‘Yes, and I mean to go to the Neptune for a policy on the freight. I have a considerable share in the barque, and I intend that my proportion of the freight shall be safe. I am not of those who believe in keeping their money in a purse; I carry mine in my pockets. If the purse is lost, all is gone. Who’s to assure me of the solvency of an insurance office? I mean that this voyage shall enable me to stay at home with my wife,’ said he, looking fondly at me. ‘Let another take charge of the barque next time. I’ll make enough to own the half of her.’ ‘You shall own all of her, if you will, Tom,’ said I. ‘That’s as your trustees shall decide,’ said my uncle. ‘My money is my own, and I shall do what I please with it,’ I answered. ‘Yes; and with your knowledge of business, Marian, you shall go into partnership with your husband as a shipowner and land the firm in the Fleet.’ Here Tom sang: ‘All in the Downs the Fleet lay moored,’ and so with a laugh changed the subject. It was towards the close of the month of August when my sweetheart bade me farewell on his departure to Liverpool to take command of the _Arab Chief_. I had passionately desired to go with him; but my aunt could not accompany me, and I was without a friend of my own sex able just then to leave home. My wish was overruled by my uncle and aunt. Tom himself did not favour it, though his longing for me to be with him to the last was as keen as mine, and so I took my farewell of him in my uncle’s home. He held me in his arms whilst I cried till I thought my heart would break. He kissed me again and again, bade me keep up my spirits, to consider that that day a year I should have been his wife some months. He begged me to remain faithful to him, and told me there never would be a minute when I should be out of his thoughts; and solemnly asking God to look down upon me, to guard me against all evil and sickness, to look down upon him, to protect and bring him back in safety to me, he pressed a last lingering kiss upon my lips and left me alone with my tears and my memories. I received several letters from him whilst he was at Liverpool. He wrote in good spirits, called his ship a beauty, and said that of her kind she was the most admired of anything that had been seen in the Mersey for years. There was but one drawback. The mate of the barque was a Mr. Samuel Rotch. Tom had met this man some five or six years before in South America, and had had an unpleasantness with him there. He did not tell me what that trouble was. Afterwards Rotch had served under him, and there was a further difficulty.