The Penny Dreadfuls MEGAPACK™ (291 page)

‘We made an agreement, father, that on that day two years he was to come to me or send me some news of his whereabouts; if I heard nothing of him I was to conclude he was no more, and I cannot help so concluding now.

‘But the day has not yet passed.’

‘I know it has not, and yet I rest upon but a slender hope, father. Do you believe that dreams ever really shadow forthcoming events?’

‘I cannot say, my child; I am not disposed to yield credence to any supposed fact because I have dreamt it, but I confess to having heard some strange instances where these visions of the night have come strictly true.’

‘Heaven knows but this may be one of them! I had a dream last night. I thought that I was sitting upon the sea-shore, and that all before me was nothing but a fathomless waste of waters. I heard the roar and the dash of the waves distinctly, and each moment the wind grew more furious and fierce, and I saw in the distance a ship—it was battling with the waves, which at one moment lifted it mountains high, and at another plunged it far down into such an abyss, that not a vestige of it could be seen but the topmost spars of the tall masts. And still the storm increased each moment in its fury, and ever and anon there came a strange sullen sound across the waters, and I saw a flash of fire, and knew that those in the ill-fated vessel were thus endeavouring to attract attention and some friendly aid. Father, from the first to the last I knew that Mark Ingestrie was there—my heart told me so: I was certain he was there, and I was helpless—utterly helpless, utterly and entirely unable to lend the slightest aid. I could only gaze upon what was going forward as a silent and terrified spectator of the scene. And at last I heard a cry come over the deep—a strange, loud, wailing cry—which proclaimed to me the fate of the vessel. I saw its masts shiver for a moment in the blackened air, and then all was still for a few seconds, until there arose a strange, wild shriek, that I knew was the despairing cry of those who sank, never to rise again, in that vessel. Oh! that was a frightful sound—it was a sound to linger on the ears, and haunt the memory of sleep—it was a sound never to be forgotten when once heard, but such as might again and again be remembered with horror and affright.’

‘And all this was in your dream?’

‘It was, father, it was.’

‘And you were helpless?’

‘I was—utterly and entirely helpless.’

‘It was very sad.’

‘It was, as you shall hear. The ship went down, and that cry that I had heard was the last despairing one given by those who clung to the wreck with scarce a hope, and yet because it was their only refuge, for where else had they to look for the smallest ray of consolation? where else, save in the surging waters, were they to hunt for safety? Nowhere! all was lost! all was despair! I tried to scream—I tried to cry aloud to Heaven to have mercy upon those brave and gallant souls who had trusted their dearest possession—life itself—to the mercy of the deep; and while I so tried to render so inefficient succour, I saw a small speck in the sea, and my straining eyes perceived that it was a man floating and clinging to a piece of the wreck, and I knew it was Mark Ingestrie.’

‘But, my dear, surely you are not annoyed at a dream?’

‘It saddened me; I stretched out my arms to save him—I heard him pronounce my name, and call upon me for help. ‘Twas all in vain; he baffled with the waves as long as human nature could baffle with them. He could do no more, and I saw him disappear before my anxious eyes.’

‘Don’t say you saw him, my dear, say you fancy you saw him.’

‘It was such a fancy as I shall not lose the remembrance of for many a day.’

‘Well, well, after all, my dear, it’s only a dream; and it seems to me, without at all adverting to anything that should give you pain as regards Mark Ingestrie, that you made a very foolish bargain; for only consider how many difficulties might arise in the way of his keeping faith with you. You know I have your happiness so much at heart that, if Mark had been a worthy man and an industrious one, I should not have opposed myself to your union; but, believe me, my dear Johanna, that a young man with great facilities for spending money, and none whatever for earning any, is just about the worst husband you could choose, and such a man was Mark Ingestrie. But come, we will say nothing of this to your mother; let the secret, if we may call it such, rest with me; and if you can inform me in what capacity and in what vessel he left England, I will not carry my prejudice so far against him as to hesitate about making what enquiry I can concerning his fate.’

‘I know nothing more, father; we parted, and never met again.’

