The Wooden Midshipman goes to Pieces
HONEST Captain Cuttle, as the weeks flew over him in his fortified retreat,
by no means abated any of his prudent provisions against surprise, because of
the non-appearance of the enemy. The Captain argued that his present security
was too profound and wonderful to endure much longer; he knew that when the wind
stood in a fair quarter, the weathercock was seldom nailed there; and he was too
well acquainted with the determined and dauntless character of Mrs. MacStinger,
to doubt that that heroic woman had devoted herself to the task of his discovery
and capture. Trembling beneath the weight of these reasons, Captain Cuttle lived
a very close and retired life; seldom stirring abroad until after dark;
venturing even then only into the obscurest streets; never going forth at all on
Sundays; and both within and without the walls of his retreat, avoiding bonnets,
as if they were worn by raging lions.
The Captain never dreamed that in the event of his being pounced upon by Mrs.
MacStinger, in his walks, it would be possible to offer resistance. He felt that
it could not be done. He saw himself, in his mind's eye, put meekly in a
hackney-coach, and carried off to his old lodgings. He foresaw that, once
immured there, he was a lost man: his hat gone; Mrs. MacStinger watchful of him
day and night; reproaches heaped upon his head, before the infant family;
himself the guilty object of suspicion and distrust; an ogre in the children's
eyes, and in their mother's a detected traitor.
A violent perspiration, and a lowness of spirits always came over the Captain
as this gloomy picture presented itself to his imagination. It generally did so
previous to his stealing out of doors at night for air and exercise. Sensible of
the risk he ran, the Captain took leave of Rob, at those times, with the
solemnity which became a man who might never return: exhorting him, in the event
of his (the Captain's) being lost sight of, for a time, to tread in the paths of
virtue, and keep the brazen instruments well polished.
But not to throw away a chance; and to secure to himself a means, in case of
the worst, of holding communication with the external world; Captain Cuttle soon
conceived the happy idea of teaching Rob the Grinder some secret signal, by
which that adherent might make his presence and fidelity known to his commander,
in the hour of adversity. After much cogitation, the Captain decided in favour
of instructing him to whistle the marine melody, `Oh cheerily, cheerily!' and
Rob the Grinder attaining a point as near perfection in that accomplishment as a
landsman could hope to reach, the Captain impressed these mysterious
instructions on his mind:
`Now, my lad, stand by! If ever I'm took--'
`Took, Captain!' interposed Rob, with his round eyes wide open.
`Ah!' said Captain Cuttle darkly, `if ever I goes away, meaning to come back
to supper, and don't come within hail again twenty-four hours arter my loss, go
you to Brig Place and whistle that 'ere tune near my old moorings--not as if you
was a meaning of it, you understand, but as if you'd drifted there, promiscuous.
If I answer in that tune, you sheer off, my lad, and come back four-and-twenty
hours arterwards; if I answer in another tune, do you stand off and on, and wait
till I throw out further signals. Do you understand them orders, now?'
`What am I to stand off and on of, Captain?' inquired Rob. `The horse-road?'
`Here's a smart lad for you!' cried the Captain, eyeing him sternly, `as
don't know his own native alphabet! Go away a bit and come back again
alternate--d'ye understand that?'
`Yes, Captain,' said Rob.
`Very good my lad, then,' said the Captain, relenting. `Do it!'
That he might do it the better, Captain Cuttle sometimes condescended, of an
evening after the shop was shut, to rehearse this scene: retiring into the
parlour for the purpose, as into the lodgings of a supposititious MacStinger,
and carefully observing the behaviour of his ally, from the hole of espial he
had cut in the wall. Rob the Grinder discharged himself of his duty with so much
exactness and judgment, when thus put to the proof, that the Captain presented
him, at divers times, with seven sixpences, in token of satisfaction; and
gradually felt stealing over his spirit the resignation of a man who had made
provision for the worst, and taken every reasonable precaution against an
unrelenting fate.
Nevertheless, the Captain did not tempt ill-fortune, by being a whit more
venturesome than before. Though he considered it a point of good breeding in
himself, as a general friend of the family, to attend Mr. Dombey's wedding (of
which he had heard from Mr. Perch), and to show that gentleman a pleasant and
approving countenance from the gallery, he had repaired to the church in a
hackney cabriolet with both windows up; and might have scrupled even to make
that venture, in his dread of Mrs. MacStinger, but that the lady's attendance on
the ministry of the Reverend Melchisedech rendered it peculiarly unlikely that
she would be found in communion with the Establishment.
