Further Adventures of Captain Edward Cuttle, Mariner
Time, sure of foot and strong of will, had so pressed onward, that the
year enjoined by the old Instrument-maker, as the term during which his
friend should refrain from opening the sealed packet accompanying the
letter he had left for him, was now nearly expired, and Captain Cuttle
began to look at it, of an evening, with feelings of mystery and
uneasiness.
The Captain, in his honour, would as soon have thought of opening the
parcel one hour before the expiration of the term, as he would have
thought of opening himself, to study his own anatomy. He merely brought
it out, at a certain stage of his first evening pipe, laid it on the
table, and sat gazing at the outside of it, through the smoke, in
silent gravity, for two or three hours at a spell. Sometimes, when he
had contemplated it thus for a pretty long while, the Captain would
hitch his chair, by degrees, farther and farther off, as if to get
beyond the range of its fascination; but if this were his design, he
never succeeded: for even when he was brought up by the parlour wall,
the packet still attracted him; or if his eyes, in thoughtful
wandering, roved to the ceiling or the fire, its image immediately
followed, and posted itself conspicuously among the coals, or took up
an advantageous position on the whitewash.
In respect of Heart’s Delight, the Captain’s parental and admiration
knew no change. But since his last interview with Mr Carker, Captain
Cuttle had come to entertain doubts whether his former intervention in
behalf of that young lady and his dear boy Wal”r, had proved altogether
so favourable as he could have wished, and as he at the time believed.
The Captain was troubled with a serious misgiving that he had done more
harm than good, in short; and in his remorse and modesty he made the
best atonement he could think of, by putting himself out of the way of
doing any harm to anyone, and, as it were, throwing himself overboard
for a dangerous person.
Self-buried, therefore, among the instruments, the Captain never went
near Mr Dombey’s house, or reported himself in any way to Florence or
Miss Nipper. He even severed himself from Mr Perch, on the occasion of
his next visit, by dryly informing that gentleman, that he thanked him
for his company, but had cut himself adrift from all such acquaintance,
as he didn’t know what magazine he mightn’t blow up, without meaning of
it. In this self-imposed retirement, the Captain passed whole days and
weeks without interchanging a word with anyone but Rob the Grinder,
whom he esteemed as a pattern of disinterested attachment and fidelity.
In this retirement, the Captain, gazing at the packet of an evening,
would sit smoking, and thinking of Florence and poor Walter, until they
both seemed to his homely fancy to be dead, and to have passed away
into eternal youth, the beautiful and innocent children of his first
remembrance.
The Captain did not, however, in his musings, neglect his own
improvement, or the mental culture of Rob the Grinder. That young man
was generally required to read out of some book to the Captain, for one
hour, every evening; and as the Captain implicitly believed that all
books were true, he accumulated, by this means, many remarkable facts.
On Sunday nights, the Captain always read for himself, before going to
bed, a certain Divine Sermon once delivered on a Mount; and although he
was accustomed to quote the text, without book, after his own manner,
he appeared to read it with as reverent an understanding of its
heavenly spirit, as if he had got it all by heart in Greek, and had
been able to write any number of fierce theological disquisitions on
its every phrase.
Rob the Grinder, whose reverence for the inspired writings, under the
admirable system of the Grinders’ School, had been developed by a
perpetual bruising of his intellectual shins against all the proper
names of all the tribes of Judah, and by the monotonous repetition of
hard verses, especially by way of punishment, and by the parading of
him at six years old in leather breeches, three times a Sunday, very
high up, in a very hot church, with a great organ buzzing against his
drowsy head, like an exceedingly busy bee—Rob the Grinder made a mighty
show of being edified when the Captain ceased to read, and generally
yawned and nodded while the reading was in progress. The latter fact
being never so much as suspected by the good Captain.
Captain Cuttle, also, as a man of business; took to keeping books. In
these he entered observations on the weather, and on the currents of
the waggons and other vehicles: which he observed, in that quarter, to
set westward in the morning and during the greater part of the day, and
eastward towards the evening. Two or three stragglers appearing in one
week, who “spoke him”—so the Captain entered it—on the subject of
spectacles, and who, without positively purchasing, said they would
look in again, the Captain decided that the business was improving, and
made an entry in the day-book to that effect: the wind then blowing
(which he first recorded) pretty fresh, west and by north; having
changed in the night.
