“True enough,” said the harpooner; “but you must acknowledge,” he added, smiling, “that there are some young women who, by their general behavior alone, give the most unequivocal proofs of a nature too weak and frivolous to evince resolution, or unselfish devotion, under any circumstances.”
“That’s so,” put in Stump, “and Molly Banks, of Nantucket, was one of them kind. In my young days, I made a lubber of myself, by proposing to splice hands with that young she. But, she hadn’t enough devotion in her natur’, she said, to marry a man that wore a pigtail.” This took me all aback, as well it might; says I, “Why, Molly,” says I, “the Stumps always wore ’em, and mine is very becoming to me!”
“Nonsense!” says she, “it’s too old-fashioned; I’d never have courage to take a husband with one of them things.”
“All right,” says I, as I sheered off, “a woman that hasn’t neither devotion nor courage, isn’t to _my_ taste.”
“You are a sensible man, Jack,” cried Harry, smiling. “I think I should have acted in the same manner, had I been in your place.”
“The damsel was certainly unworthy of you, friend Stump, and showed herself to be a very frivolous creature,” said Alice.
She drew her cloak more closely about her as she spoke, for a cold, drizzling rain had just commenced to fall, increasing the chilliness of the atmosphere, and dampening the young girl’s cheeks and the thick braids of her hair.
Her lover, who had been watching her with tender concern, now motioned to Stump, and made his way to the spot near which the boat that Lark had provided for their accommodation had been stove and sunk. The wreck of the little craft was still partially visible, for, as the two men perceived, upon making an examination of it, the keel had become wedged in a narrow fissure that extended across a shelf of ice about a foot and a half beneath the surface of the water.
“This is fortunate!” cried the harpooner, “for the wreck and its contents will be of great service to us. We can pull the boat out of the water, I think, with a little exertion.”
“Ay, ay,” replied Stump, “we can do it with the help of some of the whale line--a few coils of which are still left in one of the tubs, as you can see for yourself.”