Walter was coming down from his parting expedition upstairs, and was crossing the shop to go back to the little parlour, when he saw a faded face he knew, looking in at the door, and darted towards it.
“Mr. Carker!” cried Walter, pressing the hand of John Carker the Junior. “Pray come in! This is kind of you, to be here so early to say goodbye to me. You knew how glad it would make me to shake hands with you, once, before going away. I cannot say how glad I am to have this opportunity. Pray come in.”
“It is not likely that we may ever meet again, Walter,” returned the other, gently resisting his invitation, “and I am glad of this opportunity too. I may venture to speak to you, and to take you by the hand, on the eve of separation. I shall not have to resist your frank approaches, Walter, any more.”
There was a melancholy in his smile as he said it, that showed he had found some company and friendship for his thoughts even in that.
“Ah, Mr. Carker!” returned Walter. “Why did you resist them? You could have done me nothing but good, I am very sure.”
He shook his head. “If there were any good,” he said, “I could do on this earth, I would do it, Walter, for you. The sight of you from day to day, has been at once happiness and remorse to me. But the pleasure has outweighed the pain. I know that, now, by knowing what I lose.”
“Come in, Mr. Carker, and make acquaintance with my good old Uncle,” urged Walter. “I have often talked to him about you, and he will be glad to tell you all he hears from me. I have not,” said Walter, noticing his hesitation, and speaking with embarrassment himself: “I have not told him anything about our last conversation, Mr. Carker; not even him, believe me.”
The grey Junior pressed his hand, and tears rose in his eyes.
“If I ever make acquaintance with him, Walter,” he returned, “it will be that I may hear tidings of you. Rely on my not wronging your forbearance and consideration. It would be to wrong it, not to tell him all the truth, before I sought a word of confidence from him. But I have no friend or acquaintance except you: and even for your sake, am little likely to make any.”
“I wish,” said Walter, “you had suffered me to be your friend indeed. I always wished it, Mr. Carker, as you know; but never half so much as now, when we are going to part.”
“It is enough,” replied the other, “that you have been the friend of my own breast, and that when I have avoided you most, my heart inclined the most towards you, and was fullest of you. Walter, goodbye!”
“Goodbye, Mr. Carker. Heaven be with you, Sir!” cried Walter with emotion.
“If,” said the other, retaining his hand while he spoke; “if when you come back, you miss me from my old corner, and should hear from anyone where I am lying, come and look upon my grave. Think that I might have been as honest and as happy as you! And let me think, when I know time is coming on, that someone like my former self may stand there, for a moment, and remember me with pity and forgiveness! Walter, goodbye!”
His figure crept like a shadow down the bright, sun-lighted street, so cheerful yet so solemn in the early summer morning; and slowly passed away.
The relentless chronometer at last announced that Walter must turn his back upon the wooden Midshipman: and away they went, himself, his Uncle, and the Captain, in a hackney-coach to a wharf, where they were to take steamboat for some Reach down the river, the name of which, as the Captain gave it out, was a hopeless mystery to the ears of landsmen. Arrived at this Reach (whither the ship had repaired by last night’s tide), they were boarded by various excited watermen, and among others by a dirty Cyclops of the Captain’s acquaintance, who, with his one eye, had made the Captain out some mile and a half off, and had been exchanging unintelligible roars with him ever since. Becoming the lawful prize of this personage, who was frightfully hoarse and constitutionally in want of shaving, they were all three put aboard the Son and Heir. And the Son and Heir was in a pretty state of confusion, with sails lying all bedraggled on the wet decks, loose ropes tripping people up, men in red shirts running barefoot to and fro, casks blockading every foot of space, and, in the thickest of the fray, a black cook in a black caboose up to his eyes in vegetables and blinded with smoke.
The Captain immediately drew Walter into a corner, and with a great effort, that made his face very red, pulled up the silver watch, which was so big, and so tight in his pocket, that it came out like a bung.
“Wal’r,” said the Captain, handing it over, and shaking him heartily by the hand, “a parting gift, my lad. Put it back half an hour every morning, and about another quarter towards the arternoon, and it’s a watch that’ll do you credit.”
“Captain Cuttle! I couldn’t think of it!” cried Walter, detaining him, for he was running away.
