Miles Wallingford | Page 3

that stood on the main-deck, and began, for the first time, coolly to ponder on all that had just passed. While thus occupied, Marble drew a chair to my side, gave me a cordial squeeze of the hand, and began to converse. At this moment, neatly tricked out in dry clothes, stood Neb on the forecastle, with his arms folded, sailor-fashion, as calm as if he had never felt the wind blow; occasionally giving in, however, under the influence of Chloe's smiles and unsophisticated admiration. In these moments of weakness the black would bow his head, give vent to a short laugh when, suddenly recovering himself, he would endeavour to appear dignified. While this pantomime was in the course of exhibition forward, the discourse aft did not flag.
"Providence intends you for something remarkable, Miles," my mate continued, after one or two brief expressions of his satisfaction at my safety; "something uncommonly remarkable, depend on it. First, you were spared in the boat off the Isle of Bourbon; then, in another boat off Delaware Bay; next, you got rid of the Frenchman so dexterously in the British Channel; after that, there was the turn-up with the bloody Smudge and his companions; next comes the recapture of the Crisis; sixthly, as one might say, you picked me up at sea, a runaway hermit; and now here, this very day, seventhly and lastly, are you sitting safe and sound, after carrying as regular a lubber as ever fell overboard, on your head and shoulders, down to the bottom of the Hudson, no less than three times! I consider you to be the only man living who ever sank his three times, and came up to tell of it, with his own tongue."
"I am not at all conscious of having said one word about it, Moses," I retorted, a little drily.
"Every motion, every glance of your eye, boy, tells the story. No; Providence intends you for something remarkable, you may rely on that. One of these days you may go to Congress--who knows?"
"By the same rule, you are to be included, then; for in most of my adventures you have been a sharer, besides having quantities that are exclusively your own. Remember, you have even been a hermit."
"Hu-s-h--not a syllable about it, or the children would run after me as a sight. You must have generalized in a remarkable way, Miles, after you sunk the last time, without much hope of coming up again?"
"Indeed, my friend, you are quite right in your conjecture. So near a view of death is apt to make us all take rapid and wide views of the past. I believe it even crossed my mind that you would miss me sadly."
"Ay," returned Marble, with feeling; "them are the moments to bring out the truth! Not a juster idee passed your brain than that, Master Miles, I can assure you. Missed you! I would have bought a boat and started for Marble Land, never again to quit it, the day after the funeral. But there stands your cook, fidgeting and looking this way, as if she had a word to put in on the occasion. This expl'ite of Neb's will set the niggers up in the world; and it wouldn't surprise me if it cost you a suit of finery all round."
"A price I will cheerfully pay for my life. It is as you say--Dido certainly wishes to speak to me, and I must give her an invitation to come nearer."
Dido Clawbonny was the cook of the family, and the mother of Chloe. Whatever hypercriticism might object to her colour, which was a black out of which all the gloss had fairly glistened itself over the fire, no one could deny her being full blown. Her weight was exactly two hundred, and her countenance a strange medley of the light-heartedness of her race, and the habitual and necessary severity of a cook. She often protested that she was weighed down by "responserbility;" the whole of the discredit of overdone beef, or under-done fish, together with those which attach themselves to heavy bread, lead-like buckwheat-cakes, and a hundred other similar cases, belonging exclusively to her office. She had been twice married, the last connection having been formed only a twelvemonth before. In obedience to a sign, this important lady now approached.
"Welcome back, Masser Mile," Dido began with a curtsey, meaning "Welcome back from being half-drowned;" "ebberybody so grad you isn't hurt!"
"Thank you, Dido--thank you with all my heart. If I have gained nothing else by the ducking, I have gained a knowledge of the manner in which my servants love me."
"Lor' bless us all! How we help it, Masser Mile? As if a body can posserbly help how lub come and go! Lub jest like religion, Masser Mile--some get him, and