Mehalah (Gothic Classic). Baring-Gould Sabine
crowded round the remainder, and asked the news.
The captain was appointed to the command of the schooner, the 'Salamander,' which had come from the Downs under the charge of the first lieutenant, to pick him up. The destiny of the 'Salamander' was, of course, unknown.
Captain Macpherson was a keen, canny Scot, small and dapper; as he pushed through the cluster of men in fishing jerseys and wading boots he gave them a nod and a word, 'You ought to be serving your country instead of robbing her, ye loons. Why don't you volunteer like men, there's more money to be made by prizes than by running spirits.'
'That won't do, captain,' said Jim Morrell, an old fisherman. 'We know better than that. There's the oysters.'
'Oysters!' exclaimed the captain; 'there'll be no time for eating oysters now, and no money to pay for them neither. Come along with me, some of you shore crabs. I promise you better sport than sneaking about the creeks. We'll have at Johnny Crapaud with gun and cutlass.'
Then he entered his cottage, which was near the shore, to say farewell to his wife.
'If there's mischief to be done, that chap will do it,' was the general observation, when his back was turned.
Attention was all at once distracted by a young woman in a tall taxcart who was endeavouring to urge her horse along the road, but the animal, conscious of having an inexperienced hand on the rein, backed, and jibbed, and played a number of tricks, to her great dismay.
'Oh, do please some of you men lead him along. I daresay he will go if his head be turned east, but he is frightened by seeing so many of you.'
'Where are you going, Phoebe?' asked old Morrell.
'I'm only going to Waldegraves,' she answered. 'Oh, bother the creature! there he goes again!' as the horse danced impatiently, and swung round.
'De Witt!' she cried in an imploring tone, 'do hold his head. It is a shame of you men not to help a poor girl.'
George at once went to the rescue.
'Lead him on, De Witt, please, till we are away from the beach.'
The young man good-naturedly held the bit, and the horse obeyed without attempting resistance.
'There's a donkey on the lawn by Elm Tree Cottage,' said the girl; 'she brays whenever a horse passes, and I'm mortal afeared lest she scare this beast, and he runs away with me. If he do so, I can't hold him in, my wrists are so weak.'
'Why, Phoebe,' said De Witt, 'what are you driving for? Waldegraves is not more than a mile and a half off, and you might have walked the distance well enough.'
'I've sprained my ankle, and I can't walk. I must go to Waldegraves, I have a message there to my aunt, so Isaac Mead lent me the horse.'
'If you can't drive, you may do worse than sprain your ankle, you may break your neck.'
'That is what I am afraid of, George. The boy was to have driven me, but he is so excited, I suppose, about the man-of-war coming in, that he has run off. There! take care!'
'Can't you go on now?' asked De Witt, letting go the bridle. Immediately the horse began to jib and rear.
'You are lugging at his mouth fit to break his jaw, Phoebe. No wonder the beast won't go.'
'Am I, George? It is the fright. I don't understand the horse. O dear! O dear! I shall never get to Waldegraves by myself.'
'Let the horse go, but don't job his mouth in that way.'
'There he is turning round. He will go home again. O George! save me.'
'You are pulling him round, of course he will turn if you drag at the rein.'
'I don't understand horses,' burst forth Phoebe, and she threw the reins down. 'George, there's a good, dear fellow, jump in beside me. There's room for two, quite cosy. Drive me to Waldegraves. I shall never forget your goodness.' She put her two hands together, and looked piteously in the young man's face.
Phoebe Musset was a very good-looking girl, fair with bright blue eyes, and yellow hair, much more delicately made than most of the girls in the place. Moreover, she dressed above them. She was a village coquette, accustomed to being made much of, and of showing her caprices. Her father owned the store at the city where groceries and drapery were sold, and was esteemed a well-to-do man. He farmed a little land. Phoebe was his only child, and she was allowed to do pretty much as she liked. Her father and mother were hard-working people, but Phoebe's small hands were ever unsoiled, for they were ever unemployed. She neither milked the cows nor weighed the sugar. She liked indeed to be in the shop, to gossip with anyone who came in, and perhaps the only goods she condescended to sell was tobacco to the young sailors, from whom she might calculate on a word of flattery and a lovelorn look. She was always well and becomingly dressed. Now, in a chip bonnet trimmed with blue riband, and tied under the chin, with a white lace-edged kerchief over her shoulders, covering her bosom, she was irresistible. So at least De Witt found her, for he was obliged to climb the gig, seat himself beside her, and assume the reins.
'I am not much of a steersman in a craft like this,' said George laughing, 'but my hand is stronger than yours, and I can save you from wreck.'
Phoebe looked slyly round, and her great blue eyes peeped timidly up in the fisherman's face. 'Thank you so much, George. I shall never, never forget your great kindness.'
'There's nothing in it,' said the blunt fisherman; 'I'd do the same for any girl.'
'I know how polite you are,' continued Phoebe; then putting her hand on the reins, 'I don't think you need drive quite so fast, George; I don't want to get the horse hot, or Isaac will scold.'
'A jog trot like this will hurt no horse.'
'Perhaps you want to get back. I am sorry I have taken you away. Of course you have pressing business. No doubt you want to get to the Ray.' A little twinkling sly look up accompanied this speech. De Witt waxed red.
'I'm in no hurry, myself,' he said.
'How delightful, George, nor am I.'
The young man could not resist stealing a glance at the little figure beside him, so neat, so trim, so fresh. He was a humble fellow, and never dreamed himself to be on a level with such a refined damsel. Glory was the girl for him, rough and ready, who could row a boat, and wade in the mud. He loved Glory. She was a sturdy girl, a splendid girl, he said to himself. Phoebe was altogether different, she belonged to another sphere, he could but look and admire—and worship perhaps. She dazzled him, but he could not love her. She was none of his sort, he said to himself.
'A penny for your thoughts!' said Phoebe roguishly. He coloured. 'I know what you were thinking of. You were thinking of me.'
De Witt's colour deepened. 'I was sure it was so. Now I insist on knowing what you were thinking of me.'
'Why,' answered George with a clumsy effort at gallantry, 'I thought what a beauty you were.'
'Oh, George, not when compared with Mehalah.'
De Witt fidgeted in his seat.
'Mehalah is quite of another kind, you see, Miss.'
'I'm no Miss, if you please. Call me Phoebe. It is snugger.'
'She's more—' he puzzled his head for an explanation of his meaning. 'She is more boaty than you are—'
'Phoebe.'
'Than you are,' with hesitation, 'Phoebe.'
'I know;—strides about like a man, smokes and swears, and chews tobacco.'
'No, no, you mistake me, M——.'
'Phoebe.'
'You mistake me, Phoebe.'
'I have often wondered, George, what attracted you to Mehalah. To be sure, it will be a very convenient thing for you to have a wife who can swab the deck, and tar the boat and calk her. But then I should have fancied a man would have liked something different from a—sort of a man-woman—a jack