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So dense is the fog, that though we have a fair wind, we shorten sail for fear of accidents; and not only that, but here am I, poor Wellingborough, mounted aloft on a sort of belfry, the top of the "Sampson-Post," a lofty tower of timber, so called; and tolling the ship's bell, as if for a funeral. This is intended to proclaim our approach, and warn all strangers from our track.
You are a pretty fellow, Wellingborough, thought I to myself; you are a mighty traveler, indeed: stopped on your travels by a man-trap! Do you think Mungo Park was so served in Africa? Do you think Ledyard was so entreated in Siberia?
Yes, Wellingborough, you must; so I made one desperate congee, and darted through the door. I have never seen them since: no, nor heard of them; but to this day I live a bachelor on account of those ravishing charmers.
But she had gone first to Geneva, and had put herself there into the hands of a certain specialist, whose fame had recently reached the ears of a prominent member of the "old guard," no other than the Duchess of Wellingborough. And now she had come back with her sheaves and had been met on the threshold by Beryl with her hideous confidences. She had not yet told Craven of her return.
How he strove to please her! The place where he had known her was the only place for him. On each of his birthdays Damocles received a long fatherly letter and a handsome present from the Major, and by the time he went away to school at Wellingborough, he wondered who on earth the Major might be.
But I hugged myself in my miserable shooting-jacket, when I considered that that degradation and shame never could overtake me; yet, I thought it a galling mockery, when I remembered that my sisters had promised to tell all inquiring friends, that Wellingborough had gone "abroad" just as if I was visiting Europe on a tour with my tutor, as poor simple Mr. Jones had hinted to the captain.
People were still coming in, talking, laughing, finding their seats. The Duchess of Wellingborough, who was exactly opposite to Lady Sellingworth, leaned forward to speak to her. "Adela . . . Adela!" "Yes? How are you, Cora?" "Very well, as I always am. Isn't Lavallois a marvel?" "He is certainly very clever." "You are proud of it, my dear.
But, Wellingborough, I remonstrated with myself, you are only in Liverpool; the old monuments lie to the north, south, east, and west of you; you are but a sailor-boy, and you can not expect to be a great tourist, and visit the antiquities, in that preposterous shooting-jacket of yours. Indeed, you can not, my boy. True, true that's it. I am not the traveler my father was.
So I asked her, she being a stranger to me, what she had to say to me. She said she was afraid she should be damned. I asked her the cause of those fears. She told me that she had, some time since, lived with a shopkeeper at Wellingborough, and had robbed his box in the shop several times of money, to the value of more than now I will say; and pray, says she, tell me what I shall do.
Alas, Harry! thought I, as I stood upon the forecastle looking astern where they stood, that "gallant, gay deceiver" shall not altogether cajole you, if Wellingborough can help it. Rather than that should be the case, indeed, I would forfeit the pleasure of your society across the Atlantic.
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