For Slap-Jack, nevertheless, whose whole life had been passed in conflict with the elements, even a heavy fall of snow seemed but a trifling obstacle, easily to be overcome, and on no account to interfere with so important a ceremony as a seaman's wedding. Assisted by his shipmate, who had consented to officiate as "best man" on the occasion, he set to work, "with a will," so he expressed it, and cleared away a path four feet broad from the Hill to the "Hamilton Arms." Down this path he proceeded in great state to be married, on the very day the thaw set in, attended by Sir George and Lady Hamilton, the Marquise, Smoke-Jack, and all the servants of the establishment. Ere the ceremony was accomplished, the wind blew high and the rain fell in torrents, omens to which the old foretopman paid not the slightest attention, but of which his best man skilfully availed himself to congratulate the bridegroom on his choice.
"It looks dirty to windward," he proclaimed, in a confidential whisper, heard by the whole company; "and a chap ain't got overmuch sea-room when he's spliced. But she's weatherly, mate; that's what she is—wholesome and weatherly. I knows the trim on 'em."
At a later period in the afternoon, however, when I am sorry to say, he had become more than slightly inebriated, Smoke-Jack was heard to express an equally flattering opinion as to the qualities, "wholesome and weatherly," of Mrs. Dodge, not concealing his intention of making a return voyage, "in ballast o' coorse," as he strongly insisted, to these latitudes, when he had delivered a cargo in London. Shrewd observers were of opinion, from these compromising remarks and other trifling incidents of the day, that it was possible the hostess of the "Hamilton Arms" might be induced to change her name once more, under the irresistible temptation of subjugating so consistent a woman-hater as Smoke-Jack.
But in the last century, as in the present, death and marriage trod close on each other's heels. The customers at the "Hamilton Arms" had not done carousing to the health of bride and bridegroom, the wintry day had not yet closed in with a mild, continuous rain, and Smoke-Jack was in the middle of an interminable forecastle yarn, when
