Willis the Pilot | Page 6

not survive her; all that you can say or
do will not prevent me doing myself justice."
At this moment Jack, who had disappeared during this discussion,
unobserved, came in saturated to the skin with water, and in a state
difficult to describe. Like the boots of Panurge, his feet were floating in
the water that flowed from the rim of his cap.
"What is this?" exclaimed his mother. "You wilful boy, may I ask

where, in all the world, you have been?"
"I have just come from the bay. O father and mother! O Mr. and Mrs.
Wolston! O Master Willis! if you had only seen! The sea is furious;
sometimes the waves rise to the skies and mingle with the clouds, so
that it is impossible to say where the one begins and the other ends. It is
frightful, but it is magnificent!"
"And the sloop?" demanded Willis.
"She is not to be seen; she is no longer at anchor in the bay."
"Gone to the open sea, to avoid being driven ashore," said Wolston.
"Captain Littlestone is not the man to remain in a perilous position
whilst there remained a means of escape; besides, nothing that science,
united with courage and presence of mind, could do, would have been
neglected by him to save his ship."
"In addition to which," observed Becker, "if he had found himself in
positive danger, he would have fired a gun; and in that case, though we
are not pilots, every one of us would have hastened to his assistance."
"You see, Willis," said Mrs. Wolston, "God comes to ease your mind;
were we to allow you to go to the sloop now, the thing is simply
impossible."
"I have my own idea about that," insisted Willis, whilst he kept beating
a tatoo on the isinglass window panes.
Whilst thus chafing like a caged lion, Wolston's youngest daughter
went towards him, and gently putting her hand in his, said,
"Sweetheart" (for so she had been accustomed to address him), "do you
remember when, during the voyage, you used to look at me very
closely, and that one evening I went boldly up to you and asked you
why you did so?"
"Yes, Miss Sophia, I recollect."

"Do you remember the answer you gave me?"
"Yes, I told you that I had left in England, on her mother's bosom, a
little girl who would now be about your own age, and that I could not
observe the wind play amongst the curls of your fair hair without
thinking of her, and that it sometimes made my breast swell like the
mizen-top-sail before the breeze."
"Yes, and when I promised to keep out of your sight, not to reawaken
your grief, you told me it was a kind of grief that did you more good
than harm, and that the more it made you grieve, the happier you would
be."
"All true:" replied the sailor, whose excitement was melting away
before the soft tones of the child like hoar frost in the sunshine.
"Then I promised to come and talk to you about your Susan every day;
and did I not keep my word?"
"Certainly, Miss Sophia; and it is only bare justice to say that you
gracefully yielded to all my fatherly whims, and even went so far as to
wear a brown dress oftener than another, because I said that my little
Susan wore that color the last time I kissed her."
"Oh, but that is a secret, Willis."
"Yes, but I am going to tell all our secrets--that is an idea of mine. You
then went and learned Susan's mother's favorite song, with which you
would sometimes sing me to sleep, like a great baby that I am, and
make me fancy that I was surrounded by my wife and daughter, and
was comfortably smoking my pipe in my own cottage, with a glass of
grog at my elbow."
Willis said this so earnestly, that the smile called forth by the oddness
of the remark scarcely dared to show itself on the lips of the listeners.
"Very well," resumed the little damsel, "if you are not more reasonable,
and if you keep talking of throwing your life away, I will never again

place my hand in yours as now; I shall not love you any more, and shall
find means of letting Susan's mother know that you went away and
killed yourself, and made her a widow."
Men can only speak coldly and appeal to reason--logic is their panacea
in argument. Women alone possess those inspirations, those simple
words without emphasis, that find their way directly to the heart, and
for which purpose God has doubtless endowed them with those soft,
mild tones, whose melodies cause our most cherished resolutions to
vanish in the