Slowly and sadly, with rent rigging and battered hull, the Tonneraire staggered home. She is in Plymouth Sound at last. Letters and papers come off to the ship. Jack Mackenzie, sitting alone by his open port, turns eagerly to a recent copy of the Times. Almost the first notice that attracts his attention runs thus: “Marriage of Sir Digby Auld and Miss Gertrude”—he sees no more. His head swims. The wind seizes the paper, as if in pity, and carries it far astern of the ship.
He feels utterly crushed and broken, and head and hands droop helplessly on the table before him.
CHAPTER XXIII.
“IT’S ALL UP, MR. RICHARDS, IT’S ALL UP!”
“The busy crew the sails unbending,
The ship in harbour safe arrived;
Jack Oakum, all his perils ending,
Has made the port where Kitty lived.”
Dibdin.
E return now to the day before Sir Digby’s ball.
Richards lived in chambers, and in no great state. He never cared for it. Had you gone straight into his sitting-room from the fresh air, what would have struck you most would have been the smell of strong tobacco smoke; and I believe you would have come to the conclusion that the principal furniture consisted of tobacco-pipes. They were of all sorts and sizes, and hung in rows and racks, and lay on shelves and on the mantlepiece. Well, what did it matter? honest Richards was a bachelor, and not once in a blue moon did a lady look in to see him.