One of the Captain’s chief difficulties was Mr Toots, who called
frequently, and who without saying much seemed to have an idea that the
little back parlour was an eligible room to chuckle in, as he would sit
and avail himself of its accommodations in that regard by the half-hour
together, without at all advancing in intimacy with the Captain. The
Captain, rendered cautious by his late experience, was unable quite to
satisfy his mind whether Mr Toots was the mild subject he appeared to
be, or was a profoundly artful and dissimulating hypocrite. His
frequent reference to Miss Dombey was suspicious; but the Captain had a
secret kindness for Mr Toots’s apparent reliance on him, and forbore to
decide against him for the present; merely eyeing him, with a sagacity
not to be described, whenever he approached the subject that was
nearest to his heart.
“Captain Gills,” blurted out Mr Toots, one day all at once, as his
manner was, “do you think you could think favourably of that
proposition of mine, and give me the pleasure of your acquaintance?”
“Why, I tell you what it is, my lad,” replied the Captain, who had at
length concluded on a course of action; “I’ve been turning that there,
over.”
“Captain Gills, it’s very kind of you,” retorted Mr Toots. “I’m much
obliged to you. Upon my word and honour, Captain Gills, it would be a
charity to give me the pleasure of your acquaintance. It really would.”
“You see, brother,” argued the Captain slowly, “I don’t know you.”
“But you never can know me, Captain Gills,” replied Mr Toots, steadfast
to his point, “if you don’t give me the pleasure of your acquaintance.”
The Captain seemed struck by the originality and power of this remark,
and looked at Mr Toots as if he thought there was a great deal more in
him than he had expected.
“Well said, my lad,” observed the Captain, nodding his head
thoughtfully; “and true. Now look’ee here: You’ve made some
observations to me, which gives me to understand as you admire a
certain sweet creetur. Hey?”
“Captain Gills,” said Mr Toots, gesticulating violently with the hand
in which he held his hat, “Admiration is not the word. Upon my honour,
you have no conception what my feelings are. If I could be dyed black,
and made Miss Dombey’s slave, I should consider it a compliment. If, at
the sacrifice of all my property, I could get transmigrated into Miss
Dombey’s dog—I—I really think I should never leave off wagging my tail.
I should be so perfectly happy, Captain Gills!”
Mr Toots said it with watery eyes, and pressed his hat against his
bosom with deep emotion.
“My lad,” returned the Captain, moved to compassion, “if you’re in
arnest—”
“Captain Gills,” cried Mr Toots, “I’m in such a state of mind, and am
so dreadfully in earnest, that if I could swear to it upon a hot piece
of iron, or a live coal, or melted lead, or burning sealing-wax, Or
anything of that sort, I should be glad to hurt myself, as a relief to
my feelings.” And Mr Toots looked hurriedly about the room, as if for
some sufficiently painful means of accomplishing his dread purpose.
The Captain pushed his glazed hat back upon his head, stroked his face
down with his heavy hand—making his nose more mottled in the
process—and planting himself before Mr Toots, and hooking him by the
lapel of his coat, addressed him in these words, while Mr Toots looked
up into his face, with much attention and some wonder.
“If you’re in arnest, you see, my lad,” said the Captain, “you’re a
object of clemency, and clemency is the brightest jewel in the crown of
a Briton’s head, for which you’ll overhaul the constitution as laid
down in Rule Britannia, and, when found, that is the charter as them
garden angels was a singing of, so many times over. Stand by! This here
proposal o’ you’rn takes me a little aback. And why? Because I holds my
own only, you understand, in these here waters, and haven’t got no
consort, and may be don’t wish for none. Steady! You hailed me first,
along of a certain young lady, as you was chartered by. Now if you and
me is to keep one another’s company at all, that there young creetur’s
name must never be named nor referred to. I don’t know what harm mayn’t
have been done by naming of it too free, afore now, and thereby I
brings up short. D’ye make me out pretty clear, brother?”
“Well, you’ll excuse me, Captain Gills,” replied Mr Toots, “if I don’t
quite follow you sometimes. But upon my word I—it’s a hard thing,
Captain Gills, not to be able to mention Miss Dombey. I really have got
such a dreadful load here!”—Mr Toots pathetically touched his
shirt-front with both hands—“that I feel night and day, exactly as if
somebody was sitting upon me.”
“Them,” said the Captain, “is the terms I offer. If they’re hard upon
you, brother, as mayhap they are, give ’em a wide berth, sheer off, and
part company cheerily!”