‘Well, well! dry your eyes, Johanna, and, as I go to Alderman Judd’s, I’ll think over the matter, which, after all, may not be so bad as you think. The lad is a good-enough-looking lad, and has, I believe, a good ability, if he would put it to some useful purpose; but if he goes scampering about the world in an unsettled manner, you are well rid of him, and as for his being dead, you must not conclude that by any means, for somehow or another, like a bad penny, these fellows always come back.’

There was more consolation in the kindly tone of the spectacle-maker than in the words he used; but, upon the whole, Johanna was well enough pleased that she had communicated the secret to her father, for now, at all events, she had someone to whom she could mention the name of Mark Ingestrie, without the necessity of concealing the sentiment with which she did so; and when her father had gone, she felt that, by the mere relation of it to him, some of the terrors of her dream had vanished.

She sat for some time in a pleasing reverie, till she was interrupted by Sam, the shop-boy, who came into the parlour and said, ‘Please, Miss Johanna, suppose I was to go down to the docks and try and find out for you Mr Mark Ingestrie. I say, suppose I was to do that. I heard it all, and if I do find him I’ll soon settle him.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I means that I won’t stand it; didn’t I tell you, more than three weeks ago, as you was the object of my infections? Didn’t I tell you that when aunt died I should come in for the soap and candle business, and make you my missus?’

The only reply which Johanna gave to this was to rise and leave the room, for her heart was too full of grief and sad speculation to enable her to do now as she had often been in the habit of doing—viz., laugh at Sam’s protestations of affection, so he was left to chew the cud of sweet and bitter fancy by himself.

‘A thousand damns!’ said he, when he entered the shop: ‘I always suspected there was some other fellow, and now I know it I am ready to gnaw my head off that ever I consented to come here. Confound him! I hope he is at the bottom of the sea, and eat up by this time. Oh! I should like to smash everybody. If I had my way now I’d just walk into society at large, as they calls it, and let it know what one, two, three, slap in the eye, is—and down it would go.’

Mr Sam, in his rage, did upset a case of spectacles, which went down with a tremendous crash, and which, however good an imitation of the manner in which society at large was to be knocked down, was not likely to be at all pleasing to Mr Oakley.

‘I have done it now,’ he said; ‘but never mind; I’ll try the old dodge whenever I break anything; that is, I’ll place it in old Oakley’s way, and swear he did it. I never knew such an old goose; you may persuade him into anything; the idea, now, of his pulling down all the shutters this morning because I told him my aunt had the toothache; that was a go, to be sure. But I’ll be revenged of that fellow who has took away, I consider, Johanna from me; I’ll let him know what a blighted heart is capable of. He won’t live long enough to want a pair of spectacles, I’ll be bound, or else my name ain’t Sam Bolt.’

CHAPTER THREE

THE DOG AND THE HAT

The earliest dawn of morning was glistening upon the masts, the cordage, and the sails of a fleet of vessels lying below Sheerness.

The crews were rousing themselves from their night’s repose, and to make their appearance on the decks of the vessels, from which the night-watch had just been relieved.

A man-of-war, which had been the convoy of the fleet of merchant-men through the charnel, fired a gun as the first glimpse of the morning sun fell upon her tapering masts. Then from a battery in the neighbourhood came another booming report, and that was answered by another farther off, and then another, until the whole chain of batteries that girded the coast, for it was a time of war, had proclaimed the dawn of another day.

The effect was very fine, in the stillness of the early morn, of these successions of reports; and as they died away in the distance like mimic thunder, some order was given on board the man-of-war, and, in a moment, the masts and cordage seemed perfectly alive with human beings clinging to them in various directions. Then, as if by magic, or as if the ship had been a living thing itself, and had possessed wings, which, at the mere instigation of a wish, could be spread far and wide, there fluttered out such sheets of canvas as was wonderful to see; and, as they caught the morning light, and the ship moved from the slight breeze that sprang up from the shore, she looked, indeed, as if she

Walk’d the waters like a thing of life.

The various crews of the merchantmen stood upon the decks of their respective vessels, gazing after the ship-of-war, as she proceeded upon another mission similar to the one she had just performed in protecting the commerce of the country.

As she passed one vessel, which had been, in point of fact, actually rescued from the enemy, the crew, who had been saved from a foreign prison, cheered lustily.

