Materfamilias. Ada Cambridge

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СКАЧАТЬ bear to see Tom's stern and haggard face, to know the strain he was enduring, and that I could do nothing to lighten it; but as for danger—I never thought of such a thing! Not that I am at all a courageous person, as a rule.

      I believe we were somewhere in the neighbourhood of the Cape when the most noteworthy of our experiences befell us. We were struggling with the chronic "dirty" weather—absurd adjective for a thing so majestic and inspiring!—and I was on deck, firmly tied to my chair, and my chair to the mast, dry under oilskins, and only my face exposed to wind and spray, which threatened to take the skin off. I could hardly see the length of the ship through the spindrift of the gale, and the way it shrieked in the rigging was like fiends let loose. Bee—a—utiful!

      And Tom wanted to spoil all my pleasure by shutting me down in a nasty, stuffy, smelly, pitch-dark cabin, where I couldn't breathe and shouldn't know anything that went on, nor have a soul to speak to. However, I was getting used to him by this time, and so, when he staggered up and announced that he had come to take me below, because it was no longer fit for me to be on deck, I told him flatly that I would not go.

      "You must go," said he.

      "I won't go," said I.

      "The captain's commands must be obeyed, Mrs. Filmer."

      "Not in this case, Captain."

      "In every case, Madam."

      "Not a bit of it," I persisted, laughing in his face, which was rather grim, but yet not quite inflexible. "I am not one of your sailors, to be ordered about. I shall do what I like. And this is exactly what I like."

      He condescended to argue, and then of course I would not give in. He said he must use force and carry me, but that was an obviously impossible thing to do without my assistance, considering the angle of the decks. When I saw him looking really worried, I condescended to plead myself, and I suppose he could not resist that. He has told me since that he never felt the same man after this act of weakness, but I'm sure I cannot see where the weakness came in. With great difficulty, and meanwhile flashing anxious glances hither and thither, he got more rope and made fresh windings and tyings about me.

      "You are a spoilt child," was all he said. He did not look happy, but I was very pleased with the issue of our encounter. I felt that it had strengthened my position somehow—taken away all my awe and fear of him—and I would not have missed my subsequent experiences on deck that day for anything.

      They were really tremendous. No sooner had I been trussed up like an Indian baby in preparation for contingencies—no sooner had Tom left me to give his undivided attention to the ship—than the chronic gale produced a spasmodic and special one which I am sure was a cyclone of the first magnitude, though he would not give it that name in the book. What he called nor'-nor'-east had been the direction of the storm we had grown used to, but just before he asked me to go below it had shifted to "nor'," and now it jumped all at once to "sou'-west," with effects upon the sea and the poor ship that were truly startling. Those wall-sided mountains of water, that were bad enough to get over when we knew which way they were going, began a furious dance together, all jumbled up anyhow; and the first treacherous monster created by the change of wind crashed bodily inboard quite close to where I sat—"pooped" us, as Tom expressed it—and, washing over me, simply swept all before it, including the wheel and the two poor men steering, who were driven upon rail and rigging with such force as to injure both of them. How my lashings held as they did I cannot understand—or, rather, I can, of course—when strong wood was being torn from iron fastenings; and how I issued alive from that tremendous shower-bath is much more wonderful. It must have been the packing round me that saved my bones from being smashed like the boats and hen-coops. I heard Tom's shout of warning just before I was overwhelmed, and when I emerged, and could expand my breathless lungs, I answered him, with a strange and joyful lifting of the heart, "All right! I'm safe! Don't mind me, Captain!"

      If he had minded me at that moment we should have been lost together, ship and all. She began to broach to, as they call it, and the supplementary wheel had to be used at once to stop it, and just then our lives hung upon a hair. The decks were filled to the brim, and I could hear the deluge thudding down through the shattered skylight upon the table set for dinner. And she rolled all but bottom upwards, the broken rail going under and I dangling in air above it, and—and, in short, if any one but Tom had been her captain she would never have been heard of from that day. I am quite convinced of that. No man born could have accomplished what he did—he says, "Nonsense," but I know what I am talking about—although I was just as sure that he would accomplish it as I was that the sun would rise next morning. I calmly held on to my supports, and waited and watched. Sometimes I clenched my teeth and shut my eyes, while I prayed for his preservation in the perils he did not seem to see. He called to me at short intervals, "Are you all right?" and I called back, "All right!" And when the worst was over for the moment, he scrambled to where I was, and fixed me up afresh. Never shall I forget the look on his face and the ring in his voice when he spoke to me. "Brave girl! Brave girl!" I think it was the happiest moment of my life.

      "But I don't understand it," he said to me, later, when there was time to breathe and talk. "Why are you not frightened? When you were first on board, crying because you were seasick——"

      "I did not cry because I was seasick," I indignantly interposed, "but because I was lonely and miserable. You would have cried if you had been in my place."

      "I thought," he continued, heedless of the interruption, "that you were a poor little baby creature, without an ounce of pluck in you. But you've got the courage of a grenadier. How is it?"

      "It is because I am with you," I answered promptly.

      I don't know what feeling I allowed to get into my voice, but something struck him. Motionless where he stood, he stared at the great waves silently, for what seemed a long time; then abruptly walked forward to give an order, and did not come back.

      We were mostly silent when we were together after that. How hard I tried to think of a common topic to discuss, and could not! So did he. But while I had nothing to do but to think, he was terribly preoccupied with the condition of the ship. She had recovered to a certain extent, and was able to stagger on again, but she was a living wreck, all splintered and patched, and the difficulty of keeping the water down was greater than before. The pumps were always clanking, and the carpenter hammering, and the sailmaker putting canvas plasters over weak places. The whole ship's company were glum and weary, and the passengers—wet, ill-fed, and wretched—complained loudly all the time, indifferent as to how much they added to the poor captain's cares. He, though firm with everybody, never lost his temper, or seemed to give way to the depression that must at times have weighed him down. He was worthy to command who could so command himself—worthy to be a sailor, which is the noblest calling in the world. As for me—well, it was no credit to me that I, of all on board, was satisfied to be there, and consequently happy. I kept a serene and smiling face to cheer him. It was the least that I could do.

      And it did cheer him. To my unspeakable comfort I was assured of that, though he did not say so. I could see it in his face, and hear it in his voice, when now and then he came to sit beside me, evidently for rest and peace.

      "And so," he said, on one of these occasions, speaking in an absent-minded way—"and so you are not nervous with me? Well, I hope I shall be able to justify your trust."

      "You will," I said calmly. "You could not help it."

      "Heaven knows!" he ejaculated. "The glass is falling again, fast."

      "Never mind the glass. It is always falling."

      "I wouldn't, if I had any sort of proper ship under me. СКАЧАТЬ