The Captain got safe home again, and fell into the ordinary routine of his
new life, without encountering any more direct alarm from the enemy, than was
suggested to him by the daily bonnets in the street. But other subjects began to
lay heavy on the Captain's mind. Walter's ship was still unheard of. No news
came of old Sol Gills. Florence did not even know of the old man's
disappearance, and Captain Cuttle had not the heart to tell her. Indeed the
Captain, as his own hopes of the generous, handsome, gallant-hearted youth, whom
he had loved, according to his rough manner, from a child, began to fade, and
faded more and more from day to day, shrink with instinctive pain from the
thought of exchanging a word with Florence. If he had had good news to carry to
her, the honest Captain would have braved the newly decorated house and splendid
furniture--though these, connected with the lady he had seen at church, were
awful to him--and made his away into her presence. With a dark horizon gathering
around their common hopes, however, that darkened every hour, the Captain almost
felt as if he were a new misfortune and affliction to her; and was scarcely less
afraid of a visit from Florence, than from Mrs. MacStinger herself.
It was a chill dark autumn evening, and Captain Cuttle had ordered a fire to
be kindled in the little back parlour, now more than ever like the cabin of a
ship. The rain fell fast, and the wind blew hard; and straying out on the
house-top by that stormy bedroom of his old friend, to take an observation of
the weather, the Captain's heart died within him, when he saw how wild and
desolate it was. Not that he associated the weather of that time with poor
Walter's destiny, or doubted that if Providence had doomed him to be lost and
shipwrecked, it was over, long ago; but that beneath an outward influence, quite
distinct from the subject-matter of his thoughts, the Captain's spirits sank,
and his hopes turned pale, as those of wiser men had often done before him, and
will often do again.
Captain Cuttle, addressing his face to the sharp wind and slanting rain,
looked up at the heavy scud that was flying fast over the wilderness of
house-tops, and looked for something cheery there in vain. The prospect near at
hand was no better. In sundry tea-chests and other rough boxes at his feet, the
pigeons of Rob the Grinder were cooing like so many dismal breezes getting up. A
crazy weathercock of a midshipman, with a telescope at his eye, once visible
from the street, but long bricked out, creaked and complained upon his rusty
pivot as the shrill blast spun him round and round, and sported with him
cruelly. Upon the Captain's coarse blue vest the cold raindrops started like
steel beads; and he could hardly maintain himself aslant against the stiff
Nor'-Wester that came pressing against him, importunate to topple him over the
parapet, and throw him on the pavement below. If there were any Hope alive that
evening, the Captain thought, as he held his hat on, it certainly kept house,
and wasn't out of doors; so the Captain, shaking his head in a despondent
manner, went in to look for it.
Captain Cuttle descended slowly to the little back parlour, and, seated in
his accustomed chair, looked for it in the fire; but it was not there, though
the fire was bright. He took out his tobacco-box and pipe, and composing himself
to smoke, looked for it in the red glow from the bowl, and in the wreaths of
vapour that curled upward from his lips; but there was not so much as an atom of
the rust of Hope's anchor in either. He tried a glass of grog; but melancholy
truth was at the bottom of that well, and he couldn't finish it. He made a turn
or two in the shop, and looked for Hope among the instruments; but they
obstinately worked out reckonings for the missing ship, in spite of any
opposition he could offer, that ended at the bottom of the lone sea.
The wind still rushing, and the rain still pattering, against the closed
shutters, the Captain brought to before the Wooden Midshipman upon the counter,
and thought, as he dried the little officer's uniform with his sleeve, how many
years the Midshipman had seen, during which few changes--hardly any--had
transpired among his ship's company; how the changes had come all together, one
day, as it might be; and of what a sweeping kind they were. Here was the little
society of the back parlour broken up, and scattered far and wide. Here was no
audience for Lovely Peg, even if there had been anybody to sing it, which there
was not, for the Captain was as morally certain that nobody but he could execute
that ballad, as he was that he had not the spirit, under existing circumstances,
to attempt it. There was no bright face of `Wal'r' in the house;--here the
Captain transferred his sleeve for a moment from the Midshipman's uniform to his
own cheek;--the familiar wig and buttons of Sol Gills were a vision of the past;
Richard Whittington was knocked on the head; and every plan and project, in
connexion with the Midshipman, lay drifting, without mast or rudder, on the
waste of waters.
As the Captain, with a dejected face, stood revolving these thoughts, and
polishing the Midshipman, partly in the tenderness of old acquaintance, and
partly in the absence of his mind, a knocking at the shop-door communicated a
frightful start to the frame of Rob the Grinder, seated on the counter, whose
large eyes had been intently fixed on the Captain's face, and who had been
debating within himself, for the five hundredth time, whether the Captain could
have done a murder, that he had such an evil conscience, and was always running
away.
`What's that?' said Captain Cuttle, softly.
