CHAPTER TWO

My Father does what most Sailors do--he makes a foolish Marriage,
one of the Consequences of which is brought to Light at the End of
the Chapter.


I have observed at the finale of my first chapter, that at last my
mother and father came to a good understanding; but at the same time
Madam Araminta (for so my mother insisted upon being called) took good
care to let my father understand that she considered that she was
lowering herself by surrendering up her charms to a captain's coxswain.
She informed him that her father might be said to have been royally
connected, being a king's messenger (and so, indeed, he might be
considered, having been a twopenny postman), and that her mother had
long scores against the first nobles in the land (she was a milk-woman),
and that she had dry-nursed a young baronet, and was now not merely a
ladies' maid, but a _lady's_ laides' maid. All this important and novel
communication sunk deep in my father's mind, and when he heard it he
could hardly believe his good fortune in having achieved such a
conquest; but, as the sequel will prove, his marriage did not turn out
very happily. He used to say to me, "Jack, take my advice, and never
marry above your condition as I did; nothing would please me but a
_lady's ladies'_ maid; I had no right to look up to even a _ladies'_
maid, and had your mother only been a simple maid, all might have been
right." But these were after-reflections when it was too late. I do not
wonder at my poor father's senses being dazzled, for, as he said to me,