Dombey and Son
them; “Bunsby,” said the Captain, quite confounded by admiration, “you
carry a weight of mind easy, as would swamp one of my tonnage soon. But
in regard o’ this here will, I don’t mean to take no steps towards the
property—Lord forbid!—except to keep it for a more rightful owner; and
I hope yet as the rightful owner, Sol Gills, is living and’ll come
back, strange as it is that he ain’t forwarded no dispatches. Now, what
is your opinion, Bunsby, as to stowing of these here papers away again,
and marking outside as they was opened, such a day, in the presence of
John Bunsby and Ed’ard Cuttle?”
Bunsby, descrying no objection, on the coast of Greenland or elsewhere,
to this proposal, it was carried into execution; and that great man,
bringing his eye into the present for a moment, affixed his sign-manual
to the cover, totally abstaining, with characteristic modesty, from the
use of capital letters. Captain Cuttle, having attached his own
left-handed signature, and locked up the packet in the iron safe,
entreated his guest to mix another glass and smoke another pipe; and
doing the like himself, fell a musing over the fire on the possible
fortunes of the poor old Instrument-maker.
And now a surprise occurred, so overwhelming and terrific that Captain
Cuttle, unsupported by the presence of Bunsby, must have sunk beneath
it, and been a lost man from that fatal hour.
How the Captain, even in the satisfaction of admitting such a guest,
could have only shut the door, and not locked it, of which negligence
he was undoubtedly guilty, is one of those questions that must for ever
remain mere points of speculation, or vague charges against destiny.
But by that unlocked door, at this quiet moment, did the fell
MacStinger dash into the parlour, bringing Alexander MacStinger in her
parental arms, and confusion and vengeance (not to mention Juliana
MacStinger, and the sweet child’s brother, Charles MacStinger,
popularly known about the scenes of his youthful sports, as Chowley) in
her train. She came so swiftly and so silently, like a rushing air from
the neighbourhood of the East India Docks, that Captain Cuttle found
himself in the very act of sitting looking at her, before the calm face
with which he had been meditating, changed to one of horror and dismay.
But the moment Captain Cuttle understood the full extent of his
misfortune, self-preservation dictated an attempt at flight. Darting at
the little door which opened from the parlour on the steep little range
of cellar-steps, the Captain made a rush, head-foremost, at the latter,
like a man indifferent to bruises and contusions, who only sought to
hide himself in the bowels of the earth. In this gallant effort he
would probably have succeeded, but for the affectionate dispositions of
Juliana and Chowley, who pinning him by the legs—one of those dear
children holding on to each—claimed him as their friend, with
lamentable cries. In the meantime, Mrs MacStinger, who never entered
upon any action of importance without previously inverting Alexander
MacStinger, to bring him within the range of a brisk battery of slaps,
and then sitting him down to cool as the reader first beheld him,
performed that solemn rite, as if on this occasion it were a sacrifice
to the Furies; and having deposited the victim on the floor, made at
the Captain with a strength of purpose that appeared to threaten
scratches to the interposing Bunsby.
The cries of the two elder MacStingers, and the wailing of young
Alexander, who may be said to have passed a piebald childhood,
forasmuch as he was black in the face during one half of that fairy
period of existence, combined to make this visitation the more awful.
But when silence reigned again, and the Captain, in a violent
perspiration, stood meekly looking at Mrs MacStinger, its terrors were
at their height.
“Oh, Cap’en Cuttle, Cap’en Cuttle!” said Mrs MacStinger, making her
chin rigid, and shaking it in unison with what, but for the weakness of
her sex, might be described as her fist. “Oh, Cap’en Cuttle, Cap’en
Cuttle, do you dare to look me in the face, and not be struck down in
the berth!”
The Captain, who looked anything but daring, feebly muttered “Stand
by!”
“Oh I was a weak and trusting Fool when I took you under my roof,
Cap’en Cuttle, I was!” cried Mrs MacStinger. “To think of the benefits
I’ve showered on that man, and the way in which I brought my children
up to love and honour him as if he was a father to ’em, when there
ain’t a housekeeper, no nor a lodger in our street, don’t know that I
lost money by that man, and by his guzzlings and his muzzlings”—Mrs
MacStinger used the last word for the joint sake of alliteration and
aggravation, rather than for the expression of any idea—“and when they
cried out one and all, shame upon him for putting upon an industrious
woman, up early and late for the good of her young family, and keeping
her poor place so clean that a individual might have ate his dinner,
yes, and his tea too, if he was so disposed, off any one of the floors
or stairs, in spite of all his guzzlings and his muzzlings, such was
the care and pains bestowed upon him!”
Mrs MacStinger stopped to fetch her breath; and her face flushed with
triumph in this second happy introduction of Captain Cuttle’s
muzzlings.
“And he runs awa-a-a-y!” cried Mrs MacStinger, with a lengthening out
of the last syllable that made the unfortunate Captain regard himself
as the meanest of men; “and keeps away a twelve-month! From a woman!
Such is his conscience! He hasn’t the courage to meet her hi-i-igh;”
long syllable again; “but steals away, like a fellon. Why, if that baby
of mine,” said Mrs MacStinger, with sudden rapidity, “was to offer to
go and steal away, I’d do my duty as a mother by him, till he was
covered with wales!”
