With a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney--
Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end,
Methinks it is no journey.
--Tom o' Bedlam's Song
"Goodbye, Bess; I promised you fifty. Here's a hundred--all that I got for my
furniture from Beeton. That will keep you in pretty frocks for some time.
You've been a good little girl, all things considered, but you"ve given me and
Torpenhow a fair amount of trouble."
"Give Mr. Torpenhow my love if you see him, won't you?"
"Of course I will, dear. Now take me up the gang-plank and into the cabin. Once
aboard the lugger and the maid is--and I am free, I mean."
"Who'll look after you on this ship?"
"The head-steward, if there's any use in money. The doctor when we come to Port
Said, if I know anything of P. and O. doctors. After that, the Lord will
provide, as He used to do."
Bess found Dick his cabin in the wild turmoil of a ship full of leavetakers and
weeping relatives. Then he kissed her, and laid himself down in his bunk until
the decks should be clear. He who had taken so long to move about his own
darkened rooms well understood the geography of a ship, and the necessity of
seeing to his own comforts was as wine to him.
Before the screw began to thrash the ship along the Docks he had been
introduced to the head-steward, had royally tipped him, secured a good place at
table, opened out his baggage, and settled himself down with joy in the cabin.
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