It was
beautiful to watch her with John, and it was beautiful to watch John with
her. Few would have thought it possible, to see John playing at bo-peep
round the mast, that he was the man who had caught up an iron bar and
struck a Malay and a Maltese dead, as they were gliding with their knives
down the cabin stair aboard the barque Old England, when the captain lay
ill in his cot, off Saugar Point. But he was; and give him his back
against a bulwark, he would have done the same by half a dozen of them.
The name of the young mother was Mrs. Atherfield, the name of the young
lady in black was Miss Coleshaw, and the name of the old gentleman was
Mr. Rarx.
As the child had a quantity of shining fair hair, clustering in curls all
about her face, and as her name was Lucy, Steadiman gave her the name of
the Golden Lucy. So, we had the Golden Lucy and the Golden Mary; and
John kept up the idea to that extent as he and the child went playing
about the decks, that I believe she used to think the ship was alive
somehow--a sister or companion, going to the same place as herself.
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