lay motionless during the process
of loading and unloading. The cries of the sailors, the variety of languages
used by the passers-by, and the entire novelty of the sight compared with
anything which Mary had ever seen, made her feel most helpless and forlorn; and
she clung to her young guide as to one who alone by his superior knowledge could
interpret between her and the new race of men by whom she was surrounded, - for
a new race sailors might reasonably be considered, to a girl who had hitherto
seen none but inland dwellers, and those for the greater part factory people.
    In that new world of sight and sound, she still bore one prevailing thought,
and though her eye glanced over the ships and the wide-spreading river, her mind
was full of the thought of reaching Will.
    »Why are we here?« asked she of Charley. »There are no little boats about,
and I thought I was to go in a little boat; those ships are never meant for
short distances, are they?«
    »To be sure not,« replied he, rather contemptuously. »But the John Cropper
lay in this dock, and I know many of the sailors; and if I could see one I knew,
I'd ask him to run up the mast, and see if he could catch a sight of her in the
offing. If she's weighed her anchor, no use for your going, you know.«
    Mary assented quietly to this speech, as if she were as careless as Charley
seemed now to be about her overtaking Will; but in truth her heart was sinking
within her, and she no longer felt the energy which had hitherto upheld her. Her
bodily strength was giving way, and she stood cold and shivering, although the
noonday sun beat down with considerable power on the shadeless spot where she
was standing.
    »Here's Tom Bourne!« said Charley; and altering his manner from the
patronising key in which he had spoken to Mary, he addressed a weather-beaten
old sailor who came rolling along the pathway where they stood, his hands in his
pockets, and his quid in his mouth, with very much the air of one who had
nothing to do but look about him, and spit right and left; addressing this old
tar, Charley made known to him his wish in slang, which to Mary was almost
inaudible, and quite unintelligible, and which I am too much of a land-lubber to
repeat correctly.
    Mary watched looks and actions with a renovated keenness of perception.
    She saw