Is It Breaking A Confidence To Tell Lieutenant Bundy's History?
Let The Motive Excuse The Deed.
It is a good, kind, wholesome, and
noble character.
Why should we keep all our admiration for those
who win in this world, as we do, sycophants as we are? When we
write a novel, our great stupid imaginations can go no further than
to marry the hero to a fortune at the end, and to find out that he
is a lord by right. O blundering lickspittle morality! And yet I
would like to fancy some happy retributive Utopia in the peaceful
cloud-land, where my friend the meek lieutenant should find the
yards of his ship manned as he went on board, all the guns firing
an enormous salute (only without the least noise or vile smell of
powder), and he be saluted on the deck as Admiral Sir James, or Sir
Joseph - ay, or Lord Viscount Bundy, knight of all the orders above
the sun.
I think this is a sufficient, if not a complete catalogue of the
worthies on board the "Lady Mary Wood." In the week we were on
board - it seemed a year, by the way - we came to regard the ship
quite as a home. We felt for the captain - the most good-humoured,
active, careful, ready of captains - a filial, a fraternal regard;
for the providor, who provided for us with admirable comfort and
generosity, a genial gratitude; and for the brisk steward's lads -
brisk in serving the banquet, sympathising in handing the basin -
every possible sentiment of regard and good-will.
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