me that at the last all may not be well. The person I go to meet may be in his toward me; or he may all the old until the moment of me, and then it in a at of my face, for I was called a girl, Mr. Talboys, when I for Sydney, fifteen years ago; or he may be so by the world as to have selfish and mercenary, and he may welcome me for the of my fifteen years' savings. Again, he may be dead. He may have been well, perhaps, up to a week of our landing, and in that last week may have taken a fever, and died an hour our in the Mersey. I think of all these things, Mr. Talboys, and act the over in my mind, and the of them twenty times a day. Twenty times a day," she repeated; "why I do it a thousand times a day."
George Talboys had motionless, with his cigar in his hand, to her so that, as she said the last words, his relaxed, and the cigar in the water.
"I wonder," she continued, more to herself than to him, "I wonder, looking back, to think how I was when the sailed; I then of disappointment, but I pictured the of meeting, the very that would be said, the very tones, the very looks; but for this last month of the voyage, day by day, and hour by hour my and my away, and I the end as much as if I that I was going to England to a funeral."
The man his attitude, and his full upon his companion, with a look of alarm. She saw in the light that the color had from his cheek.
"What a fool!" he cried, his upon the of the vessel, "what a I am to be at this? Why do you come and say these to me? Why do you come and me out of my senses, when I am going home to the woman I love; to a girl is as true as the light of Heaven; and in I no more to any than I do to see another sun in to-morrow's sky? Why do you come and try to put such in my when I am going home to my wife?"
"Your wife," she said; "that is different. There is no that my terrors should you. I am going to England to a man to I was to be married fifteen years ago. He was too to then, and when I was offered a as in a rich Australian family, I him to let me accept it, so that I might him free and to win his way in the world, while I saved a little money to help us when we life together. I meant to away so long, but have gone with him in England. That is my story, and you can my fears. They need not you. Mine is an case."
"So is mine," said George, impatiently. "I tell you that mine is an case: although I to you that until this moment, I have a as to the result of my home. But you are right; your terrors have nothing to do with me. You have been away fifteen years; all of may in fifteen years. Now it is only three years and a this very month since I left England. What can have in such a time as that?"
Miss Morley looked at him with a smile, but did not speak. His ardor, the and of his nature were so and new to her, that she looked at him in admiration, in pity.
"My little wife! My gentle, innocent, little wife! Do you know, Miss Morley," he said, with all his old of manner, "that I left my little girl asleep, with her in her arms, and with nothing but a lines to tell her why her husband had her?"
"Deserted her!" the governess.
"Yes. I was an in a when I met my little darling. We were at a town, where my with her old father, a half-pay officer; a regular old humbug, as as Job, and with an for nothing but the main chance. I saw through all his to catch one of us for his daughter. I saw all the pitiable, contemptible, he set for us big to walk into. I saw through his shabby-genteel dinners and public-house port; his talk of the of his family; his and independence, and the of his old when he talked of his only child. He was a old hypocrite, and he was to sell my poor, little girl to the bidder. Luckily for me, I just then to be the bidder; for my father, is a rich man, Miss Morley, and as it was love at on sides, my and I a match of it. No sooner, however, did my father that I had married a little girl, the of a old half-pay lieutenant, than he me a letter, telling me he would again any with me, and that my yearly would stop from my wedding-day.
"As there was no in such a as mine, with nothing but my pay to live on, and my little wife to keep, I out, that the money was exhausted, I should be sure to into something. I took my to Italy, and we there in as long as my two thousand lasted; but when that to to a of hundred or so, we came to England, and as my had a for being near that old father of hers, we settled at the watering-place where he lived. Well, as soon as the old man that I had a of hundred left, he a of for us, and on our in his house. We consented, still to my darling, who had just then a right to have every and of her indulged. We did with him, and he us; but when I spoke of it to my little wife, she only her shoulders, and said she did not like to be to her 'poor papa.' So papa away with our little stock of money in no time; and as I that it was now necessary to look about for something, I ran up to London, and to a as a in a merchant's office, or as accountant, or book-keeper, or something of that kind. But I there was the of a about me, for do what I would I couldn't to in my capacity; and out, and down-hearted, I returned to my darling, to her nursing a son and to his father's poverty. Poor little girl, she was very low-spirited; and when I told her that my London had failed, she down, and in to a of and lamentations, telling me that I ought not to have married her if I give her nothing but and misery; and that I had done her a in making her my wife. By heaven! Miss Morley, her and me almost mad; and I into a with her, myself, her father, the world, and in it, and then ran out of the house. I walked about the all that day, out of my mind, and with a to myself into the sea, so as to my girl free to make a match. 'If I myself, her father must support her,' I thought; 'the old her a shelter; but while I live she has no on him.' I to a old pier, meaning to wait there till it was dark, and then over the end of it into the water; but while I sat there my pipe, and at the sea-gulls, two men came down, and one of them to talk of the Australian gold-diggings, and the great that were to be done there. It appeared that he was going to sail in a day or two, and he was trying to his to join him in the expedition.