“Captain Gills,” returned Mr Toots, “I hardly know how it is, but after
what you told me when I came here, for the first time, I—I feel that
I’d rather think about Miss Dombey in your society than talk about her
in almost anybody else’s. Therefore, Captain Gills, if you’ll give me
the pleasure of your acquaintance, I shall be very happy to accept it
on your own conditions. I wish to be honourable, Captain Gills,” said
Mr Toots, holding back his extended hand for a moment, “and therefore I
am obliged to say that I can not help thinking about Miss Dombey. It’s
impossible for me to make a promise not to think about her.”
“My lad,” said the Captain, whose opinion of Mr Toots was much improved
by this candid avowal, “a man’s thoughts is like the winds, and nobody
can’t answer for ’em for certain, any length of time together. Is it a
treaty as to words?”
“As to words, Captain Gills,” returned Mr Toots, “I think I can bind
myself.”
Mr Toots gave Captain Cuttle his hand upon it, then and there; and the
Captain with a pleasant and gracious show of condescension, bestowed
his acquaintance upon him formally. Mr Toots seemed much relieved and
gladdened by the acquisition, and chuckled rapturously during the
remainder of his visit. The Captain, for his part, was not ill pleased
to occupy that position of patronage, and was exceedingly well
satisfied by his own prudence and foresight.
But rich as Captain Cuttle was in the latter quality, he received a
surprise that same evening from a no less ingenuous and simple youth,
than Rob the Grinder. That artless lad, drinking tea at the same table,
and bending meekly over his cup and saucer, having taken sidelong
observations of his master for some time, who was reading the newspaper
with great difficulty, but much dignity, through his glasses, broke
silence by saying—
“Oh! I beg your pardon, Captain, but you mayn’t be in want of any
pigeons, may you, Sir?”
“No, my lad,” replied the Captain.
“Because I was wishing to dispose of mine, Captain,” said Rob.
“Ay, ay?” cried the Captain, lifting up his bushy eyebrows a little.
“Yes; I’m going, Captain, if you please,” said Rob.
“Going? Where are you going?” asked the Captain, looking round at him
over the glasses.
“What? didn’t you know that I was going to leave you, Captain?” asked
Rob, with a sneaking smile.
The Captain put down the paper, took off his spectacles, and brought
his eyes to bear on the deserter.
“Oh yes, Captain, I am going to give you warning. I thought you’d have
known that beforehand, perhaps,” said Rob, rubbing his hands, and
getting up. “If you could be so good as provide yourself soon, Captain,
it would be a great convenience to me. You couldn’t provide yourself by
to-morrow morning, I am afraid, Captain: could you, do you think?”
“And you’re a going to desert your colours, are you, my lad?” said the
Captain, after a long examination of his face.
“Oh, it’s very hard upon a cove, Captain,” cried the tender Rob,
injured and indignant in a moment, “that he can’t give lawful warning,
without being frowned at in that way, and called a deserter. You
haven’t any right to call a poor cove names, Captain. It ain’t because
I’m a servant and you’re a master, that you’re to go and libel me. What
wrong have I done? Come, Captain, let me know what my crime is, will
you?”
The stricken Grinder wept, and put his coat-cuff in his eye.
“Come, Captain,” cried the injured youth, “give my crime a name! What
have I been and done? Have I stolen any of the property? have I set the
house a-fire? If I have, why don’t you give me in charge, and try it?
But to take away the character of a lad that’s been a good servant to
you, because he can’t afford to stand in his own light for your good,
what a injury it is, and what a bad return for faithful service! This
is the way young coves is spiled and drove wrong. I wonder at you,
Captain, I do.”
All of which the Grinder howled forth in a lachrymose whine, and
backing carefully towards the door.
“And so you’ve got another berth, have you, my lad?” said the Captain,
eyeing him intently.
“Yes, Captain, since you put it in that shape, I have got another
berth,” cried Rob, backing more and more; “a better berth than I’ve got
here, and one where I don’t so much as want your good word, Captain,
which is fort’nate for me, after all the dirt you’ve throw’d at me,
because I’m poor, and can’t afford to stand in my own light for your
good. Yes, I have got another berth; and if it wasn’t for leaving you
unprovided, Captain, I’d go to it now, sooner than I’d take them names
from you, because I’m poor, and can’t afford to stand in my own light
for your good. Why do you reproach me for being poor, and not standing
in my own light for your good, Captain? How can you so demean
yourself?”
“Look ye here, my boy,” replied the peaceful Captain. “Don’t you pay
out no more of them words.”
“Well, then, don’t you pay in no more of your words, Captain,” retorted
the roused innocent, getting louder in his whine, and backing into the
shop. “I’d sooner you took my blood than my character.”
“Because,” pursued the Captain calmly, “you have heerd, may be, of such
a thing as a rope’s end.”
