It is really quite perplexing, said Martha, sitting down with a sigh, and regarding the tea-table with a critical gaze; quite perplexing. Im sure I dont know how I shall bear it. It is too bad of Georgedarling Ailie(dear me, Jane, how crookedly you have placed the urn)it is really too bad.
Too bad, indeed; yes, isnt it? echoed Jane, in reference to the captains conduct, while she assisted Martha, who had risen to readjust the urn.
Oh! exclaimed Martha, with a look of horror.
What? cried Jane, who looked and felt equally horrified, although she knew not yet the cause.
The eggs!
The eggs?
Yes, the eggs. You know every one of the last dozen we got was bad, and weve forgot to send for more, said Martha.
For more; so we have! cried Jane; and both ladies rushed into the kitchen, gave simultaneous and hurried orders to the servant-girl, and sent her out of the house impressed with an undefined feeling that life or death depended on the instant procuring of two dozen fresh eggs.
It may be as well to remark here, that the Misses Dunning, although stiff, and starched, and formal, had the power of speeding nimbly from room to room, when alone and when occasion required, without in the least degree losing any of their stiffness or formality, so that we do not use the terms rush, rushed, or rushing inappropriately. Nevertheless, it may also be remarked that they never acted in a rapid or impulsive way in company, however small in numbers or unceremonious in character the company might bealways excepting the servant-girl and the cat, to whose company, from long habit, they had become used, and therefore indifferent.
The sisters were on their knees, stuffing various articles into a large trunk, and Ailie was looking on, by way of helping, with very red and swollen eyes, and the girl was still absent in quest of eggs, when a succession of sounding blows were administered to the green door, and a number of gruff voices were heard conversing without.
There! cried Martha and Jane, with bitter emphasis, looking in each others faces as if to say, We knew it. Before that girl was sent away for these eggs, we each separately and privately prophesied that they would arrive, and that we should have to open the door. And you see, so it has happened, and we are not ready!
But there was no time for remark. The case was desperate. Both sisters felt it to be so, and acted accordingly, while Ailie, having been forbidden to open the door, sat down on her trunk, and looked on in surprise. They sprang up, washed their hands simultaneously in the same basin, with the same piece of soap broken in two; dried them with the same towel, darted to the mirror, put on two identically similar clean tall caps, leaped down-stairs, opened the door with slow dignity of demeanour, and received their visitors in the hall with a calmness and urbanity of manner that contrasted rather strangely with their flushed countenances and heaving bosoms.
Hallo! Ailie! exclaimed the captain, as his daughter pulled down his head to be kissed. Why, you take a fellow all aback, like a white squall. Are you ready, my pet? Kit stowed and anchor tripped? Come this way, and let us talk about it. Dear me, Martha, you and Janelook as if you had been running a race, eh? Here are my messmates come to talk a bit with you. My sisters, Martha and JaneDr Hopley. (Dr Hopley bowed politely.) My first mate, Mr Millons (Mr Millons also bowed, somewhat loosely); and RokensTim Rokens, my chief harpooner. (Mr Rokens pulled his forelock, and threw back his left leg, apparently to counterbalance the bend in his body.) He didnt want to come; said he warnt accustomed to ladies society; but I told him you warnt ladiesaI dont mean thatnot ladies o the high-flyin fashionable sort, that give themselves airs, you know. Come along, Ailie.
While the captain ran on in this strain, hung up his hat, kissed Ailie, and ran his fingers through his shaggy locks, the Misses Dunning performed a mingled bow and courtsey to each guest as his name was mentioned, and shook hands with him, after which the whole party entered the parlour, where the cat was discovered enjoying a preliminary meal of its own at one of the pats of butter. A united shriek from Martha and Jane, a nautical howl from the guests, and a rolled-up pocket-handkerchief from Rokens sent that animal from the table as if it had received a galvanic shock.
I ax yer parding, ladies, said Mr Rokens, whose aim had been so perfect that his handkerchief not only accelerated the flight of the cat, but carried away the violated pat of butter along with it. I ax yer parding, but them brutes is sich thievesI could roast em alive, so I could.
The harpooner unrolled his handkerchief, and picking the pat of butter from its folds with his fingers, threw it into the fire. Thereafter he smoothed down his hair, and seated himself on the extreme edge of a chair, as near the door as possible. Not that he had any intention whatever of taking to flight, but he deemed that position to be more suited to his condition than any other.
In a few minutes the servant-girl returned with the eggs. While she is engaged in boiling them, we shall introduce Captain Dunnings friends and messmates to the reader.
Dr Hopley was a surgeon, and a particular friend of the captains. He was an American by birth, but had travelled so much about the world that he had ceased to guess and calculate, and to speak through his nose. He was a man about forty, tall, big-boned, and muscular, though not fat; and besides being a gentlemanly man, was a good-natured, quiet creature, and a clever enough fellow besides, but he preferred to laugh at and enjoy the jokes and witticisms of others rather than to perpetrate any himself. Dr Hopley was intensely fond of travelling, and being possessed of a small independence, he indulged his passion to the utmost. He had agreed to go with Captain Dunning as the ships doctor, simply for the sake of seeing the whale-fishery of the South Seas, having already, in a similar capacity, encountered the dangers of the North.
Dr Hopley had few weaknesses. His chief one was an extravagant belief in phrenology. We would not be understood to imply that phrenology is extravagant; but we assert that the doctors belief in it was extravagant, assigning, as he did, to every real and ideal facility of the human mind a local habitation and a name in the cranium, with a corresponding depression or elevation of the surface to mark its whereabouts. In other respects he was a commonplace sort of a man.
Mr Millons, the first mate, was a short, hale, thick-set man, without any particularly strong points of character. He was about thirty-five, and possessed a superabundance of fair hair and whiskers, with a large, broad chin, a firm mouth, rather fierce-looking eyes, and a hasty, but by no means a bad temper. He was a trustworthy, matter-of-fact seaman, and a good officer, but not bright intellectually. Like most men of his class, his look implied that he did not under-estimate his own importance, and his tones were those of a man accustomed to command.
Tim Rokens was an old salt; a bluff, strong, cast-iron man, of about forty-five years of age, who had been at sea since he was a little boy, and would not have consented to live on dry land, though he had been offered command of a seaport town all to himself, as he was wont to affirm emphatically. His visage was scarred and knotty, as if it had been long used to being pelted by stormsas indeed it had. There was a scar over his left eye and down his cheek, which had been caused by a slash from the cutlass of a pirate in the China Seas; but although it added to the rugged effect of his countenance, it did not detract from the frank, kindly expression that invariably rested there. Tim Rokens had never been caught out of temper in his life. Men were wont say he had no temper to lose. Whether this was true or no, we cannot presume to say, but certainly he never lost it. He was the best and boldest harpooner in Captain Dunnings ship, and a sententious deliverer of his private opinion on all occasions whatsoever. When we say that he wore a rough blue pilot-cloth suit, and had a large black beard, with a sprinkling of silver hairs in it, we have completed his portrait.