Page 56 - david-copperfield

hanging up two hammocks for themselves on the hooks I
had noticed in the roof, in a very luxurious state of mind,
enhanced by my being sleepy. As slumber gradually stole
upon me, I heard the wind howling out at sea and coming
on across the flat so fiercely, that I had a lazy apprehension
of the great deep rising in the night. But I bethought myself
that I was in a boat, after all; and that a man like Mr. Peg-
gotty was not a bad person to have on board if anything did
happen.
Nothing happened, however, worse than morning. Al-
most as soon as it shone upon the oyster-shell frame of my
mirror I was out of bed, and out with little Em’ly, picking
up stones upon the beach.
‘You’re quite a sailor, I suppose?’ I said to Em’ly. I don’t
know that I supposed anything of the kind, but I felt it an
act of gallantry to say something; and a shining sail close to
us made such a pretty little image of itself, at the moment,
in her bright eye, that it came into my head to say this.
‘No,’ replied Em’ly, shaking her head, ‘I’m afraid of the
sea.’
‘Afraid!’ I said, with a becoming air of boldness, and
looking very big at the mighty ocean. ‘I an’t!’
‘Ah! but it’s cruel,’ said Em’ly. ‘I have seen it very cruel
to some of our men. I have seen it tear a boat as big as our
house, all to pieces.’
‘I hope it wasn’t the boat that -’
‘That father was drownded in?’ said Em’ly. ‘No. Not that
one, I never see that boat.’
‘Nor him?’ I asked her.