The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 79, May, 1864: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
Religion
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 79, May, 1864: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
"She would, perhaps," said he, "only that for some time you had acted so
strangely. She never said a word, but I knew it troubled her. If I had
only known of your feeling so, I would have told everything. But I
thought you must see how much I cared for Mary. Everybody else was sure
who Margaret loved, if you were not.
"Oh, Joseph," he continued, clasping my hand, "how beautiful it will be,
when we get home, now that everything is cleared up! But I haven't quite
finished. Sunday, if you remember, Margaret came in late to meeting.
While the hymn was being read, she wrote me on a slip of paper that
Arthur was gone. I wrote her back, 'Good news.' Afterwards she told me
that he came in the night to her bedroom-window to bid her
good-bye,--that he had promised her he certainly would do better.
Margaret was in better spirits that day than I had seen her for a long
while. I thought there had been an explanation between you two. Never
fear, Joseph, but that she loves you."
Jamie seemed tired after talking so much, and soon after fell asleep. I
crept into the berth underneath him. I felt like creeping somewhere.
Sleep was long coming, and no sooner was I unconscious of things about
me than I began to dream bad dreams. I thought I was stumbling along in
the dark, 'Twas over graves. I fell over a heap of earth, and heard the
stones drop down into one newly made. As I was trying to walk away,
Margaret came to meet me. "You didn't bid me good-bye," said she,
smiling; "but it's not too late now." Then she held out her hand. I took
it, but the touch waked me. 'Twas just like a dead hand.
I kept sleeping and waking; and every time I slept, the same dream came
to me,--exactly the same. At last I rushed upon deck, sent a man below,
and took his place. He was glad to go, and I was glad to be where the
wind was blowing and everything in commotion.
The next day I told Jamie my dream. He said it was a lucky one, and he
hoped it meant two weddings. So I thought no more of it. I was never
superstitious: my mother had taught me better.
We had just started for home, but this gale blew us off our course. Soon
after, however, the wind shifted to the eastward, and so kept, for the
biggest part of the time, until we sighted Boston Lights. Jamie was
nearly well. Still he could not walk much. He was quite lame. The
skipper thought some of the small bones of the foot were put out. But
Jamie didn't seem to care anything about his feet. He was just as gay as
a lark, singing all day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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