Kinraid did not speak for a minute or two. The sailors, who had
begun to take him into favour, were all agog with curiosity to hear
the message to his sweetheart, which they believed he was going to
send. Hepburn's perceptions, quickened with his vehement agitation
of soul, were aware of this feeling of theirs; and it increased his
rage against Kinraid, who had exposed the idea of Sylvia to be the
subject of ribald whispers. But the specksioneer cared little what
others said or thought about the maiden, whom he yet saw before his
closed eyelids as she stood watching him, from the Haytersbank
gully, waving her hands, her handkerchief, all in one passionate
farewell.
'What do yo' want wi' me?' asked Hepburn at last in a gloomy tone.
If he could have helped it, he would have kept silence till Kinraid
spoke first; but he could no longer endure the sailors' nudges, and
winks, and jests among themselves.
'Tell Sylvia,' said Kinraid---'There's a smart name for a sweetheart,' exclaimed one of the men;
but Kinraid went straight on,-'What yo've seen; how I've been pressed by this cursed gang.' 'Civil words, messmate, if you please. Sylvia can't abide cursing
and swearing, I'm sure. We're gentlemen serving his Majesty on board
the Alcestis, and this proper young fellow shall be helped on to
more honour and glory than he'd ever get bobbing for whales. Tell
Sylvia this, with my love; Jack Carter's love, if she's anxious
about my name.' One of the sailors laughed at this rude humour; another bade Carter
hold his stupid tongue. Philip hated him in his heart. Kinraid
hardly heard him. He was growing faint with the heavy blows he had
received, the stunning fall he had met with, and the reaction from
his dogged self-control at first.
Philip did not speak nor move.
'Tell her,' continued Kinraid, rousing himself for another effort,
'what yo've seen. Tell her I'll come back to her. Bid her not forget
the great oath we took together this morning; she's as much my wife
as if we'd gone to church;--I'll come back and marry her afore
long.' Philip said something inarticulately.
'Hurra!' cried Carter, 'and I'll be best man. Tell her, too that
I'll have an eye on her sweetheart, and keep him from running after
other girls.' 'Yo'll have yo'r hands full, then,' muttered Philip, his passion
boiling over at the thought of having been chosen out from among all
men to convey such a message as Kinraid's to Sylvia.
'Make an end of yo'r d--d yarns, and be off,' said the man who had
been hurt by Kinraid, and who had sate apart and silent till now.
Philip turned away; Kinraid raised himself and cried after him,-'Hepburn, Hepburn! tell her---' what he added Philip could not hear,
for the words were lost before they reached him in the outward noise
of the regular splash of the oars and the rush of the wind down the
gully, with which mingled the closer sound that filled his ears of
his own hurrying blood surging up into his brain. He was conscious
that he had said something in reply to Kinraid's adjuration that he
would deliver his message to Sylvia, at the very time when Carter
had stung him into fresh anger by the allusion to the possibility of
the specksioneer's 'running after other girls,' for, for an instant,
Hepburn had been touched by the contrast of circumstances. Kinraid
an hour or two ago,--Kinraid a banished man; for in those days, an
impressed sailor might linger out years on some foreign station, far
from those he loved, who all this time remained ignorant of his
cruel fate.