Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVI., December, 1880.. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
that the Mary Jane had arrived and was lying at the wharf unloading, not knowing what better to do, they decided that she should go to Captain Triggs and ask him, in case Adam could get away, whether he would let him come on board his vessel and give him shelter there below.
"Wa-al, no," said Triggs, "I woan't do that, 'cos they as I'se got here might smell un out; but I'll tell 'ee what: I knaws a chap as has in many ways bin beholden to me 'fore now, and I reckon if I gives un the cue he'll do the job for 'ee."
"But do you think he's to be trusted?" Eve asked.
"Wa-al, that rests on how small a part you'm foaced to tell un of," said Triggs, "and how much you makes it warth his while. I'm blamed if I'd go bail for un myself, but that won't be no odds agen' Adam's goin': 'tis just the place for he. 'T 'ud niver do to car'y a pitch-pot down and set un in the midst o' they who couldn't bide his stink."
"And the crew?" said Eve, wincing under Captain Triggs's figurative language.
"Awh, the crew's right enuf—a set o' gashly, smudge-faced raskils that's near half Maltee and t' other Lascar Injuns. Any jail-bird that flies their way 'ull find they's all of a feather. But here," he added, puzzled by the event: "how's this that you'm still mixed up with Adam so? I thought 'twas all 'long o' you and Reuben May that the Lottery's landin' got blowed about?"
Eve shook her head. "Be sure," she said, "'twas never in me to do Adam any harm."
"And you'm goin' to stick to un now through thick and thin? 'Twill niver do for un, ye knaw, to set his foot on Cornish ground agen."
"He knows that," said Eve; "and if he gets away we shall be married and go across the seas to some new part, where no one can tell what brought us from our home."
Triggs gave a significant nod. "Lord!" he exclaimed, "but that's a poor lookout for such a bowerly maid as you be! Wouldn't it be better for 'ee to stick by yer friends 'bout here than—"
"I haven't got any friends," interrupted Eve promptly, "excepting it's Adam and Joan and Uncle Zebedee."
"Ah, poor old Zebedee!" sighed Triggs: "'tis all dickey with he. The day I started I see Sammy Tucker to Fowey, and he was tellin' that th' ole chap was gone reg'lar tottlin'-like, and can't tell thickee fra that; and as for Joan Hocken, he says you wouldn't knaw her for the same. And they's tooked poor foolish Jonathan, as is more mazed than iver, to live with 'em; and Mrs. Tucker, as used to haggle with everybody so, tends on 'em all hand and foot, and her's given up praichin' 'bout religion and that, and 's turned quite neighborly, and, so long as her can save her daughter, thinks nothin's too hot nor too heavy."
"Dear Joan!" sighed Eve: "she's started by the coach on her way up here now."
"Whether she hath or no!" exclaimed Triggs in surprise. "Then take my word they's heerd that Jerrem's to be hanged, and Joan's comin' up to be all ready to hand for 't."
"No, not that," groaned Eve, for at the mere mention of the word the vague dread seemed to shape itself into a certainty. "Oh, Captain Triggs, don't say that if Adam gets off you don't think Jerrem's life will be spared."
"Wa-al, my poor maid, us must hope so," said the compassionate captain; "but 'tis the warst o' they doin's that sooner or later th' endin, of 'em must come. 'Twould never do to let 'em prosper allays," he added with impressive certainty, "or where 'ud be the use o' parsons praichin' up 'bout heaven and hell? Why, now, us likes good liquor cheap to Fowey; and wance 'pon a time us had it too, but that ha'n't bin for twenty year. Our day's gone by, and so 'ull theirs be now; and th' excise 'ull come, and revenoos 'ull settle down, and folks be foaced to take to lousterin' for the bit o' bread they ates, and live quiet and paceable, as good neighbors should. So try and take heart; and if so be that Adam can give they Bailey chaps the go-by, tell un to come 'longs here, and us 'ull be odds with any o' they that happens to be follerin' to his heels."
