United States or Isle of Man ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It being quite dark, the Captain consented: peeping carefully out first, as he had been wont to do in his time of hiding from Mrs MacStinger; and arming himself with his large stick, in case of an appeal to arms being rendered necessary by any unforeseen circumstance.
The Captain reserved, until some fitter time, the consideration of Mr Toots's offer of friendship, and thus dismissed him. Captain Cuttle's spirits were so low, in truth, that he half determined, that day, to take no further precautions against surprise from Mrs MacStinger, but to abandon himself recklessly to chance, and be indifferent to what might happen.
'Cap'en Cuttle, repeated Mrs MacStinger, in the same determined manner, 'I wish to know if you're a-coming home, Sir. The Captain seemed quite ready to go, but faintly suggested something to the effect of 'not making so much noise about it. 'Ay, ay, ay, said Bunsby, in a soothing tone. 'Awast, my lass, awast!
"You had better put your head under Maggie's wing and subside," Webb added. Then, putting his arm about Amy, he asked, "Is this a female of the MacStinger type?" Leonard stared in blank amazement. "Well," said he, at last, "when did this happen? I give up now. The times have changed. When I was courting, the whole neighborhood was talking about it, and knew I was accepted long before I did.
The general obligation in this wise to the determined relict of the late Mr MacStinger, was so apparent, that the Captain did not contest the point; but being in some measure ashamed of his position, though nobody dwelt upon the subject, and Walter especially avoided it, remembering the last conversation he and the Captain had held together respecting it, he remained under a cloud for nearly five minutes an extraordinary period for him when that sun, his face, broke out once more, shining on all beholders with extraordinary brilliancy; and he fell into a fit of shaking hands with everybody over and over again.
This awful demonstration was headed by that determined woman Mrs MacStinger, who, preserving a countenance of inexorable resolution, and wearing conspicuously attached to her obdurate bosom a stupendous watch and appendages, which the Captain recognised at a glance as the property of Bunsby, conducted under her arm no other than that sagacious mariner; he, with the distraught and melancholy visage of a captive borne into a foreign land, meekly resigning himself to her will.
The Captain was too busy with his own thoughts of Solomon Gills, mingled perhaps with some reflections on his late escape from Mrs MacStinger, to offer any further quotations on the way for Walter's moral improvement They interchanged no other word until they arrived at old Sol's door, where the unfortunate wooden Midshipman, with his instrument at his eye, seemed to be surveying the whole horizon in search of some friend to help him out of his difficulty.
Why, you could hardly make it worth a man's while to be the postman! 'Then it's pretty clear, Captain Cuttle, that all of us, and you and Uncle Sol especially, said Walter, 'may thank Mrs MacStinger for no small anxiety.
The Captain argued that his present security was too profound and wonderful to endure much longer; he knew that when the wind stood in a fair quarter, the weathercock was seldom nailed there; and he was too well acquainted with the determined and dauntless character of Mrs MacStinger, to doubt that that heroic woman had devoted herself to the task of his discovery and capture.
This, indeed, was apparent to the mere populace, who expressed their perception of the fact by jeers and cries; to all of which, the dread MacStinger was inflexibly indifferent, while Bunsby himself appeared in a state of unconsciousness.
Word Of The Day