There wanted but such an impulse as this, and then every merchant-vessel that the man-of-war passed took up the gladsome shout, and the crew of the huge vessel were not slow in their answer, for three deafening cheers—such as had frequently struck terror into the hearts of England’s enemies—awakened many an echo from the shore.

It was a proud and a delightful sight—such a sight as none but an Englishman can thoroughly enjoy—to see that vessel so proudly stemming the waste of waters. We say none but an Englishman can enjoy it, because no other nation has ever attempted to achieve a great maritime existence without being most signally defeated, and leaving us still, as we shall ever be, masters of the seas.

These proceedings were amply sufficient to arouse the crews of all the vessels, and over the taffrail of one in particular, a large-sized merchantman, which had been trading in the Indian seas, two men were leaning. One of them was the captain of the vessel, and the other a passenger, who intended leaving that morning. They were engaged in earnest conversation, and the captain, as he shaded his eyes with his hand, and looked along the surface of the river, said, in reply to some observation from his companion, ‘I’ll order my boat the moment Lieutenant Thornhill comes on board; I call him Lieutenant, although I have no right to do so, because he has held that rank in the king’s service, but when quite a young man was cashiered for fighting a duel with his superior officer.’

‘The service has lost a good officer,’ said the other.

‘It has indeed; a braver man never stepped, nor a better officer; but you see they have certain rules in the service and everything is sacrificed to maintain them. I can’t think what keeps him; he went last night and said he would pull up to the Temple stairs, because he wanted to call upon somebody by the waterside, and after that he was going to the city to transact some business of his own, and that would have brought him nearer there, you see; and there are plenty of things coming down the river.’

‘He’s coming,’ cried the other; ‘don’t be impatient; you will see him in a few minutes.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Because I see his dog—there, don’t you see, swimming in the water, and coming direct towards the ship?’

‘I cannot imagine—I can see the dog, certainly; but I can’t see Thornhill, nor is there any boat at hand. I know not what to make of it. Do you know my mind misgives me that something has happened amiss? The dog seems exhausted. Lend a hand there to Mr Thornhill’s dog, some of you. Why, it’s a hat he has in his mouth.’

The dog made towards the vessel; but without the assistance of the seamen—with the whole of whom he was an immense favourite—he certainly could not have boarded the vessel; and when he reached the deck, he sank down upon it in a state of complete exhaustion, with the hat still in his grasp.

As the animal lay, panting, upon the deck, the sailors looked at each other in amazement, and there was but one opinion among them all now, and that was that something very serious had unquestionably happened to Mr Thornhill.

‘I dread,’ said the captain, ‘an explanation of this occurrence.’

‘What on earth can it mean? That’s Thornhill’s hat, and here is Hector. Give the dog some drink and meat directly—he seems thoroughly exhausted.’

The dog ate sparingly of some food that was put before him; and then, seizing the hat again in his mouth, he stood by the side of the ship and howled piteously; then he put down the hat for a moment, and, walking up to the captain, he pulled him by the skirt of the coat.

‘You understand him,’ said the captain to the passenger; ‘something has happened to Thornhill, I’ll be bound; and you see the object of the dog is to get me to follow him to see what it’s about.’

‘Think you so? It is a warning, if it be such at all, that I should not be inclined to neglect; and if you will follow the dog, I will accompany you; there may be more in it than we think of, and we ought not to allow Mr Thornhill to be in want of any assistance that we can render him, when we consider what great assistance he has been to us. Look how anxious the poor beast is.’

The captain ordered a boat to be launched at once, and manned by four stout rowers. He then sprang into it, followed by the passenger, who was a Colonel Jeffery, of the Indian army, and the dog immediately followed them, testifying by his manner great pleasure at the expedition they were undertaking, and carrying the hat with him, which he evidently showed an immense disinclination to part with.

The captain ordered the boat to proceed up the river towards the Temple stairs, where Hector’s master had expressed his intention of proceeding, and, when the faithful animal saw the direction in which they were going, he lay down in the bottom of the boat perfectly satisfied, and gave himself up to that repose, of which he was evidently so much in need.