Springhaven | Page 5

stretch of

land before them, and among their slowly gliding canvas scattered soft
touches of wandering light. Especially on the spritsail of the Rosalie,
whereunder was sitting, with the tiller in his hand and a very long pipe
in his mouth, Captain Zebedee Tugwell. His mighty legs were spread at
ease, his shoulders solid against a cask, his breast (like an elephant's
back in width, and bearing a bright blue crown tattooed) shone out of
the scarlet woolsey, whose plaits were filled with the golden shower of
a curly beard, untouched with gray. And his face was quite as worthy as
the substance leading up to it, being large and strengthful and slow to
move, though quick to make others do so. The forehead was heavy, and
the nose thickset, the lower jaw backed up the resolution of the other,
and the wide apart eyes, of a bright steel blue, were as steady as a brace
of pole-stars.
"What a wonderful man!" fair Dolly thought, as the great figure,
looking even grander in the glass, came rising upon a long slow
wave--"what a wonderful man that Tugwell is! So firmly resolved to
have his own way, so thoroughly dauntless, and such a grand beard!
Ten times more like an admiral than old Flapfin or my father is, if he
only knew how to hold his pipe. There is something about him so
dignified, so calm, and so majestic; but, for all that, I like the young
man better. I have a great mind to take half a peep at him; somebody
might ask whether he was there or not."
Being a young and bashful maid, as well as by birth a lady, she had felt
that it might be a very nice thing to contemplate sailors in the distance,
abstract sailors, old men who pulled ropes, or lounged on the deck, if
there was one. But to steal an unsuspected view at a young man very
well known to her, and acknowledged (not only by his mother and
himself, but also by every girl in the parish) as the Adonis of
Springhaven--this was a very different thing, and difficult to justify
even to one's self. The proper plan, therefore, was to do it, instead of
waiting to consider it.
"How very hard upon him it does seem," she whispered to herself, after
a good gaze at him, "that he must not even dream of having any hope of
me, because he has not happened to be born a gentleman! But he looks

a thousand times more like one than nine out of ten of the great
gentlemen I know--or at any rate he would if his mother didn't make his
clothes."
For Zebedee Tugwell had a son called "Dan," as like him as a tender
pea can be like a tough one; promising also to be tough, in course of
time, by chafing of the world and weather. But at present Dan Tugwell
was as tender to the core as a marrowfat dallying till its young duck
should be ready; because Dan was podding into his first love. To the
sympathetic telescope his heart was low, and his mind gone beyond
astronomical range, and his hands (instead of briskly pairing soles)
hung asunder, and sprawled like a star-fish.
"Indeed he does look sad," said Miss Dolly, "he is thinking of me, as he
always does; but I don't see how anybody can blame me. But here
comes daddy, with dear old Flapfin! I am not a bit afraid of either of
them; but perhaps I had better run away."

CHAPTER III
AND HER TRUE COMMANDER
The nature of "Flapfin"--as Miss Dolly Darling and other young people
were pleased to call him--was to make his enemies run away, but his
friends keep very near to him. He was one of the simplest- minded men
that ever trod the British oak. Whatever he thought he generally said;
and whatever he said he meant and did. Yet of tricks and frauds he had
quick perception, whenever they were tried against him, as well as a
marvellous power of seeing the shortest way to everything. He enjoyed
a little gentle piece of vanity, not vainglory, and he never could sec any
justice in losing the credit of any of his exploits. Moreover, he was
gifted with the highest faith in the hand of the Almighty over him (to
help him in all his righteous deeds), and over his enemies, to destroy
them. Though he never insisted on any deep piety in his own behavior,
he had a good deal in his heart when time allowed, and the linstocks
were waiting the signal. His trust was supreme in the Lord and himself;

and he loved to be called "My Lord Admiral."
And a man of this noble