On hearing this, the lady’s manner changed at once, and, with more animation than she had yet exhibited, she desired that he should be shown in.
With his large wide-awake in one hand, and a canvas bag in the other, Captain Wopper entered the drawing-room, and looked around him with a beaming and rather bashful smile.
“Mrs Stoutley, I believe,” he said, advancing, “and Miss Emma Gray, I suppose,” he added, turning with a beaming glance towards the young lady.
Mrs Stoutley admitted that he was right, and expressed some surprise that he, a perfect stranger, should be so well acquainted with their names.
“I am indeed a stranger personally, ma’am,” said Captain Wopper, smoothing the hair down on his rugged brow, “but I may be said to know you pretty well, seeing that I have for many years been the friend and messmate of your late husband’s brother in Californy.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed Mrs Stoutley, with increasing animation, as she rose and held out her hand; “any friend of my brother-in-law is heartily welcome. Be seated, Mr Wopper, and let me hear about him. He was very kind to my dear husband during his last illness—very kind. I shall never forget him.”
“No doubt he was,” said the Captain, accepting the chair which Emma Gray handed to him, with looks of great interest. “Thank ’ee, Miss. Willum Stout—excuse my familiarity, ma’am, I always called him Willum, because we was like brothers—more than brothers, I may say, an’ very friendly. Yes, Willum Stout was kind to his brother in his last days. It would have bin shame to him if he hadn’t for your husband, ma’am, was kind to Willum, an’ he often said to me, over the camp-fires in the bush, that he’d never forget his kindness. But it’s over now,” continued the seaman in a sad tone, “an’ poor Willum is left alone.”
“Is my uncle very poor?” asked Lewis, who had been paying more attention to the appearance of their rugged visitor than to what he had said.
“Ay, very poor,” replied the seaman, “as regards near relations, leastwise such as he has seen and known in former days, but he an’t poor as regards gold. He’s got lots of that. He and I worked not far from each other for years, an’ he used to hit upon good claims somehow, and shovelled up the nuggets like stones.”
“Indeed! I wish he’d send a few of them this way,” exclaimed Lewis, with a careless laugh.