Page:Dombey and Son.djvu/664

Rh "Why, aye, my lad. We ’re all shipmets here,—Wal’r and sweetheart will be jined together in the house of bondage, as soon as the askings is over," whispered Captain Cuttle, in his ear.

"The askings, Captain Gills!" repeated Mr. Toots.

"In the church, down yonder," said the Captain, pointing his thumb over his shoulder.

"Oh! Yes!" returned Mr. Toots.

"And then," said the Captain, in his hoarse whisper, and tapping Mr. Toots on the chest with the back of his hand, and falling from him with a look of infinite admiration, "what follers? That there pretty creetur, as delicately brought up as a foreign bird, goes away upon the roaring main with Wal’r on a woyage to China!"

"Lord, Captain Gills!" said Mr. Toots.

"Aye!" nodded the Captain. "The ship as took him up, when he was wrecked in the hurricane that had drove her clean out of her course, was a China trader, and Wal’r made the woyage, and got into favour, aboard and ashore—being as smart and good a lad as ever stepped—and so, the supercargo dying at Canton, he got made (having acted as clerk afore), and now he’s supercargo aboard another ship, same owners. And so, you see," repeated the Captain, thoughtfully, "the pretty creetur goes away upon the roaring main with Wal’r, on a woyage to China."

Mr. Toots and Captain Cuttle heaved a sigh in concert.

"What then?" said the Captain. "She loves him true. He loves her true. Them as should have loved and fendedtended [sic] of her, treated of her like the beasts as perish. When she, cast out of home, come here to me, and dropped upon them planks, her wownded heart was broke. I know it. I, Ed’ard Cuttle, see it. There’s nowt but true, kind, steady love, as can ever piece it up again. If so be I didn’t know that, and didn’t know as Wal’r was her true love, brother, and she his, I’d have these here blue arms and legs chopped off, afore I’d let her go. But I do know it, and what then? Why, then, I say, Heaven go with 'em both, and so it will! Amen!"

"Captain Gills," said Mr. Toots, "let me have the pleasure of shaking hands You ’ve a way of saying things, that gives me an agreeable warmth, all up my back. I say Amen. You are aware, Captain Gills, that I, too, have adored Miss Dombey."

"Cheer up!" said the Captain, laying his hand on Mr. Toots’s shoulder. "Stand by, boy!"

"It is my intention, Captain Gills," returned the spirited Mr. Toots, "to cheer up. Also to stand by, as much as possible. When the silent tomb shall yawn, Captain Gills, I shall be ready for burial; not before. But not being certain, just at present, of my power over myself, what I wish to say to you, and what I shall take it as a particular favour if you will mention to Lieutenant Walters, is as follows."

"Is as follers," echoed the Captain. "Steady!"

"Miss Dombey being so inexpressably kind," continued Mr. Toots with watery eyes, "as to say that my presence is the reverse of disagreeable to her, and you and everybody here being no less forbearing and tolerant towards one who—who certainly," said Mr. Toots, with momentary dejection, "would appear to have been born by mistake, I