“Oh, have I though, Captain?” cried the taunting Grinder. “No I
haven’t. I never heerd of any such a article!”
“Well,” said the Captain, “it’s my belief as you’ll know more about it
pretty soon, if you don’t keep a bright look-out. I can read your
signals, my lad. You may go.”
“Oh! I may go at once, may I, Captain?” cried Rob, exulting in his
success. “But mind! I never asked to go at once, Captain. You are not
to take away my character again, because you send me off of your own
accord. And you’re not to stop any of my wages, Captain!”
His employer settled the last point by producing the tin canister and
telling the Grinder’s money out in full upon the table. Rob, snivelling
and sobbing, and grievously wounded in his feelings, took up the pieces
one by one, with a sob and a snivel for each, and tied them up
separately in knots in his pockethandkerchief; then he ascended to the
roof of the house and filled his hat and pockets with pigeons; then,
came down to his bed under the counter and made up his bundle,
snivelling and sobbing louder, as if he were cut to the heart by old
associations; then he whined, “Good-night, Captain. I leave you without
malice!” and then, going out upon the door-step, pulled the little
Midshipman’s nose as a parting indignity, and went away down the street
grinning triumphantly.
The Captain, left to himself, resumed his perusal of the news as if
nothing unusual or unexpected had taken place, and went reading on with
the greatest assiduity. But never a word did Captain Cuttle understand,
though he read a vast number, for Rob the Grinder was scampering up one
column and down another all through the newspaper.
It is doubtful whether the worthy Captain had ever felt himself quite
abandoned until now; but now, old Sol Gills, Walter, and Heart’s
Delight were lost to him indeed, and now Mr Carker deceived and jeered
him cruelly. They were all represented in the false Rob, to whom he had
held forth many a time on the recollections that were warm within him;
he had believed in the false Rob, and had been glad to believe in him;
he had made a companion of him as the last of the old ship’s company;
he had taken the command of the little Midshipman with him at his right
hand; he had meant to do his duty by him, and had felt almost as kindly
towards the boy as if they had been shipwrecked and cast upon a desert
place together. And now, that the false Rob had brought distrust,
treachery, and meanness into the very parlour, which was a kind of
sacred place, Captain Cuttle felt as if the parlour might have gone
down next, and not surprised him much by its sinking, or given him any
very great concern.
Therefore Captain Cuttle read the newspaper with profound attention and
no comprehension, and therefore Captain Cuttle said nothing whatever
about Rob to himself, or admitted to himself that he was thinking about
him, or would recognise in the most distant manner that Rob had
anything to do with his feeling as lonely as Robinson Crusoe.
In the same composed, business-like way, the Captain stepped over to
Leadenhall Market in the dusk, and effected an arrangement with a
private watchman on duty there, to come and put up and take down the
shutters of the wooden Midshipman every night and morning. He then
called in at the eating-house to diminish by one half the daily rations
theretofore supplied to the Midshipman, and at the public-house to stop
the traitor’s beer. “My young man,” said the Captain, in explanation to
the young lady at the bar, “my young man having bettered himself,
Miss.” Lastly, the Captain resolved to take possession of the bed under
the counter, and to turn in there o’ nights instead of upstairs, as
sole guardian of the property.
From this bed Captain Cuttle daily rose thenceforth, and clapped on his
glazed hat at six o’clock in the morning, with the solitary air of
Crusoe finishing his toilet with his goat-skin cap; and although his
fears of a visitation from the savage tribe, MacStinger, were somewhat
cooled, as similar apprehensions on the part of that lone mariner used
to be by the lapse of a long interval without any symptoms of the
cannibals, he still observed a regular routine of defensive operations,
and never encountered a bonnet without previous survey from his castle
of retreat. In the meantime (during which he received no call from Mr
Toots, who wrote to say he was out of town) his own voice began to have
a strange sound in his ears; and he acquired such habits of profound
meditation from much polishing and stowing away of the stock, and from
much sitting behind the counter reading, or looking out of window, that
the red rim made on his forehead by the hard glazed hat, sometimes
ached again with excess of reflection.
The year being now expired, Captain Cuttle deemed it expedient to open
the packet; but as he had always designed doing this in the presence of
Rob the Grinder, who had brought it to him, and as he had an idea that
it would be regular and ship-shape to open it in the presence of
somebody, he was sadly put to it for want of a witness. In this
difficulty, he hailed one day with unusual delight the announcement in
the Shipping Intelligence of the arrival of the Cautious Clara, Captain
John Bunsby, from a coasting voyage; and to that philosopher
immediately dispatched a letter by post, enjoining inviolable secrecy
as to his place of residence, and requesting to be favoured with an
early visit, in the evening season.
