Chapter Four.
A fearful catastrophe.
Leaving Nancy, who could well hold her own, to battle with the broker’s men, Tom, holding Mary by the hand, and I walked on till we came to his house, which I knew well, having often been there to call him. It consisted of two small rooms—a parlour, and little inner bedchamber, and was better furnished than might have been expected; yet old Tom had at one time made a good deal of money, and had expended a portion of it in fitting up his dwelling. Had he always been sober he would now have been comfortably off.
“Stay here, my dears, while I go out for a bit,” he said, bidding us sit down on an old sea-chest on one side of the fireplace. “I haven’t got much to amuse you, but here’s the little craft I cut out for you, Peter, and you can go on rigging her as I’ve been doing. No matter if you don’t do it all ship-shape. And here, Mary, is the stuff for the sails; I’ve shaped them, you see, and if you will hem them you’ll help us finely to get the craft ready for sea.”
Mary gladly undertook the task allotted to her, and even smiled as Tom handed out a huge housewife full of needles and thread and buttons, and odds and ends of all sorts.
“My thimble won’t suit your finger, I’ve a notion, my little maid,” he observed; “but I dare say you’ve got one of your own in your pocket. Feel for it, will you?”
Mary produced a thimble, six of which would have fitted into Tom’s.
“Ay, I thought so,” he said, and seeing us both busily employed, he hurried out of the house. He soon, however, returned, bringing a couple of plum buns for Mary, and some bread and cheese for me, with a small jug of milk. “There, my dears, that’ll stay your hunger till Nancy comes to cook some supper for you, and to put things to rights,” he said, as he placed them before us. “Good-bye. I’ll be back again as soon as I can,” and off he went once more.