So thought Captain Bream one lovely summer day, some time after the events just narrated, as he sat on the bridge of a swift steamer which cut like a fish through the glassy waves of the North Sea.
It was one of Hewett and Company’s carriers, bound for the Short Blue fleet. Over three hundred miles was the total run; she had already made the greater part of it. The exact position of the ever-moving fleet was uncertain. Nevertheless, her experienced captain was almost certain—as if by a sort of instinct—to hit the spot where the smacks lay ready with their trunks of fish to feed the insatiable maw of Billingsgate.
Captain Bream’s cheeks were not so hollow as they had been when we last saw him. Neither were they so pale. His eyes, too, had come a considerable way out of the caves into which they had retreated, and the wolfish glare in the presence of food was exchanged for a look of calm serenity. His coat, instead of hanging on him like a shirt on a handspike, had begun to show indications of muscle covering the bones, and his vest no longer flapped against him like the topsail of a Dutchman in a dead calm. Altogether, there was a healthy look about the old man which gave the impression that he had been into dock, and had a thorough overhaul.
Enough of weakness remained, however, to induce a feeling of blessed restfulness in his entire being. The once strong and energetic man had been brought to the novel condition of being quite willing to leave the responsibility of the world on other shoulders, and to enjoy the hitherto unknown luxury of doing nothing at all. So thoroughly had he abandoned himself in this respect, that he did not even care to speak, but was satisfied to listen to others, or to gaze at the horizon in happy contemplation, or to pour on all around looks of calm benignity.
“How do you feel to-day, sir?” asked the mate of the steamer, as he came on the bridge.
“My strongest feeling,” said Captain Bream, “is one of thankfulness to God that I am so well.”
“A good feelin’ that doesn’t always come as strong as it ought to, or as one would wish; does it, sir?” said the mate.
“That’s true,” answered the captain, “but when a man, after bein’ so low that he seems to be bound for the next world, finds the tide risin’ again, the feelin’ is apt to come stronger, d’ee see? D’you expect to make the fleet to-day?”
“Yes, sir, we should make it in the evenin’ if the admiral has stuck to his plans.”
The captain became silent again, but after a few minutes, fearing that the mate might think him unsociable, he said—