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"Begludship's pardon victim of rash action brains." Suddenly a very little counsel with a terrific bass voice arises, fully inflated, in the back settlements of the fog, and says, "Will your lordship allow me? I appear for him. He is a cousin, several times removed. I am not at the moment prepared to inform the court in what exact remove he is a cousin, but he IS a cousin."
Betwixt-and-Between," he added, "this bottle of yours is dry; and it's hard if I'm to pay sixty guineas and be grudged a dram upon the back of it." "I'll go and ask for the key," said I, and stepped on deck. The fog was as close as ever, but the swell almost down. Some of the hands were still hearkening for breakers; but the captain and the two officers were in the waist with their heads together.
But the thickness of the fog did not prevent Shandon seeing a man of short stature, rather fat, with an intelligent and merry face and an amiable look, who came up to him, took him by the two hands, and shook them with an ardour, a petulance, and a familiarity "quite meridional," as a Frenchman would have said.
Back in the dining-room she sat in her chair and rocked. Her little hands were folded tightly as she thought. Through a fog of longing and conflicting desires she was beginning to see. Oh, ye legions of hope and pity of sorrow and pain! She was rocking, and beginning to see. The immediate result of this was nothing. Results from such things are usually long in growing.
Then it will amuse me to write it, and I shall do so as carefully and as cleverly as possible The first winter days in London are not madly gay, so that I have plenty of time; and if the fog is brown outside, the fire is red within. I like the quiet of this season; the glowing chimney-corner, in the midst of the December mirk, makes me think, as I sit by it, of all sorts of things.
But winter was coming, and she would drive her stock down into the fields she had ready. They would be safe there, surely. Still, she wished Ward would come. She wanted to talk it over with a man who understood and who knew more about such things than she did. The fate of the four heifer calves became permanently wrapped in the blank fog of mystery.
For days at a time we could never see the sun nor take an observation; then the wind would sweep the face of the ocean clean, the waves would ripple and flash, and we would learn where we were. A day of clear weather might follow, or three days or four, and then the fog would settle down upon us, seemingly thicker than ever.
Every one hoped that she was the vessel they were in search of. The drum beat to quarters, and scarcely were the guns run out than the fog clearing still more discovered a large frigate standing under all sail to the eastward, about half a mile away.
Perhaps it helped a man into Parliament, Parliament still being a confused retrogressive corner in the world where lawyers and suchlike sheltered themselves from the onslaughts of common-sense behind a fog of Latin and Greek and twaddle and tosh; but I wasn't the sort to go into Parliament, unless I meant to be a lawyer. Did I mean to be a lawyer?
The Ship and Anchor stood by the water's edge. "You will please wait here," said the stern lady in a milder voice than she had used before, as the coach drew up at the inn door, "I shall see if she has come." His strange companion entered the inn and returned presently, saying: "She has not yet arrived. Delayed by the fog. We will have our dinner, if you please."
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