`Somebody's knuckles, Captain,' answered Rob the Grinder.
The Captain, with an abashed and guilty air, immediately sneaked on tiptoe to
the little parlour and locked himself in. Rob, opening the door, would have
parleyed with the visitor on the threshold if the visitor had come in female
guise; but the figure being of the male sex, and Rob's orders only applying to
women, Rob held the door open and allowed it to enter: which it did very
quickly, glad to get out of the driving rain.
`A job for Burgess and Co. at any rate,' said the visitor, looking over his
shoulder compassionately at his own legs, which were very wet and covered with
splashes. `Oh, how-de-do, Mr. Gills?'
The salutation was addressed to the Captain, now emerging from the back
parlour with a most transparent and utterly futile affectation of coming out by
accident.
`Thankee,' the gentleman went on to say in the same breath; `I'm very well
indeed, myself, I'm much obliged to you. My name is Toots,--Mister Toots.'
The Captain remembered to have seen this young gentleman at the wedding, and
made him a bow. Mr. Toots replied with a chuckle; and being embarrassed, as he
generally was, breathed hard, shook hands with the Captain for a long time, and
then falling on Rob the Grinder, in the absence of any other resource, shook
hands with him in a most affectionate and cordial manner.
`I say; I should like to speak a word to you, Mr. Gills, if you please,' said
Toots at length, with surprising presence of mind. `I say! Miss D. O. M. you
know!'
The Captain, with responsive gravity and mystery, immediately waved his hook
towards the little parlour, whither Mr. Toots followed him.
`Oh! I beg your pardon though,' said Mr. Toots, looking up in the Captain's
face as he sat down in a chair by the fire, which the Captain placed for him;
`you don't happen to know the Chicken at all; do you, Mr. Gills?'
`The Chicken?' said the Captain.
`The Game Chicken,' said Mr. Toots.
The Captain shaking his head, Mr. Toots explained that the man alluded to was
the celebrated public character who had covered himself and his country with
glory in his contest with the Nobby Shropshire One; but this piece of
information did not appear to enlighten the Captain very much.
`Because he's outside: that's all,' said Mr. Toots. `But it's of no
consequence; he won't get very wet, perhaps.'
`I can pass the word for him in a moment,' said the Captain.
`Well, if you would have the goodness to let him sit in the shop with your
young man,' chuckled Mr. Toots, `I should be glad; because, you know, he's
easily offended, and the damp's rather bad for his stamina. I'll call him in,
Mr. Gills.'
With that, Mr. Toots repairing to the shop-door, sent a peculiar whistle into
the night, which produced a stoical gentleman in a shaggy white great-coat and a
flat-brimmed hat, with very short hair, a broken nose, and a considerable tract
of bare and sterile country behind each ear.
`Sit down, Chicken,' said Mr. Toots.
The compliant Chicken spat out some small pieces of straw on which he was
regaling himself, and took in a fresh supply from a reserve he carried in his
hand.
`There an't no drain of nothing short handy, is there?' said the Chicken,
generally. `This here sluicing night is hard lines to a man as lives on his
condition.'
Captain Cuttle proffered a glass of rum, which the Chicken, throwing back his
head, emptied into himself, as into a cask, after proposing the brief sentiment,
`Towards us!' Mr. Toots and the Captain returning then to the parlour, and
taking their seats before the fire, Mr. Toots began:
`Mr. Gills--'
`Awast!' said the Captain. `My name's Cuttle.'
Mr. Toots looked greatly disconcerted, while the Captain proceeded gravely.
`Cap'en Cuttle is my name, and England is my nation, this here is my
dwelling-place, and blessed be creation--Job,' said the Captain, as an index to
his authority.
`Oh! I couldn't see Mr. Gills, could I?' said Mr. Toots; `because--'
`If you could see Sol Gills, young gen'l'm'n,' said the Captain,
impressively, and laying his heavy hand on Mr. Toots's knee, `old Sol, mind
you--with your own eyes--as you sit there---you'd be welcome to me, than a wind
astarn, to a ship becalmed. But you can't see Sol Gills. And why can't you see
Sol Gills?' said the Captain, apprised by the face of Mr. Toots that he was
making a profound impression on that gentleman's mind. `Because he's inwisible.'
Mr. Toots in his agitation was going to reply that it was of no consequence
at all. But he corrected himself, and said, `Lor bless me!'
`That there man,' said the Captain, `has left me in charge here by a piece of
writing, but though he was a'most as good as my sworn brother, I know no more
where he's gone, or why he's gone; if so be to seek his nevy, or if so be along
of being not quite settled in his mind; than you do. One morning at daybreak, he
went over the side,' said the Captain, `without a splash, without a ripple. I
have looked for that man high and low, and never set eyes, nor ears, nor nothing
else, upon him, from that hour.'
