A VOYAGE IN THE NORTH SEAS. 247 



manner as possible, promised Captain Bellamy on their return to 

 England to remunerate him for the inconvenience which her presence 

 might create. That worthy had, ever since the domestication of 

 Flora in his cabin, assumed a demeanour towards every one in the 

 vessel as different as possible from that which he had before displayed. 

 He was fawningly polite and attentive to the young lady herself; he 

 became coarsely familiar with his crew, towards whom he was so lax 

 in his discipline, and so profuse of his grog and other luxuries, that 

 the tars began to express their approbation of his conduct in such 

 pithy characteristic proverbs as, " the devil was not so bad as he was 

 called" " there were worse fish in the north seas than a bottlenose," 

 and so on ; and he had even gone so far as to make advances towards 

 a reconciliation with Arundel, whom, however, he found to be impene- 

 trable. He was particularly kind and affable to the smugglers, who, 

 knowing that a word from his mouth on their return to England, 

 would cause them all to swing on a gibbet, professed in every pos- 

 sible manner their gratitude for his indulgence and devotion to his 

 wishes. He was frequently observed talking confidentially to one dark- 

 browed fellow, who seemed to hold some influence over his compa- 

 nions, and not unfrequently invited him to the forbidden ground of the 

 quarter-deck, where he would walk backwards and forward with him 

 for hours together in close conversation. All this passed over among 

 the seamen, as arising from the curiosity of the captain to hear the 

 stories of a man whose < life had been one of adventure an opinion 

 which the smuggler himself did not controvert. 



We would fain describe Flora M'Alpine, such as she appeared 

 when the traces of distress had, in some measure, disappeared from her 

 features ; but a painter might as well attempt to give a delineation 

 of a spirit by shape and colour. She would have been almost infantile 

 in the expression of her features, had it not been that grief had chas- 

 tened and saddened down the gaiety which the gentle blue eye, soft 

 rounded features, and exquisitely voluptuous lips seemed calculated 

 best to express. She seemed too delicately soft, too fragile, too pure, 

 too young for suffering ; yet she had borne hardship which strong 

 men had sunk under, cold and hunger, and despair, a thousand times 

 worse than death ; she had been nurtured among strangers ; with- 

 out a mother's gentle bosom to rest on, a mother's heart from which 

 to learn the noblest of all knowledge ; without a father's tenderness 

 or wisdom to instruct her how to tread the path of life, she had been 

 protected alone, by one whose nature was such as rather to repress 

 than encourage the pure impulses and sweetly feminine sensibilities 

 which adorn the female character ; yet, in spite of these circum- 

 stances, she had opened her heart, with the confiding faith of inno- 

 cence, to the love of a world that seemed to scowl upon her, and had 

 grown up in loveliness of soul as of person, even as the most beau- 

 teous and fragile persons may be found under the shelter of an Alpine 

 rock, laughing in the sunbeams, though all around and above be 

 shattered cliffs and eternal snows. 



Arundel was of a nature peculiarly calculated to feel the emotions 

 which the contemplation of loveliness and innocence in sorrow 

 awakens in a heart of any sensibility. It was not pity, for who 



