“Yes, Mr Young’s widow,” replied Thursday, covered with confusion.
“Well, I never! But this does beat cock-fightin’.” He gave his thigh a sounding slap, and seemed about to give way to irrepressible laughter, when he suddenly checked himself and became grave.
“I say, Toc,” said he, earnestly, “hand me down the Prayer-book.”
Somewhat surprised, the lad took the book from its shelf, and placed it on the sailor’s knees.
“Look ’ee here, Toc; there’s somethin’ here that touches on your case, if I don’t misremember where. Let me see. Ah, here it is, ‘A man may not marry his grandmother,’ much less a boy,” he added, looking up.
“But, father, Susannah ain’t my grandmother,” said Toc, stoutly feeling that he had got an advantage here.
“True, lad, but she might be your mother. She’s to the full sixteen years older than yourself. But seriously, boy, do you mean it, and is she willin’?”
“Yes, father, I do mean it, an’ she is quite willin’. Susannah has bin kinder to me than any one else I ever knew, and I love her better than everybody else put together. She did laugh a bit at first when I spoke to her about it, an’ told me not to talk so foolishly, an’ said, just as you did, that she might be my mother; but that made no odds to me, for she’s not one bit like my mother, you know.”
“No, she’s not,” said Adams, with an assenting nod. “She’s not like Mainmast by any means, bein’ a deal younger an’ better lookin’. Well, now, Toc, you’ve given me matter to put in my pipe, (if I had one), an’ smoke it for some time to come—food for reflection, so to speak. Just you go to work, my lad, as if there was nothin’ in the wind, an’ when I’ve turned it over, looked at it on all sides, gone right round the compass with it, worked at it, so to speak, like a cooper round a cask, I’ll send for you an’ let you know how the land lies.”
When Adams had anything perplexing on his mind, he generally retired to the outlook cave at the mountain-top. Thither he went upon this occasion. The result was, that on the following day he sent for Thursday, and made him the following oration:—