Mehalah (Gothic Classic). Baring-Gould Sabine

to be introduced to the interior and see how you lived.' Turning to Mehalah, 'George and I have been to the Decoy. He was most good-natured, and explained the whole contrivance to me, and—and illustrated it. We had a very pleasant little trot together, had we not, George?'

      'Oh! this is what's-her-name, is it?' said Mehalah in a low tone with an amused look. She was neither angry nor jealous, she despised Phoebe too heartily to be either, though with feminine instinct she perceived what the girl was about, and saw through all her affectation.

      'If I made the promise, I must of course keep it,' said George, 'but it is strange I should not remember having made it.'

      'I dare say you forget a great many things that were said and done at the Decoy, but,' with a little affected sigh, 'I do not, I never shall, I fear.'

      George De Witt looked uncomfortable and awkward. 'Will not another day do as well?'

      'No, it will not, George,' said Phoebe petulantly. 'I know you have no engagement, you said so when you volunteered to drive me to Waldegraves.'

      De Witt turned to Mehalah, and said, 'Come along with us, Glory! my mother will be glad to see you.'

      'Oh! don't trouble yourself, Miss Sharland—or Master Sharland, which is it?'—staring first at the short petticoats, and then at the cap and jersey.

      'Come, Glory,' repeated De Witt, and looked so uncomfortable that Mehalah readily complied with his request.

      'I can give you oysters and ale, natives, you have never tasted better.'

      'No ale for me, George,' said Phoebe. 'It is getting on for five o'clock when I take a dish of tea.'

      'Tea!' echoed De Witt, 'I have no such dainty on board. But I can give you rum or brandy, if you prefer either to ale. Mother always has a glass of grog about this time; the cockles of her heart require it, she says.'

      'You must give me your arm, George, you know I have sprained my ankle. I really cannot walk unsupported.'

      De Witt looked at Mehalah and then at Phoebe, who gave him such a tender, entreating glance that he was unable to refuse his arm. She leaned heavily on it, and drew very close to his side; then, turning her head over her shoulder, with a toss of the chin, she said, 'Come along, Mehalah!'

      Glory's brow began to darken. She was displeased. George also turned and nodded to the girl, who walked in the rear with her head down. He signed to her to join him.

      'Do you know, Glory, what mother did the other night when I failed to turn up—that night you fetched me concerning the money that was stolen? She was vexed at my being out late, and not abed at eleven. As you know, I could not be so. I left the Ray as soon as all was settled, and as you put me across to the Fresh Marsh, I got home across the pasture and the fields as quickly as I could, but was not here till after eleven. Mother was angry, she had pulled up the ladder, but before that she tarred the vessel all round, and she stuck a pail of sea water atop of the place where the ladder goes. Well, then, I came home and found the ladder gone, so I laid hold of the rope that hangs there, and then souse over me came the water. I saw mother was vexed, and wanted to serve me out for being late; however, I would not be beat, so I tried to climb the side, and got covered with tar.'

      'You got in, however?'

      'No, I did not, I went to the public-house, and laid the night there.'

      'I would have gone through tar, water, and fire,' said Glory vehemently. 'I would not have been beat.'

      'I have no doubt about it, you would,' observed George, 'but you forget there might be worse things behind. An old woman after a stiff glass of grog, when her monkey is up, is better left to sleep off her liquor and her displeasure before encountered.'

      'I would not tell the story,' said Mehalah; 'it does you no credit.'

      'This is too bad of you, Glory! You ran me foul of her, and now reproach me for my steering.'

      'You will run into plenty of messes if you go after Mehalah at night,' put in Phoebe with a saucy laugh.

      'Glory!' said De Witt, 'come on the other side of Phoebe and give her your arm. She is lame. She has hurt her foot, and we are coming now to the mud.'

      'Oh, I cannot think of troubling Mehalah,' said Phoebe sharply; 'you do not mind my leaning my whole weight on you, I know, George. You did not mind it at the Decoy.'

      'Here is the ladder,' said De Witt; 'step on my foot and then you will not dirty your shoe-leather in the mud. Don't think you will hurt me. A light feather like you will be unfelt.'

      'Do you keep the ladder down day and night?' asked Glory.

      'No. It is always hauled up directly I come home. Only that one night did mother draw it up without me. We are as safe in the "Pandora" as you are at the Ray.'

      'And there is this in the situation which is like,' said Phoebe, pertly, 'that neither can entice robbers, and need securing, as neither has anything to lose.'

      'I beg your pardon,' answered George, 'there are my savings on board. My mother sleeps soundly, so she will not turn in till the ladder is up. That is the same as locking the door on land. If you have money in the till——'

      'There always is money there, plenty of it too.'

      'I have no doubt about it, Phoebe. Under these circumstances you do not go to bed and leave your door open.'

      'I should think not. You go first up the ladder, I will follow. Mehalah can stop and paddle in her native mud, or come after us as suits her best.' Turning her head to Glory she said, 'Two are company, three are none.' Then to the young man, 'George, give me your hand to help me on deck, you forget your manners. I fear the Decoy is where you have left and lost them.'

      She jumped on deck. Mehalah followed without asking for or expecting assistance.

      The vessel was an old collier, which George's father had bought when no longer seaworthy for a few pounds. He had run her up on the Hard, dismasted her, and converted her into a dwelling. In it George had been born and reared. 'There is one advantage in living in a house such as this,' said De Witt; 'we pay neither tax, nor tithe, nor rate.'

      'Is that you?' asked a loud hard voice, and a head enveloped in a huge mob cap appeared from the companion ladder. 'What are you doing there, gallivanting with girls all day? Come down to me and let's have it out.'

      'Mother is touchy,' said George in a subdued voice; 'she gets a little rough and knotty at times, but she is a rare woman for melting and untying speedily.'

      'Come here, George!' cried the rare woman.

      'I am coming, mother.' He showed the two girls the ladder; Mrs. De Witt had disappeared. 'Go down into the fore cabin, then straight on. Turn your face to the ladder as you descend.' Phoebe hesitated. She was awestruck by the voice and appearance of Mrs. De Witt. However, at a sign from George she went down, and was followed by Mehalah. Bending her head, she passed through the small fore-cabin where was George's bunk, into the main cabin, which served as kitchen, parlour, and bedroom to Mrs. De Witt. A table occupied the centre, and at the end was an iron cooking stove. Everything was clean, tidy, and comfortable. On a shelf at the side stood the chairs. Mrs. De Witt whisked one down.

      'Your servant,' said she to Phoebe, with more amiability than the girl anticipated. 'Yours too, Glory,' curtly to Mehalah.

      Mrs. De Witt was not favourable to her son's attachment to Glory. She was an imperious, strong-minded woman, a despot in her own house, and she had no wish to see that house invaded by a daughter-in-law as strong of will and iron-headed as herself. She wished to see George mated to a girl whom she could browbeat and manage as she browbeat and managed her son. George's indecision of character was due in measure to his bringing up by such a mother. He had been cuffed and yelled at from infancy. His intimacy with the maternal lap had been contracted head downwards, and was connected with a stinging sensation at the rear. Self-assertion had been beat or bawled out of him. She was not a bad, but a despotic woman. She liked to have her own way, and she obtained it, first with her husband, and then with her son, and the ease with which