Page:Cerise, a tale of the last century (IA cerisetaleoflast00whytrich).pdf/257

 land of dreams. Haunted no more by visions of dancing spars, wet slippery ropes, yards dripping in the waves, and flapping sails struggling wildly for the freedom that must be their own destruction, and the whole ship's company's doom. No, their thoughts were of warm sanded parlours, cheerful coal-fires, endless pipes of tobacco, messmates singing, women dancing, the unrestrained festivities and flowing ale-jugs of the Fox and Fiddle. Perhaps, to the imagination of the youngest, a fair pale face, loving and tearful, stood out from all these jovial surroundings, and Slap-Jack felt a purer and a better man while, though but in imagination, he clasped his true and tender Alice to his heart once more.