But as this step involved the relinquishment of his apartments at Mrs. MacStinger’s, and he knew that resolute woman would never hear of his deserting them, the Captain took the desperate determination of running away.
“Now, look ye here, my lad,” said the Captain to Rob, when he had matured this notable scheme, “tomorrow, I shan’t be found in this here roadstead till night—not till arter midnight p’rhaps. But you keep watch till you hear me knock, and the moment you do, turn-to, and open the door.”
“Very good, Captain,” said Rob.
“You’ll continue to be rated on these here books,” pursued the Captain condescendingly, “and I don’t say but what you may get promotion, if you and me should pull together with a will. But the moment you hear me knock tomorrow night, whatever time it is, turn-to and show yourself smart with the door.”
“I’ll be sure to do it, Captain,” replied Rob.
“Because you understand,” resumed the Captain, coming back again to enforce this charge upon his mind, “there may be, for anything I can say, a chase; and I might be took while I was waiting, if you didn’t show yourself smart with the door.”
Rob again assured the Captain that he would be prompt and wakeful; and the Captain having made this prudent arrangement, went home to Mrs. MacStinger’s for the last time.
The sense the Captain had of its being the last time, and of the awful purpose hidden beneath his blue waistcoat, inspired him with such a mortal dread of Mrs. MacStinger, that the sound of that lady’s foot downstairs at any time of the day, was sufficient to throw him into a fit of trembling. It fell out, too, that Mrs. MacStinger was in a charming temper—mild and placid as a house-lamb; and Captain Cuttle’s conscience suffered terrible twinges, when she came up to inquire if she could cook him nothing for his dinner.
“A nice small kidney-pudding now, Cap’en Cuttle,” said his landlady: “or a sheep’s heart. Don’t mind my trouble.”
“No thank’ee, Ma’am,” returned the Captain.
“Have a roast fowl,” said Mrs. MacStinger, “with a bit of weal stuffing and some egg sauce. Come, Cap’en Cuttle! Give yourself a little treat!”
“No thank’ee, Ma’am,” returned the Captain very humbly.
“I’m sure you’re out of sorts, and want to be stimulated,” said Mrs. MacStinger. “Why not have, for once in a way, a bottle of sherry wine?”
“Well, Ma’am,” rejoined the Captain, “if you’d be so good as take a glass or two, I think I would try that. Would you do me the favour, Ma’am,” said the Captain, torn to pieces by his conscience, “to accept a quarter’s rent ahead?”
“And why so, Cap’en Cuttle?” retorted Mrs. MacStinger—sharply, as the Captain thought.
The Captain was frightened to dead “If you would Ma’am,” he said with submission, “it would oblige me. I can’t keep my money very well. It pays itself out. I should take it kind if you’d comply.”
“Well, Cap’en Cuttle,” said the unconscious MacStinger, rubbing her hands, “you can do as you please. It’s not for me, with my family, to refuse, no more than it is to ask.”
“And would you, Ma’am,” said the Captain, taking down the tin canister in which he kept his cash, from the top shelf of the cupboard, “be so good as offer eighteen-pence apiece to the little family all round? If you could make it convenient, Ma’am, to pass the word presently for them children to come for’ard, in a body, I should be glad to see ’em.”
These innocent MacStingers were so many daggers to the Captain’s breast, when they appeared in a swarm, and tore at him with the confiding trustfulness he so little deserved. The eye of Alexander MacStinger, who had been his favourite, was insupportable to the Captain; the voice of Juliana MacStinger, who was the picture of her mother, made a coward of him.
Captain Cuttle kept up appearances, nevertheless, tolerably well, and for an hour or two was very hardly used and roughly handled by the young MacStingers: who in their childish frolics, did a little damage also to the glazed hat, by sitting in it, two at a time, as in a nest, and drumming on the inside of the crown with their shoes. At length the Captain sorrowfully dismissed them: taking leave of these cherubs with the poignant remorse and grief of a man who was going to execution.
In the silence of night, the Captain packed up his heavier property in a chest, which he locked, intending to leave it there, in all probability forever, but on the forlorn chance of one day finding a man sufficiently bold and desperate to come and ask for it. Of his lighter necessaries, the Captain made a bundle; and disposed his plate about his person, ready for flight. At the hour of midnight, when Brig Place was buried in slumber, and Mrs. MacStinger was lulled in sweet oblivion, with her infants around her, the guilty Captain, stealing down on tiptoe, in the dark, opened the door, closed it softly after him, and took to his heels.
Pursued by the image of Mrs. MacStinger springing out of bed, and, regardless of costume, following and bringing him back; pursued also by a consciousness of his enormous crime; Captain Cuttle held on at a great pace, and allowed no grass to grow under his feet, between Brig Place and the Instrument-maker’s door. It opened when he knocked—for Rob was on the watch—and when it was bolted and locked behind him, Captain Cuttle felt comparatively safe.
“Whew!” cried the Captain, looking round him. “It’s a breather!”
“Nothing the matter, is there, Captain?” cried the gaping Rob.
“No, no!” said Captain Cuttle, after changing colour, and listening to a passing footstep in the street. “But mind ye, my lad; if any lady, except either of them two as you see t’other day, ever comes and asks for Cap’en Cuttle, be sure to report no person of that name known, nor never heard
