Maria walked slowly to and fro in the sunny path, saying a word or two to David now and then, but choosing safer subjects; the weather, the flowers under his charge, the vegetables already nipped with frost. She looked very ill. Her face thin and white, her soft sweet eyes larger and darker than was natural. Her hands were wrapped in the cloak for warmth, and her steps were unequal. Crusty David actually ventured on a little bit of civility.

"_You_ don't seem to get about over quick, ma'am."

"Not very, David. But I feel better than I did."

She sat down on the bench, and Meta came flying to her, spade in hand.

Might she plant a gooseberry-tree, and have all the gooseberries off it next year for herself?

Maria stroked the child's hair from her flushed face as she answered.

Meta flew off to find the "tree;" and Maria sat on, plunged in a train of thought which the question had led to. Where should they be at the gooseberry season next year? In that same dwelling? Would George's prospects have become more certain then?

"Now then! Is that the way you dig?"

The sharp words came from Margery, who had looked out at the kitchen window and caught sight of Miss Meta rolling in the mould. The child jumped up laughing, and ran into the house for her skipping-rope.

"Have I been out half an hour, do you think, David?" Maria asked by-and-by.

"Near upon 't," said David, without lifting his eyes.

She rose to pursue her way slowly indoors. She was so fatigued--and there had been, so to say, no exertion--that she felt as if she could never stir out again. Merely putting on and taking off her cloak was almost beyond her. She let it fall from her shoulders, took off her bonnet, and sank into an easy-chair.

From this she was aroused by hearing the gate hastily opened. Quick footsteps came up the path, and a manly voice said something to David Jekyl in a free, joking tone. She bounded up, her cheek flushing to hectic, her heart beating. Could it be George?

No; it was her brother, Reginald Hastings. He came in with a great deal of unnecessary noise and clatter. He had arrived from London only that morning, he proceeded to tell Maria, and was going up again by the night train.

"I say, Maria, how ill you look!"

Very ill indeed just then. The excitement of sudden expectation had faded, leaving her whiter than before. Dark circles were round her eyes, and her delicate hands, more feeble, more slender than of yore, moved restlessly on her lap.

"I have been very feverish the last few weeks," she said. "I think I am stronger. But I have been out for a walk and am tired."

"What did the little shaver die of?" asked Reginald.

"Of convulsions," she answered, her bodily weariness too great to speak in anything but tones of apathy. "Why are you going up again so soon?

Have you a ship?"

Reginald nodded. "We have orders to join to-morrow at twelve. The _Mary_, bound for China, six hundred tons. I know the mother would never forgive me if I didn't come to say good-bye, so I thought I would have two nights of it in the train."

"Are you going as second officer, Reginald?"

"Second officer!--no. I have not pa.s.sed."

"Regy!"

"They are a confounded lot, that board!" broke out Mr. Reginald, explosively. "I don't believe they know their own business. And as to pa.s.sing any one without once turning him, they won't do it. I should like to know who has the money! You pay your guinea, and you don't pa.s.s.

Come up again next Monday, they say. Well, you do go up again, as you want to pa.s.s; and you pay another half-guinea. I did so; and they turned me again; said I didn't know seamanship. The owls! not know seamanship!

I! They took me, I expect, for one of those dainty middies in Green's service who walk the deck in kid gloves all day. If there's one thing I have at my fingers' ends it is seamanship. I could navigate a vessel all over the world--and be hanged to the idiots! You can come again next Monday, they said to me. I wish the _Times_ would show them up!"

"Did you go again?"

"Did I!--no," fumed Reginald. "Just to add to their pockets by another half-guinea! I hadn't it to give, Maria. I just flung the whole lot over, and went down to the first ship in the docks and engaged myself."

"As what?" she asked.

"As A. B."

"A. B.?" repeated Maria, puzzled. "You don't mean--surely you don't mean before the mast?"

"Yes I do."

"Oh, Reginald!"

"It doesn't make much difference," cried Reginald in slighting tones.

"The second mates in some of those ships are not much better off than the seamen. You must work, and the food's pretty much the same, except at the skipper's table. Let a fellow rise to be first mate, and he is in tolerably smooth water; but until then he must rough it. After this voyage I'll go up again."

"But you might have shipped as third mate."

"I might--if I had taken my time to find a berth. But who was to keep me the while? It takes fifteen shillings a week at the Sailors' Home, besides odds and ends for yourself that you can't do without--smoke and things. I couldn't bear to ask them for more at home. Only think how long I've been on sh.o.r.e this time, Maria. I was knocking about London for weeks over my navigation, preparing to pa.s.s.--And for the mummies to turn me at last!"

Maria sighed. Poor Reginald's gloomy prospects were bringing her pain.

"There's another thing, Maria," he resumed. "If I had pa.s.sed for second mate, I don't see how I could go out as such. Where was my outfit to come from? An officer--if he is on anything of a ship--must look spruce, and have proper toggery. I am quite certain that to go out as second mate on a good ship would have cost me twenty pounds, for additional things that I couldn't do without. You can't get a s.e.xtant under three pounds, second-hand, if it's worth having. You know I never could have come upon them for twenty pounds at home, under their altered circ.u.mstances."

Maria made no reply. Every word was going to her heart.

"Whereas, in shipping as a common seaman, I don't want to take much more than you might tie up in a handkerchief. A fo'castle fellow can shift any way aboard. And there's one advantage," ingenuously added Reginald; "if I take no traps out with me, I can't lose them."

"But the discomfort?" breathed Maria.

"There's enough of that in any way, at sea. A little more or less is not of much account in the long-run. It's all in the voyage. I wish I had never been such a fool as to choose the sea. But I did choose it; so it's of no use kicking against it now."

"I wish you were not going as you are!" said Maria earnestly. "I wish you had shipped as third mate!"

"When a sailor can't afford the time to ship as he would, he must ship as he can. Many a hundred has done the same before me. To one third mate wanted in the port of London, there are scores and scores of able seamen."

"What does mamma say to it?"

"Well, you know she can't afford to be fastidious now. She cried a bit, but I told her I should be all right. Hard work and fo'castle living won't break bones. The parson told me----"

"Don't, Reginald!"

"Papa, then. He told me it was a move in the right direction, and if I would only go on so, I might make up for past shortcomings. I say, Isaac told me to give you his love."

"Did you see much of him?"

"No. On a Sunday now and then. He doesn't much like his new post. They are dreadfully over-worked, he says. It's quite a different thing from what the Bank was down here."

"Will he stop in it?"