Fathers and daughters -- Fiction; Social classes -- England -- Fiction
Lizarann shook her head. "Not the Dutchman. She's afloat, every
spar on her,"--she religiously gave Jim's exact words, with a sense
of saying a lesson--"and to stop afloat till the Lord comes to judge
sinners from repentance." She got a little confused here, but it
sounded good, and her hearer was impressed.
"Now only 'ark at that!" said she. "I'd 'a said you was a God-fearin'
child. And you may never need doubt but it's all true, my dear!" Mrs.
Groves, perhaps, was prepared to ascribe truth to any narrative that
had a religious phrase or two in it; still, she was probably impressed
with the little person's manner, for she referred to Frederick Hawkins,
in contrast. "Now, that young Turk, he's no respect, and won't come to
no good end, I lay."
But Lizarann didn't want the conversation coaxed away from the Flying
Dutchman. "Daddy _seen_ her, himself," she said fervently; and then,
resuming the lesson-manner: "Every stitch o' sail on her set in a
three-quarter gale freshenin' from the south. And the look-out forward,
he seen her too. And Job Collins, he seen her. And Marmaduke Flyn, he
seen her. And Peter Cortright, he seen her." All these were essential
items of the often-told tale.
Mother Groves's hearing was none of the best; so when she condemned
the time-honoured legend as outlandish and French, it may be she had
really supposed that some of the expressions were in a foreign tongue,
any variety of which she would naturally consider French, failing
instruction to the contrary. But Lizarann's reference to the Lord,
to sinners, and to repentance, was strong enough in itself to keep
suspicions of Voltaire and Tom Paine in abeyance. Mrs. Groves therefore
allowed the story to continue, and felt fortified against the heresies
abounding on the Continent by the approved religious bias of the
narrator.
"Peter Cortright and Marmaduke Flyn they was both on the mainyard
reefin', alongside o' my daddy, and Job Collins he was aft by the
binnacle. Then Peter Cortright he sings out to my daddy to look; and
my daddy he looked and seen her, carryin' all sail afore the wind. And
then, no more time than what you says budget in, she was agone away,
out o' sight." A pause came here, for dramatic impressiveness. Then
followed, for reinforcement of testimony: "But Job Collins, he seen
her, too, plain!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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