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barking and burrowing again, a dozen times. Even when he was persuaded to
return to his breakfast, he came jogging back to it, with a very doubtful
air; and was off again, in another paroxysm, before touching a morsel.
'If there should be someone listening and watching,' whispered
Florence. 'Someone who saw me come - who followed me, perhaps.'
'It ain't the young woman, lady lass, is it?' said the Captain, taken
with a bright idea
'Susan?' said Florence, shaking her head. 'Ah no! Susan has been gone
from me a long time.'
'Not deserted, I hope?' said the Captain. 'Don't say that that there
young woman's run, my pretty!'
'Oh, no, no!' cried Florence. 'She is one of the truest hearts in the
world!'
The Captain was greatly relieved by this reply, and expressed his
satisfaction by taking off his hard glazed hat, and dabbing his head all
over with his handkerchief, rolled up like a ball, observing several times,
with infinite complacency, and with a beaming countenance, that he know'd
it.
'So you're quiet now, are you, brother?' said the Captain to Diogenes.
'There warn't nobody there, my lady lass, bless you!'
Diogenes was not so sure of that. The door still had an attraction for
him at intervals; and he went snuffing about it, and growling to himself,
unable to forget the subject. This incident, coupled with the Captain's
observation of Florence's fatigue and faintness, decided him to prepare Sol
Gills's chamber as a place of retirement for her immediately. He therefore
hastily betook himself to the top of the house, and made the best
arrangement of it that his imagination and his means suggested.
It was very clean already; and the Captain being an orderly man, and
accustomed to make things ship-shape, converted the bed into a couch, by
covering it all over with a clean white drapery. By a similar contrivance,
the Captain converted the little dressing-table into a species of altar, on
which he set forth two silver teaspoons, a flower-pot, a telescope, his
celebrated watch, a pocket-comb, and a song-book, as a small collection of
rarities, that made a choice appearance. Having darkened the window, and
straightened the pieces of carpet on the floor, the Captain surveyed these
preparations with great delight, and descended to the little parlour again,
to bring Florence to her bower.
Nothing would induce the Captain to believe that it was possible for
Florence to walk upstairs. If he could have got the idea into his head, he
would have considered it an outrageous breach of hospitality to allow her to
do so. Florence was too weak to dispute the point, and the Captain carried
her up out of hand, laid her down, and covered her with a great watch-coat.
'My lady lass!' said the Captain, 'you're as safe here as if you was at
the top of St Paul's Cathedral, with the ladder cast off. Sleep is what you
want, afore all other things, and may you be able to show yourself smart
with that there balsam for the still small woice of a wounded mind! When
there's anything you want, my Heart's Delight, as this here humble house or
town can offer, pass the word to Ed'ard Cuttle, as'll stand off and on
outside that door, and that there man will wibrate with joy.' The Captain
concluded by kissing the hand that Florence stretched out to him, with the
chivalry of any old knight-errant, and walking on tiptoe out of the room.
Descending to the little parlour, Captain Cuttle, after holding a hasty
council with himself, decided to open the shop-door for a few minutes, and
satisfy himself that now, at all events, there was no one loitering about
it. Accordingly he set it open, and stood upon the threshold, keeping a
bright look-out, and sweeping the whole street with his spectacles.
'How de do, Captain Gills?' said a voice beside him. The Captain,
looking down, found that he had been boarded by Mr Toots while sweeping the
horizon.
'How are, you, my lad?' replied the Captain.
'Well, I m pretty well, thank'ee, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. 'You
know I'm never quite what I could wish to be, now. I don't expect that I
ever shall be any more.'
Mr Toots never approached any nearer than this to the great theme of
his life, when in conversation with Captain Cuttle, on account of the
agreement between them.
'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'if I could have the pleasure of a word
with you, it's - it's rather particular.'
'Why, you see, my lad,' replied the Captain, leading the way into the
parlour, 'I ain't what you may call exactly free this morning; and therefore
if you can clap on a bit, I should take it kindly.'
'Certainly, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots, who seldom had any notion
of the Captain's meaning. 'To clap on, is exactly what I could wish to do.
Naturally.'
'If so be, my lad,' returned the Captain. 'Do it!'
The Captain was so impressed by the possession of his tremendous secret
- by the fact of Miss Dombey being at that moment under his roof, while the
innocent and unconscious Toots sat opposite to him - that a perspiration
broke out on his forehead, and he found it impossible, while slowly drying
the same, glazed hat in hand, to keep his eyes off Mr Toots's face. Mr
Toots, who himself appeared to have some secret reasons for being in a
nervous state, was so unspeakably disconcerted by the Captain's stare, that
after looking at him vacantly for some time in silence, and shifting
uneasily on his chair, he said:
'I beg your pardon, Captain Gills, but you don't happen to see anything
particular in me, do you?'
'No, my lad,' returned the Captain. 'No.'
'Because you know,' said Mr Toots with a chuckle, 'I kNOW I'm wasting
away. You needn't at all mind alluding to that. I - I should like it.
Burgess and Co. have altered my measure, I'm in that state of thinness. It's
a gratification to me. I - I'm glad of it. I - I'd a great deal rather go
into a decline, if I could. I'm a mere brute you know, grazing upon the
surface of the earth, Captain Gills.'
The more Mr Toots went on in this way, the more the Captain was weighed
down by his secret, and stared at him. What with this cause of uneasiness,
and his desire to get rid of Mr Toots, the Captain was in such a scared and
strange condition, indeed, that if he had been in conversation with a ghost,
he could hardly have evinced greater discomposure.
'But I was going to say, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. 'Happening to
be this way early this morning - to tell you the truth, I was coming to
breakfast with you. As to sleep, you know, I never sleep now. I might be a
Watchman, except that I don't get any pay, and he's got nothing on his
mind.'
'Carry on, my lad!' said the Captain, in an admonitory voice.
'Certainly, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. 'Perfectly true! Happening
to be this way early this morning (an hour or so ago), and finding the door
shut - '
'What! were you waiting there, brother?' demanded the Captain.
'Not at all, Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots. 'I didn't stop a
moment. I thought you were out. But the person said - by the bye, you don't
keep a dog, you, Captain Gills?'
The Captain shook his head.
'To be sure,' said Mr Toots, 'that's exactly what I said. I knew you
didn't. There is a dog, Captain Gills, connected with - but excuse me.
That's forbidden ground.'
The Captain stared at Mr Toots until he seemed to swell to twice his
natural size; and again the perspiration broke out on the Captain's
forehead, when he thought of Diogenes taking it into his head to come down
and make a third in the parlour.
'The person said,' continued Mr Toots, 'that he had heard a dog barking
in the shop: which I knew couldn't be, and I told him so. But he was as
positive as if he had seen the dog.'
'What person, my lad?' inquired the Captain.
'Why, you see there it is, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, with a
perceptible increase in the nervousness of his manner. 'It's not for me to
say what may have taken place, or what may not have taken place. Indeed, I
don't know. I get mixed up with all sorts of things that I don't quite
understand, and I think there's something rather weak in my - in my head, in
short.'
The Captain nodded his own, as a mark of assent.
'But the person said, as we were walking away,' continued Mr Toots,
'that you knew what, under existing circumstances, might occur - he said
"might," very strongly - and that if you were requested to prepare yourself,
you would, no doubt, come prepared.'
'Person, my lad' the Captain repeated.
'I don't know what person, I'm sure, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots,
'I haven't the least idea. But coming to the door, I found him waiting
there; and he said was I coming back again, and I said yes; and he said did
I know you, and I said, yes, I had the pleasure of your acquaintance - you
had given me the pleasure of your acquaintance, after some persuasion; and
he said, if that was the case, would I say to you what I have said, about
existing circumstances and coming prepared, and as soon as ever I saw you,
would I ask you to step round the corner, if it was only for one minute, on
most important business, to Mr Brogley's the Broker's. Now, I tell you what,
Captain Gills - whatever it is, I am convinced it's very important; and if
you like to step round, now, I'll wait here till you come back.'
The Captain, divided between his fear of compromising Florence in some
way by not going, and his horror of leaving Mr Toots in possession of the
house with a chance of finding out the secret, was a spectacle of mental
disturbance that even Mr Toots could not be blind to. But that young
gentleman, considering his nautical friend as merely in a state of
preparation for the interview he was going to have, was quite satisfied, and
did not review his own discreet conduct without chuckle
At length the Captain decided, as the lesser of two evils, to run round
to Brogley's the Broker's: previously locking the door that communicated
with the upper part of the house, and putting the key in his pocket. 'If so
be,' said the Captain to Mr Toots, with not a little shame and hesitation,
'as you'll excuse my doing of it, brother.'
'Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, 'whatever you do, is satisfactory
to me.
The Captain thanked him heartily, and promising to come back in less
than five minutes, went out in quest of the person who had entrusted Mr
Toots with this mysterious message. Poor Mr Toots, left to himself, lay down
upon the sofa, little thinking who had reclined there last, and, gazing up
at the skylight and resigning himself to visions of Miss Dombey, lost all
heed of time and place.
It was as well that he did so; for although the Captain was not gone
long, he was gone much longer than he had proposed. When he came back, he
was very pale indeed, and greatly agitated, and even looked as if he had
been shedding tears. He seemed to have lost the faculty of speech, until he
had been to the cupboard and taken a dram of rum from the case-bottle, when
he fetched a deep breath, and sat down in a chair with his hand before his
face.
'Captain Gills,' said Toots, kindly, 'I hope and trust there's nothing
wrong?'
