Newton Forster. Фредерик МарриетЧитать онлайн книгу.
for its completion had been brought from darkness;—what thousands had been employed before it was prepared and ready for its destined use! Yon copper bolt, twisted with a force not human, and raised above the waters, as if in evidence of their dreadful power, may contain a history in itself.
How many of her own structure must have been employed, bringing from the north, the south, the east, and the west, her masts, her spars, her "hempen tackle," and her canvas wings; her equipment in all its variety; her stores for the support of life; her magazines of quiescent death.2 And they who so fearlessly trod her decks, conscious of their own powers, and confident in their own skill; they who expanded her thousands of yards of canvas to the pursuing breeze, or reduced them, like magic, at the approaching storm—where are they now? How many sighs have been lavished at their absence! how many hearths would have been gladdened by their return! Where are the hopes, the fears, the ambition, and the pride; the courage and the enterprise; the love and the yearnings after their kin; the speculations of the present, and the calculations of the future, which occupied their minds, or were cherished in their bosoms? All—all wrecked!
Days, weeks, and months rolled away; yet every step that could be taken to find out the name of the vessel proved unavailing. Although the conjecture of Forster, that she was one of the many foreign West Indiamen which had met with a similar fate during that tempestuous winter, was probably correct; still no clue could be gathered by which the parentage of the little girl could be ascertained. The linen was, indeed, marked with initials; but this circumstance offered but a faint prospect of discovery. Either her relations, convinced of her loss, made no inquiries, or the name of the vessel in which she had been a passenger was not known to them. The child had been weaned, and removed to the cottage, where it occupied much of the attention of the old housekeeper and Forster, who, despairing of its ever being reclaimed, determined to bring it up as his own.
Mrs Beazely, the housekeeper, was a good-tempered woman, long past the grand climacteric, and strongly attached to Forster, with whom she had resided many years. But, like all women, whether married or single, who have the responsibility of a household, she would have her own way; and scolded her master with as little ceremony as if she had been united to him by matrimonial bonds.
To this Forster quietly submitted; he had lived long enough to be aware that people are not the happiest who are not under control, and was philosopher sufficient to submit to the penal code of matrimony without tasting its enjoyments. The arrival of the infant made him more than ever feel as if he were a married man; for he had all the delights of the nursery in addition to his previous discipline. But, although bound by no ties, he found himself happier. He soon played with the infant, and submitted to his housekeeper with all the docility of a well-trained married man.
The Newfoundland dog, who, although (like some of his betters) he did not change his name for a fortune, did, in all probability, change it with his fortune, soon answered to the deserved epithet of "Faithful," and slept at the foot of the crib of his little mistress, who also was to be rechristened. "She is a treasure, which has been thrown up by the ocean," said Forster, kissing the lovely infant. "Let her name be Amber."
But we must leave her to bud forth in her innocence and purity, while we direct the attention of the reader to other scenes, which are contemporary with those we have described.
Chapter IV
"A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty;
And while 'tis so, none so dry or thirsty
Will deign to sip, or touch one drop of it."
A man may purchase an estate, a tenement, or a horse, because they have pleased his fancy, and eventually find out that he has not exactly suited himself; and it sometimes will occur that a man is placed in a similar situation relative to his choice of a wife:—a more serious evil; as, although the prime cost may be nothing, there is no chance of getting rid of this latter speculation by re-vending, as you may the former. Now it happened that Nicholas Forster, of whom we have already made slight mention, although he considered at the time of his marriage that the person he had selected would exactly suit his focus, did eventually discover that he was more short-sighted in his choice than an optician ought to have been.
Whatever may have been the personal charms of Mrs Nicholas Forster at the time of their union, she had, at the period of our narrative, but few to boast of, being a thin, sharp-nosed, ferret-eyed little woman, teeming with suspicion, jealousy, and bad humours of every description: her whole employment (we may say, her whole delight) was in finding fault: her shrill voice was to be heard from the other side of the street from morning until night. The one servant which their finances enabled them with difficulty to retain, and whom they engaged as a maid of all work (and certainly she was not permitted by Mrs Forster to be idle in her multifarious duty), seldom remained above her month; and nothing but the prospect of immediate starvation could induce any one to offer herself in the capacity.
Mr Nicholas Forster, fortunately for his own happiness, was of, that peculiar temperament that nothing could completely rouse his anger: he was absent to an excess; and if any language or behaviour on the part of his wife induced his choler to rise, other ideas would efface the cause from his memory; and this hydra of the human bosom, missing the object of its intended attack, again lay down to rest.
The violence and vituperation of his spouse were, therefore, lost upon Nicholas Forster; and the impossibility of disturbing the equanimity of his temper increased the irritability of her own. Still Mr Nicholas Forster, when he did reflect upon the subject, which was but during momentary fits of recollection, could not help acknowledging that he should be much more quiet and happy when it pleased Heaven to summon Mrs Forster to a better world: and this idea ultimately took possession of his imagination. Her constant turbulence interfered so much with the prosecution of his plans, that, finding it impossible to carry them into execution, everything that he considered of moment was mentally put off until Mrs Forster was dead!
"Well, Mr Forster, how long is the dinner to wait before you think proper to come? Everything will be cold, as usual. (N.B. The dinner consisted of the remains of a cold shoulder of mutton.)—Or do you mean to have any dinner at all? Betty, clear away the table; I have my work to do, and won't wait any longer."
"I'm coming, my dear, I'm coming; only this balance-spring is a job that I cannot well leave," replied Nicholas, continuing his vocation in the shop, with a magnifying glass attached to his eye.
"Coming! yes, and Christmas is coming, Mr Forster.—Well, the dinner's going, I can tell you."
Nicholas, who did not want appetite, and who was conscious that if the mutton returned to the cupboard there would be some difficulty made in reproducing it, laid down the watch and came into the back parlour.
"Well, my dear, here I am; sorry to have kept you waiting so long, but business must be attended to. Dear me! why, the mutton is really quite cold," continued Nicholas, thrusting a large piece into his mouth, quite forgetting that he had already dined twice off the identical joint. "That's a fine watch of Mr Tobin's; but I think that my improvement upon the duplex when I have finished it—"
"When you have finished it, indeed!" retorted the lady; "why, when did you ever finish anything, Mr Forster? Finish, indeed!"
"Well, my dear," replied the husband, with an absent air—"I do mean to finish it, when—you are dead!"
"When I am dead!" screamed the lady, in a rage—"when I am dead!" continued she, placing her arms akimbo, as she started from the chair. "I can tell you, Mr Forster, that I'll live long enough to plague you. It's not the first time that you've said so; but depend upon it, I'll dance upon your grave yet, Mr Forster."
"I did not exactly mean to say that; not exactly that, my dear," replied Nicholas, confused. "The fact is that I was not exactly aware of what I was saying—I had not precisely the—"
"Precisely the fiddle-stick, Mr Forster! you did mean it, and you do mean it, and this is all the return that I am to expect for my kindness
We presume the gentleman means gunpowder.—ED.