“And you will cuddle me again?” said poor little Tom.
“Of course I will, you little duck. I should like to take you with me and cuddle you all the way, only I must not;” and away she went.
So Tom really tried to be a good boy, and tormented no sea-beasts after that as long as he lived; and he is quite alive, I assure you, still.
Oh, how good little boys ought to be who have kind pussy mammas to cuddle them and tell them stories; and how afraid they ought to be of growing naughty, and bringing tears into their mammas’ pretty eyes!
CHAPTER VI
“Thou little child, yet glorious in the night
Of heaven-born freedom on thy Being’s height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The Years to bring the inevitable yoke—
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life.”Wordsworth.
The company did not laugh at him; his moustaches were too long and too gray for that: but, after he was gone, they called him sentimental and so forth, all but one dear little old Quaker lady with a soul as white as her cap, who was not, of course, generally partial to soldiers; and she said very quietly, like a Quaker:
“Friends, it is borne upon my mind that that is a truly brave man.”