“I told him that nobody would employ her here, as she’d lost her character, and that her father and mother could not keep her, though she might live with them. So I asked him if he’d mind paying her to make shirts for a man in Liverpool I knew? He’d pay sixpence each for the making of the shirts, and I’d leave her my half-pay, for I made up my mind to go a long voyage, if he’d make it out so that it should seem as if she was earning more for the shirts than the sixpence, for I knew she’d never take the money of me. Well, he agreed to do it. ‘For,’ says I, ‘I think we are all of us too much down on a woman when she goes wrong. What would it be,’ says I, ‘if people were to serve us men in the same way? A good many of us would have to beg.’
“‘Ben,’ says he, ‘you’re right there!’ starting from his chair quite excited like; ‘you’re right, man!’ and he groaned as if he was in pain.
“‘My dear Walter,’ said his wife, and she put her hand on his shoulder. He sat down, trembling like.
“‘I meant no offence,’ says I, ‘none, sir. I—’
“‘No, Ben, I know it; but a random-shot tells sometimes.’
“I noticed that she’d let her hand slide down from his shoulder, and had caught hold of his hand with both hers. She was sitting just a little behind him, as he sat back in the easy chair. She thought I could not see in the shadow of the chair, but I could see, and she was holding his hand as hard as she could.
“‘No, Ben,’ says he; ‘but we’re none of us better than we should be, and ought therefore to be less harsh than we are. I’ve no reason to complain though, thank God.’ He turned and looked back at her.
“I never saw such a change come over a woman’s face before. She opened her grey eyes and looked at him in a way that put me in mind of a flash of sheet lightning in the twilight in summer—when it’s not quite dark, you know—and the light of it makes it seem as though day was come back again. I never saw such a look; it said as plain as words, she knew all, and forgave him, and loved him enough to die for him. It did me good did that look, and when I’ve been inclined to joke about women being censorious and fault-finding, I’ve thought of it. I think she must have had what some women would call ‘good cause’ to find fault from the way he spoke, but she didn’t. So they agreed to give Esther my half-pay, so that she should think it came from the shirts.
“I went down to Esther just before I left to say ‘good-bye,’ and tell her about the work.
“‘Esther,’ says I, ‘I’m going a long voyage—perhaps four years—whaling. You know I went two or three voyages before. Now don’t leave the old folks again, there’s a good girl. You’ll never find that—’
“I was going to say ‘fellow,’ but I didn’t; for you can’t do yourself more harm in a woman’s eyes than to call her lover names.
“‘You’ll never find Fitzjames, unless he comes back here, I know; so don’t leave them.’
“‘Ben,’ says she, and the tears were in her eyes, ‘you’ve been a friend to me. I’ll never forget it. I know he’ll come back—I’m sure of it, and if he don’t I’ll never marry another man. He never meant to do me a wrong like this, I know. He got into mischief through drink;—he never meant me to come to this, I know.’
“‘God bless you, Esther. Good bye.’
“She came up to me, put her arms round my neck and kissed me.
“‘Ben,’ says she, ‘you always seem like a brother to me—always did, and that’s why I kiss you. You’ve been a good brother to me; I wish you’d never have tried to be more.’
“‘Good-bye, Esther,’ and I kissed her for the first time in my life.”
My friend, Ben Stevens, has a cough which obliges him to use his handkerchief now and then. The red and yellow Bandana was in vigorous action for a few seconds now.
“So I determined to go on a whaling-voyage, as that was the hardest life I knew, and hard work keeps a man from thinking of himself and his feelings. Taking in the foresail with a north-east gale blowing, don’t leave a fellow much time to look inside himself, neither does harpooning, when you like to do it like a man.
“Well, I went, you see, to Aberdeen, and shipped for mate in the Belle of Aberdeen, Captain Macaulay. We left in March and reached Cape Farewell about the middle of April, but as the wind fell dead as we left the harbour we got into the Spitzbergen drift, and were carried with it as far as 66° north; then we met with a regular northerly breeze that chilled you through to sniff it.
“Of course it froze us up, being early in the season, and there we were till nearly the end of May, the wind north the whole time.
“One morning, after breakfast, the captain says to me:
“‘Mr. Stevens, there’s a little west in the wind this morning; it may go round south, so that we can get out of this perhaps if the ice breaks up with it.’
“‘I was in the nest this morning,’ said Cummins, our second-mate, and it seemed to me that that shore-lane reached open water.’
“‘Might be worth while to cut a bit to get into it, in case this don’t get southerly,’ said the captain.
“‘Might be worth while to track it and see. We could get some game perhaps if we didn’t find what we want about the lane,’ says I.
“‘That’s true,’ says the captain. ‘We’ll see how the wind is in an hour, and then get up a party to go.’
“The wind shifted a little to the north’ard, so we got up the party; the Captain, of course, couldn’t leave the ship, so I was one, and he told me to take my pick of the men.
“‘I chose a fellow, I think,’ said Ben, reflectively, ‘the handsomest chap I ever set eyes on, His eyes seemed to dance when he smiled; and a jollier, more good-natured fellow I never knew. Lord, what songs he used to sing—anything—comic or love-songs! Why, to hear him sing My Pretty Jane, in the forecastle of a night, was a