After A Shadow and Other Stories | Page 8

Wilkie Collins
Better to try and forget it. There is always
to-morrow to look to when to-day is at the worst.
4th.--To-morrow has proved worthy of the faith I put in it. Sunshine
again out-of-doors; and as clear and true a reflection of it in my own
heart as I can hope to have just at this time. Oh! that month, that one
poor month of respite! What are we to do at the end of the month?
5th.--I made my short entry for yesterday in the afternoon just before
tea-time, little thinking of events destined to happen with the evening
that would be really worth chronicling, for the sake of the excellent
results to which they are sure to lead. My tendency is to be too
sanguine about everything, I know; but I am, nevertheless, firmly
persuaded that I can see a new way out of our present difficulties--a
way of getting money enough to keep us all in comfort at the
farmhouse until William's eyes are well again.
The new project which is to relieve us from all uncertainties for the
next six months actually originated with _me!_ It has raised me many
inches higher in my own estimation already. If the doctor only agrees
with my view of the case when he comes to-morrow, William will
allow himself to be persuaded, I know; and then let them say what they
please, I will answer for the rest.
This is how the new idea first found its way into my head:

We had just done tea. William, in much better spirits than usual, was
talking with the young sailor, who is jocosely called here by the very
ugly name of "Foul-weather Dick." The farmer and his two eldest sons
were composing themselves on the oaken settles for their usual nap.
The dame was knitting, the two girls were beginning to clear the
tea-table, and I was darning the children's socks. To all appearance, this
was not a very propitious state of things for the creation of new ideas,
and yet my idea grew out of it, for all that. Talking with my husband on
various subjects connected with life in ships, the young sailor began
giving us a description of his hammock; telling us how it was slung;
how it was impossible to get into it any other way than "stern foremost"
(whatever that may mean); how the rolling of the ship made it rock like
a cradle; and how, on rough nights, it sometimes swayed to and fro at
such a rate as to bump bodily against the ship's side and wake him up
with the sensation of having just received a punch on the head from a
remarkably hard fist. Hearing all this, I ventured to suggest that it must
be an immense relief to him to sleep on shore in a good, motionless,
solid four-post bed. But, to my surprise, he scoffed at the idea; said he
never slept comfortably out of his hammock; declared that he quite
missed his occasional punch on the head from the ship's side; and
ended by giving a most comical account of all the uncomfortable
sensations he felt when he slept in a four-post bed. The odd nature of
one of the young sailor's objections to sleeping on shore reminded my
husband (as indeed it did me too) of the terrible story of a bed in a
French gambling-house, which he once heard from a gentleman whose
likeness he took.
"You're laughing at me," says honest Foul-weather Dick, seeing
William turn toward me and smile.--"No, indeed," says my husband;
"that last objection of yours to the four-post beds on shore seems by no
means ridiculous to _me,_ at any rate. I once knew a gentleman, Dick,
who practically realized your objection."
"Excuse me, sir," says Dick, after a pause, and with an appearance of
great bewilderment and curiosity; "but could you put 'practically
realized' into plain English, so that a poor man like me might have a
chance of understanding you?"--"Certainly!" says my husband,

laughing. "I mean that I once knew a gentleman who actually saw and
felt what you say in jest you are afraid of seeing and feeling whenever
you sleep in a four-post bed. Do you understand that?" Foul-weather
Dick understood it perfectly, and begged with great eagerness to hear
what the gentleman's adventure really was. The dame, who had been
listening to our talk, backed her son's petition; the two girls sat down
expectant at the half-cleared tea-table; even the farmer and his drowsy
sons roused themselves lazily on the settle--my husband saw that he
stood fairly committed to the relation of the story, so he told it without
more ado.
I have often heard him relate that strange adventure (William is the best
teller of a story I
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