They began disputing and urging reasons; and Mary tried to
understand them; but independently of their nautical language, a
veil seemed drawn over her mind, and she had no clear perception of
anything that passed. Her very words seemed not her own, and beyond
her power of control, for she found herself speaking quite
differently to what she meant.
One by one her hopes had fallen away, and left her desolate; and
though a chance yet remained, she could no longer hope. She felt
certain it, too, would fade and vanish. She sank into a kind of
stupor. All outward objects harmonised with her despair--the gloomy
leaden sky--the deep dark waters below, of a still heavier shade of
colour--the cold, flat yellow shore in the distance, which no ray
lightened up--the nipping, cutting wind.
She shivered with her depression of mind and body.
The sails were taken down, of course, on the return to Liverpool,
and the progress they made, rowing and tacking, was very slow. The
men talked together, disputing about the pilots at first, and then
about matters of local importance, in which Mary would have taken no
interest at any time, and she gradually became drowsy; irrepressibly
so, indeed, for in spite of her jerking efforts to keep awake, she
sank away to the bottom of the boat, and there lay crouched on a
rough heap of sails, rope, and tackles of various kinds.
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