'Thank'ee, my lad, not a bit,' said the Captain. 'Quite contrairy.'
'You have the appearance of being overcome, Captain Gills,' observed Mr
Toots.
'Why, my lad, I am took aback,' the Captain admitted. 'I am.'
'Is there anything I can do, Captain Gills?' inquired Mr Toots. 'If
there is, make use of me.'
The Captain removed his hand from his face, looked at him with a
remarkable expression of pity and tenderness, and took him by the hand, and
shook it hard.
'No, thank'ee,' said the Captain. 'Nothing. Only I'll take it as a
favour if you'll part company for the present. I believe, brother,' wringing
his hand again, 'that, after Wal'r, and on a different model, you're as good
a lad as ever stepped.'
'Upon my word and honour, Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, giving the
Captain's hand a preliminary slap before shaking it again, 'it's delightful
to me to possess your good opinion. Thank'ee.
'And bear a hand and cheer up,' said the Captain, patting him on the
back. 'What! There's more than one sweet creetur in the world!'
'Not to me, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots gravely. 'Not to me, I
assure you. The state of my feelings towards Miss Dombey is of that
unspeakable description, that my heart is a desert island, and she lives in
it alone. I'm getting more used up every day, and I'm proud to be so. If you
could see my legs when I take my boots off, you'd form some idea of what
unrequited affection is. I have been prescribed bark, but I don't take it,
for I don't wish to have any tone whatever given to my constitution. I'd
rather not. This, however, is forbidden ground. Captain Gills, goodbye!'
Captain Cuttle cordially reciprocating the warmth of Mr Toots's
farewell, locked the door behind him, and shaking his head with the same
remarkable expression of pity and tenderness as he had regarded him with
before, went up to see if Florence wanted him.
There was an entire change in the Captain's face as he went upstairs.
He wiped his eyes with his handkerchief, and he polished the bridge of his
nose with his sleeve as he had done already that morning, but his face was
absolutely changed. Now, he might have been thought supremely happy; now, he
might have been thought sad; but the kind of gravity that sat upon his
features was quite new to them, and was as great an improvement to them as
if they had undergone some sublimating process.
He knocked softly, with his hook, at Florence's door, twice or thrice;
but, receiving no answer, ventured first to peep in, and then to enter:
emboldened to take the latter step, perhaps, by the familiar recognition of
Diogenes, who, stretched upon the ground by the side of her couch, wagged
his tail, and winked his eyes at the Captain, without being at the trouble
of getting up.
She was sleeping heavily, and moaning in her sleep; and Captain Cuttle,
with a perfect awe of her youth, and beauty, and her sorrow, raised her
head, and adjusted the coat that covered her, where it had fallen off, and
darkened the window a little more that she might sleep on, and crept out
again, and took his post of watch upon the stairs. All this, with a touch
and tread as light as Florence's own.
Long may it remain in this mixed world a point not easy of decision,
which is the more beautiful evidence of the Almighty's goodness - the
delicate fingers that are formed for sensitiveness and sympathy of touch,
and made to minister to pain and grief, or the rough hard Captain Cuttle
hand, that the heart teaches, guides, and softens in a moment!
Florence slept upon her couch, forgetful of her homelessness and
orphanage, and Captain Cuttle watched upon the stairs. A louder sob or moan
than usual, brought him sometimes to her door; but by degrees she slept more
peacefully, and the Captain's watch was undisturbed.
The Midshipman makes a Discovery
It was long before Florence awoke. The day was in its prime, the day
was in its wane, and still, uneasy in mind and body, she slept on;
unconscious of her strange bed, of the noise and turmoil in the street, and
of the light that shone outside the shaded window. Perfect unconsciousness
of what had happened in the home that existed no more, even the deep slumber
of exhaustion could not produce. Some undefined and mournful recollection of
it, dozing uneasily but never sleeping, pervaded all her rest. A dull
sorrow, like a half-lulled sense of pain, was always present to her; and her
pale cheek was oftener wet with tears than the honest Captain, softly
putting in his head from time to time at the half-closed door, could have
desired to see it.
The sun was getting low in the west, and, glancing out of a red mist,
pierced with its rays opposite loopholes and pieces of fretwork in the
spires of city churches, as if with golden arrows that struck through and
through them - and far away athwart the river and its flat banks, it was
gleaming like a path of fire - and out at sea it was irradiating sails of
ships - and, looked towards, from quiet churchyards, upon hill-tops in the
country, it was steeping distant prospects in a flush and glow that seemed
to mingle earth and sky together in one glorious suffusion - when Florence,
opening her heavy eyes, lay at first, looking without interest or
recognition at the unfamiliar walls around her, and listening in the same
regardless manner to the noises in the street. But presently she started up
upon her couch, gazed round with a surprised and vacant look, and
recollected all.
'My pretty,' said the Captain, knocking at the door, 'what cheer?'
'Dear friend,' cried Florence, hurrying to him, 'is it you?'
The Captain felt so much pride in the name, and was so pleased by the
gleam of pleasure in her face, when she saw him, that he kissed his hook, by
way of reply, in speechless gratification.
'What cheer, bright di'mond?' said the Captain.
'I have surely slept very long,' returned Florence. 'When did I come
here? Yesterday?'
'This here blessed day, my lady lass,' replied the Captain.
'Has there been no night? Is it still day?' asked Florence.
'Getting on for evening now, my pretty,' said the Captain, drawing back
the curtain of the window. 'See!'
Florence, with her hand upon the Captain's arm, so sorrowful and timid,
and the Captain with his rough face and burly figure, so quietly protective
of her, stood in the rosy light of the bright evening sky, without saying a
word. However strange the form of speech into which he might have fashioned
the feeling, if he had had to give it utterance, the Captain felt, as
sensibly as the most eloquent of men could have done, that there was
something in the tranquil time and in its softened beauty that would make
the wounded heart of Florence overflow; and that it was better that such
tears should have their way. So not a word spake Captain Cuttle. But when he
felt his arm clasped closer, and when he felt the lonely head come nearer to
it, and lay itself against his homely coarse blue sleeve, he pressed it
gently with his rugged hand, and understood it, and was understood.
'Better now, my pretty!' said the Captain. 'Cheerily, cheerily, I'll go
down below, and get some dinner ready. Will you come down of your own self,
arterwards, pretty, or shall Ed'ard Cuttle come and fetch you?'
As Florence assured him that she was quite able to walk downstairs, the
Captain, though evidently doubtful of his own hospitality in permitting it,
left her to do so, and immediately set about roasting a fowl at the fire in
the little parlour. To achieve his cookery with the greater skill, he pulled
off his coat, tucked up his wristbands, and put on his glazed hat, without
which assistant he never applied himself to any nice or difficult
undertaking.
After cooling her aching head and burning face in the fresh water which
the Captain's care had provided for her while she slept, Florence went to
the little mirror to bind up her disordered hair. Then she knew - in a
moment, for she shunned it instantly, that on her breast there was the
darkening mark of an angry hand.
Her tears burst forth afresh at the sight; she was ashamed and afraid
of it; but it moved her to no anger against him. Homeless and fatherless,
she forgave him everything; hardly thought that she had need to forgive him,
or that she did; but she fled from the idea of him as she had fled from the
reality, and he was utterly gone and lost. There was no such Being in the
world.
What to do, or where to live, Florence - poor, inexperienced girl! -
could not yet consider. She had indistinct dreams of finding, a long way
off, some little sisters to instruct, who would be gentle with her, and to
whom, under some feigned name, she might attach herself, and who would grow
up in their happy home, and marry, and be good to their old governess, and
perhaps entrust her, in time, with the education of their own daughters. And
she thought how strange and sorrowful it would be, thus to become a
grey-haired woman, carrying her secret to the grave, when Florence Dombey
was forgotten. But it was all dim and clouded to her now. She only knew that
she had no Father upon earth, and she said so, many times, with her
suppliant head hidden from all, but her Father who was in Heaven.
Her little stock of money amounted to but a few guineas. With a part of
this, it would be necessary to buy some clothes, for she had none but those
she wore. She was too desolate to think how soon her money would be gone -
too much a child in worldly matters to be greatly troubled on that score
yet, even if her other trouble had been less. She tried to calm her thoughts
and stay her tears; to quiet the hurry in her throbbing head, and bring
herself to believe that what had happened were but the events of a few hours
ago, instead of weeks or months, as they appeared; and went down to her kind
protector.
The Captain had spread the cloth with great care, and was making some
egg-sauce in a little saucepan: basting the fowl from time to time during
the process with a strong interest, as it turned and browned on a string
before the fire. Having propped Florence up with cushions on the sofa, which
was already wheeled into a warm corner for her greater comfort, the Captain
pursued his cooking with extraordinary skill, making hot gravy in a second
little saucepan, boiling a handful of potatoes in a third, never forgetting
the egg-sauce in the first, and making an impartial round of basting and
stirring with the most useful of spoons every minute. Besides these cares,
the Captain had to keep his eye on a diminutive frying-pan, in which some
sausages were hissing and bubbling in a most musical manner; and there was
never such a radiant cook as the Captain looked, in the height and heat of
these functions: it being impossible to say whether his face or his glazed
hat shone the brighter.
The dinner being at length quite ready, Captain Cuttle dished and
served it up, with no less dexterity than he had cooked it. He then dressed
for dinner, by taking off his glazed hat and putting on his coat. That done,
he wheeled the table close against Florence on the sofa, said grace,
unscrewed his hook, screwed his fork into its place, and did the honours of
the table
'My lady lass,' said the Captain, 'cheer up, and try to eat a deal.