Bunsby, who was one of those sages who act upon conviction, took some
days to get the conviction thoroughly into his mind, that he had
received a letter to this effect. But when he had grappled with the
fact, and mastered it, he promptly sent his boy with the message, “He’s
a coming tonight.” Who being instructed to deliver those words and
disappear, fulfilled his mission like a tarry spirit, charged with a
mysterious warning.
The Captain, well pleased to receive it, made preparation of pipes and
rum and water, and awaited his visitor in the back parlour. At the hour
of eight, a deep lowing, as of a nautical Bull, outside the shop-door,
succeeded by the knocking of a stick on the panel, announced to the
listening ear of Captain Cuttle, that Bunsby was alongside; whom he
instantly admitted, shaggy and loose, and with his stolid mahogany
visage, as usual, appearing to have no consciousness of anything before
it, but to be attentively observing something that was taking place in
quite another part of the world.
“Bunsby,” said the Captain, grasping him by the hand, “what cheer, my
lad, what cheer?”
“Shipmet,” replied the voice within Bunsby, unaccompanied by any sign
on the part of the Commander himself, “hearty, hearty.”
“Bunsby!” said the Captain, rendering irrepressible homage to his
genius, “here you are! a man as can give an opinion as is brighter than
di’monds—and give me the lad with the tarry trousers as shines to me
like di’monds bright, for which you’ll overhaul the Stanfell’s Budget,
and when found make a note. Here you are, a man as gave an opinion in
this here very place, that has come true, every letter on it,” which
the Captain sincerely believed.
“Ay, ay?” growled Bunsby.
“Every letter,” said the Captain.
“For why?” growled Bunsby, looking at his friend for the first time.
“Which way? If so, why not? Therefore.” With these oracular words—they
seemed almost to make the Captain giddy; they launched him upon such a
sea of speculation and conjecture—the sage submitted to be helped off
with his pilot-coat, and accompanied his friend into the back parlour,
where his hand presently alighted on the rum-bottle, from which he
brewed a stiff glass of grog; and presently afterwards on a pipe, which
he filled, lighted, and began to smoke.
Captain Cuttle, imitating his visitor in the matter of these
particulars, though the rapt and imperturbable manner of the great
Commander was far above his powers, sat in the opposite corner of the
fireside, observing him respectfully, and as if he waited for some
encouragement or expression of curiosity on Bunsby’s part which should
lead him to his own affairs. But as the mahogany philosopher gave no
evidence of being sentient of anything but warmth and tobacco, except
once, when taking his pipe from his lips to make room for his glass, he
incidentally remarked with exceeding gruffness, that his name was Jack
Bunsby—a declaration that presented but small opening for
conversation—the Captain bespeaking his attention in a short
complimentary exordium, narrated the whole history of Uncle Sol’s
departure, with the change it had produced in his own life and
fortunes; and concluded by placing the packet on the table.
After a long pause, Mr Bunsby nodded his head.
“Open?” said the Captain.
Bunsby nodded again.
The Captain accordingly broke the seal, and disclosed to view two
folded papers, of which he severally read the endorsements, thus: “Last
Will and Testament of Solomon Gills.” “Letter for Ned Cuttle.”
Bunsby, with his eye on the coast of Greenland, seemed to listen for
the contents. The Captain therefore hemmed to clear his throat, and
read the letter aloud.
“‘My dear Ned Cuttle. When I left home for the West Indies’—”
Here the Captain stopped, and looked hard at Bunsby, who looked fixedly
at the coast of Greenland.
“—‘in forlorn search of intelligence of my dear boy, I knew that if you
were acquainted with my design, you would thwart it, or accompany me;
and therefore I kept it secret. If you ever read this letter, Ned, I am
likely to be dead. You will easily forgive an old friend’s folly then,
and will feel for the restlessness and uncertainty in which he wandered
away on such a wild voyage. So no more of that. I have little hope that
my poor boy will ever read these words, or gladden your eyes with the
sight of his frank face any more.’ No, no; no more,” said Captain
Cuttle, sorrowfully meditating; “no more. There he lays, all his days—”
Mr Bunsby, who had a musical ear, suddenly bellowed, “In the Bays of
Biscay, O!” which so affected the good Captain, as an appropriate
tribute to departed worth, that he shook him by the hand in
acknowledgment, and was fain to wipe his eyes.
