Bidding my uncle sit where he was, I went to open it, and found on the doorstep a half-grown boy in sea-clothes. He had no sooner seen me than he began to dance some steps of the sea-hornpipe (which I had never before heard of, far less seen), snapping his fingers in the air and footing it right cleverly. For all that, he was blue with the cold; and there was something in his face, a look between tears and laughter, that was highly pathetic and consisted ill with this gaiety of manner.
“What cheer, mate?” says he, with a cracked voice.
I asked him soberly to name his pleasure.
“O, pleasure!” says he; and then began to sing:
| “For it’s my delight, of a shiny night, In the season of the year.” |
“Well,” said I, “if you have no business at all, I will even be so unmannerly as to shut you out.”
“Stay, brother!” he cried. “Have you no fun about you? or do you want to get me thrashed? I’ve brought a letter from old Heasy-oasy to Mr. Belflower.” He showed me a letter as he spoke. “And I say, mate,” he added; “I’m mortal hungry.”
“Well,” said I, “come into the house, and you shall have a bite if I go empty for it.”
With that I brought him in and set him down to my own place, where he fell to greedily on the remains of breakfast, winking to me between-whiles, and making many faces, which I think the poor soul considered manly. Meanwhile, my uncle had read the letter and sat thinking; then, suddenly, he got to his feet with a great air of liveliness, and pulled me apart into the farthest corner of the room.
“Read that,” said he, and put the letter in my hand.