Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848

"Oh! be off with your nonsense – I wish to go to sleep."

"Well, go to sleep, and be – cured, you unfeeling wretch;" and Mr. Langley, in a huff, walked out on the verandah, and began to smoke.

Under the kind care of my good friends I grew rapidly better, and at the end of a week was entirely well; but still I enjoyed the society of Ellen so much, that whenever the skipper called upon me, I feigned myself too weak to go to my duty, and pleaded that Langley might stay ashore to take care of me. Captain Smith, though not deceived by this artifice, granted us liberty from day to day; and Bill and I were the two happiest fellows in the world. But there is an end to every thing. One day while sitting in the back verandah with Ellen, her father and mother, in rushed the skipper, in great glee, rubbing his hands.

"Good morning, all hands!" cried he. "How are you, Frank?"

"Oh! I'm not quite so well this morning," I replied, telling a bouncer.

"Well, sir, I've got some news that'll do you as much good as the whole stock in trade of an apothecary taken at one dose. Let's see, to-day is Wednesday, and Friday evening, if good weather for our little plans to work, we shall sail for Boston."

"For Boston!" cried everybody.

"Yes, for Boston! You see, Stowe, Mr. Byrne has heard how dull freights are here, and I have just got a letter from him by Gidding's, of the Duxbury, just arrived, in which he says – or I'll read that part – hum – let's see – oh – 'if you have not already engaged a freight, you will immediately sail for Boston. I have an excellent opportunity to charter the Gentile for a China voyage; and I suppose you had as lief go to India again as to Russia.' Bless me if I hadn't! So, my dear fellow, if any of those higgling shippers apply to you, tell 'em to go to the devil with their ha'penny freights. Come, ride down street with me; Gidding's has some letters for you. Good morning, Miss Ellen! Morning, Frank! get well mighty fast, for we must use you a little, you know; and see Langley, and tell him to go aboard immediately after dinner."

"Ay, ay, sir. Come, Ellen, let's walk into the garden and find William and Mary."

We were very soon in the garden, sauntering along a little alley shaded by orange trees.

"It seems to me," said Ellen, half pouting, "that you are mightily pleased about sailing next Friday, instead of staying in Matanzas a week longer."

"Why, yes," I replied, "I must say that I am glad to go home, after an absence of eighteen months."

"I wish I was going to dear old Boston," added Ellen, sighing.

"You are to go this fall, you know."

"Maybe so; but then, Frank, you will not be there, will you?"

"Why, no," I replied, "not if I go with the ship to India; but what difference will that make?"

Ellen made no answer, and I began to feel rather queer, and marvelously inclined to make love. I had always liked Ellen very much, and lately better than ever, but, being a novice in such matters, I was in doubt whether my predilection was really bona fide love or not; it didn't seem like the love I had read about in novels; and yet I felt very miserable at the idea of Ellen's loving anybody else. I was in a desperate quandary.

"Well," said Ellen, after the lapse of a quarter of an hour, "pray what can be the subject of your thoughts?"

I am frank by nature as well as by name; and so, turning to my fair inquisitor, I said, "you know, Ellen, that I am very young yet."

"Yes, Frank."

"And that people at my age very often do not know their own minds."

"Yes, Frank."

"Well, Ellen, I think now that I love you very dearly; and if I were five years older, and felt as I now do, and you were willing, I would marry you right away; but I am young, and may be deceived, and so may deceive you. Now, Ellen, if I should ask you if you loved me, would you tell me?"

"Yes, Frank," said Ellen, very faintly.

"And do you?" I asked; and, like Brutus, paused for a reply.

"Yes, Frank, I like you very much."

"Is that all? Like, is a very cold word. Do you love me?"

"Yes, Frank," whispered Ellen, leaning her forehead against my shoulder. "I think I do; you wouldn't say any more than that."

"That is all I wish you to say, my dear little girl," I replied, kissing her white neck and shoulders; "now then, listen. I shall return from India in about two years time, if then we are both of the same mind as now, we will begin to talk about the wedding-day. What do you say to that?"

"Yes, dear Frank."

"Thank you, dearest; now look up one minute."

The reader, if he pleases, may supply in this place a few interjectional kisses from his imagination.

With my arm around Ellen's slender waist, we walked down the shady alleys of the garden in search of Langley and Mary, but for a while were unsuccessful; at last I caught a sight of Mary's white dress in a distant arbor. We approached the bower unperceived by its occupants, and were upon the point of entering, but we luckily discovered in time that we should be altogether de trop. Langley was on his knees before the coquettish Mary, making love in his most grandiloquent style.

"Most adorable creature," quoth my romantic shipmate, thumping his right side, "you lacerate my heart by your obdurate cruelty!"

"Get up off your knees, you foolish boy," answered the mischievous girl; "you will certainly stain the knees of your white trowsers."

"Oh! divine goddess! hear me!" persisted my chum, magnanimously disregarding the welfare of his unwhisperables in the present crisis.

"You idolatrous sailor remember the first commandment."

"The devil fly away with the first commandment!" cried poor Langley, sorely vexed. "Most lovely of human beings," he continued with a deep groan, which he intended to be a pathetic sigh, "my heart is on fire."

"May be you've got the fever, William," suggested Mary; "are you in much pain?"

"Yes, great pain," said Bill, with another heart-rending groan.

"Well, then, rise, I insist – Lord! if anybody should catch us in this predicament!"

"Hadn't we better go away?" whispered Ellen, blushing for her sister's sake.

"No, no," I replied, "let's stay and see the fun."

"Not till I persuade you to relent," replied Langley to Mary's oft-repeated request.

"Yes you will. Get up off your knees immediately, or I vow I'll box your ears."

"Strike!" cried Langley, with a theatrical air and tone, at the same time unbuttoning his vest, "strike! and wound the heart which beats for you alone!"

Slap– came Mary's delicate hand across the cheek of her disconsolate lover, with a force which brought an involuntary "ouch!" from his lips. "Get up, I say!" Whack—slap– came two more blows, first on one side of his head and then on the other.

"By G – d! madam!" sputtered Langley, rising in a rage, "I wish you were a man for half a minute."

"Why," said Mary, "in that case you couldn't make love to me with any sort of propriety. Hold, hold, Willy, dear! don't go off angry; sit down here, I insist; nay, now, I'll box your ears again if you don't obey me; there, you'll feel perfectly cool in a moment. For shame! Bill, to get angry at a love-tap from a lady!"

"Love-tap, indeed," muttered Langley, rubbing his cheek. "See where your confounded ring scratched my face."