“Well, well!” said the Captain with a sigh, as the Lament of Bunsby
ceased to ring and vibrate in the skylight. “Affliction sore, long time
he bore, and let us overhaul the wollume, and there find it.”
“Physicians,” observed Bunsby, “was in vain.”
“Ay, ay, to be sure,” said the Captain, “what’s the good o’ them in two
or three hundred fathoms o’ water!” Then, returning to the letter, he
read on:—“"But if he should be by, when it is opened;’” the Captain
involuntarily looked round, and shook his head; “‘or should know of it
at any other time;’” the Captain shook his head again; “‘my blessing on
him! In case the accompanying paper is not legally written, it matters
very little, for there is no one interested but you and he, and my
plain wish is, that if he is living he should have what little there
may be, and if (as I fear) otherwise, that you should have it, Ned. You
will respect my wish, I know. God bless you for it, and for all your
friendliness besides, to Solomon Gills.’ Bunsby!” said the Captain,
appealing to him solemnly, “what do you make of this? There you sit, a
man as has had his head broke from infancy up’ards, and has got a new
opinion into it at every seam as has been opened. Now, what do you make
o’ this?”
“If so be,” returned Bunsby, with unusual promptitude, “as he’s dead,
my opinion is he won’t come back no more. If so be as he’s alive, my
opinion is he will. Do I say he will? No. Why not? Because the bearings
of this obserwation lays in the application on it.”
“Bunsby!” said Captain Cuttle, who would seem to have estimated the
value of his distinguished friend’s opinions in proportion to the
immensity of the difficulty he experienced in making anything out of
them; “Bunsby,” said the Captain, quite confounded by admiration, “you
carry a weight of mind easy, as would swamp one of my tonnage soon. But
in regard o’ this here will, I don’t mean to take no steps towards the
property—Lord forbid!—except to keep it for a more rightful owner; and
I hope yet as the rightful owner, Sol Gills, is living and’ll come
back, strange as it is that he ain’t forwarded no dispatches. Now, what
is your opinion, Bunsby, as to stowing of these here papers away again,
and marking outside as they was opened, such a day, in the presence of
John Bunsby and Ed’ard Cuttle?”
Bunsby, descrying no objection, on the coast of Greenland or elsewhere,
to this proposal, it was carried into execution; and that great man,
bringing his eye into the present for a moment, affixed his sign-manual
to the cover, totally abstaining, with characteristic modesty, from the
use of capital letters. Captain Cuttle, having attached his own
left-handed signature, and locked up the packet in the iron safe,
entreated his guest to mix another glass and smoke another pipe; and
doing the like himself, fell a musing over the fire on the possible
fortunes of the poor old Instrument-maker.
And now a surprise occurred, so overwhelming and terrific that Captain
Cuttle, unsupported by the presence of Bunsby, must have sunk beneath
it, and been a lost man from that fatal hour.
How the Captain, even in the satisfaction of admitting such a guest,
could have only shut the door, and not locked it, of which negligence
he was undoubtedly guilty, is one of those questions that must for ever
remain mere points of speculation, or vague charges against destiny.
But by that unlocked door, at this quiet moment, did the fell
MacStinger dash into the parlour, bringing Alexander MacStinger in her
parental arms, and confusion and vengeance (not to mention Juliana
MacStinger, and the sweet child’s brother, Charles MacStinger,
popularly known about the scenes of his youthful sports, as Chowley) in
her train. She came so swiftly and so silently, like a rushing air from
the neighbourhood of the East India Docks, that Captain Cuttle found
himself in the very act of sitting looking at her, before the calm face
with which he had been meditating, changed to one of horror and dismay.
But the moment Captain Cuttle understood the full extent of his
misfortune, self-preservation dictated an attempt at flight. Darting at
the little door which opened from the parlour on the steep little range
of cellar-steps, the Captain made a rush, head-foremost, at the latter,
like a man indifferent to bruises and contusions, who only sought to
hide himself in the bowels of the earth. In this gallant effort he
would probably have succeeded, but for the affectionate dispositions of
Juliana and Chowley, who pinning him by the legs—one of those dear
children holding on to each—claimed him as their friend, with
lamentable cries. In the meantime, Mrs MacStinger, who never entered
upon any action of importance without previously inverting Alexander
MacStinger, to bring him within the range of a brisk battery of slaps,
and then sitting him down to cool as the reader first beheld him,
performed that solemn rite, as if on this occasion it were a sacrifice
to the Furies; and having deposited the victim on the floor, made at
the Captain with a strength of purpose that appeared to threaten
scratches to the interposing Bunsby.