Stand by, my deary! Liver wing it is. Sarse it is. Sassage it is. And
potato!' all which the Captain ranged symmetrically on a plate, and pouring
hot gravy on the whole with the useful spoon, set before his cherished
guest.
'The whole row o' dead lights is up, for'ard, lady lass,' observed the
Captain, encouragingly, 'and everythink is made snug. Try and pick a bit, my
pretty. If Wal'r was here - '
'Ah! If I had him for my brother now!' cried Florence.
'Don't! don't take on, my pretty!' said the Captain, 'awast, to obleege
me! He was your nat'ral born friend like, warn't he, Pet?'
Florence had no words to answer with. She only said, 'Oh, dear, dear
Paul! oh, Walter!'
'The wery planks she walked on,' murmured the Captain, looking at her
drooping face, 'was as high esteemed by Wal'r, as the water brooks is by the
hart which never rejices! I see him now, the wery day as he was rated on
them Dombey books, a speaking of her with his face a glistening with doo -
leastways with his modest sentiments - like a new blowed rose, at dinner.
Well, well! If our poor Wal'r was here, my lady lass - or if he could be -
for he's drownded, ain't he?'
Florence shook her head.
'Yes, yes; drownded,' said the Captain, soothingly; 'as I was saying,
if he could be here he'd beg and pray of you, my precious, to pick a leetle
bit, with a look-out for your own sweet health. Whereby, hold your own, my
lady lass, as if it was for Wal'r's sake, and lay your pretty head to the
wind.'
Florence essayed to eat a morsel, for the Captain's pleasure. The
Captain, meanwhile, who seemed to have quite forgotten his own dinner, laid
down his knife and fork, and drew his chair to the sofa.
'Wal'r was a trim lad, warn't he, precious?' said the Captain, after
sitting for some time silently rubbing his chin, with his eyes fixed upon
her, 'and a brave lad, and a good lad?'
Florence tearfully assented.
'And he's drownded, Beauty, ain't he?' said the Captain, in a soothing
voice.
Florence could not but assent again.
'He was older than you, my lady lass,' pursued the Captain, 'but you
was like two children together, at first; wam't you?'
Florence answered 'Yes.'
'And Wal'r's drownded,' said the Captain. 'Ain't he?'
The repetition of this inquiry was a curious source of consolation, but
it seemed to be one to Captain Cuttle, for he came back to it again and
again. Florence, fain to push from her her untasted dinner, and to lie back
on her sofa, gave him her hand, feeling that she had disappointed him,
though truly wishing to have pleased him after all his trouble, but he held
it in his own (which shook as he held it), and appearing to have quite
forgotten all about the dinner and her want of appetite, went on growling at
intervals, in a ruminating tone of sympathy, 'Poor Wal'r. Ay, ay! Drownded.
Ain't he?' And always waited for her answer, in which the great point of
these singular reflections appeared to consist.
The fowl and sausages were cold, and the gravy and the egg-sauce
stagnant, before the Captain remembered that they were on the board, and
fell to with the assistance of Diogenes, whose united efforts quickly
dispatched the banquet. The Captain's delight and wonder at the quiet
housewifery of Florence in assisting to clear the table, arrange the
parlour, and sweep up the hearth - only to be equalled by the fervency of
his protest when she began to assist him - were gradually raised to that
degree, that at last he could not choose but do nothing himself, and stand
looking at her as if she were some Fairy, daintily performing these offices
for him; the red rim on his forehead glowing again, in his unspeakable
admiration.
But when Florence, taking down his pipe from the mantel-shelf gave it
into his hand, and entreated him to smoke it, the good Captain was so
bewildered by her attention that he held it as if he had never held a pipe,
in all his life. Likewise, when Florence, looking into the little cupboard,
took out the case-bottle and mixed a perfect glass of grog for him, unasked,
and set it at his elbow, his ruddy nose turned pale, he felt himself so
graced and honoured. When he had filled his pipe in an absolute reverie of
satisfaction, Florence lighted it for him - the Captain having no power to
object, or to prevent her - and resuming her place on the old sofa, looked
at him with a smile so loving and so grateful, a smile that showed him so
plainly how her forlorn heart turned to him, as her face did, through grief,
that the smoke of the pipe got into the Captain's throat and made him cough,
and got into the Captain's eyes, and made them blink and water.
The manner in which the Captain tried to make believe that the cause of
these effects lay hidden in the pipe itself, and the way in which he looked
into the bowl for it, and not finding it there, pretended to blow it out of
the stem, was wonderfully pleasant. The pipe soon getting into better
condition, he fell into that state of repose becoming a good smoker; but sat
with his eyes fixed on Florence, and, with a beaming placidity not to be
described, and stopping every now and then to discharge a little cloud from
his lips, slowly puffed it forth, as if it were a scroll coming out of his
mouth, bearing the legend 'Poor Wal'r, ay, ay. Drownded, ain't he?' after
which he would resume his smoking with infinite gentleness.
Unlike as they were externally - and there could scarcely be a more
decided contrast than between Florence in her delicate youth and beauty, and
Captain Cuttle with his knobby face, his great broad weather-beaten person,
and his gruff voice - in simple innocence of the world's ways and the
world's perplexities and dangers, they were nearly on a level. No child
could have surpassed Captain Cuttle in inexperience of everything but wind
and weather; in simplicity, credulity, and generous trustfulness. Faith,
hope, and charity, shared his whole nature among them. An odd sort of
romance, perfectly unimaginative, yet perfectly unreal, and subject to no
considerations of worldly prudence or practicability, was the only partner
they had in his character. As the Captain sat, and smoked, and looked at
Florence, God knows what impossible pictures, in which she was the principal
figure, presented themselves to his mind. Equally vague and uncertain,
though not so sanguine, were her own thoughts of the life before her; and
even as her tears made prismatic colours in the light she gazed at, so,
through her new and heavy grief, she already saw a rainbow faintly shining
in the far-off sky. A wandering princess and a good monster in a storybook
might have sat by the fireside, and talked as Captain Cuttle and poor
Florence talked - and not have looked very much unlike them.
The Captain was not troubled with the faintest idea of any difficulty
in retaining Florence, or of any responsibility thereby incurred. Having put
up the shutters and locked the door, he was quite satisfied on this head. If
she had been a Ward in Chancery, it would have made no difference at all to
Captain Cuttle. He was the last man in the world to be troubled by any such
considerations.
So the Captain smoked his pipe very comfortably, and Florence and he
meditated after their own manner. When the pipe was out, they had some tea;
and then Florence entreated him to take her to some neighbouring shop, where
she could buy the few necessaries she immediately wanted. It being quite
dark, the Captain consented: peeping carefully out first, as he had been
wont to do in his time of hiding from Mrs MacStinger; and arming himself
with his large stick, in case of an appeal to arms being rendered necessary
by any unforeseen circumstance.
The pride Captain Cuttle had, in giving his arm to Florence, and
escorting her some two or three hundred yards, keeping a bright look-out all
the time, and attracting the attention of everyone who passed them, by his
great vigilance and numerous precautions, was extreme. Arrived at the shop,
the Captain felt it a point of delicacy to retire during the making of the
purchases, as they were to consist of wearing apparel; but he previously
deposited his tin canister on the counter, and informing the young lady of
the establishment that it contained fourteen pound two, requested her, in
case that amount of property should not be sufficient to defray the expenses
of his niece's little outfit - at the word 'niece,' he bestowed a most
significant look on Florence, accompanied with pantomime, expressive of
sagacity and mystery - to have the goodness to 'sing out,' and he would make
up the difference from his pocket. Casually consulting his big watch, as a
deep means of dazzling the establishment, and impressing it with a sense of
property, the Captain then kissed his hook to his niece, and retired outside
the window, where it was a choice sight to see his great face looking in
from time to time, among the silks and ribbons, with an obvious misgiving
that Florence had been spirited away by a back door.
'Dear Captain Cuttle,' said Florence, when she came out with a parcel,
the size of which greatly disappointed the Captain, who had expected to see
a porter following with a bale of goods, 'I don't want this money, indeed. I
have not spent any of it. I have money of my own.'
'My lady lass,' returned the baffled Captain, looking straight down the
street before them, 'take care on it for me, will you be so good, till such
time as I ask ye for it?'
'May I put it back in its usual place,' said Florence, 'and keep it
there?'
The Captain was not at all gratified by this proposal, but he answered,
'Ay, ay, put it anywheres, my lady lass, so long as you know where to find
it again. It ain't o' no use to me,' said the Captain. 'I wonder I haven't
chucked it away afore now.
The Captain was quite disheartened for the moment, but he revived at
the first touch of Florence's arm, and they returned with the same
precautions as they had come; the Captain opening the door of the little
Midshipman's berth, and diving in, with a suddenness which his great
practice only could have taught him. During Florence's slumber in the
morning, he had engaged the daughter of an elderly lady who usually sat
under a blue umbrella in Leadenhall Market, selling poultry, to come and put
her room in order, and render her any little services she required; and this
damsel now appearing, Florence found everything about her as convenient and
orderly, if not as handsome, as in the terrible dream she had once called
Home.
When they were alone again, the Captain insisted on her eating a slice
of dry toast' and drinking a glass of spiced negus (which he made to
perfection); and, encouraging her with every kind word and inconsequential
quotation be could possibly think of, led her upstairs to her bedroom. But
he too had something on his mind, and was not easy in his manner.
