The Young Trawler by Robert Michael Ballantyne (classic novels txt) 📕

could be so very impolite as--as to--"

"Yes, yes, I know that," interrupted the captain, blowing his nose--and the familiar operation was in itself something awful in such a small room--"and I _am_ too big, there's no doubt about that however, it can't be helped. I must just grin and bear it. But I came here on business, so we'll have business first, and pleasure, if you like, afterwards."

"You may go now," said Kate at this point to Liffie Lee, who was still standing transfixed in open-mouthed amazement gazing at the visitor.

With native obedience and humility the child left the room, though anxious to see and hear more.

"You have a furnished room to let I believe, ladies," said the captain, coming at once to the point.

Jessie and Kate glanced at each other. The latter felt a strong tendency to laugh, and the former replied:--

"We have, indeed, one small room--a very small room, in fact a mere closet with a window in the roof,--which we are very anxious to let if possible to a lady--a--female. It is very poorly furnished, but it is comfortable, and we would make it very cheap. Is it about the hiring of such a room that you come?"

"Yes, madam, it is," said the captain, decisively.

"But is the lady for whom you act," said Jessie, "prepared for a particularly small room, and _very_ poorly furnished?"

"Yes, she is," replied the captain with a loud guffaw that made the very windows vibrate; "in fact _I_ am the lady who wants the room. It's true I'm not very lady-like, but I can say for myself that I'll give you less trouble than many a lady would, an' I don't mind the cost."

"Impossible!" exclaimed Miss Seaward with a mingled look of amusement and perplexity which she did not attempt to conceal, while Kate laughed outright; "why, sir, the room is not much, if at all, longer than yourself."

"No matter," returned the captain, "I'm nowise particular, an' I've been recommended to come to you; so here I am, ready to strike a bargain if you're agreeable."

"Pray, may I ask who recommended you?" said Jessie.

The seaman looked perplexed for a moment.

"Well, I didn't observe his name over the door," he said, "but the man in the shop below recommended me."

"Oh? the green-grocer!" exclaimed both ladies together, but they did not add what they thought, namely, that the green-grocer was a very impertinent fellow to play off upon them what looked very much like a practical joke.

"Perhaps the best way to settle the matter," said Kate, "will be to show the gentleman our room. He will then understand the impossibility."

"That's right," exclaimed the captain; rising--and in doing so he seemed about to damage the ceiling--"let's go below, by all means, and see the cabin."

"It is not down-stairs," remarked Jessie, leading the way; "we are at the top of the house here, and the room is on a level with this one."

"So much the better. I like a deck-cabin. In fact I've bin used to it aboard my last ship."

On being ushered into the room which he wished to hire, the sailor found himself in an apartment so very unsuited to his size and character that even he felt slightly troubled.

"It's not so much the size that bothers me," he said, stroking his chin gently, "as the fittings."

There was some ground for the seaman's perplexity, for the closet in which he stood, apart from the fact of its being only ten feet long by six broad, had been arranged by the tasteful sisters after the manner of a lady's boudoir, with a view to captivate some poor sister of very limited means, or, perhaps, some humble-minded and possibly undersized young clerk from the country. The bed, besides being rather small, and covered with a snow-white counterpane, was canopied with white muslin curtains lined with pink calico. The wash-hand stand was low, fragile, and diminutive. The little deal table, which occupied an inconveniently large proportion of the space, was clothed in a garment similar to that of the bed. The one solitary chair was of that cheap construction which is meant to creak warningly when sat upon by light people, and to resolve itself into match-wood when the desecrator is heavy. Two pictures graced the walls--one the infant Samuel in a rosewood frame, the other an oil painting--of probably the first century, for its subject was quite undistinguishable--in a gold slip. The latter was a relic of better days--a spared relic, which the public had refused to buy at any price, though the auctioneer had described it as a rare specimen of one of the old--the very old--masters, with Rembrandtesque proclivities. No chest of drawers obtruded itself in that small chamber, but instead thereof the economical yet provident sisters, foreseeing the importance of a retreat for garments, had supplied a deal box, of which they stuffed the lid and then covered the whole with green baize, thus causing it to serve the double purpose of a wardrobe and a small sofa.

"However," said Captain Bream, after a brief but careful look round, "it'll do. With a little cuttin' and carvin' here an' there, we'll manage to squeeze in, for you must know, ladies, that we sea-farin' men have a wonderful knack o' stuffin' a good deal into small space."

The sisters made no reply. Indeed they were speechless, and horrified at the bare idea of the entrance of so huge a lodger into their quiet home.

"Look ye here, now," he continued in a comfortable, self-satisfied tone, as he expanded his great arms along the length of the bed to measure it, "the bunk's about five foot eight inches long. Well, I'm about six foot two in my socks--six inches short; that's a difficulty no doubt, but it's get-over-able this way, we'll splice the green box to it."