The cries of the two elder MacStingers, and the wailing of young
Alexander, who may be said to have passed a piebald childhood,
forasmuch as he was black in the face during one half of that fairy
period of existence, combined to make this visitation the more awful.
But when silence reigned again, and the Captain, in a violent
perspiration, stood meekly looking at Mrs MacStinger, its terrors were
at their height.
“Oh, Cap’en Cuttle, Cap’en Cuttle!” said Mrs MacStinger, making her
chin rigid, and shaking it in unison with what, but for the weakness of
her sex, might be described as her fist. “Oh, Cap’en Cuttle, Cap’en
Cuttle, do you dare to look me in the face, and not be struck down in
the berth!”
The Captain, who looked anything but daring, feebly muttered “Stand
by!”
“Oh I was a weak and trusting Fool when I took you under my roof,
Cap’en Cuttle, I was!” cried Mrs MacStinger. “To think of the benefits
I’ve showered on that man, and the way in which I brought my children
up to love and honour him as if he was a father to ’em, when there
ain’t a housekeeper, no nor a lodger in our street, don’t know that I
lost money by that man, and by his guzzlings and his muzzlings”—Mrs
MacStinger used the last word for the joint sake of alliteration and
aggravation, rather than for the expression of any idea—“and when they
cried out one and all, shame upon him for putting upon an industrious
woman, up early and late for the good of her young family, and keeping
her poor place so clean that a individual might have ate his dinner,
yes, and his tea too, if he was so disposed, off any one of the floors
or stairs, in spite of all his guzzlings and his muzzlings, such was
the care and pains bestowed upon him!”
Mrs MacStinger stopped to fetch her breath; and her face flushed with
triumph in this second happy introduction of Captain Cuttle’s
muzzlings.
“And he runs awa-a-a-y!” cried Mrs MacStinger, with a lengthening out
of the last syllable that made the unfortunate Captain regard himself
as the meanest of men; “and keeps away a twelve-month! From a woman!
Such is his conscience! He hasn’t the courage to meet her hi-i-igh;”
long syllable again; “but steals away, like a fellon. Why, if that baby
of mine,” said Mrs MacStinger, with sudden rapidity, “was to offer to
go and steal away, I’d do my duty as a mother by him, till he was
covered with wales!”
[Illustration]
The young Alexander, interpreting this into a positive promise, to be
shortly redeemed, tumbled over with fear and grief, and lay upon the
floor, exhibiting the soles of his shoes and making such a deafening
outcry, that Mrs MacStinger found it necessary to take him up in her
arms, where she quieted him, ever and anon, as he broke out again, by a
shake that seemed enough to loosen his teeth.
“A pretty sort of a man is Cap’en Cuttle,” said Mrs MacStinger, with a
sharp stress on the first syllable of the Captain’s name, “to take on
for—and to lose sleep for—and to faint along of—and to think dead
forsooth—and to go up and down the blessed town like a madwoman, asking
questions after! Oh, a pretty sort of a man! Ha ha ha ha! He’s worth
all that trouble and distress of mind, and much more. That’s nothing,
bless you! Ha ha ha ha! Cap’en Cuttle,” said Mrs MacStinger, with
severe reaction in her voice and manner, “I wish to know if you’re
a-coming home.”
The frightened Captain looked into his hat, as if he saw nothing for it
but to put it on, and give himself up.
“Cap’en Cuttle,” repeated Mrs MacStinger, in the same determined
manner, “I wish to know if you’re a-coming home, Sir.”
The Captain seemed quite ready to go, but faintly suggested something
to the effect of “not making so much noise about it.”
“Ay, ay, ay,” said Bunsby, in a soothing tone. “Awast, my lass, awast!”
“And who may you be, if you please!” retorted Mrs MacStinger, with
chaste loftiness. “Did you ever lodge at Number Nine, Brig Place, Sir?
My memory may be bad, but not with me, I think. There was a Mrs Jollson
lived at Number Nine before me, and perhaps you’re mistaking me for
her. That is my only ways of accounting for your familiarity, Sir.”
“Come, come, my lass, awast, awast!” said Bunsby.
Captain Cuttle could hardly believe it, even of this great man, though
he saw it done with his waking eyes; but Bunsby, advancing boldly, put
his shaggy blue arm round Mrs MacStinger, and so softened her by his
magic way of doing it, and by these few words—he said no more—that she
melted into tears, after looking upon him for a few moments, and
observed that a child might conquer her now, she was so low in her
courage.
