第36章 TO PLEASE HIS WIFE(5)

'If I might take the boys.'

She turned pale.

'Don't say that,Shadrach,'she answered hastily.

'Why?'

'I don't like to hear it!There's danger at sea.I want them to be something genteel,and no danger to them.I couldn't let them risk their lives at sea.O,I couldn't ever,ever!'

'Very well,dear,it shan't be done.'

Next day,after a silence,she asked a question:

'If they were to go with you it would make a great deal of difference,I suppose,to the profit?'

''Twould treble what I should get from the venture single-handed.

Under my eye they would be as good as two more of myself.'

Later on she said:'Tell me more about this.'

'Well,the boys are almost as clever as master-mariners in handling a craft,upon my life!There isn't a more cranky place in the Northern Seas than about the sandbanks of this harbour,and they've practised here from their infancy.And they are so steady.I couldn't get their steadiness and their trustworthiness in half a dozen men twice their age.'

'And is it VERY dangerous at sea;now,too,there are rumours of war?'she asked uneasily.

'O,well,there be risks.Still ...'

The idea grew and magnified,and the mother's heart was crushed and stifled by it.Emmy was growing TOO patronizing;it could not be borne.Shadrach's wife could not help nagging him about their comparative poverty.The young men,amiable as their father,when spoken to on the subject of a voyage of enterprise,were quite willing to embark;and though they,like their father,had no great love for the sea,they became quite enthusiastic when the proposal was detailed.

Everything now hung upon their mother's assent.She withheld it long,but at last gave the word:the young men might accompany their father.Shadrach was unusually cheerful about it:Heaven had preserved him hitherto,and he had uttered his thanks.God would not forsake those who were faithful to him.

All that the Jolliffes possessed in the world was put into the enterprise.The grocery stock was pared down to the least that possibly could afford a bare sustenance to Joanna during the absence,which was to last through the usual 'New-f'nland spell.'How she would endure the weary time she hardly knew,for the boys had been with her formerly;but she nerved herself for the trial.

The ship was laden with boots and shoes,ready-made clothing,fishing-tackle,butter,cheese,cordage,sailcloth,and many other commodities;and was to bring back oil,furs,skins,fish,cranberries,and what else came to hand.But much trading to other ports was to be undertaken between the voyages out and homeward,and thereby much money made.

CHAPTER III

The brig sailed on a Monday morning in spring;but Joanna did not witness its departure.She could not bear the sight that she had been the means of bringing about.Knowing this,her husband told her overnight that they were to sail some time before noon next day hence when,awakening at five the next morning,she heard them bustling about downstairs,she did not hasten to descend,but lay trying to nerve herself for the parting,imagining they would leave about nine,as her husband had done on his previous voyage.When she did descend she beheld words chalked upon the sloping face of the bureau;but no husband or sons.In the hastily-scrawled lines Shadrach said they had gone off thus not to pain her by a leave-taking;and the sons had chalked under his words:'Good-bye,mother!'

She rushed to the quay,and looked down the harbour towards the blue rim of the sea,but she could only see the masts and bulging sails of the Joanna;no human figures.''Tis I have sent them!'she said wildly,and burst into tears.In the house the chalked 'Good-bye'

nearly broke her heart.But when she had re-entered the front room,and looked across at Emily's,a gleam of triumph lit her thin face at her anticipated release from the thraldom of subservience.

To do Emily Lester justice,her assumption of superiority was mainly a figment of Joanna's brain.That the circumstances of the merchant's wife were more luxurious than Joanna's,the former could not conceal;though whenever the two met,which was not very often now,Emily endeavoured to subdue the difference by every means in her power.

The first summer lapsed away;and Joanna meagrely maintained herself by the shop,which now consisted of little more than a window and a counter.Emily was,in truth,her only large customer;and Mrs.

Lester's kindly readiness to buy anything and everything without questioning the quality had a sting of bitterness in it,for it was the uncritical attitude of a patron,and almost of a donor.The long dreary winter moved on;the face of the bureau had been turned to the wall to protect the chalked words of farewell,for Joanna could never bring herself to rub them out;and she often glanced at them with wet eyes.Emily's handsome boys came home for the Christmas holidays;the University was talked of for them;and still Joanna subsisted as it were with held breath,like a person submerged.Only one summer more,and the 'spell'would end.Towards the close of the time Emily called on her quondam friend.She had heard that Joanna began to feel anxious;she had received no letter from husband or sons for some months.Emily's silks rustled arrogantly when,in response to Joanna's almost dumb invitation,she squeezed through the opening of the counter and into the parlour behind the shop.

'YOU are all success,and _I_am all the other way!'said Joanna.

'But why do you think so?'said Emily.'They are to bring back a fortune,I hear.'

'Ah!will they come?The doubt is more than a woman can bear.All three in one ship--think of that!And I have not heard of them for months!'

'But the time is not up.You should not meet misfortune half-way.'

'Nothing will repay me for the grief of their absence!'

'Then why did you let them go?You were doing fairly well.'