The Young Trawler, R. M. Ballantyne [dark books to read TXT] 📗

use them naked, an’ a flap to cover the slit and keep the wind out when you don’t want to shove out your hands. Then the hood, you see, is large and easy, so that it can be pulled well for’ard—so—and this broad band behind it unbuttons and comes round in front of the face and buttons, so—to keep all snug when you lay down to sleep.”

“Wonderful!” exclaimed the sisters as the captain stood before them like a great pillar of white fur, with nothing of him visible save the eyes and feet.

“But that’s not all,” continued the ancient mariner, turning his back to the sisters. “You see that great flap hooked up behind?”

“Yes,” answered Jessie and Kate in the same breath.

“Well, then, notice what I do.”

He sat down on the floor, and unhooking the flap, drew it round in front, where he re-hooked it to another row of eyes in such a manner that it completely covered his feet and lower limbs.

“There, you see, I’m in a regular fur-bag now, all ready for a night in the snow.”

By way of illustration he extended himself on the floor at full-length, and, by reason of that length being so great, and the room so narrow, his feet went into the window-recess while his head lay near the door.

All ignorant of this illustration of arctic life going on, Liffie Lee, intent on dinner purposes, opened the door and drove it violently against the captain’s head.

“Avast there!” he shouted, rising promptly. “Come in, lass. Come in—no damage done.”

“Oh! sir,” exclaimed the horrified Liffie, “I ax your parding.”

“Don’t put yourself about my girl. I’m used to collisions, and it’s not in the power o’ your small carcass to do me damage.”

Disrobing himself as he spoke, the lodger retired to his cabin to lay aside his curious garment, and Liffie, assisted by Kate, took advantage of his absence to spread their little board.

“I never saw such a man,” said Kate in a low voice as she bustled about.

“Saw!” exclaimed Jessie under her breath, “I never even conceived of such a man. He is so violent in his actions that I constantly feel as if I should be run over and killed. It feels like living in the same house with a runaway mail coach. How fortunate that his spirit is so gentle and kind!”

A tremendous crash at that moment caused Jessie to stop with a gasp.

“Hallo! fetch a swab—a dish-clout or somethin’, Liffie,” came thundering from the captain’s room. “Don’t be alarmed, ladies, it’s only the wash-hand basin. Knocked it over in hangin’ up the coat. Nothin’ smashed. It’s a tin basin, you know. Look alive, lass, else the water’ll git down below, for the caulkin’ of these planks ain’t much to boast of, an’ you’ll have the green-grocer up in a towering rage!”

A few minutes later this curious trio sat down to dinner, and the captain, according to a custom established from the commencement of his sojourn, asked a blessing on the meat in few words, but with a deeply reverent manner, his great hands being clasped before him, and with his eyes shut like a little child.

“Well now, before beginning,” he said, looking up, “let me understand; is this matter of the lodging and rent settled?”

“Yes, it is settled,” answered Jessie. “We’ve got used to you, captain, and should be very, very sorry to lose you.”

“Come, that’s all right. Let’s shake hands on it over the leg of mutton.”

He extended his long arm over the small table, and spread out his enormous palm in front of Jessie Seaward. With an amused laugh she laid her little hand in it—to grasp it was out of the question—and the mighty palm closed for a moment with an affectionate squeeze. The same ceremony having been gone through with Kate, he proceeded to carve.

And what a difference between the dinners that once graced—perhaps we should say disgraced—that board, and those that smoked upon it now! Then, tea and toast, with sometimes an egg, and occasionally a bit of bacon, were the light viands; now, beef, mutton, peas, greens, potatoes, and other things, constituted the heavy fare.

The sisters had already begun to get stronger on it. The captain would have got stronger, no doubt, had that been possible.

And what a satisfactory thing it was to watch Captain Bream at his meals! There was something grand—absolutely majestic—in his action. Being a profoundly modest and unselfish man it was not possible to associate the idea of gluttony with him, though he possessed the digestion of an ostrich, and the appetite of a shark. There was nothing hurried, or eager, or careless, in his mode of eating. His motions were rather slow than otherwise; his proceedings deliberate. He would even at times check a tempting morsel on its way to his mouth that he might more thoroughly understand and appreciate something that Jessie or Kate chanced to be telling him. Yet with all that, he compelled you, while looking at him, to whisper to yourself—“how he does shovel it in!”

