Page:ONCE A WEEK JUL TO DEC 1860.pdf/442

434 ‘Was “Sands” his real name, not Fitzjames?’

‘Yes, Sands.’

‘I should like, Ben, to go and live with the lady, so as to be near this young gentleman who’s seen so much of him.’

“You see, she might have lived with me, only I couldn’t say that, and she didn’t seem to think of it.

‘I don’t know that she’d like that, either. If you’d been his wife, you see, it would have been different.’

‘But he did mean that I should be, didn’t he, Ben?’

‘That’s true, but then you’re not; but still, I’ll write and ask her.’

‘And you’ll try and get me to go, Ben?’

‘Esther,’ says I, ‘I’d lay down my life to serve you any time, and I promised Sands I’d do anything I could for you, with this hand in both his.’

“She took my hand into both hers, and kissed it hard, but I could see it was ’cause it had touched his. She’d ’a kissed anything that had touched him, she would; and though she was kissing my hand I couldn’t have told her I loved her then, anyhow. I should have choked if I’d tried.

“Well, I wrote and told the lady all about it, and she sent for her and the baby, and called her ‘Mrs. Sands.’

“Esther wouldn’t give me back the letter with that in it, though it was written for me; but I didn’t care so long as she was happy.

“I took her down there, and all the way down, she did nothing but cry and talk about Sands. I took her to the owner’s house, and she saw the lady and the boy, and I left her there, and went another voyage—not north though, you may guess, I’d had enough of ice for some time. I had money enough to stop ashore, but I never felt quite easy about it, so I settled some of the money upon mother, and the rest upon Esther, without her knowing it, and went off.

“I got a letter from—the owner’s son—I suppose I ought to call him now, instead of ‘the boy,’ seeing he was quite the gentleman in the counting-house now.

“It’s here in the pocket of this book.”

He took the letter, old, creased, and yellow, from the pocket, handed it me, and with his leave I copied it afterwards. It ran thus:

, Street, Aug.—, 18—.

,—I told you I’d write soon, so I’m now going to fulfil my promise. I’m in the counting-house,—got the drudgery to go through. Governor says that no boy’s fit for anything as a clerk until he’s done the lowest work of the office. You and he think alike: I recollect tarring down that back-stay by your orders now. I don’t get much pocket-money, still enough, you know, Ben; and Aunt Nelly has given me a couple of pistols. I can hit a card six times out of ten,—at twenty paces.

I haven’t got much more to say. My neck has got all right, except a scar, and there’s a scar on the left leg where I hit it that day I fell on the blocks.

That puts me in mind of Mrs. Sands. I say, Ben, was she Mrs. Sands, after all? You know what I mean. “The boy,” as you used to call me, is quite out of mother’s good books, and Mrs. Sands’, too, because he won’t tell for the ten thousandth time the story of being on the ice.

I’ve had to tell so many people, I’m sick of it, and mother wants me to tell it over and over again; and as for Mrs. Sands, she’s always bothering me to know how he died. I liked Sands well enough, you know, but I didn’t see him die, and was stupid after I saw the sail, so I could tell her very little. She’s marked in her prayer-book the prayer the doctor read over him when he was buried.

Everybody says you’re next door to a fool for going to sea again, but I suppose you know best. Mrs. Sands is, after all, a nice woman, and mother takes to her uncommonly,—treats her more like a daughter than a servant, and she’s more like one, too. I know many girls that aint half as ladylike as she is, spite of their silks. I’ve got my clothes under her, and I haven’t had a button off for weeks. I used always to go about with a bit of string or cotton somewhere for a button. I say, Ben, if you were to stick up to her, she’d have you, I know. I saw her cry over your last letter, in her room.

“I’d mentioned Sands in it,” said Ben, by way of explanation.

She’s only a widow, after all, and any one might be proud of that young Sands, he’s such a jolly little chap—strong as possible—we’re quite friends. He seems to like me, and Mrs. Sands is never happier than when I’m nursing him. She says I’ve been near him, and he would have nursed him. She means Sands.

Good bye, old fellow. Thanks for feeding me with a bone spoon. Mother keeps it in her pocket, I think. If you want a friend, Ben, or money, or anything, you know where to find your own boy. He aint a boy now, though.

“I had one or two more letters that voyage, but nothing in them that’s about my story. He used to write about himself; boys mostly do I think. Sometimes he mentioned Esther—not often much about her, just said she was well, sent her love, or something of that kind.

“I was gone about a twelvemonth; and, of course, when I got back I went to see them at Glasgow.

“The owner’s wife, she shook my hand, and Esther kissed me as cool as could be, just as if I’d been her brother, while I could have held her, and never let her go, if I’d not been careful of myself. She was going away from there to take care of the old people at home, so we went together; and all the time she talked of Sands, till I was nigh sick of it; still I didn’t show it, because I liked to hear her talk; she’d got a pleasant way with her that made you feel happy, no matter what she said, and you never would have made her see that Sands wasn’t the pleasantest subject to talk to me about.

“We got home—I lived with mother, and she with the old folks. I got a berth at a shipyard, as foreman rigger, and I didn’t care to go to sea again.

“I went to see her every day and nursed the youngster, he soon got to know me, and called me ‘Pa.’ She didn’t mind a bit,—rather liked it, I think.

“One day, after I’d been at home about six months, mother says to me.me, [sic]