Flora Lyndsay Volume I Part 30

The little Doctor drew up his shoulders with an air of profound contempt; then taking a monstrous pinch of snuff, in the most sneezable manner, from his old-fashioned box, he shook Mrs. Lyndsay kindly by the hand, and wishing her and her _gudeman_ a prosperous voyage, vanished up the companion-ladder.

Old Boreas shook his fist after his retreating figure. "You d--d, insignificant, snuffy little c.o.xcomb! I'm a d--d sight better doctor than you are. If the Government sends you again, poking your long nose among my people, I'll make a surgical case for you to examine at home at your leisure, I will."

In order to divert his ill-humour, Flora inquired at what hour the ship sailed?

"She must wait for that which never yet waited for mortal man-wind and tide. It will be midnight before we get under weigh."

Boreas always spoke in short sentences. He was a man of few words, rough, ready, and eccentrically blunt. Had his talents been proportioned to his obstinacy of will, he might have ruled over large communities, instead of acting the petty tyrant on the deck of his small craft. Right or wrong, he never gave up his opinion to any one. He certainly did not belong to the "_Ay, Sir-very true, Sir_"-school of individuals, who would resign their own souls to agree with their superiors in rank or power. If there was a being on earth that he despised more than another, it was a sneak. On one occasion, when a steerage pa.s.senger, in order to curry favour, was prostrating himself before him after this fashion, a.s.suring the Captain, "That _his_ thoughts coincided _exactly_ with his own," he burst out in a towering pa.s.sion, "D-- you Sir! haven't you got an opinion of your own? I don't want such a sneaking puppy as you to think my thoughts, and echo my words. I should despise myself, if I thought it possible that we could agree on any subject."

If really convinced that he was wrong, he would show it by a slight diminution of his ferocious stubbornness; but would never acknowledge it in words. If he gained even a doubtful advantage over an adversary, he rubbed his hands, clapped his knees, and chuckled and growled out his satisfaction, in a manner peculiarly his own. He was only tolerable as a companion after taking his third gla.s.s of brandy-and-water; and as he commenced these humanizing doses by daybreak in the morning, repeating them at stated intervals during the four-and-twenty hours, by noon he became sociable and entertaining; and would descend from his anti-meridian dignity, and condescend to laugh and chat in a dry humorous style, which, if it lacked refinement, was highly amusing.

Though an inveterate imbiber of alcohol, he was never positively drunk during the whole voyage. The evil spirits seemed to make no impression upon the iron fibres of his stubborn brain and heart. He judged his morality by the toughness of his const.i.tution, and congratulated himself on being a sober man, while he complained of his second mate, and stigmatised him as a drunken, worthless fellow, because one gla.s.s of punch made him intoxicated. This is by no means an uncommon thing both at home and abroad; and men condemn others more for want of strength of head, than strength of heart.

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.