as the poet has truly described them, making the snows of age descend upon the rose crowned brow of youth.
Sorrowfully Flora returned to her pretty little cottage, which presented a scene of bustle and confusion baffling description. Everything was out of place and turned upside down. Corded trunks and packages filled up the passages and doorways; and formed stumbling blocks for kind friends and curious neighbours, who crowded the house. Strange dogs forced their way in after their masters, and fought and yelped in undisturbed pugnacity. The baby cried, and no one was at leisure to pacify her, and a cheerless and uncomfortable spirit filled the once peaceful and happy home.
Old Captain Kitson was in his glory; hurrying here and there, ordering, superintending, and assisting the general confusion, without in the least degree helping on the work. He had taken upon himself the charge of hiring the boat which was to convey the emigrants on board the steamer; and he stood chaffering on the lawn for a couple of hours with the sailors, to whom she belonged, to induce them to take a shilling less than the sum proposed.
Tired with the altercation, and sorry for the honest tars, Lyndsay told the master of the boat to yield to the old Captain’s terms, and he would make up the difference. The sailor answered with a knowing wink, and appeared reluctantly to consent to old Kitson’s wishes.
“There, Mrs. Lyndsay, my dear, I told you these fellows would come to my terms rather than lose a good customer,” cried the old man, rubbing his hands together in an ecstasy of self-gratulation. “Leave me to make a bargain; the rogues cannot cheat me with their damned impositions. The Leaftenant is too soft with these chaps; I’m an old sailor—they can’t come over me. I have made them take one pound for the use of their craft, instead of one and twenty shillings. ‘Take care of the pence,’ my dear, ‘and the pounds will take care of themselves.’ I found that out, long before poor Richard marked it down in his log.”
Then sidling up to Flora, and putting his long nose into her face, he whispered in her ear,—
“Now, my dear gall, don’t be offended with an old friend; but if you have any old coats or hats that Leaftenant Lyndsay does not think worth packing up, I shall be very glad of them, for my Charles. Mrs. K. is an excellent hand at transmogrifying things, and in a large family such articles never come amiss.”
Charles was the Captain’s youngest son. A poor idiot, who, thirty years of age, had the appearance of an overgrown boy. The other members of the Captain’s large family were all married and settled prosperously in the world. Flora felt truly ashamed of the old man’s meanness, but was glad to repay his trifling services in a way suggested by himself. The weather for the last three weeks had been unusually fine, but towards the evening of this memorable 30th of May, large masses of clouds began to rise in the north-west, and the sea changed its azure hue to a dull leaden grey. Old Kitson shook his head prophetically.
“There’s a change of weather at hand, Mrs. Lyndsay; you may look out for squalls before six o’clock to-morrow. The wind shifts every minute, and there’s an ugly swell rolling in upon the shore.”
“Ah, I hope it will be fine,” said Flora, looking anxiously up at the troubled sky; “it is so miserable to begin a long journey in the rain. Perhaps it will pass off during the night in a thunder-shower.”