'Good-night, dear heart,' said Captain Cuttle to her at her
chamber-door.
Florence raised her lips to his face, and kissed him.
At any other time the Captain would have been overbalanced by such a
token of her affection and gratitude; but now, although he was very sensible
of it, he looked in her face with even more uneasiness than he had testified
before, and seemed unwilling to leave her.
'Poor Wal'r!' said the Captain.
'Poor, poor Walter!' sighed Florence.
'Drownded, ain't he?' said the Captain.
Florence shook her head, and sighed.
'Good-night, my lady lass!' said Captain Cuttle, putting out his hand.
'God bless you, dear, kind friend!'
But the Captain lingered still.
'Is anything the matter, dear Captain Cuttle?' said Florence, easily
alarmed in her then state of mind. 'Have you anything to tell me?'
'To tell you, lady lass!' replied the Captain, meeting her eyes in
confusion. 'No, no; what should I have to tell you, pretty! You don't expect
as I've got anything good to tell you, sure?'
'No!' said Florence, shaking her head.
The Captain looked at her wistfully, and repeated 'No,' - ' still
lingering, and still showing embarrassment.
'Poor Wal'r!' said the Captain. 'My Wal'r, as I used to call you! Old
Sol Gills's nevy! Welcome to all as knowed you, as the flowers in May! Where
are you got to, brave boy? Drownded, ain't he?'
Concluding his apostrophe with this abrupt appeal to Florence, the
Captain bade her good-night, and descended the stairs, while Florence
remained at the top, holding the candle out to light him down. He was lost
in the obscurity, and, judging from the sound of his receding footsteps, was
in the act of turning into the little parlour, when his head and shoulders
unexpectedly emerged again, as from the deep, apparently for no other
purpose than to repeat, 'Drownded, ain't he, pretty?' For when he had said
that in a tone of tender condolence, he disappeared.
Florence was very sorry that she should unwittingly, though naturally,
have awakened these associations in the mind of her protector, by taking
refuge there; and sitting down before the little table where the Captain had
arranged the telescope and song-book, and those other rarities, thought of
Walter, and of all that was connected with him in the past, until she could
have almost wished to lie down on her bed and fade away. But in her lonely
yearning to the dead whom she had loved, no thought of home - no possibility
of going back - no presentation of it as yet existing, or as sheltering her
father - once entered her thoughts. She had seen the murder done. In the
last lingering natural aspect in which she had cherished him through so
much, he had been torn out of her heart, defaced, and slain. The thought of
it was so appalling to her, that she covered her eyes, and shrunk trembling
from the least remembrance of the deed, or of the cruel hand that did it. If
her fond heart could have held his image after that, it must have broken;
but it could not; and the void was filled with a wild dread that fled from
all confronting with its shattered fragments - with such a dread as could
have risen out of nothing but the depths of such a love, so wronged.
She dared not look into the glass; for the sight of the darkening mark
upon her bosom made her afraid of herself, as if she bore about her
something wicked. She covered it up, with a hasty, faltering hand, and in
the dark; and laid her weary head down, weeping.
The Captain did not go to bed for a long time. He walked to and fro in
the shop and in the little parlour, for a full hour, and, appearing to have
composed himself by that exercise, sat down with a grave and thoughtful
face, and read out of a Prayer-book the forms of prayer appointed to be used
at sea. These were not easily disposed of; the good Captain being a mighty
slow, gruff reader, and frequently stopping at a hard word to give himself
such encouragement as Now, my lad! With a will!' or, 'Steady, Ed'ard Cuttle,
steady!' which had a great effect in helping him out of any difficulty.
Moreover, his spectacles greatly interfered with his powers of vision. But
notwithstanding these drawbacks, the Captain, being heartily in earnest,
read the service to the very last line, and with genuine feeling too; and
approving of it very much when he had done, turned in, under the counter
(but not before he had been upstairs, and listened at Florence's door), with
a serene breast, and a most benevolent visage.
The Captain turned out several times in the course of the night, to
assure himself that his charge was resting quietly; and once, at daybreak,
found that she was awake: for she called to know if it were he, on hearing
footsteps near her door.
'Yes' my lady lass,' replied the Captain, in a growling whisper. 'Are
you all right, di'mond?'
Florence thanked him, and said 'Yes.'
The Captain could not lose so favourable an opportunity of applying his
mouth to the keyhole, and calling through it, like a hoarse breeze, 'Poor
Wal'r! Drownded, ain't he?' after which he withdrew, and turning in again,
slept till seven o'clock.
Nor was he free from his uneasy and embarrassed manner all that day;
though Florence, being busy with her needle in the little parlour, was more
calm and tranquil than she had been on the day preceding. Almost always when
she raised her eyes from her work, she observed the captain looking at her,
and thoughtfully stroking his chin; and he so often hitched his arm-chair
close to her, as if he were going to say something very confidential, and
hitched it away again, as not being able to make up his mind how to begin,
that in the course of the day he cruised completely round the parlour in
that frail bark, and more than once went ashore against the wainscot or the
closet door, in a very distressed condition.
It was not until the twilight that Captain Cuttle, fairly dropping
anchor, at last, by the side of Florence, began to talk at all connectedly.
But when the light of the fire was shining on the walls and ceiling of the
little room, and on the tea-board and the cups and saucers that were ranged
upon the table, and on her calm face turned towards the flame, and
reflecting it in the tears that filled her eyes, the Captain broke a long
silence thus:
'You never was at sea, my own?'
'No,' replied Florence.
'Ay,' said the Captain, reverentially; 'it's a almighty element.
There's wonders in the deep, my pretty. Think on it when the winds is
roaring and the waves is rowling. Think on it when the stormy nights is so
pitch dark,' said the Captain, solemnly holding up his hook, 'as you can't
see your hand afore you, excepting when the wiwid lightning reweals the
same; and when you drive, drive, drive through the storm and dark, as if you
was a driving, head on, to the world without end, evermore, amen, and when
found making a note of. Them's the times, my beauty, when a man may say to
his messmate (previously a overhauling of the wollume), "A stiff
nor'wester's blowing, Bill; hark, don't you hear it roar now! Lord help 'em,
how I pitys all unhappy folks ashore now!"' Which quotation, as particularly
applicable to the terrors of the ocean, the Captain delivered in a most
impressive manner, concluding with a sonorous 'Stand by!'
'Were you ever in a dreadful storm?' asked Florence.
'Why ay, my lady lass, I've seen my share of bad weather,' said the
Captain, tremulously wiping his head, 'and I've had my share of knocking
about; but - but it ain't of myself as I was a meaning to speak. Our dear
boy,' drawing closer to her, 'Wal'r, darling, as was drownded.'
The Captain spoke in such a trembling voice, and looked at Florence
with a face so pale and agitated, that she clung to his hand in affright.
'Your face is changed,' cried Florence. 'You are altered in a moment.
What is it? Dear Captain Cuttle, it turns me cold to see you!'
'What! Lady lass,' returned the Captain, supporting her with his hand,
'don't be took aback. No, no! All's well, all's well, my dear. As I was a
saying - Wal'r - he's - he's drownded. Ain't he?'
Florence looked at him intently; her colour came and went; and she laid
her hand upon her breast.
'There's perils and dangers on the deep, my beauty,' said the Captain;
'and over many a brave ship, and many and many a bould heart, the secret
waters has closed up, and never told no tales. But there's escapes upon the
deep, too, and sometimes one man out of a score, - ah! maybe out of a
hundred, pretty, - has been saved by the mercy of God, and come home after
being given over for dead, and told of all hands lost. I - I know a story,
Heart's Delight,' stammered the Captain, 'o' this natur, as was told to me
once; and being on this here tack, and you and me sitting alone by the fire,
maybe you'd like to hear me tell it. Would you, deary?'
Florence, trembling with an agitation which she could not control or
understand, involuntarily followed his glance, which went behind her into
the shop, where a lamp was burning. The instant that she turned her head,
the Captain sprung out of his chair, and interposed his hand.
'There's nothing there, my beauty,' said the Captain. 'Don't look
there.'
'Why not?' asked Florence.
The Captain murmured something about its being dull that way, and about
the fire being cheerful. He drew the door ajar, which had been standing open
until now, and resumed his seat. Florence followed him with her eyes, and
looked intently in his face.
'The story was about a ship, my lady lass,' began the Captain, 'as
sailed out of the Port of London, with a fair wind and in fair weather,
bound for - don't be took aback, my lady lass, she was only out'ard bound,
pretty, only out'ard bound!'
The expression on Florence's face alarmed the Captain, who was himself
very hot and flurried, and showed scarcely less agitation than she did.
'Shall I go on, Beauty?' said the Captain.
'Yes, yes, pray!' cried Florence.
The Captain made a gulp as if to get down something that was sticking
in his throat, and nervously proceeded:
'That there unfort'nate ship met with such foul weather, out at sea, as
don't blow once in twenty year, my darling. There was hurricanes ashore as
tore up forests and blowed down towns, and there was gales at sea in them
latitudes, as not the stoutest wessel ever launched could live in. Day arter
day that there unfort'nate ship behaved noble, I'm told, and did her duty
brave, my pretty, but at one blow a'most her bulwarks was stove in, her
masts and rudder carved away, her best man swept overboard, and she left to
the mercy of the storm as had no mercy but blowed harder and harder yet,
while the waves dashed over her, and beat her in, and every time they come a
thundering at her, broke her like a shell. Every black spot in every
mountain of water that rolled away was a bit o' the ship's life or a living
return to his breakfast, he came jogging back to it, with a very doubtful
air; and was off again, in another paroxysm, before touching a morsel.