`But, good Gracious, Miss Dombey don't know--' Mr. Toots began.
`Why, I ask you, as a feeling heart,' said the Captain, dropping his voice,
`why should she know? why should she be made to know, until such time as there
warn't any help for it? She took to old Sol Gills, did that sweet creetur, with
a kindness, with a affability, with a--what's the good of saying so? you know
her.'
`I should hope so,' chuckled Mr. Toots, with a conscious blush that suffused
his whole countenance.
`And you come here from her?' said the Captain.
`I should think so,' chuckled Mr. Toots.
`Then all I need observe, is,' said the Captain, `that you know a angel, and
are chartered bya angel.'
Mr. Toots instantly seized the Captain's hand, and requested the favour of
his friendship.
`Upon my word and honour,' said Mr. Toots, earnestly, `I should be very much
obliged to you if you'd improve my acquaintance. I should like to know you,
Captain, very much. I really am in want of a friend, I am. Little Dombey was my
friend at old Blimber's, and would have been now, if he'd have lived. The
Chicken,' said Mr. Toots, in a forlorn whisper, `is very well--admirable in his
way--the sharpest man perhaps in the world; there's not a move he isn't up to,
everybody says so--but I don't know--he's not everything. So she isan angel,
Captain. If there is an angel anywhere, it's Miss Dombey. That's what I've
always said. Really though, you know,' said Mr. Toots, `I should be very much
obliged to you if you'd cultivate my acquaintance.'
Captain Cuttle received this proposal in a polite manner, but still without
committing himself to its acceptance; merely observing, `Aye, aye, my lad. We
shall see, we shall see;' and reminding Mr. Toots of his immediate mission, by
inquiring to what he was indebted for the honour of that visit.
`Why the fact is,' replied Mr. Toots, `that it's the young woman I come from.
Not Miss Dombey--Susan, you know.'
The Captain nodded his head once, with a grave expression of face, indicative
of his regarding that young woman with serious respect.
`And I'll tell you how it happens,' said Mr. Toots. `You know, I go and call
sometimes, on Miss Dombey. I don't go there on purpose, you know, but I happen
to be in the neighbourhood very often; and when I find myself there, why--why I
call.'
`Nat'rally,' observed the Captain.
`Yes,' said Mr. Toots. `I called this afternoon. Upon my word and honour, I
don't think it's possible to form an idea of the angel Miss Dombey was this
afternoon.'
The Captain answered with a jerk of his head, implying that it might not be
easy to some people, but was quite so to him.
As I was coming out,' said Mr. Toots, `the young woman, in the most
unexpected manner, took me into the pantry.'
The Captain seemed, for the moment, to object to this proceeding: and leaning
back in his chair, looked at Mr. Toots with a distrustful, if not threatening
visage.
`Where she brought out,' said Mr. Toots, `this newspaper. She told me that
she had kept it from Miss Dombey all day, on account of something that was in
it, about somebody that she and Dombey used to know; and then she read the
passage to me. Very well. Then she said--wait a minute; what was it she said,
though!'
Mr. Toots, endeavouring to concentrate his mental powers on this question,
unintentionally fixed the Captain's eye, and was so much discomposed by its
stern expression, that his difficulty in resuming the thread of his subject was
enhanced to a painful extent.
`Oh!' said Mr. Toots after long consideration. `Oh, ah!Yes! She said that she
hoped there was a bare possibility that it mightn't be true; and that as she
couldn't very well come out herself, without surprising Miss Dombey, would I go
down to Mr. Solomon Gills the Instrument-maker's in this street, who was the
party's uncle, and ask whether he believed it was true, or had heard anything
else in the City. She said, if he couldn't speak to me, no doubt Captain Cuttle
could. By the bye!' said Mr. Toots, as the discovery flashed upon him, `you, you
know!'
The Captain glanced at the newspaper in Mr. Toots's hand, and breathed short
and hurriedly.
`Well,' pursued Mr. Toots, `the reason why I'm rather late is, because I went
up as far as Finchley first, to get some uncommonly fine chickweed that grows
there, for Miss Dombey's bird. But I came on here, directly afterwards. You've
seen the paper, I suppose?'
The Captain, who had become cautious of reading the news, lest he should find
himself advertised at full length by Mrs. MacStinger, shook his head.
`Shall I read the passage to you?' inquired Mr. Toots.
The Captain making a sign in the affirmative, Mr. Toots read as follows, from
the Shipping Intelligence:
`"Southampton. The barque Defiance, Henry James, Commander, arrived in this
port to-day, with a cargo of sugar, coffee, and rum, reports that being becalmed
on the sixth day of her passage home from Jamaica, in"--in such and such a
latitude, you know,' said Mr. Toots, after making a feeble dash at the figures,
and tumbling over them.
