FullReads

It was not long after this that he invested all he possessed in purchasing a part-ownership in a brig, of which he was appointed captain. A few months were passed in coast-trading, during which interval Shadrach wore off the land-rust that had accumulated upon him in his grocery phase; and in the spring the brig sailed for Newfoundland.

Joanna lived on at home with her sons, who were now growing up into strong lads, and occupying themselves in various ways about the harbour and quay.

‘Never mind, let them work a little,’ their fond mother said to herself. ‘Our necessities compel it now, but when Shadrach comes home they will be only seventeen and eighteen, and they shall be removed from the port, and their education thoroughly taken in hand by a tutor; and with the money they’ll have they will perhaps be as near to gentlemen as Emmy Lester’s precious two, with their algebra and their Latin!’

The date for Shadrach’s return drew near and arrived, and he did not appear. Joanna was assured that there was no cause for anxiety, sailing- ships being so uncertain in their coming; which assurance proved to be well grounded, for late one wet evening, about a month after the calculated time, the ship was announced as at hand, and presently the slip-slop step of Shadrach as the sailor sounded in the passage, and he entered. The boys had gone out and had missed him, and Joanna was sitting alone.

As soon as the first emotion of reunion between the couple had passed, Jolliffe explained the delay as owing to a small speculative contract, which had produced good results.

‘I was determined not to disappoint ‘ee,’ he said; ‘and I think you’ll own that I haven’t!’

With this he pulled out an enormous canvas bag, full and rotund as the money-bag of the giant whom Jack slew, untied it, and shook the contents out into her lap as she sat in her low chair by the fire. A mass of sovereigns and guineas (there were guineas on the earth in those days) fell into her lap with a sudden thud, weighing down her gown to the floor.

‘There!’ said Shadrach complacently. ‘I told ‘ee, dear, I’d do it; and have I done it or no?’

Somehow her face, after the first excitement of possession, did not retain its glory.

‘It is a lot of gold, indeed,’ she said. ‘And–is this all?‘

‘All? Why, dear Joanna, do you know you can count to three hundred in that heap? It is a fortune!’

‘Yes–yes. A fortune–judged by sea; but judged by land–‘

However, she banished considerations of the money for the nonce. Soon the boys came in, and next Sunday Shadrach returned thanks to God–this time by the more ordinary channel of the italics in the General Thanksgiving. But a few days after, when the question of investing the money arose, he remarked that she did not seem so satisfied as he had hoped.

‘Well you see, Shadrach,’ she answered, ‘we count by hundreds; they count by thousands’ (nodding towards the other side of the Street). ‘They have set up a carriage and pair since you left.’

‘O, have they?’

‘My dear Shadrach, you don’t know how the world moves. However, we’ll do the best we can with it. But they are rich, and we are poor still!’

The greater part of a year was desultorily spent. She moved sadly about the house and shop, and the boys were still occupying themselves in and around the harbour.

‘Joanna,’ he said, one day, ‘I see by your movements that it is not enough.’

‘It is not enough,’ said she. ‘My boys will have to live by steering the ships that the Lesters own; and I was once above her!’

Jolliffe was not an argumentative man, and he only murmured that he thought he would make another voyage.

He meditated for several days, and coming home from the quay one afternoon said suddenly:

‘I could do it for ‘ee, dear, in one more trip, for certain, if–if–‘