"You never was at sea, my own?" "No," replied Florence.

"Ay," said the Captain, reverentially; it's a almighty element. There's wonders in the deep, my pretty. Think on it when the winds is roaring and the waves is rowling. Think on it when the stormy nights is so pitch-dark," said the Captain, solemnly holding up his hook, "as you can't see your hand afore you, excepting when the wiwid lightning reweals the same; and when you drive, drive, drive through the storm and dark, as if you was a-driving, head on, to the world without end, evermore, amen, and when found making a note of. Them's the times, my beauty, when a man may say to his messmate (previously a-overhauling of the wollume), 'A stiff nor-wester's blowing, Bill; hark, don't you hear it roar now! Lord help 'em, how I pitys all unhappy folks ashore now!" Which quotation, as particularly applicable to the terrors of the ocean, the Captain delivered in a most impressive manner, concluding with a sonorous "Stand by!"

"Were you ever in a dreadful storm ?" asked Flor

ence.

open until now, and resumed his seat. Florence followed him with her eyes, and looked intently in his face.

"The story was about a ship, my lady lass," began the Captain, "as sailed out of the Port of London, with a fair wind and in fair weather, bound for don't be took aback, my lady lass, she was only out'ard-bound, pretty, only out'ard-bound!"

The expression on Florence's face alarmed the Captain, who was himself very hot and flurried, and showed scarcely less agitation than she did.

"Shall I go on, Beauty?" said the-Captain.
"Yes, yes, pray!" cried Florence.

The Captain made a gulp as if to get down something that was sticking in his throat, and nervously proceeded:

"That there unfort'nate ship met with such foul weather out at sea as don't blow once in twenty year, my darling. There was hurricanes ashore as tore up forests and blowed down towns, and there was gales at sea in them latitudes as not the stoutest wessel ever launched could live in. Day arter day that there unfort'nate ship behaved noble, I'm told, and did her duty brave, my pretty, but at one blow a'most her bulwarks was stove in, her masts and rudder carried away; her best men swept overboard, and she left to the mercy of the storm as had no mercy, but blowed harder and harder yet, while the waves dashed over her, and beat her in, and every time they come a-thundering at her, broke her like a shell. Every black spot in every mountain of water that rolled away was a bit o' the ship's life or a living man, and so she went to pieces, Beauty, are altered in a moment. What is it? Dear Cap- and no grass will never grow upon the graves of tain Cuttle, it turns me cold to see you!"

"Why ay, my lady lass, I've seen my share of bad weather," said the Captain, tremulously wiping his head, "and I've had my share of knocking about; but-but it ain't of myself as I was a meaning to speak. Our dear boy," drawing closer to her, "Wal'r, darling, as was drownded."

The Captain spoke in such a trembling voice, and looked at Florence with a face so pale and agitated, that she clung to his hand in affright.

"Your face is changed," cried Florence.

"You

"What! Lady lass," returned the Captain, supporting her with his hand, "don't be took aback. No, no? All's well, all's well, my dear. As I was a-saying-Wal'r-he's-he's drownded. Ain't he?" Florence looked at him intently; her color came and went; and she laid her hand upon her breast.

"There's perils and dangers on the deep, my beauty," said the Captain; "and over many a brave ship, and many and many a bould heart, the secret waters has closed up, and never told no tales. But there's escapes upon the deep, too, and sometimes one man out of a score-ah! maybe out of a hundred, pretty -has been saved by the mercy of God, and come home after being given over for dead, and told of all hands lost. I-I know a story, Heart's Delight," stammered the Captain, "o' this natur, as was told to me once; and being on this here, tack, and you and me sitting alone by the fire, maybe you'd like to hear me tell it. Would you, deary ?"

Florence, trembling with an agitation which she could not control or understand, involuntarily followed his glance, which went behind her into the shop, where a lamp was burning. The instant that she turned her head, the Captain sprung out of his chair and interposed his hand.

"There's nothing there, my beauty," said the Captain. "Don't look there."

"Why not?" asked Florence.

The Captain murmured something about its being dull that way, and about the fire being cheerful. He drew the door ajar, which had been standing

them as manned that ship.".