`Aye!' cried the Captain, striking his clenched hand on the table. `Heave
ahead, my lad!'
`--latitude,' repeated Mr. Toots, with a startled glance at the Captain, `and
longitude so-and-so,--"the look-out observed, half an hour before sunset, some
fragments of a wreck, drifting at about the distance of a mile. The weather
being clear, and the barque making no way, a boat was hoisted out, with orders
to inspect the same, when they were found to consist of sundry large spars, and
a part of the main rigging of an English brig, of about five hundred tons
burden, together with a portion of the stern on which the words and letters `Son
and H--' were yet plainly legible. No vestige of any dead body was to be seen
upon the floating fragments. Log of the Defiance states, that a breeze springing
up in the night, the wreck was seen no more. There can be no doubt that all
surmises as to the fate of the missing vessel, the Son and Heir, port of London,
bound for Barbadoes, are now set at rest for ever; that she broke up in the last
hurricane; and that every soul on board perished."'
Captain Cuttle, like all mankind, little knew how much hope had survived
within him under discouragement, until he felt its death-shock. During the
reading of the paragraph, and for a minute or two afterwards, he sat with his
gaze fixed on the modest Mr. Toots, like a man entranced; then, suddenly rising,
and putting on his glazed hat, which, in his visitor's honour, he had laid upon
the table, the Captain turned his back, and bent his head down on the little
chimneypiece.
`Oh, upon my word and honour,' cried Mr. Toots, whose tender heart was moved
by the Captain's unexpected distress, `this is a most wretched sort of affair
this world is! Somebody's always dying, or going and doing something
uncomfortable in it. I'm sure I never should have looked forward so much, to
coming into my property, if I had known this. I never saw such a world. It's a
great deal worse than Blimber's.'
Captain Cuttle, without altering his position, signed to Mr. Toots not to
mind him; and presently turned round, with his glazed hat thrust back upon his
ears, and his hand composing and smoothing his brown face.
`Wal'r, my dear lad,' said the Captain, `farewell! Wal'r my child, my boy,
and man, I loved you! He warn't my flesh and blood,' said the Captain, looking
at the fire--`I an't got none--but something of what a father feels when he
loses a son, I feel in losing Wal'r. For why?' said the Captain. `Because it
an't one loss, but a round dozen. Where's that there young school-boy with the
rosy face and curly hair, that used to be as merry in this here parlour, come
round every week, as a piece of music? Gone down with Wal'r. Where's that there
fresh lad, that nothing couldn't tire nor put out, and that sparkled up and
blushed so, when we joked him about Heart's Delight, that he was beautiful to
look at? Gone down with Wal'r. Where's that there man's spirit, all afire, that
wouldn't see the old man hove down for a minute, and cared nothing for itself?
Gone down with Wal'r. It an't one Wal'r. There was a dozen Wal'rs that I know'd
and loved, all holding round his neck when he went down, and they're a-holding
round mine now!'
Mr. Toots sat silent: folding and refolding the newspaper as small as
possible upon his knee.
`And Sol Gills,' said the Captain, gazing at the fire, `poor nevyless old
Sol, where are you got to! you was left in charge of me; his last words was,
"Take care of my uncle!" What came over you,Sol, when you went and gave the
go-bye to Ned Cuttle; and what am I to put in my accounts that he's a looking
down upon, respecting you! Sol Gills, Sol Gills!' said the Captain, shaking his
head slowly, `catch sight of that there newspaper, away from home, with no one
as know'd Wal'r by, to say a word; and broadside to you broach, and down you
pitch, head foremost!'
Drawing a heavy sigh, the Captain turned to Mr. Toots, and roused himself to
a sustained consciousness of that gentleman's presence.
`My lad,' said the Captain, `you must tell the young woman honestly that this
here fatal news is too correct. They don't romance, you see, on such pints. It's
entered on the ship's log, and that's the truest book as a man can write.
To-morrow morning,' said the Captain, `I'll step out and make inquiries; but
they'll lead to no good. They can't do it. If you'll give me a look-in in the
forenoon, you shall know what I have heerd; but tell the young woman from Cap'en
Cuttle, that it's over. Over!' And the Captain, hooking off his glazed hat,
pulled his handkerchief out of the crown, wiped his grizzled head despairingly,
and tossed the handkerchief in again, with the indifference of deep dejection.
`Oh! I assure you,' said Mr. Toots, `really I am dreadfully sorry. Upon my
word I am, though I wasn't acquainted with the party. Do you think Miss Dombey
will be very much affected, Captain Gills--I mean Mr. Cuttle?'
