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Surely not! It would be an insult to your understanding to suppose that you required such information. It may be, however, necessary to let you know that, not many weeks after these events, widow Boyns received a letter telling her that Captain Daniel Boyns was still alive and well, and that she might expect to see him within a very short period of time!
He went at once to Mr Webster's office and said that if a deaf ear was to be turned any longer to his remonstrances he would throw up his appointment. Poor Harry could scarcely have taken a more effective step to insure the turning of the deaf ear to him. "Oh!" replied Mr Webster, coolly, "if you refuse to take charge of my vessel, Captain Boyns, I will soon find another to do it."
Need we tell you, good reader, that Mr Webster and his daughter, and Mrs Niven, spent that night under the roof of hospitable Mrs Boyns? who partly because of the melancholy that ever rested like a soft cloud on her mild countenance, and partly because the cap happened to suit her cast of features looked a very charming widow indeed.
"And if you do, and lives should be lost in consequence," added Harry, grasping the handle of the door, "I warn you solemnly, that murder will have been committed by you, whatever the law may say on the subject." "Good afternoon, Captain Boyns." "You've got a hard master," said Harry to Grinder as he passed through the outer office.
On a dark November afternoon, not many years ago, Captain Boyns sat smoking his pipe in his own chimney-corner, gazing with a somewhat anxious expression at the fire. There was cause for anxiety, for there raged at the time one of the fiercest storms that ever blew on the shores of England.
He was morally a rhinoceros. Silence having been obtained, the secretary of the Lifeboat Institution rose, and, after a few complimentary remarks on the enthusiasm in the good cause shown by the town, and especially by the lady who had presented the boat, he called Captain Harry Boyns to the platform, and presented him with the gold medal of the Institution in an able speech, wherein he related the special act of gallantry for which it was awarded telling how that, during a terrible gale, on a dark night in December, the gallant young captain, happening to walk homewards along the cliffs, observed a vessel on the rocks, not twenty yards from the land, with the green seas making clean breaches over her; and how that knowing the tide was rising, and that before he could run to the town, three miles distant, for assistance, the vessel would certainly be dashed to pieces he plunged into the surf, at the imminent risk of his life, swam to the vessel, and returned to the shore with a rope, by which means a hawser was fixed to the cliffs, and thirty-nine lives were rescued from the sea!
He was about forty years of age, and, unlike the men of his class at that time, wore a short curly black beard and moustache, which, with his deeply bronzed countenance, gave him the aspect of a foreigner. "God help those on the sea," said Mrs Boyns, in reply to her husband's remark; "I'm thankful, Dan, that you are on shore this night."
"I certainly do refuse," said Harry, preparing to leave the office, "and I think you will find some difficulty in getting any other man to go to sea in such a ship." "I differ from you, Captain Boyns. Good afternoon."
One result of all this was that Mr Webster offered Captain Boyns the command of one of his largest vessels, an offer which was gladly accepted, for the captain had, at that time, been thrown out of employment by the failure of a firm, in the service of which he had spent the greater part of his nautical career.
Another result was, that Mr Webster, at Annie's earnest solicitation, agreed to make Covelly his summer quarters next year, instead of Ramsgate, and Mrs Boyns agreed to lodge the family in Coral Cottage.
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