"They were not all lost!" cried Florence. "Some were saved!-Was one ?"

"Aboard o' that there unfort'nate wessel," said the Captain, rising from his chair, and clenching his hand with prodigious energy and exultation, "was a lad, a gallant lad-as I've heerd tell-that had loved, when he was a boy, to read and talk about brave actions in shipwrecks-I've heerd him! I've heerd him!-and he remembered of 'em in his hour of need; for when the stoutest hearts and oldest hands was hove down, he was firm and cheery. It warn't the want of objects to like and love ashore that gave him courag it was his nat'ral mind. I've seen it in his face, when he was no more than a child -ay, many a time!—and when I thought it nothing but his good looks, bless him!"

"Was he

"And was he saved!" cried Florence. saved?" "That brave lad," said the Captain-"Look at me, pretty! Don't look round—”

Florence had hardly power to repeat, "Why not?" "Because there's nothing there, my deary," said the Captain. "Don't be took aback, pretty creetur! Don't, for the sake of Wal'r, as was dear to all on us! That there lad," said the Captain, "arter working with the best, and standing by the faint-hearted, and never making no complaint nor sign of fear, and keeping up a spirit in all hands that made 'em honor him as if he'd been a admiral-that lad, along with the second mate and one seaman, was left, of all the beatin' hearts that went aboard that ship,

PLEASANT CONCLUSION TO THE CAPTAIN'S STORY.

put the glazed hat on with some difficulty, essayed | dreamed that Walter looked on Florence, as it were, to sing a verse of Lovely Peg, broke down at the first word, and retired into the shop, whence he presently came back, express, with a face all flushed and besmeared, and the starch completely taken out of his shirt-collar, to say these words:

FLORENCE IS PROVIDED WITH A STATE-ROOM.

She laid her gentle face upon the Captain's shoulder, and related how and why she had fled. If every sorrowing tear she shed in doing so had been a curse upon the head of him she never named or blamed, it would have been better for him, Walter thought, with awe, than to be renounced out of such a strength and might of love.

"There, precious!" said the Captain, when she ceased; and deep attention the Captain had paid to her while she spoke; listening, with his glazed hat all awry and his mouth wide upon. "Awast, awast, my eyes! Wal'r, dear lad, sheer off for to-night, and leave the pretty one to me!"

Walter took her hand in both of his, and put it to his lips, and kissed it. He knew now that she was, indeed, a homeless, wandering fugitive; but, richer to him so than in all the wealth and pride of her right station, she seemed farther off than even on the height that had made him giddy in his boyish dreams.

Captain Cuttle, perplexed by no such meditations, guarded Florence to her room, and watched at intervals upon the charmed ground outside her doorfor such it truly was to him-until he felt sufficiently easy in his mind about her to turn in under the counter. On abandoning his watch for that purpose, he could not help calling once, rapturously, through the key-hole, "Drownded. Ain't he, pretty?"-or, when he got down stairs, making another trial at that verse of Lovely Peg. But it stuck in his throat somehow, and he could make nothing of it; so he went to bed, and dreamed that old Sol Gills was married to Mrs. MacStinger, and kept prisoner by that lady in a secret chamber on a short allowance of victuals.

CHAPTER L.

MR. TOOTS'S COMPLAINT.

283

some new admission of ownership, no flaw could be found in such a form of conveyance.

It was an advantage of the new arrangement, that besides the greater seclusion it afforded Florence, it admitted of the Midshipman being restored to his usual post of observation, and also of the shop shutters being taken down. The latter ceremony, however little importance the unconscious Captain attached to it, was not wholly superfluous; for, on the previous day, so much excitement had been occasioned in the neighborhood, by the shutters remain ing. unopened, that the Instrument-maker's house had been honored with an unusual share of public observation, and had been intently stared at from the opposite side of the way, by groups of hungry gazers, at any time between sunrise and sunset. The idlers and vagabonds had been particularly interested in the Captain's fate; constantly groveling in the mud to apply their eyes to the cellar-grating, under the shop-window, and delighting their imaginations with the fancy that they could see a piece of his coat as he hung in a corner; though this settlement of him was stoutly disputed by an opposite faction, who were of opinion that he lay murdered with a hammer, on the stairs. It was not without exciting some discontent, therefore, that the subject of these rumors was seen early in the morning standing at his shop-door as hale and hearty as if nothing had happened; and the beadle of that quarter, a man of an ambitious character, who had expected to have · the distinction of being present at the breaking open of the door, and of giving evidence in full uniform before the coroner, went so far as to say to an opposite neighbor, that the chap in the glazed hat had better not try it on there-without more particularly mentioning what-and further, that he, the Beadle, would keep his eye upon him.