`Why, Lord love you,' returned the Captain, with something of compassion for
Mr. Toots's innocence. `When she warn't no higher than that, they were as fond
of one another as two young doves.'
`Were they though!' said Mr. Toots, with a considerably lengthened face.
`They were made for one another,' said the Captain, mournfully; `but what
signifies that now!'
`Upon my word and honour,' cried Mr. Toots, blurting out his words through a
singular combination of awkward chuckles and emotion, `I'm even more sorry than
I was before. You know, Captain Gills, I--I positively adore Miss Dombey;--I--I
am perfectly sore with loving her;' the burst with which this confession forced
itself out of the unhappy Mr. Toots, bespoke the vehemence of his feelings; `but
what would be the good of my regarding her in this manner, if I wasn't truly
sorry for her feeling pain, whatever was the cause of it. Mine an't a selfish
affection, you know,' said Mr. Toots, in the confidence engendered by his having
been a witness of the Captain's tenderness. `It's the sort of thing with me,
Captain Gills, that if I could be run over--or--or trampled upon--or--or thrown
off a very high place--or anything of that sort--for Miss Dombey's sake, it
would be the most delightful thing that could happen to me.'
All this, Mr. Toots said in a suppressed voice, to prevent its reaching the
jealous ears of the Chicken, who objected to the softer emotions; which effort
of restraint, coupled with the intensity of his feelings, made him red to the
tips of his ears, and caused him to present such an affecting spectacle of
disinterested love to the eyes of Captain Cuttle, that the good Captain patted
him consolingly on the back, and bade him cheer up.
`Thankee, Captain Gills,' said Mr. Toots, `it's kind of you, in the midst of
your own troubles, to say so. I'm very much obliged to you. As I said before, I
really want a friend, and should be glad to have your acquaintance. Although I
am very well off,' said Mr. Toots, with energy, `you can't think what a
miserable Beast I am. The hollow crowd, you know, when they see me with the
Chicken, and characters of distinction like that, suppose me to be happy; but
I'm wretched. I suffer for Miss Dombey, Captain Gills. I can't get through my
meals; I have no pleasure in my tailor; I often cry when I'm alone. I assure you
it'll be a satisfaction to me to come back to-morrow, or to come back fifty
times.'
Mr. Toots, with these words, shook the Captain's hand; and disguising such
traces of his agitation as could be disguised on so short a notice, before the
Chicken's penetrating glance, rejoined that eminent gentleman in the shop. The
Chicken, who was apt to be jealous of his ascendancy, eyed Captain Cuttle with
anything but favour as he took leave of Mr. Toots; but followed his patron
without being otherwise demonstrative of his ill-will: leaving the Captain
oppressed with sorrow; and Rob the Grinder elevated with joy, on account of
having had the honour of staring for nearly half an hour at the conqueror of the
Nobby Shropshire One.
Long after Rob was fast asleep in his bed under the counter, the Captain sat
looking at the fire; and long after there was no fire to look at the Captain sat
gazing on the rusty bars, with unavailing thoughts of Walter and old Sol
crowding through his mind. Retirement to the stormy chamber at the top of the
house brought no rest with it; and the Captain rose up in the morning, sorrowful
and unrefreshed.
As soon as the City offices were open, the Captain issued forth to the
counting-house of Dombey and Son. But there was no opening of the Midshipman's
windows that morning. Rob the Grinder, by the Captain's orders, left the
shutters closed, and the house was as a house of death.
It chanced that Mr. Carker was entering the office, as Captain Cuttle arrived
at the door. Receiving the Manager's benison gravely and silently, Captain
Cuttle made bold to accompany him into his own room.
`Well, Captain Cuttle,' said Mr. Carker, taking up his usual position before
the fireplace, and keeping on his sat, `this is a bad business.'
`You have received the news as was in print yesterday, Sir?' said the
Captain.
`Yes,' said Mr. Carker, `we have received it! It was accurately stated. The
underwriters suffer a considerable loss. We are very sorry. No help! Such is
life!'
Mr. Carker pared his nails delicately with a penknife, and smiled at the
Captain, who was standing by the door looking at him.
`I excessively regret poor Gay,' said Carker, `and the crew. I understand
there were some of our very best men among 'em. It always happens so. Many men
with families too. A comfort to reflect that poor Gay had no family, Captain
Cuttle!'
The Captain stood rubbing his chin, and looking at the Manager. The Manager
glanced at the unopened letters lying on his desk, and took up the newspaper.
`Is there anything I can do for you, Captain Cuttle?' he asked, looking off
it, with a smiling and expressive glance at the door.
`I wish you could set my mind at rest, Sir, on something it's uneasy about,'
returned the Captain.
