Mulford turned abruptly away, the circumstance of Rose’s making herself ridiculous giving him sudden pain, though he could have laughed at her aunt by the hour.
“Ah, my dear, that is on account of your youth and inexperience—but you will learn better in time. I was just so, myself when I was of your age, and thought the fore-rafters were as handsome as the squared-jiggers, but soon after I married Capt. Budd I felt the necessity of knowing more than I did about ships, and I got him to teach me. He didn’t like the business, at first, and pretended I would never learn; but, at last, it came all at once like, and then he used to be delighted to hear me ‘talk ship,’ as he called it. I’ve known him laugh, with his cronies, as if ready to die, at my expertness in sea-terms, for half an hour together—and then he would swear—that was the worst fault your uncle had, Rosy—he would swear, sometimes, in a way that frightened me, I do declare!”
“But he never swore at you, aunty?”
“I can’t say that he did exactly do that, but he would swear all round me, even if he didn’t actually touch me, when things went wrong—but it would have done your heart good to hear him laugh! He had a most excellent heart, just like your own, Rosy dear; but, for that matter, all the Budds have excellent hearts, and one of the commonest ways your uncle had of showing it was to laugh, particularly when we were together and talking. Oh, he used to delight in hearing me converse, especially about vessels, and never failed to get me at it when he had company. I see his good-natured, excellent-hearted countenance at this moment, with the tears running down his fat, manly cheeks, as he shook his very sides with laughter. I may live a hundred years, Rosy, before I meet again with your uncle’s equal.”
This was a subject that invariably silenced Rose. She remembered her uncle, herself, and remembered his affectionate manner of laughing at her aunt, and she always wished the latter to get through her eulogiums on her married happiness, as soon as possible, whenever the subject was introduced.
All this time the Molly Swash kept in motion. Spike never took a pilot when he could avoid it, and his mind was too much occupied with his duty, in that critical navigation, to share at all in the conversation of his passengers, though he did endeavor to make himself agreeable to Rose, by an occasional remark, when a favorable opportunity offered. As soon as he had worked his brig over into the south or weather passage of Blackwell’s, however, there remained little for him to do, until she had drifted through it, a distance of a mile or more, and this gave him leisure to do the honors. He pointed out the castellated edifice on Blackwell’s as the new penitentiary, and the hamlet of villas, on the other shore, as Ravenswood, though there is neither wood nor ravens to authorize the name. But the “Sunswick,” which satisfied the Delafields and Gibbses of the olden time, and which distinguished their lofty halls and broad lawns, was not elegant enough for the cockney tastes of these later days, so “wood” must be made to usurp the place of cherries and apples, and “ravens” that of gulls, in order to satisfy its cravings. But all this was lost on Spike. He remembered the shore as it had been twenty years before, and he saw what it was now, but little did he care for the change. On the whole, he rather preferred the Grecian Temples, over which the ravens would have been compelled to fly, had there been any ravens in that neighborhood, to the old fashioned and highly respectable residence that once alone occupied the spot. The point he did understand, however, and on the merits of which he had something to say, was a little farther ahead. That, too, had been re-christened—the Hallet’s Cove of the mariner being converted into Astoria—not that bloody-minded place at the mouth of the Oregon, which has come so near bringing us to blows with our “ancestors in England,” as the worthy denizens of that quarter choose to consider themselves still, if one can judge by their language. This Astoria was a very different place, and is one of the many suburban villages that are shooting up, like mushrooms, in a night, around the great Commercial Emporium. This spot Spike understood perfectly, and it was not likely that he should pass it without communicating a portion of his knowledge to Rose.
“There, Miss Rose,” he said, with a didactic sort of air, pointing with his short, thick finger at the little bay which was just opening to their view; “there’s as neat a cove as a craft need bring up in. That used to be a capital place to lie in, to wait for a wind to pass the Gate; but it has got to be most too public for my taste. I’m rural, I tell Mulford, and love to get in out-of-the-way berths with my brig, where she can see salt-meadows, and smell the clover. You never catch me down in any of the crowded slips, around the markets, or any where in that part of the town, for I do love country air. That’s Hallet’s Cove, Miss Rose, and a pretty anchorage it would be for us, if the wind and tide didn’t sarve to take us through the Gate.”
“Are we near the Gate, Capt. Spike?” asked Rose, the fine bloom on her cheek lessening a little, under the apprehension that formidable name is apt to awaken in the breasts of the inexperienced.
“Half a mile, or so. It begins just at the other end of this island on our larboard hand, and will be all over in about another half mile, or so. It’s no such bad place, a’ter all, is Hell-Gate, to them that’s used to it. I call myself a pilot in Hell-Gate, though I have no branch.”
“I wish, Capt. Spike, I could teach you to give that place its proper and polite name. We call it Whirl-Gate altogether now,” said the relict.