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"Very well, Daly," answered Sir Gervaise, laughing "My lords shall know your merits in that way, and it may get you named a professor keep your luff, or you'll be down on our sprit-sail-yard; remember and follow the Druid." Here the gentlemen waved their hands in adieu as usual, and la Victoire, clipped as she was of her wings, drew slowly past.
Gervaise had taken up her basket; she had not risen from her chair, however, but held it on her knees with a dreary look in her eyes, as if the words of the young mechanic had awakened in her mind strange thoughts of a possible future. She answered in a low, hesitating tone, without any apparent connection: "Heaven knows I am not ambitious. I do not ask for much in this world.
I can manage a will, well enough, Sir Gervaise, I believe. One of mine has been in the courts, now, these five years, and they tell me it sticks there, as well as if it had been drawn in the Middle Temple." "Ay, I know your skill. Still, there can be no harm in just asking Magrath; though I think it must be law, after all!
"I am not an Englishman, Sir Gervaise Oakes but an American; a Virginian, entitled to all the rights and privileges of a British subject. I am no more an Englishman, than Dr. Magrath may lay claim to the same character." "This is putting the case strongly, hey! Atwood?" answered the vice-admiral, smiling in spite of the occasion.
This time indeed, he seemed to fall asleep. Gervaise, for a while, remained undecided. She was tempted to kick the bundle of dirty clothes on one side, and to sit down and sew. But Lantier's regular breathing ended by reassuring her.
There was a constant rush of water from the faucets, a great splashing as the clothes were rinsed and pounding and banging of the beaters, while amid all this noise the steam engine in the corner kept up its regular puffing. Gervaise went slowly up the aisle, looking to the right and the left.
The meal was a simple one, but Gervaise enjoyed it thoroughly, for the table was loaded with an abundance of fruits of kinds altogether novel to him, and which he found delicious. The official in charge of them sat at the head of the table, and the meal was eaten in silence.
At this instant the whole French and English lines opened their fire, from van to rear, as far as their guns would bear, or the shot tell. "Now, sir, now is our time to close with de Vervillin!" exclaimed Greenly, the instant he perceived the manner in which his ship was crippled. "In our close order we might hope to make a thorough wreck of him." "Not so, Greenly," returned Sir Gervaise calmly.
When he came home at seven o'clock, he found her in bed, well covered up, looking very pale on the pillow, and the child crying, swathed in a shawl at it's mother's feet. "Ah, my poor wife!" said Coupeau, kissing Gervaise. "And I was joking only an hour ago, whilst you were crying with pain! I say, you don't make much fuss about it the time to sneeze and it's all over."
This was really a terrible blow to Gervaise, who had no longer the smallest motive for self-control, and she abandoned herself at once to a wild orgy that lasted three days. Coupeau gave his daughter up and smoked his pipe quietly.
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