`Aye!' exclaimed the Manager, `what's that? Come, Captain Cuttle, I must
trouble you to be quick, if you please. I am much engaged.'
`Lookee here, Sir' said the Captain, advancing a step. `Afore my friend Wal'r
went on this here disastrous voyage'
`Come, come, Captain Cuttle,' interposed the smiling Manager, `don't talk
about disastrous voyages in that way. We have nothing to do with disastrous
voyages here, my good fellow. You must have begun very early on your day's
allowance, Captain, if you don't remember that there are hazards in all voyages
whether by sea or land. You are not made uneasy by the supposition that young
what's-his-name was lost in bad weather that was got up against him in these
offices--are you? Fie, Captain! Sleep, and soda-water, are the best cures for
such uneasiness as that.'
`My lad,' returned the Captain, slowly--`you are a'most a lad to me, and so I
don't ask your pardon for that slip of a word,--if you find any pleasure in this
here sport, you an't the gentleman I took you for, and if you an't the gentleman
I took you for, may be my mind has call to be uneasy. Now this is what it is,
Mr. Carker.--Afore that poor lad went away, according to orders, he told me that
he warn't a going away for his own good, or for promotion, he know'd. It was my
belief that he was wrong, and I told him so, and I come here, your head governor
being absent, to ask a question or two of you in a civil way, for my own
satisfaction. Them questions you answered--free. Now it'll ease my mind to know,
when all is over, as it is, and when what can't be cured must be endoored--for
which, as a scholar, you'll overhaul the book it's in, and thereof make a
note--to know once more, in a word, that I warn't mistaken; that I warn't
back'ard in my duty when I didn't tell the old man what Wal'r told me; and that
the wind was truly in his sail, when he highsted of it for Barbadoes Harbour.
Mr. Carker,' said the Captain, in the goodness of his nature, `when I was here
last, we was very pleasant together. If I ain't been altogether so pleasant
myself this morning, on account of this poor lad, and if I have chafed again any
observation of yours that I might have fended off, my name is Ed'ard Cuttle, and
I ask your pardon.'
`Captain Cuttle,' returned the Manager, with all possible politeness, `I must
ask you to do me a favour.'
`And what is it, Sir?' inquired the Captain.
`To have the goodness to walk off, if you please,' rejoined the Manager,
stretching forth his arm, `and to carry your jargon somewhere else.'
Every knob in the Captain's face turned white with astonishment and
indignation; even the red rim on his forehead faded, like a rainbow among the
gathering clouds.
`I tell you what, Captain Cuttle,' said the Manager, shaking his forefinger
at him, and showing him all his teeth, but still amiably smiling, `I was much
too lenient with you when you came here before. You belong to an artful and
audacious set of people. In my desire to save young what's-his-name from being
kicked out this place, neck and crop, my good Captain, I tolerated you; but for
once, and only once. Now, go, my friend!'
The Captain was absolutely rooted to the ground, and speechless.
`Go,' said the good-humoured Manager, gathering up his skirts, and standing
astride upon the hearth-rug, `like a sensible fellow, and let us have no turning
out, or any such violent measures. If Mr. Dombey were here, Captain, you might
be obliged to leave in a more ignominious manner, possibly. I merely say, Go!'
The Captain, laying his ponderous hand upon his chest, to assist himself in
fetching a deep breath, looked at Mr. Carker from head to foot, and looked round
the little room, as if he did not clearly understand where he was, or in what
company.
`You are deep, Captain Cuttle,' pursued Carker, with the easy and vivacious
frankness of a man of the world who knew the world too well to be ruffled by any
discovery of misdoing, when it did not immediately concern himself; `but you are
not quite out of soundings, either--neither you nor your absent friend, Captain.
What have you done with your absent friend, hey?'
Again the Captain laid his hand upon his chest. After drawing another deep
breath, he conjured himself to `stand by!' But in a whisper.
`You hatch nice little plots, and hold nice little councils, and make nice
little appointments, and receive nice little visitors, too, Captain, hey?' said
Carker, bending his brows upon him, without showing his teeth any the less: `but
it's a bold measure to come here afterwards. Not like your discretion! You
conspirators, and hiders, and runners-away, should know better than that. Will
you oblige me by going?'
`My lad,' gasped the Captain, in a choked and trembling voice, and with a
curious action going on in the ponderous fist; `there's a many words I could
wish to say to you, but I don't rightly know where they're stowed just at
present. My young friend, Wal'r, was drownded only last night, according to my
reckoning, and it puts me out, you see. But you and me will come alongside o'
one another again, my lad,' said the Captain, holding up his hook, `if we live.'
