Captain Bream reclined one day on a sofa in the sitting-room of the
house where he had first made the acquaintance of the Miss Seawards.
Both ladies were seated by his side, the one working worsted cuffs and
the other comforters, and both found the utmost difficulty in repressing
tears when they looked at their kind nautical friend, for a great change
had come over him since we last saw him.
We will not venture to state what was the illness that had laid the
captain, as he himself expressed it on his beam-ends, but whatever it
might have been, it had reduced him to a mere shadow. His once round
cheeks were hollow; his eyes were so sunken that they appeared to have
retired into the interior of his head, out of which, as out of two deep
caverns, they gleamed solemnly. His voice, having been originally
pitched so low that it could not well get lower, had become reduced to
the sound of a big drum muffled; it had also a faint resemblance to a
bassoon with a bad cold. His beard and moustache, having been allowed
to grow, bore a striking likeness to a worn-out clothes-brush, and his
garments appeared to hang upon a living skeleton of large proportions.
It is right however, to add that this was the worst that could be said
of him. The spirit within was as cheery and loving and tender as ever
it had been--indeed more so--and the only wonder was that it did not
break a hole in the once tough but now thin shell of its prison-house,
and soar upwards to its native regions in the sky!
"You must _not_ work so hard at these cuffs, Miss Jessie," he said, with
a pleasant though languid smile. "If you do I'll reduce my board."
"But that would only render it necessary that I should work harder,"
returned Jessie, without checking the pace of the needles.
"It is hard," resumed the captain, "that I should be disobeyed at every
turn now that I'm on my beam-ends, with little more strength in me than
a new-born kitten. But never mind, I'm beginnin' to feel stronger, and
I'll pay you off, my dear, when I'm able to move about."
"Do you really feel a little stronger?" asked Kate, who, although more
lively--even mischievous in a small way--than her sister, had been more
deeply affected by the captain's long illness, and could not shake off
the impression that he was going to die.
"Feel stronger!" exclaimed the wrecked giant. "Give me your hand. D'ee
feel _that_?"
"That" which Kate was to feel was a squeeze as a test of strength.
"There. Doesn't it hurt you? I believe I could make you cry if I was
to try."
And the captain did make her cry even without trying, for Kate was so
deeply touched with the weakness of the trembling squeeze, coupled with
the hearty kindness and little touches of fun in the prostrate man, that
she could not keep it down. Rising hurriedly, therefore, she flung her
unfinished comforter into Jessie's lap, left the room, and, retiring to
her chamber, wept quietly there. Those tears were not now, however, as
they had often been, tears of anxious sorrow, but of thankful joy.
Having accomplished this little matter, and relieved her feelings, she
returned to the parlour.
"I've been just trying to persuade him, Kate," said Jessie, as the
former entered, "that in a week or two a trip to Yarmouth will do him
_so_ much good, but he does not seem to think he will be equal to it."
"Come, now, Miss Jessie, that's not a fair way to put it. I have no
doubt that I shall be able enough--thanks to the good Lord who has
spared me--but what I think is that Yarmouth, pleasant though it be, is
not exactly what I want just now."
"What then, do you think would be better for you?" asked Kate.
"`The sea! The sea! The open sea! The blue, the fresh, the ever
free!'" answered the captain, with a gleam in the sunken eyes such as
had not been seen there for many days.
"Horrible thought!" said Jessie, with a pretended shudder.
"You know the proverb, `What's one man's meat is another man's poison,'"
returned the captain. "Ah! ladies, only those who have been cradled on
the deep for three quarters of a lifetime, and who love the whistling
winds, and the surging waves, and the bounding bark, know what it is to
long, as I do, for another rest upon my mother's breast:--
"`And a mother she was and is to me,
For I was born--was born on the open sea.'"
"I had no idea you were so poetical," said Jessie, much surprised at the
invalid's enthusiasm.
"Sickness has a tendency to make people poetical. I suppose," returned
the captain.
