Chapter 23 - Page 2

was sorely
troubled with dreams. Had I been suffering for nourishment, I certainly
should have dreamed of food; but, such not being the case, my thoughts
took the direction of home and friends. Much of the time, I lay half
asleep and half awake; then my mind would revert to my sister, to Lucy, to
Mr. Hardinge, and to Clawbonny--which I fancied already in the possession
of John Wallingford, who was triumphing in his ownership, and the success
of his arts. Then I thought Lucy had purchased the place, and was living
there with Andrew Drewett, in a handsome new house, built in the modern
taste. By modern taste, I do not mean one of the Grecian-temple school, as
I do no think that even all the vagaries of a diseased imagination that
was suffering under the calamities of shipwreck, could induce me to
imagine Lucy Hardinge silly enough to desire to live in such a structure.

Towards morning, I fell into a doze, the fourth or fifth renewal of my
slumbers that night; and I remember that I had that sort of curious
sensation which apprises us itself, it was a dream. In the course of the
events that passed through my mind, I fancied I overheard Marble and Neb
conversing. Their voices were low, and solemn, as I thought; and the words
so distinct, that I still remember every syllable.

"No, Neb," said Marble, or seemed to say, in a most sorrowful tone, one I
had never heard him use even in speaking of his hermitage. "There is
little hope for Miles, now. I felt as if the poor boy was lost when I saw
him swept away from me, by them bloody spars striking adrift, and set him
down as one gone from that moment. You've lost an A. No. 1. master,
Mister Neb, I can tell you, and you may sarve a hundred before you fall in
with his like ag'in."

"I nebber sarve anoder gentleum; Misser Marble," returned the black;
"_dat_ as sartain as gospel. I born in 'e Wallingford family, and I lib
an' die in 'e same family, or I don't want to lib and die, at all. My real
name be Wallingford, dough folk do call me Clawbonny."

"Ay, and a slim family it's got to be!" rejoined the mate. "The nicest,
and the handsomest, and the most virtuous young woman in all York State,
is gone out of it, first: I knew but little of her; but, how often did
poor Miles tell me all about her; and how he loved her, and how she loved
him, and the like of all that, as is becoming; and something in the way
that I love little Kitty, my niece you know, Neb, only a thousand times
more; and hearing so much of a person is all the same, or even better than
to know them up and down, if a body wants to feel respect with all his
heart. Secondly, as a person would say, now there's Miles, lost too, for
the ship is sartainly