True Blue | Page 3

fore-topsail
had to be taken in. The helm was put down, and, as she came slowly up
to the wind, the after-sail being taken off also, she lay to, gallantly
riding over the still rising seas. Though she did not tumble about,
perhaps, quite as much as she had been doing, her movements were far
from easy. She did not roll as before, as she was kept pressed down on
one side; still every now and then she gave a pitch as she glided down
into the trough of the sea, which made every timber and mast creak and

quiver, and few on board would have been inclined to sing:
"Here's a sou'wester coming, Billy, Don't you hear it roar now! Oh help
them! How I pities those Unhappy folks on shore now!"
At length William Freeborn was relieved from his post aloft, and came
down on deck. Paul Pringle, his old friend and messmate, who had
been hunting for him through the darkness, found him at last. Paul
grieved sincerely for the news he had to communicate, and, not liking
the task imposed on him, scarcely knew how to begin.
"Bill," said he with a sigh, "you and I, boy and man, have sailed
together a good score of years, and never had a fall-out about nothing
all that time, and it goes to my heart, Bill, to say any thing that you
won't like; but it must be done--that I sees--so it's no use to have no
circumbendibus. Your missus was took very bad--very bad indeed--just
in the middle of the gale, and there was no one to send for you--and so,
do you see--"
"My wife--Molly!--oh, what has happened, Paul?" exclaimed Freeborn,
not waiting for an answer; but springing below, he rushed to the
sick-bay, as the hospital is called. The faint cry of an infant reached his
ears as he opened the door. Betty Snell, one of the other nurses, was so
busily employed with something on her knees, that she did not see him
enter. The dim light of a lantern, hanging from a beam overhead, fell on
it. He saw that it was a newborn infant. He guessed what had happened,
but he did not stop to caress it, for beyond was the cot occupied by his
wife. There she lay, all still and silent. His heart sank within him; he
gazed at her with a feeling of terror and anguish which he had never
before experienced. He took her hand. It fell heavily by her side. He
gasped for breath. "Molly!" he exclaimed at length, "speak to me,
girl--what has happened?"
There was no answer. Then he knew that his honest, true-hearted wife
was snatched from him in this world for ever. The big drops of salt
spray, which still clung to his hair and bushy beard, dropped on the
kind face of her he had loved so well, but not a tear escaped his eyes.
He gladly would have wept, but he had not for so many a long year

done such a thing, and he felt too stunned and bewildered to do so now.
He had stood as a sailor alone could stand on so unstable a foothold,
gazing on those now placid and pale unchanging features for a long
time,--how long he could not tell,--when Paul Pringle, who had
followed him to the door of the sick-bay, came up, and, gently taking
him by the shoulders, said:
"Come along, Bill; there's no use mourning: we all loved her, and we
all feel for you, from the Captain downwards. That's a fact. But just do
you come and have a look at the younker. Betty Snell vows that he's the
very image of you, all except the beard and pigtail."
The latter appendage in those days was worn by most sailors, and Bill
Freeborn had reason to pride himself on his. The mention of it just then,
however, sent a pang through his heart, for Molly had the morning
before the gale dressed it for him.
Freeborn at first shook his head and would not move; but at last his
shipmate got him to turn round, and then Betty Snell held up the poor
little helpless infant to him, and the father's heart felt a touch of
tenderness of a nature it had never before experienced, and he stooped
down and bestowed a kiss on the brow of his newborn motherless child.
He did not, however, venture to take it in his arms.
"You'll look after it, Betty, and be kind to it?" said he in a husky voice.
"I'm sure you will, for her sake who lies there?"
"Yes, yes, Bill; no fear," answered Betty, who was a good-natured
creature in her way, though it was a rough way, by the bye.