Kitabı oku: «Rivers of Ice», sayfa 2
Captain Wopper accepted the invitation heartily, and thought, though he said nothing, that it was indeed a poor table, seeing that the only food on it besides the very weak tea in the wonderfully small pot, consisted of one small loaf of bread.
“Netta,” exclaimed Mrs Roby, with a look of surprise, “there’s no butter! Go, fetch it, dear.”
Mrs Roby was, or thought herself, a remarkably deep character. She spoke to Netta openly, but, in secret, bestowed a meaning glance on her, and slipped a small coin into her hand. The dirty, sweet-faced damsel replied by a remarkably knowing wink—all of which by-play, with the reason for it, was as clear to Captain Wopper as if it had been elaborately explained to him. But the Captain was a discreet man. He became deeply absorbed in daguerreotypes and sauce-pan lids above the fireplace, to the exclusion of all else.
“You’ve forgotten the bag, ma’am,” said the Captain, drawing his chair nearer the table.
“So I have; dear me, what is it?” cried Mrs Roby, taking it up. “It’s heavy.”
“Gold!” said the Captain.
“Gold?” exclaimed the old nurse.
“Ay, nuggets,” said the seaman, opening it and emptying its contents on the table.
As the old nurse gazed on the yellow heap her black eyes glittered with pleasure, as though they had derived additional lustre from the precious metal, and she drew them towards her with a trembling, almost greedy, motion, at sight of which Captain Wopper’s countenance became troubled.
“And did Willie send this to me, dear boy?”
“He did, ma’am, hoping that it would be of use in the way of making your home more comfortable, and enabling you to keep a better table.”
He glanced uneasily round the poor room and at the small loaf as he spoke, and the old woman observed the glance.
“It is very kind of him, very kind,” continued Mrs Roby. “What may it be worth, now?”
“Forty pounds, more or less,” answered the Captain.
Again the old woman’s eyes sparkled greedily, and again the seaman’s countenance fell.
“Surely, ma’am,” said the Captain, gravely, “things must be uncommon dear in London, for you tell me that Willum has sent you a deal of money in time past, but you don’t seem to be much the better for it.”
“Captain Wopper,” said Mrs Roby, putting her hand lightly on the Captain’s arm as it lay on the table, and looking earnestly into his face, “if you had not been an old and valued friend of my dear Willie—which I learn that you are from his letter—I would have said your remark was a rude one; but, being what you are, I don’t mind telling you that I save up every penny I can scrape together for little Netta White, the girl that has just gone out to fetch the butter. Although she’s not well cared for,—owing to her mother, who’s a washerwoman, bein’ overburdened with work and a drunken husband,—she’s one of the dearest creeters I ever did see. Bless you, sir, you’d be amazed if you knew all the kind and thoughtful things that untrained and uncared for child does, and never thinks she’s doing anything more than other people. It’s all along of her mother’s spirit, which is as good as gold. Some months ago Little Netta happened to be up here when I was at tea, and, seeing the difficulty I had to move about with my old rheumatic limbs, she said she’d come and set out my tea and breakfast for me; and she’s done it, sir, from that time to this, expecting nothing fur it, and thinking I’m too poor to give her anything. But she’s mistaken,” continued Mrs Roby, with a triumphant twinkle in her black eyes, “she doesn’t know that I’ve made a confidant of her brother Gillie, and give him a sixpence now and then to give to his mother without telling where he got it, and she doesn’t know that I’m saving up to be able to leave something to her when I’m called home—it can’t be long, now; it can’t be long.”
“Old ’ooman,” cried Captain Wopper, whose face had brightened wonderfully during this explanation, “give us your flip—your hand. I honour your heart, ma’am, and I’ve no respect whatever for your brain!”
“I’m not sure that that’s a compliment,” said Mrs Roby, with a smile.
Captain Wopper assured her with much solemnity that it might or might not be a compliment, but it was a fact. “Why, look here,” said he, “you go and starve yourself, and deny yourself all sorts of little comforts—what then? Why, you’ll die long before your time, which is very like taking the law into your own hands, ma’am, and then you won’t leave to Netta nearly as much as you might if you had taken care of yourself and lived longer, and saved up after a reasonable fashion. It’s sheer madness. Why, ma’am, you’re starving now, but I’ll put a stop to that. Don’t you mind, now, whether I’m rude or not. You can’t expect anything else from an old gold-digger, who has lived for years where there were no women except such as appeared to be made of mahogany, with nothing to cover ’em but a coating of dirt and a blue skirt. Besides, Willum told me at parting to look after you and see that you wanted for nothing, which I promised faithfully to do. You’ve some regard for Willum’s wishes, ma’am?—you wouldn’t have me break my promises to Willum, would you?”
