"I shall see his father. We can manage it all between us."
"Oh, do, do, papa! And you will do it soon?"
"There is no time like the present. I will go in at once." He scribbled
a cheque, put it in an envelope, put on his broad straw hat, and
strolled in through the garden to pay his morning call.
It was a singular sight which met his eyes as he entered the
sitting-room of the Admiral. A great sea chest stood open in the center,
and all round upon the carpet were little piles of jerseys, oil-skins,
books, sextant boxes, instruments, and sea-boots. The old seaman sat
gravely amidst this lumber, turning it over, and examining it intently;
while his wife, with the tears running silently down her ruddy cheeks,
sat upon the sofa, her elbows upon her knees and her chin upon her
hands, rocking herself slowly backwards and forwards.
"Hullo, Doctor," said the Admiral, holding out his hand, "there's foul
weather set in upon us, as you may have heard, but I have ridden out
many a worse squall, and, please God, we shall all three of us weather
this one also, though two of us are a little more cranky than we were."
"My dear friends, I came in to tell you how deeply we sympathize with
you all. My girl has only just told me about it."
"It has come so suddenly upon us, Doctor," sobbed Mrs. Hay Denver. "I
thought that I had John to myself for the rest of our lives--Heaven
knows that we have not seen very much of each other--but now he talks of
going to sea again.
"Aye, aye, Walker, that's the only way out of it. When I first heard of
it I was thrown up in the wind with all aback. I give you my word that
I lost my bearings more completely than ever since I strapped a middy's
dirk to my belt. You see, friend, I know something of shipwreck or
battle or whatever may come upon the waters, but the shoals in the City
of London on which my poor boy has struck are clean beyond me. Pearson
had been my pilot there, and now I know him to be a rogue. But I've
taken my bearings now, and I see my course right before me."
"What then, Admiral?"
"Oh, I have one or two little plans. I'll have some news for the boy.
Why, hang it, Walker man, I may be a bit stiff in the joints, but you'll
be my witness that I can do my twelve miles under the three hours. What
then? My eyes are as good as ever except just for the newspaper. My head
is clear. I'm three-and-sixty, but I'm as good a man as ever I was--too
good a man to lie up for another ten years. I'd be the better for a
smack of the salt water again, and a whiff of the breeze. Tut, mother,
it's not a four years' cruise this time. I'll be back every month or
two. It's no more than if I went for a visit in the country." He was
talking boisterously, and heaping his sea-boots and sextants back into
his chest.