The seaman appeared much concerned on hearing this. For some time he did not speak, and then said that he had been greatly interested in that gentleman through Willum’s account of him.
“Had he left any children?”
“Yes,” Mrs Roby told him; “one son, who had been educated as a doctor, and had become a sort of a city missionary, and was as pleasant a young gentleman as she ever knew.”
“So, then, you know him?” said the Captain.
“Know him! I should think so. Why, this is the district where he visits, and a kind friend he is to the poor, though he is bashful a bit, an’ seems to shrink from pushin’ himself where he’s not wanted.”
“Not the less a friend to the poor on that account,” thought Captain Wopper; but he said nothing, and Mrs Roby went on:—
“You see, his father before him did a great deal for the poor in a quiet way here, as I have reason to know, this district lying near his office, and handy, as it were. Long after the time when he saved Willum’s life, he married a sweet young creeter, who helped him in visitin’ the poor, but she caught fever among ’em and died, when their only son George was about ten year old. George had been goin’ about with his mother on her visits, and seemed very fond of her and of the people, dear child; and after she died, he used to continue coming with his father. Then he went to school and college and became a young doctor, and only last year he came back to us, so changed for the better that none of us would have known him but for his kindly voice and fine manly-looking manner. His shyness, too, has stuck to him a little, but it does not seem to hinder him now as it once did. Ah!” continued Mrs Roby, in a sympathetic tone, “it’s a great misfortune to be shy.”
She looked pensively at the little fire and shook her tall cap at it, as if it or the defiant tea-kettle were answerable for something in reference to shyness.
“Yes, it’s a great misfortune to be shy,” she repeated. “Were you ever troubled with that complaint, Captain Wopper?”
The Captain’s moustache curled at the corners as he stroked his beard, and said that really, on consideration, he was free to confess that he never had been convicted of that sin.