ithout perceiving me, he put his hands to his mouth and bellowed out my name, with a Halpa Naiset Cg Montebello Parka CG55 string of ‘Ahoys!’ which rang through the building.
‘Here I am, Solomon,’ said I, touching him on the shoulder.
‘God bless you, lad! God bless you!’ he cried, wringing my hand. ‘I could not see you, for my port eye is as foggy as the San Jose Sharks Barn Newfoundland banks, and has been ever since Long Sue Williams of the Point hove a quart pot at it in the Tiger inn nigh thirty year agone. How are you? All sound, alow and aloft?’
‘As well as might be,’ I answered. ‘I have little to complain of.’
‘None of your standing rigging shot away!’ said he. ‘No spars crippled? No shots between wind and water, eh? You have not been hulled, nor raked, nor laid aboard of?’
‘None of these things,’ said I, laughing.
‘Faith! you are leaner than of old, and have aged ten years in two months. You did go forth as smart and trim a fighting ship as over answered helm, and now you are like the same ship when the battle and the storm have taken the gloss from her sides and torn Detroit Lions Barn the love-pennants from her peak. Yet am I right glad to see you sound in wind and limb.’
‘I have looked upon sights,’ said I, ‘which might well add ten years to a man’s age.’
‘Aye, aye!’ he answered, with a hollow groan, shaking his head from side to side. ‘It is a most accursed affair. Yet, bad as the tempest is, the calm will ever come afterwards if you will but ride it out with your anchor placed deep in Providence. Ah, lad, that is good holding ground! But if I know you aright, your grief is more for these poor wretches around you than for yourself.’
‘It is, indeed, a sore sight to see them suffer so patiently and uncomplainingly,’ I answered, ‘and for such a man, too!’
‘Aye, the chicken-livered swab!’ growled the seaman, grinding his teeth.
‘How are my mother and my father,’ I asked, ‘and how came you so far from home?’
‘Nay, I should have grounded on my beef bones had I waited longer at my Baltimore Ravens Tröjor moorings. I cut my cable, therefore, and, making a northerly tack as far as Salisbury, I run down with a fair wind. Thy father hath set his face hard, and goes about his work as usual, though much troubled by the Justices, who have twice had him up to Winchester for examination, but have found his papers all right and no charge to be brought against him. Your mother, poor soul, hath little time to mope or to pipe her eye, for she hath such Tampa Bay Buccaneers a sense of duty that, were Halpa Naiset Cg Camrose Parka the ship to founder under her, it is a plate galleon to a china orange that she would stand fast in the caboose curing marigolds or rolling pastry. They have taken to prayer as some would to rum, and warm their hearts Scarpe Nike Air Max Donna with it when the wind of misfortune blows chill. They were right glad that I should come down to you, and I gave them the word of a sailor that I would get you out of the bilboes if it might anyhow be done.’
‘Get me out, Solomon!’ said I; ‘nay, that may be put outside the question. How could you get me out?’ |