“I declare to you, Kate,” said Jessie, on one occasion after the captain had left the room, “I saw him take one bite to-day which ought to have choked him, but it didn’t. He stuck his fork into a piece of mutton as big—oh! I’m afraid to say how big; it really seemed to me the size of your hand, and he piled quite a little mound of green peas on it, with a great mass of broken fragments and gravy, and put it all into his mouth at once, though that mouth was already pretty well-filled with the larger half of an enormous potato. I thought he would never get it in, but something you said caused him to laugh at the time, and before the laugh was over the bite had disappeared. Before it was properly swallowed he was helping himself to another slice from the leg of mutton! I declare to you, Kate, that many a time I have dined altogether on less than that one bite!”

Poor Miss Seaward had stated a simple truth in regard to herself, but that truth was founded on want of food, not on want of appetite or capacity for more.

At first it had been arranged that an account-book should be kept, and that the captain should pay for one-third of the food that was consumed in the house, but he had consumed so much, and the sisters so ridiculously little, that he refused to fall in with such an arrangement and insisted on paying for all the food consumed, with the exception of the cup of coffee, cream, and sugar, with which he regaled himself every day after dinner. Of course they had had a battle over this matter also, but the captain had carried the day, as he usually did, for he had marvellous powers of suasion. He had indeed so argued, and talked, and bamboozled the meek sisters—sometimes seriously, oftener jocularly,—that they had almost been brought to the belief that somehow or other their lodger was only doing what was just! After all, they were not so far wrong, for all that they ate of the captain’s provisions amounted to a mere drop in the bucket, while the intellectual food with which they plied their lodger in return, and the wealth of sympathy with which they surrounded him, was far beyond the power of gold to purchase.

“No,” said Captain Bream, sipping his coffee and shaking his head, when Jessie again pressed on him the propriety of sitting in the parlour of an evening, “I can’t do it. The fact is that I’m studying—though you may think I’m rather an oldish student—and I can’t study except when I’m alone.”

“What are you studying?” asked Kate, and then, observing that the captain looked slightly confused, and feeling that she ought not to have put the question, she quickly changed the subject by adding—“for whatever it is, you will be quite free from interruption here. My sister and I often sit for hours without talking, and—”

“No, no, dear Miss Kate. Say no more,” interrupted the captain; “I must stick to my own cabin except at meal-times, and, of course, when we want a bit of a talk together. There is one thing, however, that I would like. I know you have family worship with your little lass. May I join you?”

“Oh! it would give us such pleasure,” exclaimed Kate, eagerly, “if you would come and conduct worship for us.”

The captain protested that he would not do that, but finally gave in, and afterwards acted the part of chaplain in the family.

“By the way,” he said, when about to quit the parlour, “I’ve brought another chest to the house.”

“Yes,” said Kate, “we felt the shock when you put it down.”

“Well, it is a bit heavy. I’ve fairly given up my connection with my last ship, and as the new commander took possession this morning I was obliged to bring away my last box. Now, I don’t want Liffie to move it about when putting things to rights, or to meddle with it in any way. When we want to sweep behind or under it I’ll shift it myself. But, after all, you’re safe not to move it, for the three of you together couldn’t if you were to try ever so much. So, good-day. I’ll be back to tea.”

“Kate,” said Jessie, after he was gone, “I am quite sure that there is some mystery connected with that box.”

“Of course you are,” replied Kate, with a laugh, “you always see mystery in things that you don’t understand! You saw mystery too, didn’t you, in the late sitting up and studies of Captain Bream.”

“Indeed I did, and I am quite sure that there is some mystery about that, too.”

“Just so, and I have no doubt that you observe mystery of some sort,” added Kate, with a humorous glance, “in the order for worsted work that we have just received.”

“Undoubtedly I do,” replied Jessie, with decision. “The whole affair is mysterious—ridiculously so. In truth it seems to me that we are surrounded by mystery.”

“Well, well, sister mine,” said the matter-of-fact Kate, going to a small cupboard and producing an ample work-box that served for both, “whatever mysteries may surround us, it is our business to fulfil our engagements, so we will at once begin our knitting of cuffs and comforters for the fishermen of the North Sea.”