d. 'Father and Mrs. Loveday, do you go to
bed now. I have got to look over my things and get ready; and it will
take me some little time. If you should hear noises you will know it is
only myself moving about.'

When Bob was left alone he suddenly became brisk, and set himself to
overhaul his clothes and other possessions in a business-like manner. By
the time that his chest was packed, such things as he meant to leave at
home folded into cupboards, and what was useless destroyed, it was past
two o'clock. Then he went to bed, so softly that only the creak of one
weak stair revealed his passage upward. At the moment that he passed
Anne's chamber-door her mother was bending over her as she lay in bed,
and saying to her, 'Won't you see him in the morning?'

'No, no,' said Anne. 'I would rather not see him! I have said that I
may. But I shall not. I cannot see him again!'

When the family got up next day Bob had vanished. It was his way to
disappear like this, to avoid affecting scenes at parting. By the time
that they had sat down to a gloomy breakfast, Bob was in the boat of a
Budmouth waterman, who pulled him alongside the guardship in the roads,
where he laid hold of the man-rope, mounted, and disappeared from
external view. In the course of the day the ship moved off, set her
royals, and made sail for Portsmouth, with five hundred new hands for the
service on board, consisting partly of pressed men and partly of
volunteers, among the latter being Robert Loveday.

XXXIV. A SPECK ON THE SEA

In parting from John, who accompanied him to the quay, Bob had said:
'Now, Jack, these be my last words to you: I give her up. I go away on
purpose, and I shall be away a long time. If in that time she should
list over towards ye ever so little, mind you take her. You have more
right to her than I. You chose her when my mind was elsewhere, and you
best deserve her; for I have never known you forget one woman, while I've
forgot a dozen. Take her then, if she will come, and God bless both of
ye.'

Another person besides John saw Bob go. That was Derriman, who was
standing by a bollard a little further up the quay. He did not repress
his satisfaction at the sight. John looked towards him with an open gaze
of contempt; for the cuffs administered to the yeoman at the inn had not,
so far as the trumpet-major was aware, produced any desire to avenge that
insult, John being, of course, quite ignorant that