“I HEARD your voice, Miss Lucy; I would know it among a million; so I
rigged myself directly. Why, what is the matter?”
“Oh, Mr. Dodd,” sobbed Lucy, “she has told me all you have gone
through, and I am the wicked, wicked cause!”
David groaned. “If I didn't think as much. I heard the mill going. Ah!
Eve, my girl, your jawing-tackle is too well hung. Eve is a good
sister to me, Miss Lucy, and, where I am concerned, let her alone for
making a mountain out of a mole-hill. If you believe all she says, you
are to blame. The thing that went to my heart was to see my skipper
run out his stunsel booms the moment he saw me overhauling him; it was
a dirty action, and him an old shipmate. I am glad now I couldn't
catch her, for if I had my foot would not have been on the deck two
seconds before his carcass would have been in the Channel. And pray,
Eve, what has Miss Fountain got to do with that? the dirty lubber
wasn't bred at her school, or he would not have served an old messmate
so.
“Belay all that, and let's hear something worth hearing. Now, Miss
Lucy, you tell me--oh, Lord, Eve, I say, isn't the thundering old
dingy room bright now?--you spin me your own yarn, if you will be so
good. Here you are, safe and sound, the Lord be praised! But I left
you under the lee of that thundering island: wasn't very polite, was
it? but you will excuse, won't you? Duty, you know--a seaman must
leave his pleasure for his duty. Tell me, now, how did you come on?
Was the vessel comfortable? You would not sail till the wind fell? Had
you a good voyage? A tiresome one, I am afraid: the sloop wasn't built
for fast sailing. When did you land?”
To this fire of eager questions Lucy was in no state to answer. “Oh,
no, Mr. Dodd,” she cried, “I can't. I am choking. Yes, Miss Dodd, I am
the heartless, unfeeling girl you think me.” Then, with a sudden dart,
she took David's hand and kissed it, and, both her hands hiding her
blushing face, she fled, and a single sob she let fall at the door was
the last of her. So sudden was her exit, it left both brother and
sister stupefied.
“Eve, she is offended,” said David, with dismay.
“What if she is?” retorted Eve; “no, she is not offended; but I have
made her feel at last, and a good job, too. Why should she escape? she
has done all the mischief. Come, you go to bed.”
“Not I; I have been long enough on my beam-ends. And I have heard her
voice, and have seen her face, and they have put life into me. I shall
cruise about the port. I have gone to leeward of John Company's favor,
but there are plenty of coasting-vessels; I may get the command of
one. I'll try; a seaman never strikes his flag while there's a shot in
the locker.”
“Here, put me up, Captain Kenealy! Oh, do pray make haste! don't
dawdle so!” Off cantered Lucy, and fanned her pony along without
mercy. At the door of the house she jumped off without assistance, and
ran to Mr. Bazalgette's study, and knocked hastily, and that gentleman
was not a little surprised when this unusual visitor came to his side
with some signs of awe at having penetrated his sanctum, but evidently
driven by an overpowering excitement. “Oh, Uncle Bazalgette! Oh, Uncle
Bazalgette!”
“Why, what is the matter? Why, the child is ill. Don't gasp like that,
Lucy. Come, pluck up courage; I am sure to be on your side, you know.
What is it?”
“Uncle, you are always so kind to me; you know you are.”
“Oh, am I? Noble old fellow!”
“Oh, don't make me laugh! ha! ha! oh! oh! oh! ha! oh!”
“Confound it, I have sent her into hysterics; no, she is coming round.
Ten thousand million devils, has anybody been insulting the child in
my house? They have. My wife, for a guinea.”
“No, no, no. It is about Mr. Dodd.”
“Mr. Dodd? oho!”
“I have ruined him.”
“How have you managed that, my dear?”
Then Lucy, all in a flutter, told Mr. Bazalgette what the reader has
just learned.
He looked grave. “Lucy,” said he, “be frank with me. Is not Mr. Dodd
in love with you?”
“I _will_ be frank with _you,_ dear uncle, because you are
frank. Poor Mr. Dodd did love me once; but I refused him, and so his
good sense and manliness cured him directly.”
“So, now that he no longer loves you, you love him; that is so like
you girls.”
“Oh, no, uncle; how ridiculous! If I loved Mr. Dodd, I could repair
the cruel injuries I have done him with a single word. I have only to
recall my refusal, and he--But I do not love Mr. Dodd. Esteem him I
do, and he has saved my life; and is he to lose his health, and his
character, and his means of honorable ambition for that? Do you not
see how shocking this is, and how galling to my pride? Yes, uncle, I
_have_ been insulted. His sister told me to my face it was an
evil day for him when he and I first met--that was at Uncle
Fountain's.”
“Well, and what am I to do, Lucy?”
“Dear Uncle, what I thought was, if you would be so kind as to use
your influence with the Company in his favor. Tell them that if he did
miss his ship it was not by a fault, but by a noble virtue; tell them
that it was to save a fellow creature's life--a young lady's life--one
that did not deserve it from him, your own niece's; tell them it is
not for your honor he should be disgraced. Oh, uncle, you know what to
say so much better than I do.”
Bazalgette grinned, and straightway resolved to perpetrate a practical
joke, and a very innocent one. “Well,” said he, “the best way I can
think of to meet your views will be, I think, to get him appointed to
the new ship the Company is building.”
Lucy opened her eyes, and the blood rushed to her cheek. “Oh uncle, do
I hear right? a ship? Are you so powerful? are you so kind? do you
love your poor niece so well as all this? Oh, Uncle Bazalgette!”
“There is no end to my power,” said the old man, solemnly; “no limit
to my goodness, no bounds to my love for my poor niece. Are you in a
hurry, my poor niece? Shall we have his commission down to-morrow, or
wait a month?”
“To-morrow? is it possible? Oh, yes! I count the minutes till I say to
his sister, 'There, Miss Dodd, I have friends who value me too highly
to let me lie under these galling obligations.' Dear, dear uncle, I
don't mind being under them to you, because I love you” (kisses).
“And not Mr. Dodd?”
“No, dear; and that is the reason I would rather give him a ship
than--the only other thing that would make him happy. And really, but
for your goodness, I should have been tempted to--ha! ha! Oh, I am so
happy now. No; much as I admire my preserver's courage and delicacy
and unselfishness and goodness, I don't love him; so, but for this, he
MUST have been unhappy for life, and then I should have been miserable
forever.”
“Perfectly clear and satisfactory, my dear. Now, if the commission is
to be down to-morrow, you must not stay here, because I have other
letters to write, to go by the same courier that takes my application
for the ship.”
“And do you really think I will go till I have kissed you, Uncle
Bazalgette?”
“On a subject so important, I hardly venture to give an opin--hallo!
kissing, indeed? Why, it is like a young wolf flying at horseflesh.”
“Then that will teach you not to be kinder to me than anybody else
is.”
Lucy ran out radiant and into the garden. Here she encountered
Kenealy, and, coming on him with a blaze of beauty and triumph, fired
a resolution that had smoldered in him a day or two.
He twirled his mustache and--popped briefly.