He grasped the sofa-wardrobe as he spoke, and placed it to the foot of the bed, then embracing the entire mass of mattresses and bedding at the lower end, raised it up, thrust the green box under with his foot, and laid the bedding down on it--thus adding about eighteen inches to the length.

"There you are, d'ee see--quite long enough, an' a foot to spare."

"But it does not fit," urged Kate, who, becoming desperate, resolved to throw every possible obstruction in the way.

"That's true, madam," returned the captain with an approving nod. "I see you've got a mechanical eye--there's a difference of elevation 'tween the box and the bed of three inches or more, but bless you, that's nothin' to speak of. If you'd ever been in a gale o' wind at sea you'd know that we seadogs are used to considerable difference of elevation between our heads an' feet. My top-coat stuffed in'll put that to rights. But you'll have to furl the flummery tops'ls--to lower 'em altogether would be safer."

He took hold of the muslin curtains with great tenderness as he spoke, fearing, apparently, to damage them.

"You see," he continued, apologetically, "I'm not used to this sort o' thing. Moreover, I've a tendency to nightmare. Don't alarm yourselves, ladies, I never do anything worse to disturb folk than give a shout or a yell or two, but occasionally I do let fly with a leg or an arm when the fit's on me, an' if I should get entangled with this flummery, you know I'd be apt to damage it. Yes, the safest way will be to douse the tops'ls altogether. As to the chair--well, I'll supply a noo one that'll stand rough weather. If you'll also clear away the petticoats from the table it'll do well enough. In regard to the lookin'-glass, I know pretty well what I'm like, an' don't have any desire to study my portrait. As for shavin', I've got a bull's-eye sort of glass in the lid o' my soap-box that serves all my purpose, and I shave wi' cold water, so I won't be botherin' you in the mornin's for hot. I've got a paintin' of my last ship--the Daisy--done in water-colours--it's a pretty big 'un, but by hangin' Samuel on the other bulk-head, an' stickin' that black thing over the door, we can make room for it."

As Captain Bream ran on in this fashion, smoothing down all difficulties, and making everything comfortable, the poor sisters grew more and more desperate, and Kate felt a tendency to recklessness coming on. Suddenly a happy thought occurred to her.

"But sir," she interposed with much firmness of tone and manner, "there is one great difficulty in the way of our letting the room to you which I fear cannot be overcome."

The captain looked at her inquiringly, and Jessie regarded her with admiration and wonder, for she could not conceive what this insurmountable difficulty could be.

"My sister and I," continued Kate, "have both an _unconquerable_ dislike to tobacco--"

"Oh! _that's_ no objection," cried the captain with a light laugh--which in him, however, was an ear-splitting guffaw--"for I don't smoke!"

"Don't smoke?" repeated both sisters in tones of incredulity, for in their imagination a seaman who did not smoke seemed as great an impossibility as a street boy who did not whistle.

"An' what's more," continued the captain, "I don't drink. I'm a tee-total abstainer. I leave smokin' to steam-funnels, an' drinkin' to the fish."

"But," persisted Kate, on whom another happy thought had descended, "my sister and I keep very early hours, and a latch-key we could never--"

"Pooh! that's no difficulty," again interrupted this unconquerable man of the sea; "I hate late hours myself, when I'm ashore, havin' more than enough of 'em when afloat. I'll go to bed regularly at nine o'clock, an' won't want a latch-key."

The idea of such a man going to bed at all was awesome enough, but the notion of his doing so in that small room, and in that delicately arranged little bed under that roof-tree, was so perplexing, that the sisters anxiously rummaged their minds for a new objection, but could find none until their visitor asked the rent of the room. Then Kate was assailed by another happy thought, and promptly named double the amount which she and Jessie had previously fixed as its value--which amount she felt sure would prove prohibitory.

Her dismay, then, may be imagined when the captain exclaimed with a sigh--perhaps it were better to say a breeze--of relief:--

"Well, then, that's all comfortably settled. I consider the rent quite moderate. I'll send up my chest to-morrow mornin', an' will turn up myself in the evenin'. I'll bid ye good-day now, ladies, an' beg your pardon for keepin' you so long about this little matter."

He held out his hand. One after another the crushed sisters put their delicate little hands into the seaman's enormous paw, and meekly bade him good-bye, after which the nautical giant strode noisily out of the house, shut the door with an inadvertent bang, stumbled heavily down the dark stair and passage, and finally vanished from the scene.

Then Jessie and Kate Seaward returned to their little parlour, sat down at opposite sides of the miniature grate, and gazed at each other for some minutes in solemn silence--both strongly impressed with the feeling that they had passed through a tremendous storm, and got suddenly into a profoundly dead calm.