`It will be anything but shrewd in you, my good fellow, if we do,' returned
the Manager, with the same frankness; `for you may rely, I give you fair
warning, upon my detecting and exposing you. I don't pretend to be a more moral
man than my neighbours, my good Captain; but the confidence of this house, or of
any member of this house, is not to be abused and undermined while I have eyes
and ears. Good day!' said Mr. Carker, nodding his head.
Captain Cuttle, looking at him steadily (Mr. Carker looked full as steadily
at the Captain), went out of the office and left him standing astride before the
fire, as calm and pleasant as if there were no more spots upon his soul than on
his pure white linen, and his smooth sleek skin.
The Captain glanced, in passing through the outer counting-house, at the desk
where he knew poor Walter had been used to sit, now occupied by another young
boy, with a face almost as fresh and hopeful as his on the day when they tapped
the famous last bottle but one of the old Madeira, in the little back parlour.
The association of ideas, thus awakened, did the Captain a great deal of good;
it softened him in the very height of his anger, and brought the tears into his
eyes.
Arrived at the Wooden Midshipman's again, and sitting down in a corner of the
dark shop, the Captain's indignation, strong as it was, could make no head
against his grief. Passion seemed not only to do wrong and violence to the
memory of the dead, but to be infected by death, and to droop and decline beside
it. All the living knaves and liars in the world, were nothing to the honesty
and truth of one dead friend.
The only thing the honest Captain made out clearly, in this state of mind,
besides the loss of Walter was, that with him almost the whole world of Captain
Cuttle had been drowned. If he reproached himself sometimes, and keenly too, for
having ever connived at Walter's innocent deceit, he thought at least as often
of the Mr. Carker whom no sea could ever render up; and the Mr. Dombey, whom he
now began to perceive was as far beyond human recall; and the `Heart's Delight,'
with whom he must never forgather again; and the Lovely Peg, that teak-built and
trim ballad, that had gone ashore upon a rock, and split into mere planks and
beams of rhyme. The Captain sat in the dark shop, thinking of these things, to
the entire exclusion of his own injury; and looking with as sad an eye upon the
ground, as if in contemplation of their actual fragments as they floated past
him.
But the Captain was not unmindful, for all that, of such decent and
respectful observances in memory of poor Walter, as he felt within his power.
Rousing himself, and rousing Rob the Grinder (who in the unnatural twilight was
fast asleep), the Captain sallied forth with his attendant at his heels, and the
door-key in his pocket, and repairing to one of those convenient slop-selling
establishments of which there is abundant choice at the eastern end of London,
purchased on the spot two suits of mourning--one for Rob the Grinder, which was
immensely too small, and one for himself, which was immensely too large. He also
provided Rob with a species of hat, greatly to be admired for its symmetry and
usefulness, as well as for a happy blending of the mariner with the coal-heaver;
which is usually termed a sou'wester; and which was something of a novelty in
connexion with the instrument business. In their several garments, which the
vendor declared to be such a miracle in point of fit as nothing but a rare
combination of fortuitous circumstances ever brought about, and the fashion of
which was unparalleled within the memory of the oldest inhabitant, the Captain
and Grinder immediately arrayed themselves: presenting a spectacle fraught with
wonder to all who beheld it.
In this altered form, the Captain received Mr. Toots. `I'm took aback, my
lad, at present,' said the Captain, `and will only confirm that there ill news.
Tell the young woman to break it gentle to the young lady, and for neither of
'em never to think of me no more--'special, mind you, that is--though I will
think of them, when night comes on a hurricane and seas is mountains rowling,
for which overhaul your Doctor Watts, brother, and when found make a note on.'
The Captain reserved, until some fitter time, the consideration of Mr.
Toots's offer of friendship, and thus dismissed him. Captain Cuttle's spirits
were so low, in truth, that he half determined, that day, to take no further
precautions against surprise from Mrs. MacStinger, but to abandon himself
recklessly to chance, and be indifferent to what might happen. As evening came
on, he fell into a better frame of mind, however; and spoke much of Walter to
Rob the Grinder, whose attention and fidelity he likewise incidentally
commended. Rob did not blush to hear the Captain earnest in his praises, but sat
staring at him, and affecting to snivel with sympathy, and making a feint of
being virtuous, and treasuring up every word he said (like a young spy as he
was) with very promising deceit.
When Rob had turned in, and was fast asleep, the Captain trimmed the candle,
put on his spectacles--he had felt it appropriate to take to spectacles on
entering into the Instrument Trade, though his eyes were like a hawk's--and
opened the prayer-book at the Burial Service. And reading softly to himself, in
the little back parlour, and stopping now and then to wipe his eyes, the
Captain, in a true and simple spirit, committed Walter's body to the deep.
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