"But how are you to manage it? You can scarcely walk yet. Then excuse
me, you haven't got a ship, and I fear that not many owners would
intrust one to you till you are stronger. So, what will you do?"
"Go as a passenger, my dear. See here; it's all arranged," said the
captain, holding up a letter.
"I got this by the post this morning, and want to consult with you about
it. Knowing my condition and desires, that excellent man the chaplain,
who took me out in his steam-launch the day I got the first shot of this
illness, had made known my case to the Director of the Mission to
Deep-Sea Fishermen, and he has kindly agreed to let me go a trip to the
North Sea in one of the mission-ships, on the understanding that I shall
do as much of a missionary's work as I am fit for when there."
"But you're not fit for work of any kind!" exclaimed Kate with a flush
of indignation which was partly roused by the idea of her friend being
taken away from her at a time when he required so much nursing, and
partly by the impropriety of so sick a man being expected to work at
all.
"True, my dear, but I shall be fit enough in a week or two. Why, I feel
strength coming back like a torrent. Even now I'm so hungry that I
could devour my--my--"
"Your dinner!" cried Kate, as, at that opportune moment the door opened
and Liffie Lee appeared with a tray in her hand.
There could be no doubt as to the captain's appetite. Not only did his
eyes glare, in quite a wolfish manner, at the food while it was being
set before him, but the enormous quantity he took of that food became
quite a source of alarm to the sisters, who watched and helped him.
"Now, captain," said Jessie, laying her hand at last on his thin arm, as
it was stretched out to help himself to more, "you really must not. You
know the doctor said that it would never do, at first, to--"
"My dear," interrupted the invalid, "hang the doctor!"
"Well, I have no objection to his being hanged, if you don't ask me to
do it," returned Jessie, "but really--"
"Oh! let him alone," said Kate, who, being very healthy, shared the
captain's unreasonable contempt for medical men, and was more than
pleased at the ravenous tendencies of her old friend.
"Now for the sponge-cakes," said the captain, wiping his mouth and
rubbing his hands on finishing the first course.
"You are to have none," said Kate, firmly. The captain's face elongated
into a look of woe.
"Because you are to have rice-pudding and thick cream instead!"
continued Kate.
The captain's face shortened again into a beaming smile.
Liffie Lee appeared at the moment with the viands named.
"I never saw anything like it!" exclaimed Jessie with a short laugh, and
a look of resignation.
"I enjoy it _so_ much!" said Kate, pouring out the cream with liberal
hand.
Liffie said nothing, but if the widest extension of her lips, and the
exposing of her bright little teeth from ear to ear, meant anything, it
meant that her sympathies were entirely with Kate.
The captain was helped to pudding in a soup plate, that being relatively
a rather small dessert plate for him. He was about to plunge the
dessert spoon into it, but stopped suddenly and gazed at it. Then he
turned his awful gaze on the small servant who almost shrank before it.
"Liffie, my dear."
"Y-yes, sir."
"Bring me a _table-spoon_, the biggest one you have."
"Yes, sir," she said,--and vanished. Presently she returned with an
enormous gravy spoon.
"Ha! ha!" shouted the captain, with much of his old fire; "that's better
than I had hoped for! Hand it here, Liffie; it'll do."
He seized the weapon, and Liffie uttered an involuntary squeal of
delight as she saw him sweep up nearly the whole of his first helping,
and make one bite of it! He then attempted to smile at Liffie's
expression of joy, but did it awkwardly in the circumstances.
Just as he had finished his little repast, and was tranquilly stirring a
breakfast cup of coffee, the door bell rang.
A minute later Liffie appeared with her mouth and eyes like three round
O's.
"If you please, ma'am, here's Mister and Missis Dalton, as wants to know
if they may come in."
"Mr and Mrs who?" exclaimed both sisters.
"Mister an' Missis Dalton," repeated Liffie.
"Show them in--at once, child. Some ridiculous mistake," said Jessie,
glancing at Kate. "But, stay, Liffie;--you have no objection, captain?"
