“Why, I thought you were as deaf as a post.”
“Yes, so I be with strangers, ’cause I don’t know the pitch of their voice; but with those about me I hear better when they speak quietly—that’s human nature. Come, let’s go home, my pipe is finished, and as there’s nothing to be done on the river, we may just as well make all tidy there.”
Stapleton had lost his wife; but he had a daughter, fifteen years old, who kept his lodgings, and did for him, as he termed it. He lived in part of some buildings leased by a boat-builder; his windows looked out on the river; and, on the first floor, a bay-window was thrown out, so that at high water the river ran under it. As for the rooms, consisting of five, I can only say that they could not be spoken of as large and small, but as small and smaller. The sitting-room was eight feet square, the two bed-rooms at the back, for himself and his daughter, just held a small bed each, and the kitchen and my room below were to match; neither were the tenements in the very best repair, the parlour especially, hanging over the river, being lop-sided, and giving you the uncomfortable idea that it would every minute fall into the stream below. Still, the builder declared that it would last many years without sinking further, and that was sufficient. At all events, they were very respectable accommodations for a waterman, and Stapleton paid for them 10 pounds per annum. Stapleton’s daughter was certainly a very well-favoured girl. She had rather a large mouth; but her teeth were very fine, and beautifully white. Her hair was auburn—her complexion very fair, her eyes were large, and of a deep blue, and from her figure, which was very good, I should have supposed her to have been eighteen, although she was not past fifteen, as I found out afterwards. There was a frankness and honesty of countenance about her, and an intellectual smile, which was very agreeable.
“Well, Mary, how do you get on?” said Stapleton, as we ascended to the sitting-room. “Here’s young Faithful come to take up with us.”
“Well, father, his bed’s all ready; and I have taken so much dirt from the room that I expect we shall be indicted for filling up the river. I wonder what nasty people lived in this house before us.”
“Very nice rooms, nevertheless; ain’t they, boy?”
“O yes, very nice for idle people; you may amuse yourself looking out on the river, or watching what floats past, or fishing with a pin at high water,” replied Mary, looking at me.
“I like the river,” replied I, gravely; “I was born on it, and hope to get my bread on it.”
“And I like this sitting-room,” rejoined Stapleton; “how mighty comfortable it will be to sit at the open window, and smoke in the summer time, with one’s jacket off!”
“At all events you’ll have no excuse for dirtying the room, father; and as for the lad, I suppose his smoking days have not come yet.”