Speechless and utterly amazed, the Captain saw him gradually persuade
this inexorable woman into the shop, return for rum and water and a
candle, take them to her, and pacify her without appearing to utter one
word. Presently he looked in with his pilot-coat on, and said, “Cuttle,
I’m a-going to act as convoy home;” and Captain Cuttle, more to his
confusion than if he had been put in irons himself, for safe transport
to Brig Place, saw the family pacifically filing off, with Mrs
MacStinger at their head. He had scarcely time to take down his
canister, and stealthily convey some money into the hands of Juliana
MacStinger, his former favourite, and Chowley, who had the claim upon
him that he was naturally of a maritime build, before the Midshipman
was abandoned by them all; and Bunsby whispering that he’d carry on
smart, and hail Ned Cuttle again before he went aboard, shut the door
upon himself, as the last member of the party.
Some uneasy ideas that he must be walking in his sleep, or that he had
been troubled with phantoms, and not a family of flesh and blood, beset
the Captain at first, when he went back to the little parlour, and
found himself alone. Illimitable faith in, and immeasurable admiration
of, the Commander of the Cautious Clara, succeeded, and threw the
Captain into a wondering trance.
Still, as time wore on, and Bunsby failed to reappear, the Captain
began to entertain uncomfortable doubts of another kind. Whether Bunsby
had been artfully decoyed to Brig Place, and was there detained in safe
custody as hostage for his friend; in which case it would become the
Captain, as a man of honour, to release him, by the sacrifice of his
own liberty. Whether he had been attacked and defeated by Mrs
MacStinger, and was ashamed to show himself after his discomfiture.
Whether Mrs MacStinger, thinking better of it, in the uncertainty of
her temper, had turned back to board the Midshipman again, and Bunsby,
pretending to conduct her by a short cut, was endeavouring to lose the
family amid the wilds and savage places of the City. Above all, what it
would behove him, Captain Cuttle, to do, in case of his hearing no
more, either of the MacStingers or of Bunsby, which, in these wonderful
and unforeseen conjunctions of events, might possibly happen.
He debated all this until he was tired; and still no Bunsby. He made up
his bed under the counter, all ready for turning in; and still no
Bunsby. At length, when the Captain had given him up, for that night at
least, and had begun to undress, the sound of approaching wheels was
heard, and, stopping at the door, was succeeded by Bunsby’s hail.
The Captain trembled to think that Mrs MacStinger was not to be got rid
of, and had been brought back in a coach.
But no. Bunsby was accompanied by nothing but a large box, which he
hauled into the shop with his own hands, and as soon as he had hauled
in, sat upon. Captain Cuttle knew it for the chest he had left at Mrs
MacStinger’s house, and looking, candle in hand, at Bunsby more
attentively, believed that he was three sheets in the wind, or, in
plain words, drunk. It was difficult, however, to be sure of this; the
Commander having no trace of expression in his face when sober.
“Cuttle,” said the Commander, getting off the chest, and opening the
lid, “are these here your traps?”
Captain Cuttle looked in and identified his property.
“Done pretty taut and trim, hey, shipmet?” said Bunsby.
The grateful and bewildered Captain grasped him by the hand, and was
launching into a reply expressive of his astonished feelings, when
Bunsby disengaged himself by a jerk of his wrist, and seemed to make an
effort to wink with his revolving eye, the only effect of which
attempt, in his condition, was nearly to over-balance him. He then
abruptly opened the door, and shot away to rejoin the Cautious Clara
with all speed—supposed to be his invariable custom, whenever he
considered he had made a point.
As it was not his humour to be often sought, Captain Cuttle decided not
to go or send to him next day, or until he should make his gracious
pleasure known in such wise, or failing that, until some little time
should have lapsed. The Captain, therefore, renewed his solitary life
next morning, and thought profoundly, many mornings, noons, and nights,
of old Sol Gills, and Bunsby’s sentiments concerning him, and the hopes
there were of his return. Much of such thinking strengthened Captain
Cuttle’s hopes; and he humoured them and himself by watching for the
Instrument-maker at the door—as he ventured to do now, in his strange
liberty—and setting his chair in its place, and arranging the little
parlour as it used to be, in case he should come home unexpectedly. He
likewise, in his thoughtfulness, took down a certain little miniature
of Walter as a schoolboy, from its accustomed nail, lest it should
shock the old man on his return. The Captain had his presentiments,
too, sometimes, that he would come on such a day; and one particular
Sunday, even ordered a double allowance of dinner, he was so sanguine.
But come, old Solomon did not; and still the neighbours noticed how the
seafaring man in the glazed hat, stood at the shop-door of an evening,
looking up and down the street.