THE GLASS FALLS.
Three days after the events related in the last chapter, the trade
winds, which had escorted the _Pandora_ so well on her passage, died
away, and left the vessel in a dead calm, till a snorting southerly
breeze came over the ocean, and sent her careering along at her best
pace.
The wind which rattled through the rigging was cold and chilly, and
made the ladies unpack their furs, and huddle round the stove. Few
patronised the deck--the air was too keen and searching. It was a
marvellous change from the sultry weather of the week before, when
Alice Leyton had sat with Captain Lovell under the wheel-house, and
most of the passengers felt it acutely.
A huge purple bank, lined with silver, had risen upon the beam, and the
sun assumed a watery and unnatural appearance.
Mr Coffin, indifferent to everything but the welfare of the vessel,
kept a look-out upon the poop, anxiously watching at intervals the
ominous-looking cloud, which was gradually growing larger. With his cap
drawn down closely over his eyes, his thick, bull-dog neck encircled by
a red worsted muffler, a big quid stuck in his cheeks, and his rough,
broad hands embedded in his trousers pockets, he was the model of a
British seaman.
But he was by no means morose or ill-tempered. Exceedingly shy and
reserved, from ignorance of the ways and manners of society, he
seldom commenced a conversation, but if any of the passengers were
bold enough to speak to him, they found him unpolished, but kindly in
disposition. Under his weather-beaten exterior he hid a warm, good
heart, for Mr Coffin had a soul of honour, and a mean or cowardly
action would have been utterly beneath him.
‘Good-morning; nice day this, isn’t it?’ remarked Godfrey Harland.
‘Yes, sir,’ replied the chief officer; ‘but I am afraid we are going to
have a blow. I don’t like the looks of it.’
‘It looks dirty to windward, I must say. Do you think there is mischief
in that bank?’
‘I am sure there is,’ said Coffin; ‘we shall have to shorten down
before daybreak, but it won’t be much. The glass is falling, too, sir,
and perhaps you know the old saying,--’
“When the glass falls low, prepare for a blow,
When the glass rises high, let all your kites fly.”
But we shall be prepared. I have the hands up at the fore and main
reefing the tackles and spilling lines, and the chain tacks and double
sheets are on.’
‘What are they doing to your main-topgallant parcell?’ inquired Harland,
looking up aloft at the sailors at work.
‘Well, they are lacing on some new leather parcelling,’ replied the
mate solemnly, stroking his chin. ‘The old stuff don’t let the yard
travel quick enough for my liking. But, if I’m not very much mistaken,
this is not your first voyage, sir,’ he continued, fixing his keen eyes
upon Harland’s face.
‘Oh, no,’ replied the other lightly; ‘I have often been on the briny. I
owned a yacht in New York once--an eighty-tonner--and all my nautical
knowledge was learned aboard her.’
‘Was she square-rigged,’ asked Mr Coffin indifferently.
‘No; fore and aft. As nice a little craft as ever you saw, and, by the
holy poker, she could sail too. There were few to beat her.’
‘How do you come, then, to know about main-topgallant parcells, if she
wasn’t square-rigged?’ demanded the chief officer, looking full at him.
Harland felt he was caught in his own trap. He had foolishly
acknowledged that the only vessel he had sailed in was a moderate-sized
yacht, which could have been stowed away, with twenty others, in the
_Pandora’s_ hold, and that all his sea knowledge was gained aboard of
her. How, then, could he possibly know the names, and understand the
use, of gear which was never seen on such small craft?
After spluttering out an unintelligible excuse, he attempted to smooth
the matter over by inviting his companion to join him in a glass of
grog. But the old sea-dog gruffly refused his offer, and turning away,
with a mysterious ‘Humph,’ sent a long squirt of red tobacco juice
straight into the stern sheets of the lifeboat. When Harland noticed
his altered manner, he sidled away under the lee of the pilot-house,
whilst Mr Coffin, after scanning the horizon and satisfying himself
that there was nothing in sight, leaned against the taffrail, and
thought to himself that--‘Mr Harland was a darned sight too deep for
most people, but he had taken him flat aback that time.’
At mid-day the captain shot the sun--a feat which Mr Horace Greenwood
came up on deck expressly to see, and was much disappointed when
Jack Blythe informed him he was just a minute too late; and by that
time the wind had increased a little, blowing from south-west to
south-south-west in sudden gusts, and the fore and mizen royals, and
the smaller stay sails were made fast.
Alice Leyton, in a dark brown travelling ulster, and a felt hat trimmed
with a dainty tuft of feathers, which blew about with the wind, and
mingled with her sunny curls, had left the close saloon for the open
air, and now stood leaning against the wheel-house, holding on her
hat with one hand, whilst the breeze caught her skirts and wound them
tightly round her supple figure.
‘Why, Alice,’ exclaimed Jack, as he came up to her, ‘what a brave girl
you are to venture on deck! But don’t be blown away. We can’t spare you
yet, you know,’ and he passed his arm round her waist to steady her as
he spoke.