'If there should be someone listening and watching,' whispered
Florence. 'Someone who saw me come - who followed me, perhaps.'
'It ain't the young woman, lady lass, is it?' said the Captain, taken
with a bright idea
'Susan?' said Florence, shaking her head. 'Ah no! Susan has been gone
from me a long time.'
'Not deserted, I hope?' said the Captain. 'Don't say that that there
young woman's run, my pretty!'
'Oh, no, no!' cried Florence. 'She is one of the truest hearts in the
world!'
The Captain was greatly relieved by this reply, and expressed his
satisfaction by taking off his hard glazed hat, and dabbing his head all
over with his handkerchief, rolled up like a ball, observing several times,
with infinite complacency, and with a beaming countenance, that he know'd
it.
'So you're quiet now, are you, brother?' said the Captain to Diogenes.
'There warn't nobody there, my lady lass, bless you!'
Diogenes was not so sure of that. The door still had an attraction for
him at intervals; and he went snuffing about it, and growling to himself,
unable to forget the subject. This incident, coupled with the Captain's
observation of Florence's fatigue and faintness, decided him to prepare Sol
Gills's chamber as a place of retirement for her immediately. He therefore
hastily betook himself to the top of the house, and made the best
arrangement of it that his imagination and his means suggested.
It was very clean already; and the Captain being an orderly man, and
accustomed to make things ship-shape, converted the bed into a couch, by
covering it all over with a clean white drapery. By a similar contrivance,
the Captain converted the little dressing-table into a species of altar, on
which he set forth two silver teaspoons, a flower-pot, a telescope, his
celebrated watch, a pocket-comb, and a song-book, as a small collection of
rarities, that made a choice appearance. Having darkened the window, and
straightened the pieces of carpet on the floor, the Captain surveyed these
preparations with great delight, and descended to the little parlour again,
to bring Florence to her bower.
Nothing would induce the Captain to believe that it was possible for
Florence to walk upstairs. If he could have got the idea into his head, he
would have considered it an outrageous breach of hospitality to allow her to
do so. Florence was too weak to dispute the point, and the Captain carried
her up out of hand, laid her down, and covered her with a great watch-coat.
'My lady lass!' said the Captain, 'you're as safe here as if you was at
the top of St Paul's Cathedral, with the ladder cast off. Sleep is what you
want, afore all other things, and may you be able to show yourself smart
with that there balsam for the still small woice of a wounded mind! When
there's anything you want, my Heart's Delight, as this here humble house or
town can offer, pass the word to Ed'ard Cuttle, as'll stand off and on
outside that door, and that there man will wibrate with joy.' The Captain
concluded by kissing the hand that Florence stretched out to him, with the
chivalry of any old knight-errant, and walking on tiptoe out of the room.
Descending to the little parlour, Captain Cuttle, after holding a hasty
council with himself, decided to open the shop-door for a few minutes, and
satisfy himself that now, at all events, there was no one loitering about
it. Accordingly he set it open, and stood upon the threshold, keeping a
bright look-out, and sweeping the whole street with his spectacles.
'How de do, Captain Gills?' said a voice beside him. The Captain,
looking down, found that he had been boarded by Mr Toots while sweeping the
horizon.
'How are, you, my lad?' replied the Captain.
'Well, I m pretty well, thank'ee, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. 'You
know I'm never quite what I could wish to be, now. I don't expect that I
ever shall be any more.'
Mr Toots never approached any nearer than this to the great theme of
his life, when in conversation with Captain Cuttle, on account of the
agreement between them.
'Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, 'if I could have the pleasure of a word
with you, it's - it's rather particular.'
'Why, you see, my lad,' replied the Captain, leading the way into the
parlour, 'I ain't what you may call exactly free this morning; and therefore
if you can clap on a bit, I should take it kindly.'
'Certainly, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots, who seldom had any notion
of the Captain's meaning. 'To clap on, is exactly what I could wish to do.
Naturally.'
'If so be, my lad,' returned the Captain. 'Do it!'
The Captain was so impressed by the possession of his tremendous secret
- by the fact of Miss Dombey being at that moment under his roof, while the
innocent and unconscious Toots sat opposite to him - that a perspiration
broke out on his forehead, and he found it impossible, while slowly drying
the same, glazed hat in hand, to keep his eyes off Mr Toots's face. Mr
Toots, who himself appeared to have some secret reasons for being in a
nervous state, was so unspeakably disconcerted by the Captain's stare, that
after looking at him vacantly for some time in silence, and shifting
uneasily on his chair, he said:
'I beg your pardon, Captain Gills, but you don't happen to see anything
particular in me, do you?'
'No, my lad,' returned the Captain. 'No.'
'Because you know,' said Mr Toots with a chuckle, 'I kNOW I'm wasting
away. You needn't at all mind alluding to that. I - I should like it.
Burgess and Co. have altered my measure, I'm in that state of thinness. It's
a gratification to me. I - I'm glad of it. I - I'd a great deal rather go
into a decline, if I could. I'm a mere brute you know, grazing upon the
surface of the earth, Captain Gills.'
The more Mr Toots went on in this way, the more the Captain was weighed
down by his secret, and stared at him. What with this cause of uneasiness,
and his desire to get rid of Mr Toots, the Captain was in such a scared and
strange condition, indeed, that if he had been in conversation with a ghost,
he could hardly have evinced greater discomposure.
'But I was going to say, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. 'Happening to
be this way early this morning - to tell you the truth, I was coming to
breakfast with you. As to sleep, you know, I never sleep now. I might be a
Watchman, except that I don't get any pay, and he's got nothing on his
mind.'
'Carry on, my lad!' said the Captain, in an admonitory voice.
'Certainly, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots. 'Perfectly true! Happening
to be this way early this morning (an hour or so ago), and finding the door
shut - '
'What! were you waiting there, brother?' demanded the Captain.
'Not at all, Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots. 'I didn't stop a
moment. I thought you were out. But the person said - by the bye, you don't
keep a dog, you, Captain Gills?'
The Captain shook his head.
'To be sure,' said Mr Toots, 'that's exactly what I said. I knew you
didn't. There is a dog, Captain Gills, connected with - but excuse me.
That's forbidden ground.'
The Captain stared at Mr Toots until he seemed to swell to twice his
natural size; and again the perspiration broke out on the Captain's
forehead, when he thought of Diogenes taking it into his head to come down
and make a third in the parlour.
'The person said,' continued Mr Toots, 'that he had heard a dog barking
in the shop: which I knew couldn't be, and I told him so. But he was as
positive as if he had seen the dog.'
'What person, my lad?' inquired the Captain.
'Why, you see there it is, Captain Gills,' said Mr Toots, with a
perceptible increase in the nervousness of his manner. 'It's not for me to
say what may have taken place, or what may not have taken place. Indeed, I
don't know. I get mixed up with all sorts of things that I don't quite
understand, and I think there's something rather weak in my - in my head, in
short.'
The Captain nodded his own, as a mark of assent.
'But the person said, as we were walking away,' continued Mr Toots,
'that you knew what, under existing circumstances, might occur - he said
"might," very strongly - and that if you were requested to prepare yourself,
you would, no doubt, come prepared.'
'Person, my lad' the Captain repeated.
'I don't know what person, I'm sure, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots,
'I haven't the least idea. But coming to the door, I found him waiting
there; and he said was I coming back again, and I said yes; and he said did
I know you, and I said, yes, I had the pleasure of your acquaintance - you
had given me the pleasure of your acquaintance, after some persuasion; and
he said, if that was the case, would I say to you what I have said, about
existing circumstances and coming prepared, and as soon as ever I saw you,
would I ask you to step round the corner, if it was only for one minute, on
most important business, to Mr Brogley's the Broker's. Now, I tell you what,
Captain Gills - whatever it is, I am convinced it's very important; and if
you like to step round, now, I'll wait here till you come back.'
The Captain, divided between his fear of compromising Florence in some
way by not going, and his horror of leaving Mr Toots in possession of the
house with a chance of finding out the secret, was a spectacle of mental
disturbance that even Mr Toots could not be blind to. But that young
gentleman, considering his nautical friend as merely in a state of
preparation for the interview he was going to have, was quite satisfied, and
did not review his own discreet conduct without chuckle
At length the Captain decided, as the lesser of two evils, to run round
to Brogley's the Broker's: previously locking the door that communicated
with the upper part of the house, and putting the key in his pocket. 'If so
be,' said the Captain to Mr Toots, with not a little shame and hesitation,
'as you'll excuse my doing of it, brother.'
'Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, 'whatever you do, is satisfactory
to me.
The Captain thanked him heartily, and promising to come back in less
than five minutes, went out in quest of the person who had entrusted Mr
Toots with this mysterious message. Poor Mr Toots, left to himself, lay down
upon the sofa, little thinking who had reclined there last, and, gazing up
at the skylight and resigning himself to visions of Miss Dombey, lost all
heed of time and place.
It was as well that he did so; for although the Captain was not gone
long, he was gone much longer than he had proposed. When he came back, he
was very pale indeed, and greatly agitated, and even looked as if he had
been shedding tears. He seemed to have lost the faculty of speech, until he
had been to the cupboard and taken a dram of rum from the case-bottle, when
he fetched a deep breath, and sat down in a chair with his hand before his
face.
'Captain Gills,' said Toots, kindly, 'I hope and trust there's nothing
wrong?'