"Captain Cuttle," said Walter, musing, when they stood resting from their labors at the shop-door, looking down the old familiar street; it being still

Twooden Midshipman's, which, in days of yore,

HERE was an empty room above stairs at the early in the morning; "nothing at all of Uncle Sol,

had been Walter's bedroom. Walter, rousing up the Captain betimes in the morning, proposed that they should carry thither such furniture out of the little parlor as would grace it best, so that Florence might take possession of it when she rose. As nothing could be more agreeable to Captain Cuttle than making himself very red and short of breath in such a cause, he turned to (as he himself said) with a will; and, in a couple of hours, this garret was transformed into a species of land-cabin, adorned with all the choicest movables out of the parlor, inclusive even of the Tartar frigate, which the Captain hung up over the chimney-piece with such extreme delight, that he could do nothing for half an hour afterward but walk backward from it, lost in admiration.

The Captain could be induced by no persuasion of Walter's to wind up the big watch, or to take back the canister, or to touch the sugar-tongs and teaspoons. "No, no, my lad," was the Captain's invariable reply to any solicitation of the kind, "I've made that there little property over jintly." These words he repeated with great unction and gravity, evidently believing that they had the virtue of an Act of Parliament, and that unless he committed himself by

in all that time?"

แ

Nothing at all, my lad," replied the Captain, shaking his head.

"Gone in search of me, dear, kind old man," said Walter: "yet never write to you! But why not? He says, in effect, in this packet that you gave me,” taking the paper from his pocket, which had been opened in the presence of the enlightened Bunsby, "that, if you never hear from him before opening it, you may believe him dead. Heaven forbid! But you would have heard of him, even if he were dead! Some one would have written, surely, by his desire, if he could not; and have said, 'on such a day, there died in my house,' or 'under my care,' or so forth, 'Mr. Solomon Gills of London, who left this last remembrance and this last request to you.""

The Captain, who had never climbed to such a clear height of probability before, was greatly impressed by the wide prospect it opened, and answered, with a thoughtful shake of his head, "Well said, my lad; wery well said."

"I have been thinking of this, or, at least," said Walter, coloring, "I have been thinking of one thing and another, all through a sleepless night, and I can not believe, Captain Cuttle, but that my Uncle Sol

Walter, with his cheerful laugh, returned the salutation, and said:

"Only one word more about my uncle at present, Captain Cuttle. I suppose it is impossible that he can have written in the ordinary course-by mail packet, or ship letter, you understand—”

(Lord bless him!) is alive, and will return. I don't ing, with enthusiasm, "Hooroar, my lad! Indiwidso much wonder at his going away, because, leav-ually, I'm o' your opinion." ing out of consideration that spice of the marvelous which was always in his character, and his great affection for me, before which every other consideration of his life became nothing, as no one ought to know so well as I who had the best of fathers in him "-Walter's voice was indistinct and husky here, and he looked away, along the street-"leaving that out of consideration, I say, I have often read and heard of people who, having some near and dear relative, who was supposed to be shipwrecked at sea, have gone down to live on that part of the sea-shore where any tidings of the missing ship might be expected to arrive, though only an hour or two sooner than elsewhere, or have even gone upon her track to the place whither she was bound, as if their going would create intelligence. I think I should do such a thing myself as soon as another, or sooner than many, perhaps. But why my uncle shouldn't write to you, when he so clearly intended to do so, or how he should die abroad, and you not know it through some other hand, I can not make out."

