Читать книгу Commodore Junk - Fenn George Manville - Страница 3

Captain James Armstrong had a few more words with his cousin, Lieutenant Humphrey, anent his marriage.

“Perhaps you would like me to marry that girl off the beach,” he said, “Mr Morality?”

“I don’t profess to be a pattern of morality, cousin,” replied the lieutenant, shortly.

“And don’t like pretty girls, of course,” sneered the captain. “Sailors never do.”

“I suppose I’m a man, Jem,” said Humphrey, “and like pretty girls; but I hope I should never be such a scoundrel as to make a girl miserable by professing to care for her, and then throwing her away like a broken toy.”

“Scoundrel, eh?” said the captain, hotly.

“Yes. Scoundrel – confounded scoundrel!” retorted the lieutenant. “We’re ashore now, and discipline’s nowhere, my good cousin, so don’t ruffle up your hackles and set up your comb and pretend you are going to peck, for you are as great a coward now, as you were when I was a little schoolboy and you were the big tyrant and sneak.”

“You shall pay for this, sir,” cried the captain.

“Pish! Now, my good cousin, you are not a fool. You know I am not in the least afraid of you.”

“I’ll make you some day,” said the captain, bitterly. “You shall smart for all this.”

“Not I. It is you who will smart. There, go and marry your rich wife, and much happiness may you get out of the match! I’m only troubled about one thing, and that is whether it is not my duty to tell the lady – poor creature! – what a blackguard she is going to wed.”

Captain James Armstrong altered the sit of his cocked hat, brushed some imaginary specks off his new uniform, and turned his back upon his cousin, ignoring the extended hand. But he did as he was told – he went and was duly married, Lieutenant Humphrey being present and walking close behind, to see just outside the church door the flashing eyes and knitted brow of Mary Dell on one side; while beyond her, but unseen by Humphrey, were her brother Abel, and Bart, who stood with folded arms and a melodramatic scowl upon his ugly face.

“She’s going to make a scene,” thought Humphrey; and, pushing before the bride and bridegroom, he interposed, from a feeling of loyalty to the former, perhaps from a little of the same virtue toward a member of his family.

Mary looked up at him, at first in surprise, and then she smiled bitterly.

“Don’t be alarmed, sir,” she said coldly. “I only came to see the captain’s wife.”

“Poor lass!” muttered the lieutenant, as he saw Mary draw back among the people gathered together. “She seemed to read me like a book.”

He caught one more sight of Mary Dell standing at a distance, holding her brother’s arm, as the captain entered the heavy, lumbering coach at the church gate. Then she disappeared, the crowd melted away, and the bells rang a merry peal, the ringers’ muscles having been loosened with ale; and as the bride and bridegroom went off to the lady’s home at an old hall near Slapton Lea, Mary returned slowly to the cottage down in the little cove, and Humphrey went to the wedding breakfast, and afterwards to his ship.