Miles Wallingford | Page 3

I now enjoyed of
being near Lucy. As there was no help after seeing all the canvass
spread, I took a seat in one of the chairs 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