'Thank'ee, my lad, not a bit,' said the Captain. 'Quite contrairy.'
'You have the appearance of being overcome, Captain Gills,' observed Mr
Toots.
'Why, my lad, I am took aback,' the Captain admitted. 'I am.'
'Is there anything I can do, Captain Gills?' inquired Mr Toots. 'If
there is, make use of me.'
The Captain removed his hand from his face, looked at him with a
remarkable expression of pity and tenderness, and took him by the hand, and
shook it hard.
'No, thank'ee,' said the Captain. 'Nothing. Only I'll take it as a
favour if you'll part company for the present. I believe, brother,' wringing
his hand again, 'that, after Wal'r, and on a different model, you're as good
a lad as ever stepped.'
'Upon my word and honour, Captain Gills,' returned Mr Toots, giving the
Captain's hand a preliminary slap before shaking it again, 'it's delightful
to me to possess your good opinion. Thank'ee.
'And bear a hand and cheer up,' said the Captain, patting him on the
back. 'What! There's more than one sweet creetur in the world!'
'Not to me, Captain Gills,' replied Mr Toots gravely. 'Not to me, I
assure you. The state of my feelings towards Miss Dombey is of that
unspeakable description, that my heart is a desert island, and she lives in
it alone. I'm getting more used up every day, and I'm proud to be so. If you
could see my legs when I take my boots off, you'd form some idea of what
unrequited affection is. I have been prescribed bark, but I don't take it,
for I don't wish to have any tone whatever given to my constitution. I'd
rather not. This, however, is forbidden ground. Captain Gills, goodbye!'
Captain Cuttle cordially reciprocating the warmth of Mr Toots's
farewell, locked the door behind him, and shaking his head with the same
remarkable expression of pity and tenderness as he had regarded him with
before, went up to see if Florence wanted him.
There was an entire change in the Captain's face as he went upstairs.
He wiped his eyes with his handkerchief, and he polished the bridge of his
nose with his sleeve as he had done already that morning, but his face was
absolutely changed. Now, he might have been thought supremely happy; now, he
might have been thought sad; but the kind of gravity that sat upon his
features was quite new to them, and was as great an improvement to them as
if they had undergone some sublimating process.
He knocked softly, with his hook, at Florence's door, twice or thrice;
but, receiving no answer, ventured first to peep in, and then to enter:
emboldened to take the latter step, perhaps, by the familiar recognition of
Diogenes, who, stretched upon the ground by the side of her couch, wagged
his tail, and winked his eyes at the Captain, without being at the trouble
of getting up.
She was sleeping heavily, and moaning in her sleep; and Captain Cuttle,
with a perfect awe of her youth, and beauty, and her sorrow, raised her
head, and adjusted the coat that covered her, where it had fallen off, and
darkened the window a little more that she might sleep on, and crept out
again, and took his post of watch upon the stairs. All this, with a touch
and tread as light as Florence's own.
Long may it remain in this mixed world a point not easy of decision,
which is the more beautiful evidence of the Almighty's goodness - the
delicate fingers that are formed for sensitiveness and sympathy of touch,
and made to minister to pain and grief, or the rough hard Captain Cuttle
hand, that the heart teaches, guides, and softens in a moment!
Florence slept upon her couch, forgetful of her homelessness and
orphanage, and Captain Cuttle watched upon the stairs. A louder sob or moan
than usual, brought him sometimes to her door; but by degrees she slept more
peacefully, and the Captain's watch was undisturbed.
The Midshipman makes a Discovery
It was long before Florence awoke. The day was in its prime, the day
was in its wane, and still, uneasy in mind and body, she slept on;
unconscious of her strange bed, of the noise and turmoil in the street, and
of the light that shone outside the shaded window. Perfect unconsciousness
of what had happened in the home that existed no more, even the deep slumber
of exhaustion could not produce. Some undefined and mournful recollection of
it, dozing uneasily but never sleeping, pervaded all her rest. A dull
sorrow, like a half-lulled sense of pain, was always present to her; and her
pale cheek was oftener wet with tears than the honest Captain, softly
putting in his head from time to time at the half-closed door, could have
desired to see it.
The sun was getting low in the west, and, glancing out of a red mist,
pierced with its rays opposite loopholes and pieces of fretwork in the
spires of city churches, as if with golden arrows that struck through and
through them - and far away athwart the river and its flat banks, it was
gleaming like a path of fire - and out at sea it was irradiating sails of
ships - and, looked towards, from quiet churchyards, upon hill-tops in the
country, it was steeping distant prospects in a flush and glow that seemed
to mingle earth and sky together in one glorious suffusion - when Florence,
opening her heavy eyes, lay at first, looking without interest or
recognition at the unfamiliar walls around her, and listening in the same
regardless manner to the noises in the street. But presently she started up
upon her couch, gazed round with a surprised and vacant look, and
recollected all.
'My pretty,' said the Captain, knocking at the door, 'what cheer?'
'Dear friend,' cried Florence, hurrying to him, 'is it you?'
The Captain felt so much pride in the name, and was so pleased by the
gleam of pleasure in her face, when she saw him, that he kissed his hook, by
way of reply, in speechless gratification.
'What cheer, bright di'mond?' said the Captain.
'I have surely slept very long,' returned Florence. 'When did I come
here? Yesterday?'
'This here blessed day, my lady lass,' replied the Captain.
'Has there been no night? Is it still day?' asked Florence.
'Getting on for evening now, my pretty,' said the Captain, drawing back
the curtain of the window. 'See!'
Florence, with her hand upon the Captain's arm, so sorrowful and timid,
and the Captain with his rough face and burly figure, so quietly protective
of her, stood in the rosy light of the bright evening sky, without saying a
word. However strange the form of speech into which he might have fashioned
the feeling, if he had had to give it utterance, the Captain felt, as
sensibly as the most eloquent of men could have done, that there was
something in the tranquil time and in its softened beauty that would make
the wounded heart of Florence overflow; and that it was better that such
tears should have their way. So not a word spake Captain Cuttle. But when he
felt his arm clasped closer, and when he felt the lonely head come nearer to
it, and lay itself against his homely coarse blue sleeve, he pressed it
gently with his rugged hand, and understood it, and was understood.
'Better now, my pretty!' said the Captain. 'Cheerily, cheerily, I'll go
down below, and get some dinner ready. Will you come down of your own self,
arterwards, pretty, or shall Ed'ard Cuttle come and fetch you?'
As Florence assured him that she was quite able to walk downstairs, the
Captain, though evidently doubtful of his own hospitality in permitting it,
left her to do so, and immediately set about roasting a fowl at the fire in
the little parlour. To achieve his cookery with the greater skill, he pulled
off his coat, tucked up his wristbands, and put on his glazed hat, without
which assistant he never applied himself to any nice or difficult
undertaking.
After cooling her aching head and burning face in the fresh water which
the Captain's care had provided for her while she slept, Florence went to
the little mirror to bind up her disordered hair. Then she knew - in a
moment, for she shunned it instantly, that on her breast there was the
darkening mark of an angry hand.
Her tears burst forth afresh at the sight; she was ashamed and afraid
of it; but it moved her to no anger against him. Homeless and fatherless,
she forgave him everything; hardly thought that she had need to forgive him,
or that she did; but she fled from the idea of him as she had fled from the
reality, and he was utterly gone and lost. There was no such Being in the
world.
What to do, or where to live, Florence - poor, inexperienced girl! -
could not yet consider. She had indistinct dreams of finding, a long way
off, some little sisters to instruct, who would be gentle with her, and to
whom, under some feigned name, she might attach herself, and who would grow
up in their happy home, and marry, and be good to their old governess, and
perhaps entrust her, in time, with the education of their own daughters. And
she thought how strange and sorrowful it would be, thus to become a
grey-haired woman, carrying her secret to the grave, when Florence Dombey
was forgotten. But it was all dim and clouded to her now. She only knew that
she had no Father upon earth, and she said so, many times, with her
suppliant head hidden from all, but her Father who was in Heaven.
Her little stock of money amounted to but a few guineas. With a part of
this, it would be necessary to buy some clothes, for she had none but those
she wore. She was too desolate to think how soon her money would be gone -
too much a child in worldly matters to be greatly troubled on that score
yet, even if her other trouble had been less. She tried to calm her thoughts
and stay her tears; to quiet the hurry in her throbbing head, and bring
herself to believe that what had happened were but the events of a few hours
ago, instead of weeks or months, as they appeared; and went down to her kind
protector.
The Captain had spread the cloth with great care, and was making some
egg-sauce in a little saucepan: basting the fowl from time to time during
the process with a strong interest, as it turned and browned on a string
before the fire. Having propped Florence up with cushions on the sofa, which
was already wheeled into a warm corner for her greater comfort, the Captain
pursued his cooking with extraordinary skill, making hot gravy in a second
little saucepan, boiling a handful of potatoes in a third, never forgetting
the egg-sauce in the first, and making an impartial round of basting and
stirring with the most useful of spoons every minute. Besides these cares,
the Captain had to keep his eye on a diminutive frying-pan, in which some
sausages were hissing and bubbling in a most musical manner; and there was
never such a radiant cook as the Captain looked, in the height and heat of
these functions: it being impossible to say whether his face or his glazed
hat shone the brighter.
The dinner being at length quite ready, Captain Cuttle dished and
served it up, with no less dexterity than he had cooked it. He then dressed
for dinner, by taking off his glazed hat and putting on his coat. That done,
he wheeled the table close against Florence on the sofa, said grace,
unscrewed his hook, screwed his fork into its place, and did the honours of
the table
'My lady lass,' said the Captain, 'cheer up, and try to eat a deal.