Alice shrank palpably from his embrace.
‘Don’t, Jack, please. I can stand very well by myself, and some one may
be looking.’
‘No one is looking, my dear, and if they were, nothing could be more
natural than for me to proffer my assistance to a young female in
distress on such a windy day.’
‘I’m not in distress,’ replied Alice, half ready to cry at the
situation.
‘Oh, yes, you are. You don’t know what a south-wester is yet. Your
petticoats will be over your head in another minute.’
‘Oh,’ cried the girl involuntarily, as her hand left her hat to travel
down to her skirts. ‘Jack, let me go back to the saloon at once. I
don’t want to stay here any longer.’
‘Indeed I won’t. I see you very seldom now, and I mean to make the
most of the opportunity. How long is it since you kissed me? At least
three weeks. Don’t you think if you brought your face a little nearer
this way, you wouldn’t feel the wind so much? Your cheeks are getting
positively crimson with it. You’d better take advantage of my offer,
and shelter under my lee.’
‘No, no!’ exclaimed Alice, half in fun and half in earnest, ‘I don’t
want to kiss you, Jack. I can manage much better by myself.’
‘Or with the help of Captain Lovell,’ he answered. ‘Isn’t that true,
Alice? It isn’t the help that’s disagreeable to you, it’s the helper.’
‘Oh, Jack, how can you say such a thing, when we’ve known each other
for so long?’
‘Perhaps we’ve known each other _too_ long, and have come to know each
other too well, Alice. However, I won’t tease you. I’ve often refused
your kisses, so it’s only fair you should have the option of refusing
mine now and then. And I suppose you’re tired of them. It’s no wonder.’
Alice did not know what to say. She longed to tell him the truth, but
she dared not. She was too fond of him to care to see his bright face
clouded by disappointment, and yet she knew now that she could never
marry him. Oh dear, she sighed to herself, what should she do?
‘Jack,’ she commenced timidly, ‘I think you’d soon be sick of me. I
don’t think I’m a very nice girl. In fact, I’m _sure_ I’m not. And I
shall make a worse wife. I’ve almost made up my mind never to marry at
all.’
Jack burst out laughing. He had known it would come to this at last. He
had watched the confession drawing nearer day by day. And he was not
sorry for it. Only he determined that Alice should not have it all her
own way. He must have some fun out of her first.
‘What are you talking about?’ he replied, with affected earnestness.
‘You are a great deal too modest, my darling. You’ll make the very best
and sweetest wife in all the world. _I’m_ the proper judge of that.
Besides, don’t forget that you are pledged to me, and no power on earth
will make me release you from your promise.’
Alice sighed audibly, and looked over the sea.
‘But would it be right, Jack,’ she said presently, ‘for me to marry, if
I knew I could not fulfil the duties of a wife?’
‘Much you know about the duties of a wife!’ exclaimed Jack merrily.
‘You can fulfil all _I_ shall require from you: I’ll take my oath of
that.’
‘Mother says,’ continued Alice solemnly, ‘that I am utterly unfit for
any of the graver requirements of life, and that when my father sees
how frivolous and pleasure-seeking I am, he is sure to refuse his
consent to my leaving home.’
‘Ah! I can guess now what has brought this serious fit upon you, Alice.
Your mother has been frightening you with regard to what Mr Leyton may
say to our engagement. But don’t you be afraid, dear. If he should make
my position an objection to our immediate marriage, I’ll leave you in
his care till I shall have attained higher rank and better pay. And,
meanwhile, you can be learning your duties as a wife,’ said Jack slyly.
‘How can I learn with no one to teach me?’ replied Alice sharply.
‘Besides, Jack, it may be years and years before you get promotion! Am
I to be an old maid all that time?’
‘Why, I thought you were never going to marry at all just now,’ said
her lover. ‘You are only just eighteen, Alice. Surely a few years--say
till you’re five-and-twenty--would not be too long to wait for such
happiness as ours will be? It isn’t as if you were going to marry
Captain Lovell, you know, or some common-place fellow of that sort. I
will serve for you as Jacob did for Rachel, and if I can wait seven
years for you, surely you will do no less for me, eh?’
‘Oh, no! of course not,’ replied the girl, who had the greatest
difficulty to keep the tears back from her eyes. ‘But--but I think I’d
rather go down to the saloon, Jack, this wind is so horribly strong it
makes my eyes water.’
‘All right, if you wish it, but I must tow you safely to the door,’
replied Jack, as he took her across the deck and saw her disappear in
the depths of the saloon cabin, without speaking another word to him.
‘Poor little girl,’ he thought, as he turned laughing away, ‘she’s
terribly puzzled to know what to say to me. She would have liked to
scratch out my eyes for that remark about Lovell, only she didn’t dare.
Well, it’ll come out sooner or later, but it’s not my business to help
her make the confession. If she gives me up of her own free will, I
shall thank God. But if this is only a passing fancy on her part or
_his_, I must go through with it.’ And Vernon Blythe sighed as heavily
at the prospect as Alice Leyton had done, as he went to his work.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]