Hetty Wesley | Page 7

find that she too was swaying.
"Hallo!" cried the same bystander, "look out there! the lady's fainting."

But Mrs. Wesley steadied herself. "'Tis not that," she gasped, at the
same time waving him off; "'tis the fire--the fire!" And stepping by the
crossing she fled along the street with Charles at her heels, nor ceased
running for another hundred yards. "You do not remember," she began,
turning at length; "no, of course you do not. You were a babe, not two
years old; nurse snatched you out of bed--"
The odd thing was that, despite the impossibility, Charles seemed to
remember quite clearly. As a child he had heard his sisters talk so often
of the fire at Epworth Rectory that the very scene--and especially
Jacky's escape--was bitten on the blank early pages as a real memory.
He had half a mind now to question his mother about it and startle her
with details, but her face forbade him.
She recovered her colour in bargaining with a waterman at Blackwall
Stairs. Two stately Indiamen lay out on the river below, almost flank by
flank; and, as it happened, the farther one was at that moment weighing
her anchor, indeed had it tripped on the cathead. A cloud of boats hung
about her, trailing astern as her head-sails drew and she began to gather
way on the falling tide.
The waterman, a weedy loafer with a bottle nose and watery blue eyes,
agreed to pull across for threepence; but no sooner were they embarked
and on the tide-way, than he lay on his oars and jerked his thumb
towards the moving ship. "Make it a crown, ma'am, and I'll overhaul
her," he hiccupped.
Mrs. Wesley glanced towards the two ships and counted down
threepence deliberately upon the thwart facing her, at the same time
pursing up her lips to hide a smile. For the one ship lay moored stem
and stern with her bows pointed up the river, and the other, drifting past,
at this moment swung her tall poop into view with her windows
flashing against the afternoon sun, and beneath them her name, the
Josiah Childs, in tall gilt letters.
"Better make it a crown, ma'am," the waterman repeated with a
drunken chuckle.

Mrs. Wesley rose in her seat. Her hand went up, and Charles made sure
she meant to box the man's ears. He could not see the look on her face,
but whatever it was it cowed the fellow, who seized his oars again and
began to pull for dear life, as she sat back and laid her hand on the
tiller.
"Easy, now," she commanded, after twenty strokes or so. "Easy, and
ship your oar, unless you want it broken!" But for answer he merely
stared at her, and a moment later his starboard oar snapped its tholepin
like a carrot, and hurled him back over his thwart as the boat ran
alongside the Albemarle's ladder.
"My friend," said Mrs. Wesley coolly, "you have a pestilent habit of
not listening. I hired you to row me to the Albemarle, and this, I believe,
is she." Then, with a glance up at the half-dozen grinning faces above
the bulwarks, "Can I see Captain Bewes?"
"Your servant, ma'am." The captain appeared at the head of the ladder;
a red apple-cheeked man in shirt-sleeves and clean white nankeen
breeches, who looked like nothing so much as an overgrown
schoolboy.
"Is Mr. Samuel Annesley on board?"
Captain Bewes rubbed his chin. He had grown suddenly grave. "I beg
your pardon," said he, "but are you a kinswoman of Mr. Annesley's?"
"I am his sister, sir."
"Then I'll have to ask you to step on board, ma'am. You may dismiss
that rascal, and one of my boats shall put you ashore."
He stepped some way down the ladder to meet her and she took his
hand with trepidation, while the Albemarle's crew leaned over and
taunted the cursing waterman.
"There--that will do, my man. I don't allow swearing here. Steady,
ma'am, that's right; and now give us a hand, youngster."

"Is--is he ill?" Mrs. Wesley stammered.
"Who? Mr. Annesley? Not to my knowledge, ma'am."
"Then he is on board? We heard he had taken passage with you."
"Why, so he did; and, what's more, to the best of my knowledge, he
sailed. It's a serious matter, ma'am, and we're all at our wits' ends over
it; but the fact is--Mr. Annesley has disappeared."
CHAPTER III.
That same evening, in Mr. Matthew Wesley's parlour, Johnson's Court,
Captain Bewes told the whole story--or so much of it as he knew. The
disappearance from on board his ship of a person so important as Mr.
Samuel Annesley touched his prospects in the Company's service, and
he did not conceal it. He had already reported the affair at