Stand by, my deary! Liver wing it is. Sarse it is. Sassage it is. And
potato!' all which the Captain ranged symmetrically on a plate, and pouring
hot gravy on the whole with the useful spoon, set before his cherished
guest.
'The whole row o' dead lights is up, for'ard, lady lass,' observed the
Captain, encouragingly, 'and everythink is made snug. Try and pick a bit, my
pretty. If Wal'r was here - '
'Ah! If I had him for my brother now!' cried Florence.
'Don't! don't take on, my pretty!' said the Captain, 'awast, to obleege
me! He was your nat'ral born friend like, warn't he, Pet?'
Florence had no words to answer with. She only said, 'Oh, dear, dear
Paul! oh, Walter!'
'The wery planks she walked on,' murmured the Captain, looking at her
drooping face, 'was as high esteemed by Wal'r, as the water brooks is by the
hart which never rejices! I see him now, the wery day as he was rated on
them Dombey books, a speaking of her with his face a glistening with doo -
leastways with his modest sentiments - like a new blowed rose, at dinner.
Well, well! If our poor Wal'r was here, my lady lass - or if he could be -
for he's drownded, ain't he?'
Florence shook her head.
'Yes, yes; drownded,' said the Captain, soothingly; 'as I was saying,
if he could be here he'd beg and pray of you, my precious, to pick a leetle
bit, with a look-out for your own sweet health. Whereby, hold your own, my
lady lass, as if it was for Wal'r's sake, and lay your pretty head to the
wind.'
Florence essayed to eat a morsel, for the Captain's pleasure. The
Captain, meanwhile, who seemed to have quite forgotten his own dinner, laid
down his knife and fork, and drew his chair to the sofa.
'Wal'r was a trim lad, warn't he, precious?' said the Captain, after
sitting for some time silently rubbing his chin, with his eyes fixed upon
her, 'and a brave lad, and a good lad?'
Florence tearfully assented.
'And he's drownded, Beauty, ain't he?' said the Captain, in a soothing
voice.
Florence could not but assent again.
'He was older than you, my lady lass,' pursued the Captain, 'but you
was like two children together, at first; wam't you?'
Florence answered 'Yes.'
'And Wal'r's drownded,' said the Captain. 'Ain't he?'
The repetition of this inquiry was a curious source of consolation, but
it seemed to be one to Captain Cuttle, for he came back to it again and
again. Florence, fain to push from her her untasted dinner, and to lie back
on her sofa, gave him her hand, feeling that she had disappointed him,
though truly wishing to have pleased him after all his trouble, but he held
it in his own (which shook as he held it), and appearing to have quite
forgotten all about the dinner and her want of appetite, went on growling at
intervals, in a ruminating tone of sympathy, 'Poor Wal'r. Ay, ay! Drownded.
Ain't he?' And always waited for her answer, in which the great point of
these singular reflections appeared to consist.
The fowl and sausages were cold, and the gravy and the egg-sauce
stagnant, before the Captain remembered that they were on the board, and
fell to with the assistance of Diogenes, whose united efforts quickly
dispatched the banquet. The Captain's delight and wonder at the quiet
housewifery of Florence in assisting to clear the table, arrange the
parlour, and sweep up the hearth - only to be equalled by the fervency of
his protest when she began to assist him - were gradually raised to that
degree, that at last he could not choose but do nothing himself, and stand
looking at her as if she were some Fairy, daintily performing these offices
for him; the red rim on his forehead glowing again, in his unspeakable
admiration.
But when Florence, taking down his pipe from the mantel-shelf gave it
into his hand, and entreated him to smoke it, the good Captain was so
bewildered by her attention that he held it as if he had never held a pipe,
in all his life. Likewise, when Florence, looking into the little cupboard,
took out the case-bottle and mixed a perfect glass of grog for him, unasked,
and set it at his elbow, his ruddy nose turned pale, he felt himself so
graced and honoured. When he had filled his pipe in an absolute reverie of
satisfaction, Florence lighted it for him - the Captain having no power to
object, or to prevent her - and resuming her place on the old sofa, looked
at him with a smile so loving and so grateful, a smile that showed him so
plainly how her forlorn heart turned to him, as her face did, through grief,
that the smoke of the pipe got into the Captain's throat and made him cough,
and got into the Captain's eyes, and made them blink and water.
The manner in which the Captain tried to make believe that the cause of
these effects lay hidden in the pipe itself, and the way in which he looked
into the bowl for it, and not finding it there, pretended to blow it out of
the stem, was wonderfully pleasant. The pipe soon getting into better
condition, he fell into that state of repose becoming a good smoker; but sat
with his eyes fixed on Florence, and, with a beaming placidity not to be
described, and stopping every now and then to discharge a little cloud from
his lips, slowly puffed it forth, as if it were a scroll coming out of his
mouth, bearing the legend 'Poor Wal'r, ay, ay. Drownded, ain't he?' after
which he would resume his smoking with infinite gentleness.
Unlike as they were externally - and there could scarcely be a more
decided contrast than between Florence in her delicate youth and beauty, and
Captain Cuttle with his knobby face, his great broad weather-beaten person,
and his gruff voice - in simple innocence of the world's ways and the
world's perplexities and dangers, they were nearly on a level. No child
could have surpassed Captain Cuttle in inexperience of everything but wind
and weather; in simplicity, credulity, and generous trustfulness. Faith,
hope, and charity, shared his whole nature among them. An odd sort of
romance, perfectly unimaginative, yet perfectly unreal, and subject to no
considerations of worldly prudence or practicability, was the only partner
they had in his character. As the Captain sat, and smoked, and looked at
Florence, God knows what impossible pictures, in which she was the principal
figure, presented themselves to his mind. Equally vague and uncertain,
though not so sanguine, were her own thoughts of the life before her; and
even as her tears made prismatic colours in the light she gazed at, so,
through her new and heavy grief, she already saw a rainbow faintly shining
in the far-off sky. A wandering princess and a good monster in a storybook
might have sat by the fireside, and talked as Captain Cuttle and poor
Florence talked - and not have looked very much unlike them.
The Captain was not troubled with the faintest idea of any difficulty
in retaining Florence, or of any responsibility thereby incurred. Having put
up the shutters and locked the door, he was quite satisfied on this head. If
she had been a Ward in Chancery, it would have made no difference at all to
Captain Cuttle. He was the last man in the world to be troubled by any such
considerations.
So the Captain smoked his pipe very comfortably, and Florence and he
meditated after their own manner. When the pipe was out, they had some tea;
and then Florence entreated him to take her to some neighbouring shop, where
she could buy the few necessaries she immediately wanted. It being quite
dark, the Captain consented: peeping carefully out first, as he had been
wont to do in his time of hiding from Mrs MacStinger; and arming himself
with his large stick, in case of an appeal to arms being rendered necessary
by any unforeseen circumstance.
The pride Captain Cuttle had, in giving his arm to Florence, and
escorting her some two or three hundred yards, keeping a bright look-out all
the time, and attracting the attention of everyone who passed them, by his
great vigilance and numerous precautions, was extreme. Arrived at the shop,
the Captain felt it a point of delicacy to retire during the making of the
purchases, as they were to consist of wearing apparel; but he previously
deposited his tin canister on the counter, and informing the young lady of
the establishment that it contained fourteen pound two, requested her, in
case that amount of property should not be sufficient to defray the expenses
of his niece's little outfit - at the word 'niece,' he bestowed a most
significant look on Florence, accompanied with pantomime, expressive of
sagacity and mystery - to have the goodness to 'sing out,' and he would make
up the difference from his pocket. Casually consulting his big watch, as a
deep means of dazzling the establishment, and impressing it with a sense of
property, the Captain then kissed his hook to his niece, and retired outside
the window, where it was a choice sight to see his great face looking in
from time to time, among the silks and ribbons, with an obvious misgiving
that Florence had been spirited away by a back door.
'Dear Captain Cuttle,' said Florence, when she came out with a parcel,
the size of which greatly disappointed the Captain, who had expected to see
a porter following with a bale of goods, 'I don't want this money, indeed. I
have not spent any of it. I have money of my own.'
'My lady lass,' returned the baffled Captain, looking straight down the
street before them, 'take care on it for me, will you be so good, till such
time as I ask ye for it?'
'May I put it back in its usual place,' said Florence, 'and keep it
there?'
The Captain was not at all gratified by this proposal, but he answered,
'Ay, ay, put it anywheres, my lady lass, so long as you know where to find
it again. It ain't o' no use to me,' said the Captain. 'I wonder I haven't
chucked it away afore now.
The Captain was quite disheartened for the moment, but he revived at
the first touch of Florence's arm, and they returned with the same
precautions as they had come; the Captain opening the door of the little
Midshipman's berth, and diving in, with a suddenness which his great
practice only could have taught him. During Florence's slumber in the
morning, he had engaged the daughter of an elderly lady who usually sat
under a blue umbrella in Leadenhall Market, selling poultry, to come and put
her room in order, and render her any little services she required; and this
damsel now appearing, Florence found everything about her as convenient and
orderly, if not as handsome, as in the terrible dream she had once called
Home.
When they were alone again, the Captain insisted on her eating a slice
of dry toast' and drinking a glass of spiced negus (which he made to
perfection); and, encouraging her with every kind word and inconsequential
quotation be could possibly think of, led her upstairs to her bedroom. But
he too had something on his mind, and was not easy in his manner.
