“Why, Bob there’s a very pretty little girl, who very often comes alongside with the old woman, and you go down into the boat and talk with her.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Bob, “that’s the little girl I told you of, that used to repeat her fables on my knee. The fact is, I hope to splice her some of these days. It’s her mother who is with her, and she will not let her come on board to mix with the other women, because she is good and modest; too good for me, I’m afraid, in one sense of the word.”
“How do you mean Bob?”
“Why, sir, when I first knew her, she and her mother were living upon what they could earn, for the father was killed in action many years ago, and I used to help them as far as I could; but now I find that, although they are not changed, things are, most confoundedly. Her uncle lost his wife; he is considered a rich man, and being stone blind, and having no one to take care of him after his wife’s death, he sent for this girl and her mother to keep his house and he is very fond of the girl, and declares that he will leave her all his money, and that she shall marry well. Now, sir, if she was to marry me, a petty officer only, it would not be considered that she married well; so you see, sir, there’s a hitch.”
“Who and what was he?”
“He was a smuggler, sir, and a very successful one; he has six or seven houses, all his own property besides the one he lives in himself. He lives about a quarter of a mile out of Gosport. I know all about him, although I have never seen him. Soon after he left off smuggling, he lost his eyesight, and, somehow or another, he considered it was a judgment upon him—at least his wife, who had joined the Ranters, persuaded him so—and so he took a religious turn, and now he does nothing but pray, and call himself a poor blind sinner.”
“Well, Bob, but I do not see why you should give up the girl.”
“No, sir; nor will she or her mother give me up. I could marry her to-morrow without his consent, but I do not like to do her that injury.”
“He is stone-blind, you say?”
“Yes, sir.”