The Captain said this with immense rapidity and vigour, and finished it with such a blow of his heavy fist on the little table that the cups and plates danced, and the lid of the little tea-pot leaped up as if its heart were about to come out of its mouth. Mrs Roby was so taken by surprise that she could not speak for a few seconds, and before she had recovered sufficiently to do so, Little Netta came in with the butter.
“Now, ma’am,” resumed the Captain, when the girl had retired, “here’s where it is. With your leave I’ll reveal my plans to you, and ask your advice. When I was about to leave Californy, Willum told me first of all to go and find you out, and give you that letter and bag of nuggets, which I’ve done. ‘Then,’ says he, ‘Wopper, you go and find out my brother Jim’s widow, and give ’em my love an’ dooty, and this letter, and this bag of nuggets,’—said letter and bag, ma’am, bein’ now in my chest aboard ship. ‘So,’ says I, ‘Willum, I will—trust me.’ ‘I do,’ says he; ‘and, Wopper,’ says he, ‘keep your weather eye open, my boy, w’en you go to see ’em, because I’ve my suspicions, from what my poor brother said on his deathbed, when he was wandering in his mind, that his widow is extravagant. I don’t know,’ Willum goes on to say, ‘what the son may be, but there’s that cousin, Emma Gray, that lives in the house with ’em, she’s all right. She’s corresponded with me, off an’ on, since ever she could write, and my brother bein’ something lazy, poor fellar, through havin’ too much to do I fancy, got to throw all the letter-writin’ on her shoulders. You take special note of her, Wopper, and if it should seem to you that they don’t treat her well, you let me know.’ ‘Willum,’ says I, ‘I will—trust me.’ ‘Well, then,’ says Willum, ‘there’s one other individooal I want you to ferret out, that’s the gentleman—he must be an old gentleman now—that saved my life when I was a lad, Mr Lawrence by name. You try to find him out and if you can do him a good turn, do it.’ ‘Willum,’ says I, ‘I’ll do it—trust me.’ ‘I do,’ says he, ‘and when may I expect you back in Californy, Wopper?’ ‘Willum,’ says I, ‘that depends.’ ‘True,’ says he, ‘it does. Give us you’re flipper, old boy, we may never meet again in these terrestrial diggings. Good luck to you. Don’t forget my last will an’ testimony as now expressed.’ ‘Willum,’ says I, ‘I won’t.’ So, ma’am, I left Californy with a sacred trust, so to speak, crossed the sea, and here I am.”
At this point Captain Wopper, having warmed in his subject, took in at one bite as much of the small loaf as would have been rather a heavy dinner for Mrs Roby, and emptied at one gulp a full cup of her tea, after which he stroked his beard, smiled benignantly at his hostess, became suddenly earnest again, and went on—chewing as he spoke.
“Now, ma’am, I’ve three questions to ask: in the first place, as it’s not possible now to do a good turn to old Mr Lawrence, I must do it to his son. Can you tell me where he lives?”
Mrs Roby told him that it was in a street not far from where they sat, in a rather poor lodging.
“Secondly, ma’am, can you tell me where Willum’s sister-in-law lives,—Mrs Stout, alias Stoutley?”
“No, Captain Wopper, but I daresay Mr Lawrence can. He knows ’most everythink, and has a London Directory.”
“Good. Now, in the third place, where am I to find a lodging?”
Mrs Roby replied that there were plenty to be found in London of all kinds.
“You haven’t a spare room here, have you?” said the Captain, looking round.
Mrs Roby shook her head and said that she had not; and, besides, that if she had, it would be impossible for her to keep a lodger, as she had no servant, and could not attend on him herself.
“Mrs Roby,” said the Captain, “a gold-digging seaman don’t want no servant, nor no attendance. What’s up aloft?”
By pointing to a small trap-door in the ceiling, he rendered the question intelligible.
“It’s a garret, I believe,” replied Mrs Roby, smiling; “but having no ladder, I’ve never been up.”
“You’ve no objection to my taking a look, have you?” asked the Captain.