The young Alexander, interpreting this into a positive promise, to be
shortly redeemed, tumbled over with fear and grief, and lay upon the
floor, exhibiting the soles of his shoes and making such a deafening
outcry, that Mrs MacStinger found it necessary to take him up in her
arms, where she quieted him, ever and anon, as he broke out again, by a
shake that seemed enough to loosen his teeth.
“A pretty sort of a man is Cap’en Cuttle,” said Mrs MacStinger, with a
sharp stress on the first syllable of the Captain’s name, “to take on
for—and to lose sleep for—and to faint along of—and to think dead
forsooth—and to go up and down the blessed town like a madwoman, asking
questions after! Oh, a pretty sort of a man! Ha ha ha ha! He’s worth
all that trouble and distress of mind, and much more. That’s nothing,
bless you! Ha ha ha ha! Cap’en Cuttle,” said Mrs MacStinger, with
severe reaction in her voice and manner, “I wish to know if you’re
a-coming home.”
The frightened Captain looked into his hat, as if he saw nothing for it
but to put it on, and give himself up.
“Cap’en Cuttle,” repeated Mrs MacStinger, in the same determined
manner, “I wish to know if you’re a-coming home, Sir.”
The Captain seemed quite ready to go, but faintly suggested something
to the effect of “not making so much noise about it.”
“Ay, ay, ay,” said Bunsby, in a soothing tone. “Awast, my lass, awast!”
“And who may you be, if you please!” retorted Mrs MacStinger, with
chaste loftiness. “Did you ever lodge at Number Nine, Brig Place, Sir?
My memory may be bad, but not with me, I think. There was a Mrs Jollson
lived at Number Nine before me, and perhaps you’re mistaking me for
her. That is my only ways of accounting for your familiarity, Sir.”
“Come, come, my lass, awast, awast!” said Bunsby.
Captain Cuttle could hardly believe it, even of this great man, though
he saw it done with his waking eyes; but Bunsby, advancing boldly, put
his shaggy blue arm round Mrs MacStinger, and so softened her by his
magic way of doing it, and by these few words—he said no more—that she
melted into tears, after looking upon him for a few moments, and
observed that a child might conquer her now, she was so low in her
courage.
Speechless and utterly amazed, the Captain saw him gradually persuade
this inexorable woman into the shop, return for rum and water and a
candle, take them to her, and pacify her without appearing to utter one
word. Presently he looked in with his pilot-coat on, and said, “Cuttle,
I’m a-going to act as convoy home;” and Captain Cuttle, more to his
confusion than if he had been put in irons himself, for safe transport
to Brig Place, saw the family pacifically filing off, with Mrs
MacStinger at their head. He had scarcely time to take down his
canister, and stealthily convey some money into the hands of Juliana
MacStinger, his former favourite, and Chowley, who had the claim upon
him that he was naturally of a maritime build, before the Midshipman
was abandoned by them all; and Bunsby whispering that he’d carry on
smart, and hail Ned Cuttle again before he went aboard, shut the door
upon himself, as the last member of the party.
Some uneasy ideas that he must be walking in his sleep, or that he had
been troubled with phantoms, and not a family of flesh and blood, beset
the Captain at first, when he went back to the little parlour, and
found himself alone. Illimitable faith in, and immeasurable admiration
of, the Commander of the Cautious Clara, succeeded, and threw the
Captain into a wondering trance.
Still, as time wore on, and Bunsby failed to reappear, the Captain
began to entertain uncomfortable doubts of another kind. Whether Bunsby
had been artfully decoyed to Brig Place, and was there detained in safe
custody as hostage for his friend; in which case it would become the
Captain, as a man of honour, to release him, by the sacrifice of his
own liberty. Whether he had been attacked and defeated by Mrs
MacStinger, and was ashamed to show himself after his discomfiture.
Whether Mrs MacStinger, thinking better of it, in the uncertainty of
her temper, had turned back to board the Midshipman again, and Bunsby,
pretending to conduct her by a short cut, was endeavouring to lose the
family amid the wilds and savage places of the City. Above all, what it
would behove him, Captain Cuttle, to do, in case of his hearing no
more, either of the MacStingers or of Bunsby, which, in these wonderful
and unforeseen conjunctions of events, might possibly happen.
He debated all this until he was tired; and still no Bunsby. He made up
his bed under the counter, all ready for turning in; and still no
Bunsby. At length, when the Captain had given him up, for that night at
least, and had begun to undress, the sound of approaching wheels was
heard, and, stopping at the door, was succeeded by Bunsby’s hail.
The Captain trembled to think that Mrs MacStinger was not to be got rid
of, and had been brought back in a coach.
But no. Bunsby was accompanied by nothing but a large box, which he
hauled into the shop with his own hands, and as soon as he had hauled
in, sat upon. Captain Cuttle knew it for the chest he had left at Mrs
MacStinger’s house, and looking, candle in hand, at Bunsby more
attentively, believed that he was three sheets in the wind, or, in
plain words, drunk. It was difficult, however, to be sure of this; the
Commander having no trace of expression in his face when sober.
“Cuttle,” said the Commander, getting off the chest, and opening the
lid, “are these here your traps?”
Captain Cuttle looked in and identified his property.
“Done pretty taut and trim, hey, shipmet?” said Bunsby.
The grateful and bewildered Captain grasped him by the hand, and was
launching into a reply expressive of his astonished feelings, when
Bunsby disengaged himself by a jerk of his wrist, and seemed to make an
effort to wink with his revolving eye, the only effect of which