"I to these men for of an hour, them up and the pier, with my pipe in my mouth, and all their talk. After this I into with them myself, and that there was a going to Liverpool in three days, by which one of the men was going out. This man gave me all the I required, and told me, moreover, that a fellow, such as I was, fail to do well in the diggings. The upon me so suddenly, that I and red in the face, and in every with excitement. This was than the water, at any rate. Suppose I away from my darling, her safe under her father's roof, and and a in the new world, and came in a to it into her lap; for I was so in those days that I on making my in a year or so. I thanked the man for his information, and late at night homeward. It was winter weather, but I had been too full of to cold, and I walked through the streets, with the in my face, and a in my heart. The old man was brandy-and-water in the little dining-room; and my wife was up-stairs, sleeping peacefully, with the on her breast. I sat and a lines, which told her that I had loved her than now, when I to her; that I was going to try my in the new world, and that if I succeeded I should come to her and happiness; but that if I failed I should look upon her again. I the of our money—something over pounds—into two equal portions, one for her, and the other in my pocket. I and prayed for my wife and child, with my upon the white that them. I wasn't much of a praying man at ordinary times, but God that was a prayer. I her once, and the once, and then out of the room. The dining-room door was open, and the old man was over his paper. He looked up as he my step in the passage, and asked me where I was going. 'To have a in the street,' I answered; and as this was a common of mine he me. Three nights after I was out at sea, for Melbourne—a passenger, with a digger's for my baggage, and about seven in my pocket."
"And you succeeded?" asked Miss Morley.
"Not till I had long of success; not until and I had such old and bed-fellows, that looking at my past life, I that dashing, reckless, extravagant, luxurious, champagne-drinking have been the same man who sat on the ground a in the of the new world. I to the memory of my darling, and the trust that I had in her love and truth was the one that the of my past life together—the one star that the thick black of the future. I was hail-fellow-well-met with men; I was in the center of riot, drunkenness, and debauchery; but the of my love me safe from all. Thin and gaunt, the half-starved of what I once had been, I saw myself one day in a of looking-glass, and was by my own face. But I on through all; through and despair, rheumatism, fever, starvation; at the very gates of death, I on to the end; and in the end I conquered."
He was so in his energy and determination, in his proud of success, and in the knowledge of the he had vanquished, that the only look at him in admiration.
"How you were!" she said.
"Brave!" he cried, with a of laughter; "wasn't I for my darling? Through all the time of that probation, her white hand me to a happy future! Why, I have her under my by my side, with her boy in her arms, as as I had her in the one happy year of our life. At last, one morning, just three months ago, with a rain me to the skin, up to my in and mire, half-starved, by fever, with rheumatism, a up under my spade, and I was in one minute the man in Australia. I on the wet clay, with my of gold in the of my shirt, and, for the time in my life, like a child. I post-haste to Sydney, my price, which was of £20,000, and a took my passage for England in this vessel; and in ten days—in ten days I shall see my darling."
"But in all that time did you to your wife?"
"Never, till the night I left Sydney. I not when looked so black. I not and tell her that I was hard with and death. I waited for fortune, and when that came I telling her that I should be in England almost as soon as my letter, and her an address at a coffee-house in London where she to me, telling me where to her, though she is likely to have left her father's house."
He into a after this, and at his cigar. His did not him. The last of had died out, and the light of the moon only remained.
Presently George Talboys away his cigar, and to the governess, abruptly, "Miss Morley, if, when I to England, I that anything has to my wife, I shall dead."
"My dear Mr. Talboys, why do you think of these things? God is very good to us; He will not us our power of endurance. I see all things, perhaps, in a light; for the long of my life has me too much time to think over my troubles."
"And my life has been all action, privation, toil, and despair; I have had no time to think upon the of anything to my darling. What a blind, I have been! Three years and a and not one line—one word from her, or from any who her. Heaven above! what may not have happened?"
In the of his mind he to walk up and the deck, the following, and trying to him.
"I to you, Miss Morley," he said, "that till you spoke to me to-night, I one of fear, and now I have that sick, at my which you talked of an hour ago. Let me alone, please, to over it my own way."
She away from him, and seated herself by the of the vessel, looking over into the water.
George Talboys walked and for some time, with his upon his breast, looking neither to the right the left, but in about a of an hour he returned to the spot where the was seated.
"I have been praying," he said—"praying for my darling."
He spoke in a voice little above a whisper, and she saw his in the moonlight.