“None in the world,” replied the old woman. Without more ado the seaman rose, mounted on a chair, pushed open the trap-door, thrust his head and shoulders through, and looked round. Apparently the inspection was not deemed sufficiently close, for, to the old woman’s alarm and inexpressible surprise, he seized the edges of the hole with his strong hands, raised himself up, and finally disappeared in the regions above! The alarm of the old woman was somewhat increased by the sound of her visitor’s heavy tread on the boards overhead as he stumbled about. Presently his head appeared looking down through the trap. In any aspect, Captain Wopper’s shaggy head was an impressive one; but viewed in an upside-down position, with the blood running into it, it was peculiarly striking.
“I say, old lady,” he shouted, as if his position recalled the action and induced the tones of a boatswain, “it’ll do. A capital berth, with two portholes and a bunk.”
The Captain’s head disappeared, and immediately his legs took its place, suggesting the outrageous idea that he had thrown a somersault. Next moment his huge body slid down, and he stood on the floor much flushed and covered with dust.
“Now, old girl, is it to be?” he said, sitting down at the table. “Will you take me as a lodger, for better and for worse? I’ll fit up the berth on the main-deck, and be my own servant as well as your’s. Say the word.”
“I can refuse nothing to Willie’s friend,” said old Mrs Roby, “but really I—”
“Done, it’s a bargain,” interrupted the Captain, rising abruptly. “Now, I’ll go visit young Mr Lawrence and Mrs Stoutley, and to-morrow I’ll bring my kit, take possession of my berth, and you and I shall sail in company, I hope, and be messmates for some time to come.”
Chapter Three.
Difficulties among the Social Summits
In one of the many mansions of the “west end” of London, a lady reclined one morning on a sofa wishing that it were afternoon. She was a middle-aged, handsome, sickly lady. If it had been afternoon she would have wished that it were evening, and if it had been evening she would have wished for the morning; for Mrs Stoutley was one of those languid invalids whose enjoyment appears to be altogether in the future or the past, and who seem to have no particular duties connected with the present except sighing and wishing. It may be that this unfortunate condition of mind had something to do with Mrs Stoutley’s feeble state of health. If she had been a little more thoughtful about others, and less mindful of herself, she might, perhaps, have sighed and wished less, and enjoyed herself more. At all events her doctor seemed to entertain some such opinion, for, sitting in an easy chair beside her, and looking earnestly at her handsome, worn-out countenance, he said, somewhat abruptly, being a blunt doctor.
“You must go abroad, madam, and try to get your mind, as well as your body, well shaken up.”
“Why, doctor,” replied Mrs Stoutley, with a faint smile; “you talk of me as if I were a bottle of physic or flat ginger-beer.”
“You are little better, silly woman,” thought the doctor, but his innate sense of propriety induced him only to say, with a smile, “Well, there is at least this much resemblance between you and a bottle of flat ginger-beer, namely, that both require to be made to effervesce a little. It will never do to let your spirits down as you have been doing. We must brighten up, my dear madam—not Brighton up, by the way, we’ve had enough of Brighton and Bath, and such places. We must get away to the Continent this summer—to the Pyrenees, or Switzerland, where we can breathe the fresh mountain air, and ramble on glaciers, and have a thorough change.”
Mrs Stoutley looked gently, almost pitifully at the doctor while he spoke, as if she thought him a well-meaning and impulsive, but rather stupid maniac.
“Impossible, my dear doctor,” she said; “you know I could not stand the fatigues of such a journey.”
“Well, then,” replied the doctor, abruptly, “you must stop at home and die.”
“Oh! what a shocking naughty man you are to talk so.”
Mrs Stoutley said this, however, with an easy good-natured air, which showed plainly that she did not believe her illness likely to have such a serious termination.
“I will be still more naughty and shocking,” continued the doctor, resolutely, but with a twinkle in his eyes, “for I shall prescribe not only a dose of mountain air, but a dose of mountain exercise, to be taken—and the patient to be well shaken while taken—every morning throughout the summer and autumn. Moreover, after you return to England, you must continue the exercise during the winter; and, in addition to that, must have an object at the end of your walks and drives—not shopping, observe, that is not a sufficiently out-of-door object; nor visiting your friends, which is open to the same objection.”
Mrs Stoutley smiled again at this, and said that really, if visiting and shopping were forbidden, there seemed to be nothing left but museums and picture-galleries.
To this the doctor retorted that although she might do worse than visit museums and picture-galleries, he would prefer that she should visit the diamond and gold fields of the city.
“Did you ever hear of the diamond and gold fields of London, Miss Gray?” he said, turning to a plain yet pretty girl, who had been listening in silence to the foregoing conversation.
“Never,” answered Miss Gray, with a look of surprise.
