“Oh, I am quite contented with my tenants; I only want them to know when they are well off. Look twice before you leap once—that’s my maxim; and give up this mad Canadian project, which I am certain will end in disappointment.”
And with this piece of disinterested advice, away toddled our gallant naval commander, to finish with Kelly the arrangement of his pots and kettles, and superintend the right adjustment of the clothes-lines, and the hanging out of Mrs. Lyndsay’s clothes.
Do not imagine, gentle reader, that this picture is over-charged. Captain Kitson is no creature of romance, (or was not, we should rather say; for he has long since been gathered to his fathers); but a brave, uneducated man; who during the war had risen from before the mast to the rank of Post Captain. He had fought at Copenhagen and Trafalgar, and distinguished himself in many a severe contest on the main during those stirring times, and bore the reputation of a dashing naval officer. At the advanced age of eighty, he retained all his original ignorance and vulgarity; and was never admitted into the society which his rank in the service entitled him to claim.
The restless activity which in the vigour of manhood had rendered him a useful and enterprising seaman, was now displayed in the most ridiculous interference in his own domestic affairs, and those of his neighbours. With a great deal of low cunning, he mingled the most insatiable curiosity; while his habits were so penurious, that he would stoop to any meanness to gain a trifling pecuniary advantage for himself or his family.
He speculated largely in old ropes, condemned boats and sea-tackle of all description, whilst as consul for the port, he had many opportunities of purchasing wrecks of the sea, and the damaged cargoes of foreign vessels, at a cheap rate; and not a stone was left unturned by old Kitson, if by the turning a copper could be secured.
The meddling disposition of the old Captain, rendered him the terror of all the fishermen on the coast, over whom his sway was despotic. He superintended and ordered all their proceedings, with an authority as absolute as though he were still upon the deck of his war-ship, and they were subjected to his imperious commands. Not a boat could be put off, or a flag hoisted, without he was duly consulted and apprised of the fact. Not a funeral could take place in the town, without Kitson calling upon the bereaved family, and offering his services on the mournful occasion, securing to himself by this simple manœuvre, an abundant supply of black silk cravats and kid gloves.
“Never lose anything, my dear, for the want of asking,” he would say. “A refusal breaks no bones, and there is always a chance of getting what you ask.”
Acting upon this principle, he had begged favours of all the great men in power; and had solicited the interest of every influential person who had visited the town, during the bathing season, for the last twenty years, on his behalf. His favourite maxim practically carried out, had been very successful. He had obtained, for the mere trouble of asking, commissions in the army and navy for all his sons, and had got all his grandsons comfortably placed in the Greenwich or Christ Church schools.
He had a garden too, which was at once his torment and his pride. During the spring and summer months, the beds were dug up and remodelled, three or four times during the season, to suit the caprice of the owner, while the poor drooping flowers were ranged along the grass-plot to wither in the sun during the process, and
“Waste their sweetness on the desert air.”