faded more and more from
day to day, shrunk with instinctive pain from the thought of exchanging
a word with Florence. If he had had good news to carry to her, the
honest Captain would have braved the newly decorated house and splendid
furniture--though these, connected with the lady he had seen at church,
were awful to him--and made his way into her presence. With a dark
horizon gathering around their common hopes, however, that darkened
every hour, the Captain almost felt as if he were a new misfortune
and affliction to her; and was scarcely less afraid of a visit from
Florence, than from Mrs MacStinger herself.

It was a chill dark autumn evening, and Captain Cuttle had ordered a
fire to be kindled in the little back parlour, now more than ever like
the cabin of a ship. The rain fell fast, and the wind blew hard; and
straying out on the house-top by that stormy bedroom of his old friend,
to take an observation of the weather, the Captain's heart died within
him, when he saw how wild and desolate it was. Not that he associated
the weather of that time with poor Walter's destiny, or doubted that if
Providence had doomed him to be lost and shipwrecked, it was over, long
ago; but that beneath an outward influence, quite distinct from the
subject-matter of his thoughts, the Captain's spirits sank, and his
hopes turned pale, as those of wiser men had often done before him, and
will often do again.

Captain Cuttle, addressing his face to the sharp wind and slanting rain,
looked up at the heavy scud that was flying fast over the wilderness of
house-tops, and looked for something cheery there in vain. The prospect
near at hand was no better. In sundry tea-chests and other rough boxes
at his feet, the pigeons of Rob the Grinder were cooing like so many
dismal breezes getting up. A crazy weathercock of a midshipman, with
a telescope at his eye, once visible from the street, but long bricked
out, creaked and complained upon his rusty pivot as the shrill blast
spun him round and round, and sported with him cruelly. Upon the
Captain's coarse blue vest the cold raindrops started like steel
beads; and he could hardly maintain himself aslant against the stiff
Nor'-Wester that came pressing against him, importunate to topple him
over the parapet, and throw him on the pavement below. If there were any
Hope alive that evening, the Captain thought, as he held his hat on, it
certainly kept house, and wasn't out of doors; so the Captain,