Now, Miss Gray’s look of surprise induces us to state in passing that this young lady—niece, also poor relation and companion, to Mrs Stoutley—possessed three distinct aspects. When grave, she was plain,—not ugly, observe; a girl of nineteen, with a clear healthy complexion and nut-brown hair, cannot in any circumstances be ugly; no, she was merely plain when grave. When she smiled she was decidedly pretty, and when she laughed she was captivating—absolutely irresistible! She seldom laughed, occasionally smiled, and was generally grave. There was something quite incomprehensible about her, for she was not an unusually good girl, and by no means a dashing girl, neither was she an intensely modest girl—and yet, plain Emma Gray had perhaps driven more young men into a condition of drivelling imbecility than any acknowledged beauty of the metropolis.
Observe, we say “perhaps,” because we lay claim to no superhuman knowledge in regard to such matters.
“They are rather extensive fields,” continued the doctor, “scattered here and there about the metropolis, but lying chiefly in the city and on the banks of the Thames. They comprise many picture-galleries, too, and museums; the latter containing wonderful specimens of old bones and fossil remains, filth, and miscellaneous abominations, in which the gold and diamonds are imbedded—sometimes buried,—and the former being hung with subjects—chiefly interiors—incomparably superior, in respect of graphic power, to the works of Hogarth.”
“Oh! I know what you mean,” said Miss Gray, with a little smile.
“Your wits are sharper than mine, Emma,” said Mrs Stoutley, with a sigh and a placid look. “What do you refer to, Doctor Tough?”
“I refer to those districts, madam, chiefly inhabited by the poor, where there are innumerable diamonds and gold nuggets, some of which are being polished, and a good many are glittering brightly, though not yet fixed in their proper setting, while by far the greater number of them are down in the earth, and useless in the meantime, and apt to be lost for want of adventurous diggers. They are splendid fields those of London, and digging is healthful occupation—though it might not seem so at first sight. Did you ever visit the poor, Mrs Stoutley?”
With a slight elevation of her eyebrows, and the application of a scent-bottle to her delicate nose, as if the question had suggested bad smells, the lady said that—Well, yes, she had once visited a poor old gardener who had been a faithful creature in the family of a former friend, but that her recollection of that visit did not tend to induce a wish for its repetition.
“H’m!” coughed the doctor, “well, the taste of physic is usually bad at first, but one soon gets used to it, and the after effects, as you know, are exceedingly beneficial. I hope that when you visit the London diggings you may find the truth of this; but it will be time enough to speak of that subject when you return from rambling on the glaciers of Switzerland, where, by the way, the dirt, rubbish, and wrack, called moraines, which lie at the foot of the glaciers, will serve to remind you of the gold-fields to which I have referred, for much of what composes those moraines was once solid rock in a fixed position on the heights, or glittering ice which reflected the sun’s dazzling rays on surrounding high life, though it lies low in the earth now. To a lady of your intelligence, madam, I need not expound my parable. There are many avalanches, great and small, in English society as well as among the Swiss mountains; and, whether by gradual subsidence or a tremendous rush, we must all find our places in the moraine at last.”
“Really, doctor,” said Mrs Stoutley, with a light laugh, “you seem to have already wandered much among these moral moraines, and to have acquired some of their ruggedness. How can you talk of such dismal things to a patient? But are you really in earnest about my going abroad?”
“Indeed I am,” replied the doctor, firmly, “and I advise you to begin your preparations at once, for you must set out on your travels in less than a month. I lay the responsibility of seeing my orders carried into effect on your shoulders, Miss Gray.”
So saying, the doctor rose and took his leave. Mrs Stoutley and her niece immediately began to discuss the subject of Switzerland—the one languidly, the other with animation. It was plain enough that, although the invalid protested to the doctor her inability to travel, she really had no objection, perhaps felt some desire, to go abroad, for when Miss Gray mentioned the fact that there was a difficulty in the shape of insufficient funds, she replied with more warmth than usual—
“Now, Emma, what is the use of always bringing up that ridiculous idea?”
“No doubt, auntie,” the maiden replied, “it is a little ridiculous to run short of ready money, considering the style in which we live; but it would be still more ridiculous, you know, to go to Switzerland without the means of paying our expenses while there.”
“What’s that you say about expenses, cousin?” exclaimed a tall handsome stripling who entered at the moment, and seated himself on the sofa at his mother’s feet.
