Part 2 (2/2)
”True, my son; but you have a perfect right to steer clear of him on mere suspicion.”
”No doubt,” replied Jim, with some hesitation in his tone, ”but there are circ.u.mstances--”
”There you go again with your `circ.u.mstances,'” exclaimed Welton senior with some asperity; ”why don't you heave circ.u.mstances overboard, rig the pumps and make a clean breast of it? Surely it's better to do that than let the s.h.i.+p go to the bottom!”
”Because, father, the circ.u.mstances don't all belong to myself. Other people's affairs keep my tongue tied. I do a.s.sure you that if it concerned only myself, I would tell you everything; and, indeed, when the right time comes, I promise to tell you all--but in the meantime I-- I--”
”Jim,” said Mr Welton, senior, stopping suddenly and confronting his stalwart son, ”tell me honestly, now, isn't there a pretty girl mixed up in this business?”
Jim stood speechless, but a mantling flush, which the rays of the revolving light deepened on his sunburnt countenance, rendered speech unnecessary.
”I knew it,” exclaimed the mate, resuming his walk and thrusting his hands deeper into the pockets of his coat, ”it never was otherwise since Adam got married to Eve. Whatever mischief is going you're sure to find a woman underneath the _very_ bottom of it, no matter how deep you go!
If it wasn't that the girls are at the bottom of everything good as well as everything bad, I'd be glad to see the whole bilin of 'em made fast to all the sinkers of all the buoys along the British coast and sent to the bottom of the North Sea.”
”I suspect that if that were done,” said Jim, with a laugh, ”you'd soon have all the boys on the British coast making earnest inquiries after their sinkers! But after all, father, although the girls are hard upon us sometimes, you must admit that we couldn't get on without 'em.”
”True for ye, boy,” observed Jerry MacGowl, who, coming up at that moment, overheard the conclusion of the sentence. ”It's mesilf as superscribes to that same. Haven't the swate creeturs led me the life of a dog; turned me inside out like an owld stockin', trod me in the dust as if I was benaith contimpt an' riven me heart to mortial tatters, but I couldn't get on widout 'em nohow for all that. As the pote might say, av he only knowd how to putt it in proper verse:--
”`Och, woman dear, ye darlin', It's I would iver be Yer praises caterwaulin'
In swaitest melodee!'”
”Mind your own business, Jerry,” said the mate, interrupting the flow of the poet's inspiration.
”Sure it's that same I'm doin', sir,” replied the man, respectfully touching his cap as he advanced towards the gong that surrounded the windla.s.s and uncovered it. ”Don't ye see the fog a-comin' down like the wolf on the fold, an' ain't it my dooty to play a little tshune for the benefit o' the public?”
Jerry hit the instrument as he spoke and drowned his own voice in its sonorous roar. He was driven from his post, however, by d.i.c.k Moy, one of the watch, who, having observed the approaching fog had gone forward to sound the gong, and displayed his dislike to interference by s.n.a.t.c.hing the drumstick out of Jerry's hand and hitting him a smart blow therewith on the top of his head.
As further conversation was under the circ.u.mstances impossible, John Welton and his son retired to the cabin, where the former detailed to the latter the visit of the strange gentleman with the keen grey eyes, and the conversation that had pa.s.sed between them regarding Morley Jones. Still the youth remained unmoved, maintaining that suspicion was not proof, although he admitted that things now looked rather worse than they had done before.
While the father and son were thus engaged, a low moaning wail and an unusual heave of the vessel caused them to hasten on deck, just as one of the watch put his head down the hatch and shouted, ”A squall, sir, brewing up from the nor'-east.”
CHAPTER THREE.
A DISTURBED NIGHT; A WRECK AND AN UNEXPECTED RESCUE.
The aspect of the night had completely changed. The fog had cleared away; heavy clouds rolled athwart the sky; a deeper darkness descended on the s.h.i.+pping at anchor in the Downs, and a gradually increasing swell caused the Gull to roll a little and tug uneasily at her cable.
Nevertheless the warning light at her mast-head retained its perpendicular position in consequence of a clever adaptation of mechanism on the principle of the universal joint.
With the rise of the swell came the first rush of the squall.
”If they don't send the boat at once, you'll have to spend the night with us, Jim,” said the mate, looking anxiously in the direction of the sloop belonging to Morley Jones, the dark outlines of which could just be seen looming of a deeper black against the black sky.
”It's too late even now,” returned Jim in an anxious tone; ”the boat, like everything else about the sloop, is a rotten old thing, and would be stove against the side in this swell, slight though it be as yet.
But my chief trouble is, that the cables are not fit to hold her if it comes on to blow hard.”
For some time the wind increased until it blew half a gale. At that point it continued steady, and as it gave no indication of increasing, John Welton and his son returned to the cabin, where the latter amused himself in glancing over some of the books in the small library with which the s.h.i.+p was furnished, while the sire busied himself in posting up the s.h.i.+p's log for the day.
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