A Message from the Sea

is, as ever I saw in all the days of my l

fleet of village boats, and from two or three little coasting traders. As the beasts of burden ascended laden, or descended light, they got so lost at intervals in the floating clouds of village smoke, that they seemed to dive down some of the village chimneys, and come to the surface again far off, high above others. No two houses in the village were alike, in chimney, size, shape, door, window, gable, roof-tree, anything. The sides of the ladders were musical with water, running clear and bright. The staves were musical with the clattering feet of the pack-horses and pack-donkeys, and the voices of the fishermen urging them up, mingled with the voices of the fishermen’s wives and their many children. The pier was musical with the wash of the sea, the creaking of capstans and windlasses, and the airy fluttering of little vanes and sails. The rough, sea-bleached boulders of w

the pier-wall, struck his leg with his open hand, as some men do when t

y place it is, as ever I saw

is own natural element. He had seen many things and places, and had stowed them all away in a shrewd intellect and a vigorous memory. He was an American bo

d the race of water off that point yonder, and what you kept in your eye, and got into a line with what else when you ran into the little harbour; and other nautical profundities. Among the men who exchanged ideas with the captain was a young fellow, who exactly hit his fancy — a young fisherman of two or three and tw

the captain, when he had had som

t y

be?” said

ope

the dark eye, and the slightest possible tilt of the Sou’wester

in all my life! There’s his sw

tage, vine, and fuchsia; and she certainly dig not look as if the presence of thi

other people, had undoubted himself, and was going to start a new subject, when there appeared coming down the lower ladders of stone

at you wear your tropical hat, strongly paid outside an

e on the safe side

rd against a sun-stroke, with that old hat, in an Ice P

e Post-of

st-office?” sa

The name keeps t

re it is. Good-bye, shipmates, for the present! I shall come

ception of its colour, but was a suit of a shore-going shape and form, too long in the sleeves and too short in the legs, and too unaccommodating everywhere, terminating earthward in a pair of Wellington boots, and surmounted by a tall, stiff hat, which no mortal could have worn at sea in any wind under heaven; nevertheless, a glimpse of his sag

and through him too, as he sat at his work between two little windows — with one eye microscopically on the geological formation of that part of Devonshire, and the other telescopically on the open sea — the two climbed high

in Jorgan, “sure enough. You

and bumps in the ceiling, and, besides the principal window giving on the ladder of stones, a purblind little window

ptain. “I am very glad to see you.

I am very glad to see you, thou

midst of her perfectly clean and neat arrangements, and surveyed Captain Jorgan with smiling curiosity. “Ah! but you are a sailor, sir,” sh

that brings out the salt in me, but everybody seems to see it on the crown

ntleman, too,” sa

en a’most all trades you could name, in the course of his life — would have bought all your chairs and tables once, if you had wished to sell ’em — but now he’s my steward. My name’s Jorgan, and I’m a sh

y parlour, sir, and take a

going to propose myse

ow back-room — decorated with divers plants in pots, tea-trays, old china teapots, and punch-bowls — which was at onc

e shadow of some one entering fell upon the captain’s figure, and he broke off to double himself up, sl

open than was usual from the same cause, and her breathing a little quickened by the ascent (and possibly by some mysterious hurry and flurry at the parlour door, in which the captain had observed her face to be for a moment totally eclipsed by the Sou’wester hat), she looked so charming, that the captain felt himself under a moral obligation to slap both his legs again. She was very simply dressed,

sliding it close to another chair on which the young fisherman must necessarily

l that the captain said and did was honestly according to his nature; and his nature was open nature and good nature; therefore, when he paid this little compliment, and e

) that it didn’t signify where I was born, except that I was raised on question- asking ground, where the babies as soon as ever they come into the world, inquire of their mothers, ‘Ne

is Alfred,” retur

you. Likewise don’t think, if you please, though I do come from that country of the babies, that I a

nd lower voice, and glanced at his mother, who raised her hands hurriedly, a

t!” said the captain, in a solemn wa

motioned toward the window, and the captain, looking in that direction, saw a young widow, sitting at a neighbouring window across a li

s it since

last voyage better t

rock, as I take it,” said the

es

nough. He holds the seas in the hollow of His hand. We must all strike somewhere and go down. Our co

d. My brother was not a quick man (anything but that), but he was a faithful, true, and just man. We were the sons of

in mind the general run of that class of c

ur father left the good name

e captain; “and you couldn’t take care o

for the good name, and we feel certain that he died well for the

d the hand he had shaken, and sat with his own broad, brown hands spread out on his knees, and spoke aside — “concerning the manner of your brot

to the window to greet the young widow with a nod and a wave of the hand, the young widow had held up to her the

t she be m

ed the young fisherman — with one of

n doubled himself up as far as he could, s

l it wedding-clothes. Fact!

her light too; for his laugh was not a long

your happiness. It’s very pretty, my dear, and it’s very good. May your marriage be more prosperous than hers, and be a comfort to her too. May th

little way, kissed her hand to him, and possibly by implication to the young fisherman,