“'Get away as fast as you can, sir,' whispered old B., 'and thank God if your day's work only puts you at the end of the list.' I followed the counsel—I don't know how—I never could recollect one event from that moment till I awoke the next morning at my aunt's cottage at Blackwall, and saw my coat in tatters, and the one epaulette hanging by a thread; then I remembered my blessed invention, and I think I showed good pluck by not going clean out of my mind.”
There was an earnestness in poor Sickleton's manner that effectually repressed any mirth on Cashel's part—indeed, his sense of the ludicrous gave way before his feeling of sorrow for the hard fortune of the man without a friend. In the partial civilization of the far west, personal prowess and energy were always enough to secure any man's success; but here, each day's experience taught him how much was to be laid to the score of family—of fortune—name—address—and the thousand other accessories of fortune. He had just begun to express his wonder that Sickleton had never tried life in the New World, when the mate appeared at the cabin-door to say that a shore boat was rowing out to the yacht.
A movement of impatience broke from Sickleton. “More of 'em, I suppose,” cried he; “we've had such a lot of sight-seers this morning, since we dropped anchor! most of them affecting to be intimate friends of yours, and all so well acquainted with your habits of life, that I should have become perfectly informed on every particular of your private history only by listening.”
“The chances are,” broke in Cashel, “I did not personally know a man amongst them.”
“I half suspect as much. They spoke far too confidently to be authentic. One would have it you were half ruined already, and had got the yacht over to clear away, and be off. Another, that you were going to be married to a lady with an immense fortune,—a rumor contradicted by a third saying it was an attorney's daughter without a shilling.”
“There's a lady, I see, sir, coming on board,” said the mate, putting in his head once more.
“I 'd swear there was,” growled Sickleton.
“You give them luncheon, I hope?” said Cashel, smiling at the other's impatience.
“Yes; we've had something like an ordinary here, today, and as I heard that to-morrow would be busier still, I have had my boat going backwards and forwards all the morning to prepare.”