Charmed with this friendly promise, Eve said "Good-bye," leaving the captain puzzled with speculations on women and the many curious contradictions which seem to influence their actions; while, the hour being now too late to return to the prison, she took her way to her own room, thinking it best to begin the preparations which in case of Adam's escape and any sudden departure it would be necessary to have completed.
Perhaps it was her interview with Captain Triggs, the sight of the wharf and the ships, which took her thoughts back and made them bridge the gulf which divided her past life from her present self. Could the girl she saw in that shadowy past—headstrong, confident, impatient of suffering and unsympathetic with sorrow—be this same Eve who walked along with all hope and thought of self merged in another's happiness and welfare? Where was the vanity, where were the tricks and coquetries, passports to that ideal existence after which in the old days she had so thirsted? Trampled out of sight and choked beneath the fair blossoms of a higher life, which, as in many a human nature, had needed sorrow, humiliation and a great watering of tears before there could spring forth the flowers for a fruit which should one day ripen into great perfection.
No wonder, then, that she should be shaken by a doubt of her own identity; and having reached her room she paused upon the threshold and looked around as if to satisfy herself by all those silent witnesses which made it truth. There was the chair in which she had so often sat plying her needle with such tardy grace while her impatient thoughts did battle with the humdrum, narrow life she led. How she had beat against the fate which seemed to promise naught but that dull round of commonplace events in which her early years had passed away! How as a gall and fret had come the thought of Reuben's proffered love, because it shadowed forth the level of respectable routine, the life she then most dreaded! To be courted and sought after, to call forth love, jealousy and despair, to be looked up to, thought well of, praised, admired,—these were the delights she had craved and these the longings she had had granted. And a sigh from the depths of that chastened heart rendered the bitter tribute paid by all to satiated vanity and outlived desire. The dingy walls, the ill-assorted furniture (her mother's pride in which had sometimes vexed her, sometimes made her laugh) now looked like childhood's friends, whose faces stamp themselves upon our inmost hearts. The light no longer seemed obscure, the room no longer gloomy, for each thing in it now was flooded by the tender light of memory—that wondrous gift to man which those who only sail along life's summer sea can never know in all the heights and depths revealed to storm-tossed hearts.
"What! you've come back?" a voice said in her ear; and looking round Eve saw it was Reuben, who had entered unperceived. "There's nothing fresh gone wrong?" he asked.
"No, nothing;" but the sad smile she tried to give him welcome with was so akin to tears that Reuben's face assumed a look of doubt. "'Tis only that I'm thinking how I'm changed from what I was," said Eve. "Why, once I couldn't bear this room and all the things about it; but now—Oh, Reuben, my heart seems like to break because perhaps 'twill soon now come to saying good-bye to all of it for ever."
Reuben winced: "You're fixed to go, then?"
"Yes, where Adam goes I shall go too: don't you think I should? What else is left for me to do?"
"You feel, then, you'd be happy—off with him—away from all and—everybody else?"
"Happy! Should I be happy to know he'd gone alone—happy to know I'd driven him away to some place where I wouldn't go myself?" and Eve paused, shaking her head before she added, "If he can make another start in life—try and begin again—"
"You ought to help him to it," said Reuben promptly: "that's very plain to see. Oh, Eve, do you mind the times when you and me have talked of what we'd like to do—how, never satisfied with what went on around, we wanted to be altogether such as some of those we'd heard and read about? The way seems almost opened up to you, but what shall I do when all this is over and you are gone away? I can't go back and stick to trade again, working for nothing more but putting victuals in myself."
For a moment Eve did not speak: then, with a sudden movement, she turned, saying to Reuben, "There's something that before our lives are at any moment parted I've wanted to say to you, Reuben. 'Tis that until now, this time while we've been all together here, I've never known what your worth is—what you would be to any one who'd got the heart to value what you'd give. Of late it has often seemed that I should think but very small of one who'd had the chance of your liking and yet didn't know