"None in the least."
Another moment and Ruth appeared blushing in the door-way, with a
handsome young man looming in the background.
"Mr and Mrs Dalton!" said the two sisters with a dazed look as they
sank into two chairs.
"Oh _no_! darling Jessie," cried Ruth, rushing forward and throwing her
arms round her friend; "not--not quite that yet, but--but--engaged. And
we determined that the _very first_ call we made should be to you,
darling."
"Well, now, this _is_ capital! Quite a picture," growled the captain;
"does more good to my digestion than--"
"Come," interrupted Jessie, taking Ruth by the hand. "Come to our
room!"
Regardless of all propriety, the sisters hurried Ruth off to their
bedroom to have it out with her there, leaving young Dalton to face the
captain.
"I congratulate you, my lad," said the captain, frankly extending his
hand. "Sit down."
Dalton as frankly shook the hand and thanked the captain, as he took a
seat beside him.
"I'm deeply grieved, Captain Bream, to see you so much reduced, yet
rejoiced to find that you are fairly convalescent."
"Humph! I wouldn't give much for the depth of either your grief or joy
on my account seein' that you've managed to get hooked on to an angel."
"Well, I confess," said the youth, with a laugh, "that the joy connected
with that fact pretty much overwhelms all other feelings at present."
"The admission does you credit boy, for she is an angel. I'm not usin'
figures o' speech. She's a real darlin', A1 at Lloyd's. True blue
through and through. And let me tell you, young fellow, that I know her
better than you do, for I saw her before you were bor--, no, that
couldn't well be, but I knew her father before you were born, and
herself ever since she saw the light."
"I'm delighted to have your good opinion of her, though, of course, it
cannot increase my estimation of her character. Nothing can do that!"
"Which means that _my_ opinion goes for nothing. Well, the conceit of
the rising generation is only equalled by--by that o' the one that went
before it. But, now, isn't it strange that you are the very man I want
to see?"
"It is indeed," replied Dalton with a slightly incredulous look.
"Yes, the very man. Look ye here. Have you got a note-book?"
"I have."
"Pull it out, then. I want you to draw out my will."
"Your will, Captain Bream!"
"My will," repeated the captain. "Last will an' testament."
"But I'm not lawyer enough to--"
"I know that, man! I only want you to sketch it out. Listen. I'm
going in a week or two to the North Sea in a fishing-smack. Well,
there's no sayin' what may happen there. I'm not infallible--or
invulnerable--or waterproof, though I _am_ an old salt. Now, you are
acquainted with all my money matters, so I want you to jot down who the
cash is to be divided among if I should go to the bottom; then, take the
sketch to my lawyer--you know where he lives--and tell him to draw it
out all ship-shape, an' bring it to me to sign. Now, are you ready?"
"But, my dear sir, this may take a long time, and the ladies will
probably return before we--"
"_You_ don't bother your head about the ladies, my lad, but do as I tell
'ee. Miss Ruth has got hold of two pair of ears and two hearts that
won't be satisfied in five minutes. Besides, my will won't be a long
one. Are you ready?"
"Yes," said Dalton, spreading his note-book on his knee.
"Well," resumed the captain, "after makin' all the usual arrangements
for all expenses--funeral, etcetera, (of which there'll be none if I go
to the bottom), an' some legacies of which I'll tell the lawyer when I
see him, I leave all that remains to Miss Jessie and Miss Kate Seaward,
share an' share alike, to do with it as they please, an' to leave it
after them to whomsoever they like. There!"
"Is that all?"
"Yes, that's all," returned the captain, sadly. "I once had a dear
sister, but every effort I have made to find her out has failed. Of
course if I do come across her before it pleases the Lord to take me
home, I'll alter the will. In the meantime let it be drawn out so."
Soon after this important transaction was finished the ladies returned,
much flushed and excited, and full of apologies for their rude behaviour
to their male friends.