第2章 THE VILLAGE(2)

"The name,sir.The name keeps the Post-office.""A coincidence!"said the captain."A lucky bit!Show me where it is.Good-bye,shipmates,for the present!I shall come and have another look at you,afore I leave,this afternoon."This was addressed to all there,but especially the young fisherman;so all there acknowledged it,but especially the young fisherman.

"He's a sailor!"said one to another,as they looked after the captain moving away.That he was;and so outspeaking was the sailor in him,that although his dress had nothing nautical about it,with the single exception 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 sagacious,weather-beaten face,or his strong,brown hand,would have established the captain's calling.Whereas Mr.Pettifer--a man of a certain plump neatness,with a curly whisker,and elaborately nautical in a jacket,and shoes,and all things correspondent--looked no more like a seaman,beside Captain Jorgan,than he looked like a sea-serpent.

The two climbed high up the village,--which had the most arbitrary turns and twists in it,so that the cobbler's house came dead across the ladder,and to have held a reasonable course,you must have gone through his house,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 up the village,and stopped before a quaint little house,on which was painted,"MRS.RAYBROCK,DRAPER;"and also "POST-OFFICE."Before it,ran a rill of murmuring water,and access to it was gained by a little plank-bridge.

"Here's the name,"said Captain Jorgan,"sure enough.You can come in if you like,Tom."The captain opened the door,and passed into an odd little shop,about six feet high,with a great variety of beams and bumps in the ceiling,and,besides the principal window giving on the ladder of stones,a purblind little window of a single pane of glass,peeping out of an abutting corner at the sun-lighted ocean,and winking at its brightness.

"How do you do,ma'am?"said the captain."I am very glad to see you.I have come a long way to see you.""Have you,sir?Then I am sure I am very glad to see you,though Idon't know you from Adam."

Thus a comely elderly woman,short of stature,plump of form,sparkling and dark of eye,who,perfectly clean and neat herself,stood in the midst of her perfectly clean and neat arrangements,and surveyed Captain Jorgan with smiling curiosity."Ah!but you are a sailor,sir,"she added,almost immediately,and with a slight movement of her hands,that was not very unlike wringing them;"then you are heartily welcome.""Thank'ee,ma'am,"said the captain,"I don't know what it is,I am sure;that brings out the salt in me,but everybody seems to see it on the crown of my hat and the collar of my coat.Yes,ma'am,I am in that way of life.""And the other gentleman,too,"said Mrs.Raybrock.

"Well now,ma'am,"said the captain,glancing shrewdly at the other gentleman,"you are that nigh right,that he goes to sea,--if that makes him a sailor.This is my steward,ma'am,Tom Pettifer;he's been 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 ship-owner,and I sail my own and my partners'ships,and have done so this five-and-twenty year.According to custom I am called Captain Jorgan,but I am no more a captain,bless your heart,than you are.""Perhaps you'll come into my parlour,sir,and take a chair?"said Mrs.Raybrock.

"Ex-actly what I was going to propose myself,ma'am.After you."Thus replying,and enjoining Tom to give an eye to the shop,Captain Jorgan followed Mrs.Raybrock into the little,low back-room,--decorated with divers plants in pots,tea-trays,old china teapots,and punch-bowls,--which was at once the private sitting-room of the Raybrock family and the inner cabinet of the post-office of the village of Steepways.