"The devil he is!"
"Yes. I am bewildered, I must confess, by the mass of circumstances that have combined to give the affair a horrible truthfulness. Poor Flora is much injured in health and spirits; and when I came home, she, at once, implored me to give her up, and think of her no more, for she could not think of allowing me to unite my fate with hers, under such circumstances."
"She did?"
"Such were her words, uncle. She implored me--she used that word, 'implore'--to fly from her, to leave her to her fate, to endeavour to find happiness with some one else."
"Well?"
"But I saw her heart was breaking."
"What o' that?"
"Much of that, uncle. I told her that when I deserted her in the hour of misfortune that I hoped Heaven would desert me. I told her that if her happiness was wrecked, to cling yet to me, and that with what power and what strength God had given me, I would stand between her and all ill."
"And what then?"
"She--she fell upon my breast and wept and blessed me. Could I desert her--could I say to her, 'My dear girl, when you were full of health and beauty, I loved you, but now that sadness is at your heart I leave you?' Could I tell her that, uncle, and yet call myself a man?"
"No!" roared the old admiral, in a voice that made the room echo again; "and I tell you what, if you had done so, d--n you, you puppy, I'd have braced you, and--and married the girl myself. I would, d----e, but I would."
"Dear uncle!"
"Don't dear me, sir. Talk of deserting a girl when the signal of distress, in the shape of a tear, is in her eye!"
"But I--"
"You are a wretch--a confounded lubberly boy--a swab--a d----d bad grampus."
"You mistake, uncle."
"No, I don't. God bless you, Charles, you shall have her--if a whole ship's crew of vampyres said no, you shall have her. Let me see her--just let me see her."
The admiral gave his lips a vigorous wipe with his sleeve, and Charles said hastily,--
"My dear uncle, you will recollect that Miss Bannerworth is quite a young lady."
"I suppose she is."
"Well, then, for God's sake, don't attempt to kiss her."
"Not kiss her! d----e, they like it. Not kiss her, because she's a young lady! D----e, do you think I'd kiss a corporal of marines?"
"No, uncle; but you know young ladies are very delicate."
"And ain't I delicate--shiver my timbers, ain't I delicate? Where is she? that's what I want to know."
"Then you approve of what I have done?"
"You are a young scamp, but you have got some of the old admiral's family blood in you, so don't take any credit for acting like an honest man--you couldn't help it."
"But if I had not so acted," said Charles, with a smile, "what would have become of the family blood, then?"
"What's that to you? I would have disowned you, because that very thing would have convinced me you were an impostor, and did not belong to the family at all."
"Well, that would have been one way of getting over the difficulty."
"No difficulty at all. The man who deserts the good ship that carries him through the waves, or the girl that trusts her heart to him, ought to be chopped up into meat for wild monkeys."
"Well, I think so to."
"Of course you do."
"Why, of course?"
"Because it's so d----d reasonable that, being a nephew of mine, you can't possibly help it."
"Bravo, uncle! I had no idea you were so argumentative."
"Hadn't you, spooney; you'd be an ornament to the gun-room, you would; but where's the 'young lady' who is so infernal delicate--where is she, I say?"
"I will fetch her, uncle."
"Ah, do; I'll be bound, now, she's one of the right build--a good figure-head, and don't make too much stern-way."
[Illustration]
"Well, well, whatever you do, now don't pay her any compliments, for your efforts in that line are of such a very doubtful order, that I shall dread to hear you."
"You be off, and mind your own business; I haven't been at sea forty years without picking up some out-and-out delicate compliments to say to a young lady."
"But do you really imagine, now, that the deck of a man-of-war is a nice place to pick up courtly compliments in?"
"Of course I do. There you hear the best of language, d----e! You don't know what you are talking about, you fellows that have stuck on shore all your lives; it's we seamen who learn life."