“Oh, bother the expense!” he exclaimed, when the difficulty had been explained to him, “it can’t cost so much to spend a few months in Switzerland,—besides, we can do it cheap, you know. Didn’t Mr What’s-his-name, our man of business, say that there was a considerable balance at the banker’s, and that if the What-d’ee-call-’em mines paid a reasonable dividend, we should easily get over our difficulties?”
“He said something of that sort, I believe,” replied Mrs Stoutley, with a sigh.
“I rather think, cousin Lewis,” said Emma, endeavouring to repress a smile, “that he said there was an inconsiderable balance at the bankers, and that unless the Gorong mine paid a reasonable dividend, we shouldn’t easily get over our difficulties.”
Both Lewis and his mother laughed at the quiet way in which this was said, but, while both admitted that Emma’s view of the matter might perhaps be correct, Lewis held that there was no good reason for supposing there would be any difficulty in the meantime in obtaining from their “man-of-business” the paltry sum that was required for a short tour on the Continent. Indeed Mrs Stoutley regarded this man-of-business as a mere sponge, who required only to be squeezed in order to the production of what was desired, and the man-of-business himself found it no easy matter to convince her that she held erroneous views on this subject, and that at her present rate of progress, she would, to use the doctor’s glacial simile, very soon topple from the pinnacle of fashion, on which she sat, and fall with the crash of a social avalanche into the moraine of ruin.
“What a wise little woman you are, cousin Emma,” said Lewis, gaily. “You ought to have been bred to the law, or trained an accountant. However, we won’t be guided by your advice just now, first, because the doctor has ordered mother abroad for her health, which is our chief consideration; and, second, because I wish of all things to see Switzerland, and climb Mont Blanc. Besides, we are not so poor as you think, and I hope to add a little to our general funds in a day or two. By the way, can you lend me ten pounds just now, mother?”
“Why do you want it?” asked Mrs Stoutley, sternly, as if she meant to refuse, but at the same time opening her purse.
“Don’t ask me just now. I will repay you tomorrow, with interest and shall then explain.”
With an easy, languid smile, the carelessly amiable invalid handed her last ten-pound note to her hopeful son, who had just transferred it to his pocketbook, when a footman entered and presented a scrap of dirty paper, informing his lady that the person who sent up the “card” desired to see her.
“What is this?” said Mrs Stoutley, holding the paper gingerly with the tips of her fingers, “Wip—Wap—Wopper! What is Wopper? Is the person a man or a woman?”
The footman, who, although well-bred, found it difficult to restrain a smile, intimated that the person was a man, and added, that he said he had come from California, and wanted to see Mrs Stoutley very particularly.
On hearing this, the lady’s manner changed at once, and, with more animation than she had yet exhibited, she desired that he should be shown in.
With his large wide-awake in one hand, and a canvas bag in the other, Captain Wopper entered the drawing-room, and looked around him with a beaming and rather bashful smile.
“Mrs Stoutley, I believe,” he said, advancing, “and Miss Emma Gray, I suppose,” he added, turning with a beaming glance towards the young lady.
Mrs Stoutley admitted that he was right, and expressed some surprise that he, a perfect stranger, should be so well acquainted with their names.
“I am indeed a stranger personally, ma’am,” said Captain Wopper, smoothing the hair down on his rugged brow, “but I may be said to know you pretty well, seeing that I have for many years been the friend and messmate of your late husband’s brother in Californy.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Mrs Stoutley, with increasing animation, as she rose and held out her hand; “any friend of my brother-in-law is heartily welcome. Be seated, Mr Wopper, and let me hear about him. He was very kind to my dear husband during his last illness—very kind. I shall never forget him.”
“No doubt he was,” said the Captain, accepting the chair which Emma Gray handed to him, with looks of great interest. “Thank ’ee, Miss. Willum Stout—excuse my familiarity, ma’am, I always called him Willum, because we was like brothers—more than brothers, I may say, an’ very friendly. Yes, Willum Stout was kind to his brother in his last days. It would have bin shame to him if he hadn’t for your husband, ma’am, was kind to Willum, an’ he often said to me, over the camp-fires in the bush, that he’d never forget his kindness. But it’s over now,” continued the seaman in a sad tone, “an’ poor Willum is left alone.”
“Is my uncle very poor?” asked Lewis, who had been paying more attention to the appearance of their rugged visitor than to what he had said.
“Ay, very poor,” replied the seaman, “as regards near relations, leastwise such as he has seen and known in former days, but he an’t poor as regards gold. He’s got lots of that. He and I worked not far from each other for years, an’ he used to hit upon good claims somehow, and shovelled up the nuggets like stones.”
