“Certainly, but there is no occasion to go so far. Lodgings are to be had—”
“All right, Doctor; I’ve got a lodging ready for her, and will ask you to come an’ have pot-luck with us before long. Gillie, my lad, you go hail a cab, and then come back to lend a hand wi’ the cargo.”
In a few minutes the pair were whirling towards the west end of London, and were finally landed with their “cargo” on the banks of the Thames above the bridges, near the new building which Captain Wopper had named, after its prototype, “the cabin.”
To fit this up after the fashion of the old place was a comparatively short and easy work for two such handy labourers. Before they left that night it was so like its predecessor in all respects, except dirt, that both declared it to be the “identical same craft, in shape and rig, even to the little bed and curtains.” Next afternoon Mrs Roby was brought to it by Captain Wopper, in a specially easy carriage hired for the purpose.
The poor old woman had received more of a shock than she was willing to admit, and did exactly as she was bid, with many a sigh, however, at the thought of having been burnt out of the old home. She was carried up the stair in a chair by two porters, and permitted the Captain to draw a thick veil over her head to conceal, as he said, her blushes from the men. He also took particular care to draw the curtains of the bed close round her after she had been laid in it and then retired to allow her to be disrobed by Netta, who had been obtained from Mrs Stoutley on loan expressly for the occasion.
Much of this care to prevent her seeing the place that day, however, was unnecessary. The poor old creature was too much wearied by the short journey to look at anything. After partaking of a little tea and toast she fell into a quiet sleep, which was not broken till late on the following morning.
Her first thought on waking was the fire. Her second, the Captain. He was in the room, she knew, because he was whistling in his usual low tone while moving about the fireplace preparing breakfast. She glanced at the curtains; her own curtains certainly,—and the bed too! Much surprised, she quietly put out her thin hand and drew the curtain slightly aside. The Captain in his shirt sleeves, as usual, preparing buttered toast, the fireplace, the old kettle with the defiant spout singing away as defiantly as ever, the various photographs, pot-lids, and other ornaments above the fireplace, the two little windows commanding an extensive prospect of the sky from the spot where she lay, the full-rigged ship, the Chinese lantern hanging from the beam—everything just as it should be!
“Well, well,” thought Mrs Roby, with a sigh of relief; “the fire must have been a dream after all! but what a vivid one!”
She coughed. The Captain was at her side instantly.
“Slept well, old girl?”