'Good-night, dear heart,' said Captain Cuttle to her at her
chamber-door.
Florence raised her lips to his face, and kissed him.
At any other time the Captain would have been overbalanced by such a
token of her affection and gratitude; but now, although he was very sensible
of it, he looked in her face with even more uneasiness than he had testified
before, and seemed unwilling to leave her.
'Poor Wal'r!' said the Captain.
'Poor, poor Walter!' sighed Florence.
'Drownded, ain't he?' said the Captain.
Florence shook her head, and sighed.
'Good-night, my lady lass!' said Captain Cuttle, putting out his hand.
'God bless you, dear, kind friend!'
But the Captain lingered still.
'Is anything the matter, dear Captain Cuttle?' said Florence, easily
alarmed in her then state of mind. 'Have you anything to tell me?'
'To tell you, lady lass!' replied the Captain, meeting her eyes in
confusion. 'No, no; what should I have to tell you, pretty! You don't expect
as I've got anything good to tell you, sure?'
'No!' said Florence, shaking her head.
The Captain looked at her wistfully, and repeated 'No,' - ' still
lingering, and still showing embarrassment.
'Poor Wal'r!' said the Captain. 'My Wal'r, as I used to call you! Old
Sol Gills's nevy! Welcome to all as knowed you, as the flowers in May! Where
are you got to, brave boy? Drownded, ain't he?'
Concluding his apostrophe with this abrupt appeal to Florence, the
Captain bade her good-night, and descended the stairs, while Florence
remained at the top, holding the candle out to light him down. He was lost
in the obscurity, and, judging from the sound of his receding footsteps, was
in the act of turning into the little parlour, when his head and shoulders
unexpectedly emerged again, as from the deep, apparently for no other
purpose than to repeat, 'Drownded, ain't he, pretty?' For when he had said
that in a tone of tender condolence, he disappeared.
Florence was very sorry that she should unwittingly, though naturally,
have awakened these associations in the mind of her protector, by taking
refuge there; and sitting down before the little table where the Captain had
arranged the telescope and song-book, and those other rarities, thought of
Walter, and of all that was connected with him in the past, until she could
have almost wished to lie down on her bed and fade away. But in her lonely
yearning to the dead whom she had loved, no thought of home - no possibility
of going back - no presentation of it as yet existing, or as sheltering her
father - once entered her thoughts. She had seen the murder done. In the
last lingering natural aspect in which she had cherished him through so
much, he had been torn out of her heart, defaced, and slain. The thought of
it was so appalling to her, that she covered her eyes, and shrunk trembling
from the least remembrance of the deed, or of the cruel hand that did it. If
her fond heart could have held his image after that, it must have broken;
but it could not; and the void was filled with a wild dread that fled from
all confronting with its shattered fragments - with such a dread as could
have risen out of nothing but the depths of such a love, so wronged.
She dared not look into the glass; for the sight of the darkening mark
upon her bosom made her afraid of herself, as if she bore about her
something wicked. She covered it up, with a hasty, faltering hand, and in
the dark; and laid her weary head down, weeping.
The Captain did not go to bed for a long time. He walked to and fro in
the shop and in the little parlour, for a full hour, and, appearing to have
composed himself by that exercise, sat down with a grave and thoughtful
face, and read out of a Prayer-book the forms of prayer appointed to be used
at sea. These were not easily disposed of; the good Captain being a mighty
slow, gruff reader, and frequently stopping at a hard word to give himself
such encouragement as Now, my lad! With a will!' or, 'Steady, Ed'ard Cuttle,
steady!' which had a great effect in helping him out of any difficulty.
Moreover, his spectacles greatly interfered with his powers of vision. But
notwithstanding these drawbacks, the Captain, being heartily in earnest,
read the service to the very last line, and with genuine feeling too; and
approving of it very much when he had done, turned in, under the counter
(but not before he had been upstairs, and listened at Florence's door), with
a serene breast, and a most benevolent visage.
The Captain turned out several times in the course of the night, to
assure himself that his charge was resting quietly; and once, at daybreak,
found that she was awake: for she called to know if it were he, on hearing
footsteps near her door.
'Yes' my lady lass,' replied the Captain, in a growling whisper. 'Are
you all right, di'mond?'
Florence thanked him, and said 'Yes.'
The Captain could not lose so favourable an opportunity of applying his
mouth to the keyhole, and calling through it, like a hoarse breeze, 'Poor
Wal'r! Drownded, ain't he?' after which he withdrew, and turning in again,
slept till seven o'clock.
Nor was he free from his uneasy and embarrassed manner all that day;
though Florence, being busy with her needle in the little parlour, was more
calm and tranquil than she had been on the day preceding. Almost always when
she raised her eyes from her work, she observed the captain looking at her,
and thoughtfully stroking his chin; and he so often hitched his arm-chair
close to her, as if he were going to say something very confidential, and
hitched it away again, as not being able to make up his mind how to begin,
that in the course of the day he cruised completely round the parlour in
that frail bark, and more than once went ashore against the wainscot or the
closet door, in a very distressed condition.
It was not until the twilight that Captain Cuttle, fairly dropping
anchor, at last, by the side of Florence, began to talk at all connectedly.
But when the light of the fire was shining on the walls and ceiling of the
little room, and on the tea-board and the cups and saucers that were ranged
upon the table, and on her calm face turned towards the flame, and
reflecting it in the tears that filled her eyes, the Captain broke a long
silence thus:
'You never was at sea, my own?'
'No,' replied Florence.
'Ay,' said the Captain, reverentially; 'it's a almighty element.
There's wonders in the deep, my pretty. Think on it when the winds is
roaring and the waves is rowling. Think on it when the stormy nights is so
pitch dark,' said the Captain, solemnly holding up his hook, 'as you can't
see your hand afore you, excepting when the wiwid lightning reweals the
same; and when you drive, drive, drive through the storm and dark, as if you
was a driving, head on, to the world without end, evermore, amen, and when
found making a note of. Them's the times, my beauty, when a man may say to
his messmate (previously a overhauling of the wollume), "A stiff
nor'wester's blowing, Bill; hark, don't you hear it roar now! Lord help 'em,
how I pitys all unhappy folks ashore now!"' Which quotation, as particularly
applicable to the terrors of the ocean, the Captain delivered in a most
impressive manner, concluding with a sonorous 'Stand by!'
'Were you ever in a dreadful storm?' asked Florence.
'Why ay, my lady lass, I've seen my share of bad weather,' said the
Captain, tremulously wiping his head, 'and I've had my share of knocking
about; but - but it ain't of myself as I was a meaning to speak. Our dear
boy,' drawing closer to her, 'Wal'r, darling, as was drownded.'
The Captain spoke in such a trembling voice, and looked at Florence
with a face so pale and agitated, that she clung to his hand in affright.
'Your face is changed,' cried Florence. 'You are altered in a moment.
What is it? Dear Captain Cuttle, it turns me cold to see you!'
'What! Lady lass,' returned the Captain, supporting her with his hand,
'don't be took aback. No, no! All's well, all's well, my dear. As I was a
saying - Wal'r - he's - he's drownded. Ain't he?'
Florence looked at him intently; her colour came and went; and she laid
her hand upon her breast.
'There's perils and dangers on the deep, my beauty,' said the Captain;
'and over many a brave ship, and many and many a bould heart, the secret
waters has closed up, and never told no tales. But there's escapes upon the
deep, too, and sometimes one man out of a score, - ah! maybe out of a
hundred, pretty, - has been saved by the mercy of God, and come home after
being given over for dead, and told of all hands lost. I - I know a story,
Heart's Delight,' stammered the Captain, 'o' this natur, as was told to me
once; and being on this here tack, and you and me sitting alone by the fire,
maybe you'd like to hear me tell it. Would you, deary?'
Florence, trembling with an agitation which she could not control or
understand, involuntarily followed his glance, which went behind her into
the shop, where a lamp was burning. The instant that she turned her head,
the Captain sprung out of his chair, and interposed his hand.
'There's nothing there, my beauty,' said the Captain. 'Don't look
there.'
'Why not?' asked Florence.
The Captain murmured something about its being dull that way, and about
the fire being cheerful. He drew the door ajar, which had been standing open
until now, and resumed his seat. Florence followed him with her eyes, and
looked intently in his face.
'The story was about a ship, my lady lass,' began the Captain, 'as
sailed out of the Port of London, with a fair wind and in fair weather,
bound for - don't be took aback, my lady lass, she was only out'ard bound,
pretty, only out'ard bound!'
The expression on Florence's face alarmed the Captain, who was himself
very hot and flurried, and showed scarcely less agitation than she did.
'Shall I go on, Beauty?' said the Captain.
'Yes, yes, pray!' cried Florence.
The Captain made a gulp as if to get down something that was sticking
in his throat, and nervously proceeded:
'That there unfort'nate ship met with such foul weather, out at sea, as
don't blow once in twenty year, my darling. There was hurricanes ashore as
tore up forests and blowed down towns, and there was gales at sea in them
latitudes, as not the stoutest wessel ever launched could live in. Day arter
day that there unfort'nate ship behaved noble, I'm told, and did her duty
brave, my pretty, but at one blow a'most her bulwarks was stove in, her
masts and rudder carved away, her best man swept overboard, and she left to
the mercy of the storm as had no mercy but blowed harder and harder yet,
while the waves dashed over her, and beat her in, and every time they come a
thundering at her, broke her like a shell. Every black spot in every
mountain of water that rolled away was a bit o' the ship's life or a living