“It is, however, expected that those donkeys at the dock-yard will recommend her to be fitted with two brass howisyers.”
“Howitzers, my darling. Spell that word, and you shall have your penny. Now you may run out and play again. Give your old father a pretty kiss for it. I often wish,” continued the lieutenant, as his daughter flew back to the dead skate and the babies, “that I had only got that child's clear head. Sometimes the worry is too much for me. And now if Nettlebones catches Robin Lyth, to a certainty I shall be superseded, and all of us go to the workhouse. Oh, Tilly, why won't your old aunt die? We might be so happy afterward.”
“Charles, it is not only sinful, but wicked, to show any wish to hurry her. The Lord knows best what is good for us; and our prayers upon such matters should be silent.”
“Well, mine would be silent and loud too, according to the best chance of being heard. Not that I would harm the poor old soul; I wish her every heavenly blessing; and her time is come for all of them. But I never like to think of that, because one's own time might come first. I have felt very much out of spirits to-day, as my poor father did the day before he got his billet. You know, Matilda, he was under old Boscawen, and was killed by the very first shot fired; it must be five-and-forty years ago. How my mother did cry, to be sure! But I was too young to understand it. Ah, she had a bad time with us all! Matilda, what would you do without me?”
“Why, Charles, you are not a bit like yourself. Don't go to-night; stay at home for once. And the weather is very uncertain, too. They never will attempt their job to-night. Countermand the boats, dear; I will send word to stop them. You shall not even go out of the house yourself.”
“As if it were possible! I am not an old woman, nor even an old man yet, I hope. In half an hour I must be off. There will be good time for a pipe. One more pipe in the old home, Tilly. After all I am well contented with it, although now and then I grumble; and I don't like so much cleaning.”
“The cleaning must be done; I could never leave off that. Your room is going to be turned out to-morrow, and before you go you must put away your papers, unless you wish me to do it. You really never seem to understand when things are really important. Do you wish me to have a great fever in the house? It is a fortnight since your boards were scrubbed; and how can you think of smoking?”
“Very well, Tilly, I can have it by-and-by, 'upon the dancing waves,' as little Tommy has picked up the song. Only I can not let the men on duty; and to see them longing destroys my pleasure. Lord, how many times I should like to pass my pipe to Dick, or Ellis, if discipline allowed of it! A thing of that sort is not like feeding, which must be kept apart by nature; but this by custom only.”
“And a very good custom, and most needful,” answered Mrs. Carroway. “I never can see why men should want to do all sorts of foolish things with tobacco—dirty stuff, and full of dust. No sooner do they begin, like a tinder-box, than one would think that it made them all alike. They want to see another body puffing two great streams of reeking smoke from pipe and from mouth, as if their own was not enough; and their good resolutions to speak truth of one another float away like so much smoke; and they fill themselves with bad charity. Sir Walter Raleigh deserved his head off, and Henry the Eighth knew what was right.”
“My dear, I fancy that your history is wrong. The king only chopped off his own wives' heads. But the moral of the lesson is the same. I will go and put away my papers. It will very soon be dark enough for us to start.”