“Indeed! I wish he’d send a few of them this way,” exclaimed Lewis, with a careless laugh.
“No doubt he might do so, young man, if he knew you were in need of ’em, but your father gave him to understand that his family was rich.”
“Rich!” exclaimed Lewis, with a smile, in which there was a touch of contempt. “Well, yes, we were rich enough once, but when my father was away these wretched mines became—”
“Lewie!” exclaimed his mother, hastily, “what nonsense you do talk! Really, one would think from your account that we were paupers.”
“Well, mother, so we are—paupers to this extent at least, that we can’t afford to take a run to Switzerland, though ordered to do so for your health, because we lack funds.”
Lewis said this half petulantly, for he had been a “spoilt child,” and might probably have been by that time a ruined young man, but for the mercy of his Creator, who had blessed him with an amiable disposition. He was one of those youths, in short, of whom people say that they can’t be spoiled, though fond and foolish parents do their best to spoil them.
“You mis-state the case, naughty boy,” said Mrs Stoutley, annoyed at being thus forced to touch on her private affairs before a stranger. “No doubt our ready cash is what our man-of-business calls ‘locked up,’ but that, you know, is only a matter of temporary inconvenience, and cannot last long.”
As Mrs Stoutley paused and hesitated, their visitor placed on the table a canvas bag, which, up to this point he had rested on one knee.
“This bag,” he said, “of nuggets, is a gift from Willum. He desired me to deliver it to you, Miss Gray, as a small acknowledgment of your kindness in writin’ so often to him. He’d have bought you a silk gown, or a noo bonnet, so he said, but wasn’t sure as to your taste in such matters, and thought you’d accept the nuggets and buy it for yourself. Leastwise, that’s somethin’ like the speech Willum tried to tell me to deliver, but he warn’t good at speech-makin’ no more than I at remembrin’, and hoped you’d take the will for the deed.”
With a flush of surprise and pleasure, Emma Gray accepted both the will and the deed, with many expressions of gratitude, and said, that as she did not require either a silk dress or a bonnet just then, she would invest her little fortune; she would lend it at high interest, to a lady under temporary inconvenience, who was ordered by her doctor to Switzerland for the benefit of her health. To this Mrs Stoutley protested very earnestly that the lady in question would not accept the loan on any consideration; that it must not be diverted from its destined use, but be honestly expended on silk-dresses and new bonnets. To which Emma replied, that the destiny of the gift, with interest (she was very particular on that head), should be fulfilled in good time, but that meanwhile it must be lent out.
In the midst of a cross-fire of this kind the bag was opened, and its contents poured on the table, to the immense admiration of all the company, none of whom had, until that day, beheld gold in its native condition.
“How much may it be worth, Mr Wopper?” asked Lewis, weighing one of the largest lumps.
“About two hundred pound, I should say, more or less,” replied the seaman.
“Indeed!” exclaimed the youth in surprise—an exclamation which was echoed by his mother and cousin in modified tones.
While they sat thus toying with the lumps of gold, the conversation reverted to the sender of it, and the Captain told such entertaining anecdotes of bush life, in all of which “Uncle Willum” had been an actor, that the afternoon arrived before Mrs Stoutley had time to wish for it. They also talked of the last illness of the deceased father of the family; and when it came out that Captain (they had found out by that time that their visitor had been a skipper, and, by courtesy, a captain), had assisted “Willum” in nursing Mr Stoutley, and had followed him to the grave, Mrs Stoutley’s gratitude was such that she insisted on her visitor staying to dinner.
“Thank ’ee, ma’am,” he said, “I’ve dined. I always dines at one o’clock if I can manage it.”
“But we don’t dine till eight,” said the lady, “so it will just suit for your supper.”
“Do come,” said Emma Gray, “we shall be quite alone, and shall have a great spinning of yarns over Uncle William and the gold-fields.”
“Well, I don’t mind if I do,” said the Captain, “but before supper I must go to the docks for my kit and settle my lodgings.”
“I am going to the Strand, and shall be happy to give you a lift,” said Lewis.
The Captain accepted the offer, and as they drove along, he and his young friend became very intimate, insomuch that Lewis, who was lighthearted, open, and reckless, let him into his confidence, and spoke quite freely about his mother’s difficulties. It is only justice to add that the Captain did not encourage him in this. When, however, the youth spoke of himself, he not only encouraged him, but drew him out. Among other things, he drew out of him the fact that he was in the habit of gambling, and that he fully expected—if his usual luck attended him—to assist in adding to the fund which was to take the family abroad.