Captain Cuttle observed, with a shake of his head, that Jack Bunsby himself hadn't made it out, and that he was a man as could give a pretty taut opinion too.

"If my uncle had been a heedless young man, likely to be entrapped by jovial company to some drinking-place, where he was to be got rid of for the sake of what money he might have about him," said Walter; "or if he had been a reckless sailor, going ashore with two or three months' pay in his pocket, I could understand his disappearing, and leaving no trace behind. But, being what he was—and is, I hope I can't believe it."

"Wal'r, my lad," inquired the Captain, wistfully eying him as he pondered and pondered, "what do you make of it, then ?"

"Captain Cuttle," returned Walter, "I don't know what to make of it. I suppose he never has written! There is no doubt about that?"

"If so be as Sol Gills wrote, my lad," replied the Captain, argumentatively," where's his dispatch ?" "Say that he intrusted it to some private hand," suggested Walter, "and that it has been forgotten, or carelessly thrown aside, or lost. Even that is more probable to me than the other event. In short, I not only can not bear to contemplate that other event, Captain Cuttle, but I can't, and won't."

"Hope, you see, Wal'r," said the Captain, sagely, "Hope. It's that as animates you. Hope is a buoy, for which you overhaul your Little Warbler, sentimental diwision, but Lord, my lad, like any other buoy, it only floats; it can't be steered nowhere. Along with the figure-head of Hope," said the Captain, "there's a anchor; but what's the good of my having a anchor, if I can't find no bottom to let it go in."

Captain Cuttle said this rather in his character of a sagacious citizen and householder, bound to impart a morsel from his stores of wisdom to an inexperienced youth, than in his own proper person. Indeed, his face was quite luminous as he spoke, with new hope, caught from Walter; and he appropriately concluded by slapping him on the back; and say

“Ay, ay, my lad," said the Captain, approvingly. "And that you have missed the letter anyhow?" "Why, Wal'r," said the Captain, turning his eyes upon him with a faint approach to a severe expression, "ain't I been on the look-out for any tidings of that man o' science, old Sol Gills, your uncle, day and night, ever since I lost him? Ain't my heart been heavy and watchful always, along of him and you? Sleeping and waking, ain't I been upon my post, and wouldn't I scorn to quit it while this here Midshipman held together!"

"Yes, Captain Cuttle," replied Walter, grasping his hand, "I know you would, and I know how faithful and earnest all you say and feel is. I am sure of it. You don't doubt that I am as sure of it as I am that my foot is again upon this door-step, or that I again have hold of this true hand. Do you?"

"No, no, Wal'r," returned the Captain, with his beaming face.

"I'll hazard no more conjectures," said Walter, fervently shaking the hard hand of the Captain, who shook his with no less good-will. "All I will add is, Heaven forbid that I should touch my uncle's possessions, Captain Cuttle! Every thing that he left here shall remain in the care of the truest of stewards and kindest of men-and if his name is not Cuttle, he has no name! Now, best of friends, about— Miss Dombey."

There was a change in Walter's manner, as he came to these two words; and when he uttered them, all his confidence and cheerfulness appeared to have deserted him.

"I thought, before Miss Dombey stopped me when I spoke of her father last night," said Walter, "-you remember how?"

The Captain well remembered, and shook his head. "I thought," said Walter, "before that, that we had but one hard duty to perform, and that it was, to prevail upon her to communicate with her friends, and to return home."

The Captain muttered a feeble "Awast!" or a "Stand by!" or something or other equally pertinent to the occasion; but it was rendered so extremely feeble by the total discomfiture with which he received this announcement, that what it was is mere matter of conjecture.

"But," said Walter, "that is over. I think so no longer. I would sooner be put back again upon that piece of wreck, on which I have so often floated, since my preservation, in my dreams, and there left to drift, and drive, and die!"

"Hooroar, my lad!" exclaimed the Captain, in a burst of uncontrollable satisfaction. "Hooroar! hooroar! hooroar!"

"To think that she, so young, so good, and beautiful," said Walter, "so delicately brought up, and born to such a different fortune, should strive with the rough world! But we have seen the gulf that