Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/764

758 He rubbed his sides against an upturned pair of trousers; he made the wearer wince by smoothing his whiskers against a muffled foot; and then he gave a flying leap out of the damp, arching his back and purring pleasantly against a woollen waistcoat.

In fact it had been a pretty though a pathetic sight to see Mr Venables piloting Mr Winstanley to the highest point of the reef, and there depositing him on one of the two or three cane-bottomed chairs to be found on board the Cuchullin. Willis, who was still amenable to orders, though he had lost all power of initiation, followed, carrying the dressing-case that was placed under his master's feet. And there sat the Honourable Wilfred Winstanley, gathering the skirts of a trailing ulster round his legs, more painfully sensible than ever of his signal folly in flying so hastily from his comfortable quarters at Somerled. But if he had a feeling stronger than that of self-reproach, it was of gratitude to the cheery young fellow who had done so much for him. Already Winstanley had asked his name, and had been duly informed. To say nothing of Jack's sanguine spirit being contagious, it was difficult to seem depressed when the youth was near. He would have sat self-rebuked while Mr Venables was quietly conversing, as if they had come together in a club smoking-room in Pall Mall. We will not undertake to say that there was not some swagger about Mr Venables, but are content merely to record how he behaved.

"I should prefer a cigarette, as I have gone without breakfast. But 'needs must be,' – you know the proverb, sir; so, by your leave, though I think I heard them say you objected to smoking, I shall light a pipe. If I keep well to leeward, perhaps you won't mind."

But after a few whiffs of the pipe, a fresh idea seemed to strike him.

"What a picturesque sight it is, and what comical groups of figures these are in the foreground! Gray's odes come back to the memory. Confusion, fright, ay, and famine too, and ever so many more realistic conceptions of the passions. And what a bit that is, à la M. Gudin at the Luxembourg, for example, where the waves are breaking against the sides of the old ship, with the sea-weed streaming on the curl of the surf, and boxes and trunks bobbing about among the breakers."

And from another of the numerous pockets in his shooting-jacket he produced something between a memorandum-book and a sketch-book, and, smiling, proceeded to draw. Winstanley looked at him curiously. His hand was steady and his eye was clear, and he handled the pencil for all the world as if he had been sitting on a camp-stool in some sequestered glen, with an immediate prospect of muffins and coffee. Jack marked the glance, and answered it in about five minutes, by carelessly passing his sketch-book to Winstanley.

"Admirable, sir, admirable!" was that gentleman's verdict; for in fact his young companion, by some sharp and bold touches, had given a very fair idea of water in motion; while the rendering of the more prominent figures in the foreground was a clever blending of the grotesque with the veracious. And though he immediately dismissed the matter from his mind, the memory of it afterwards did Jack good service.

Indeed more serious considerations were soon to preoccupy him. A business of the kind must be