The Mate of the Good Ship York
The Ship's Adventure
9781465647092
108 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
A house with a wall, which would be blank but for a door and two steps, stands in a very pretty lane. The habitable aspect of the house is on the other side, and commands a wide prospect of sloping fields and river and green sweeps soaring into eminences thickly clothed with trees. A brass plate upon this lonely door bears the simple inscription, "Dr. Hardy." The lane runs down to a bridge, and the flowing river carries the eye along a scene of English beauty: the bending trees sip the water's surface; the bright meadow stretches from the bank, and is tender and gay with the tints and movement of cattle; lofty trees sentinel the lane, and in the early summer the notes of the thrush and the blackbird are clear and sweet. One autumn evening, at about seven o'clock, the door bearing Doctor Hardy's plate was pulled open, and a young fellow, with something nautical in his lurch and dress, stepped into the road, and began to fill his pipe. Immediately behind him appeared another figure—he was a thin, pale, gentlemanly-looking man, and his white hair was parted down the middle. He gazed with a great deal of kindness, not unmingled with the shadow of sorrow, at the young fellow who was filling his pipe, and said: "You have a pleasant evening for your walk." "I am sorry to leave this place," said the young man. "There is nothing like this to be met on the open ocean." And whilst he pulled out a matchbox his eyes went away to the green, evening-clad hills, which showed between the trees in a sweep of sky-line pure as the rim of a coloured lens; and now two or three of the stars which shine upon our country, and which we all know and love, were trembling in the dark blue of the coming shadow. The young man lighted his pipe with several hard sucks not wanting in emotion. "God bless you, father," said he. "I shall be turning up and finding all well within twelve months, I hope." "God bless you, my dear son, and I pray that he may continue to watch over you," said the white-haired old gentleman in a shaking voice. The young man started to walk with his face set toward the hill. Doctor Hardy stood in the doorway watching him until he had disappeared round the bend. He then stepped back and closed the door upon himself. It would not be dark for a little while, and even when the dusk came up over the hills a piece of moon would float up with it. The water flowing in the valley lay in short lines and sweet curves in a moist dim rose. A clock was striking; a wagon was rumbling in a weak note of thunder past some low-lying hedge that skirted a road. The young fellow stepped out leisurely with his pipe hanging at his teeth; he was going away to London and was walking to the station, and was without even a stick. He was square, robust, a nautical type of young man, clean shaven, of a cheerful cast of face, but with something singular in the expression of his eyes owing to the upper lids being mere streaks and scarcely visible, and the coloured matter black and brilliant, so that when he stared at you his look would have been fierce but for the qualifying expression of the rest of his face. He walked with a slight roll of the sea in his gait, and if you had noticed him at all you might have supposed him a sailor. Yet a man need not be a sailor to look like one. I have met nautical-looking men who would not be sailors for the value of the cargoes of twenty voyages. On the other hand, I have met sailors who, had they called themselves greengrocers' assistants or tailors' cutters, would have been believed. This young fellow, smoking his pipe and walking along through the fine autumn-gathering evening, was the only son of the white-haired gentleman who had just withdrawn into his house.
