up the harbour
for shelter, but we could nowhere perceive a single boat under sail.
Still old Tom continued to suggest all sorts of reasons why father had
not come back. Perhaps he had been detained on board the ship at
Spithead to which he took the gentleman, and seeing the heavy weather
coming on would remain till it moderated. Mother clung to this notion
when hour after hour went by and she had given up all expectation of
seeing father that evening. Still she could not tear herself from the
Hard. Suddenly she remembered me.

"You must be getting wet, Peter," she said. "Run home, my child, and
tell Nancy to give you your tea and then to get supper ready. Father
and I will be coming soon, I hope."

I lingered, unwilling to leave her.

"Won't you come yourself, mother?" I asked.

"I'll wait a bit longer," she answered. "Go, Peter, go; do as I bid
you."

"You'd better go home with Peter, missus," said old Tom. "You'll be
getting the rheumatics, I'm afraid. I'll stay and look out for your
good man."

I had never seen mother look as she did then, when she turned her face
for a moment to reply to the old man. She was as pale as death; her
voice sounded hoarse and hollow.

"I can't go just yet, Tom," she said.

I did not hear more, as, according to her bidding, I set off to run
home. I found Mary and Nancy wondering what had kept mother so long.

"Can anything have happened to father?" exclaimed Mary, when I told her
that mother was waiting for him.

"He has been a long time coming back from Spithead, and it's blowing
fearfully hard," I answered.

I saw Nancy clasp her hands and look upwards with an expression of alarm
on her countenance which frightened me. Her father and brother had been
lost some years before, crossing in a wherry from Ryde, and her widowed
mother had found it a hard matter to keep herself and her children out
of the workhouse. She said nothing, however, to Mary and me, but I
heard her sighing and whispering to herself, "What will poor missus do?
What will poor missus do?" She gave Mary and me our suppers, and then
persuaded us to go to bed. I was glad to do so to get off my wet
clothes, which she hung up to dry, but I could not go to sleep for
thinking what had happened to father.

At length mother came in alone. She sat down on a chair without
speaking, and her hands dropped by her side. I could watch her as I
looked out from the small closet in which my bunk was placed