Perplexities and Musical Charms.

My son Gildart, with his hands in his pockets and his cap very much on one side of his head, entered my drawing-room one morning with a perplexed air.

“What troubles you to-day?” asked Lizzie Gordon, who was seated at the window winding up a ball of worsted, the skein of which was being held by Miss Puff, who was at that time residing with us.

“What troubles me?—everything troubles me,” said the middy with a stern air, as he turned his back to the fire; “the world troubles me, circumstances trouble me, my heart troubles me, my pocket troubles me, my friends and relations trouble me, and so do my enemies; in fact, it would be difficult to name the sublunary creature or thing that does not trouble me. It blows trouble from every point of the compass, a peculiarity in moral gales that is never observed in physical breezes.”

“How philosophically you talk this morning,” observed Lizzie with a laugh. “May it not be just possible that the trouble, instead of flowing from all points to you as a centre, wells up within and flows out in all directions, and that a warped mind inverts the process?”

“Perhaps you are right, sweet cousin! Anyhow we can’t be both wrong, which is a comfort.”

“May I ask what is the heart-trouble you complain of?” said Lizzie.

“Love and hatred,” replied Gildart with a sigh and a frown.

“Indeed! Is the name of the beloved object a secret?”

“Of course,” said the middy with a pointed glance at Miss Puff, who blushed scarlet from the roots of her hair to the edge of her dress, (perhaps to the points of her toes—I am inclined to think so); “of course it is; but the hated object’s name is no secret. It is Haco Barepoles.”

“The mad skipper!” exclaimed Lizzie in surprise. “I thought he was the most amiable man in existence. Every one speaks well of him.”

“It may be so, but I hate him. The hatred is peculiar, though I believe not incurable, but at present it is powerful. That preposterous giant, that fathom and four inches of conceit, that insufferable disgrace to his cloth, that huge mass of human bones in a pig-skin—he—he bothers me.”

“But how does he bother you?”

“Well, in the first place, he positively refuses to let his daughter Susan marry Dan Horsey, and I have set my heart on that match, for Susan is a favourite of mine, and Dan is a capital fellow, though he is a groom and a scoundrel—and nothing would delight me more than to bother our cook, who is a perfect vixen, and would naturally die of vexation if these two were spliced; besides, I want a dance at a wedding, or a shindy of some sort, before setting sail for the land of spices and niggers. Haco puts a stop to all that; but, worse still, when I was down at the Sailors’ Home the other day, I heard him telling some wonderful stories to the men there, in one of which he boasted that he had never been taken by surprise, nor got a start in his life; that a twenty-four pounder had once burst at his side and cut the head clean off a comrade, without causing his nerves to shake or his pulse to increase a bit. I laid him a bet of ten pounds on the spot that I could give him a fright, and he took it at once. Now I can’t for the life of me think how to give him a fright, yet I must do it somehow, for it will never do to be beat.”

“Couldn’t you shoot off a pistol at his ear?” suggested Lizzie.

Miss Puff sniggered, and Gildart said he might as well try to startle him with a sneeze.

“Get up a ghost, then,” said Lizzie; “I have known a ghost act with great effect on a dark night in an out-of-the-way place.”

“No use,” returned Gildart, shaking his head. “Haco has seen ghosts enough to frighten a squadron of horse-marines.”

Miss Puff sniggered again, and continued to do so until her puffy face and neck became extremely pink and dangerously inflated, insomuch that Gildart asked her somewhat abruptly what in the world she was laughing at. Miss Puff said she wouldn’t tell, and Gildart insisted that she would; but she positively declined, until Gildart dragged her forcibly from her chair into a window-recess, where she was prevailed on to whisper the ideas that made her laugh.

“Capital!” exclaimed the middy, chuckling as he issued from the recess; “I’ll try it. You’re a charming creature, Puff, with an imagination worthy the owner of a better name. There, don’t pout. You know my sentiments. Adieu, fair cousin! Puff, good-bye.”

So saying, the volatile youth left the room.

That afternoon Gildart sauntered down to the Sailors’ Home and entered the public hall, in which a dozen or two of sailors were engaged in playing draughts or chatting together. He glanced round, but, not finding the object of his search, was about to leave, when Dan Horsey came up, and, touching his hat, asked if he were looking for Haco Barepoles.

“I am,” said Gildart.

“So is meself,” said Dan; “but the mad skipper an’t aisy to git howld of, an’ not aisy to kape howld of when ye’ve got him. He’s goin’ to Cove this afternoon, I believe, an’ll be here before startin’, so I’m towld, so I’m waitin’ for him.”

As he spoke Haco entered, and Dan delivered a letter to him.

“Who from?” inquired the skipper sternly.

“Mr Stuart, alias the guv’nor,” replied Dan with extreme affability; “an’ as no answer is required, I’ll take my leave with your highness’s permission.”

Haco deigned no reply, but turned to Gildart and held out his hand.

“You’ve not gone to stay at Cove yet, I see,” said Gildart.

“Not yet, lad, but I go to-night at nine o’clock. You see Mrs Gaff is a-goin’ to visit a relation for a week, an’ wants me to take care o’ the house, the boodwar, as she calls it, though why she calls it by that name is more than I can tell. However I’ll be here for a week yet, as the ‘Coffin’ wants a few repairs, (I wonder if it ever didn’t want repairs), an’ I may as well be there as in the Home, though I’m bound to say the Home is as good a lodgin’ as ever I was in at home or abroad, and cheap too, an’ they looks arter you so well. The only thing I an’t sure of is whether the repairs is to be done here or in Athenbury.”

“The letter from Mr Stuart may bear on that point,” suggested Gildart.

“True,” replied the skipper, opening the letter.

“Ha! sure enough the repairs is to be done there, so I’ll have to cut my visit to Cove short by four days.”

“But you’ll sleep............