Nostromo - A Tale of the Seaboard.pdf - Planet eBook

‘What I wanted to tell you is this: Our great Nostromodid not take much notice of the old man and the childrenfor some years. It’s true, too, that he was away on his coastingvoyages certainly ten months out of the twelve. He wasmaking his fortune, as he told Captain Mitchell once. Heseems to have done uncommonly well. It was only to be expected.He is a man full of resource, full of confidence inhimself, ready to take chances and risks of every sort. I rememberbeing in Mitchell’s office one day, when he camein with that calm, grave air he always carries everywhere.He had been away trading in the Gulf of California, he said,looking straight past us at the wall, as his manner is, andwas glad to see on his return that a lighthouse was beingbuilt on the cliff of the Great Isabel. Very glad, he repeated.Mitchell explained that it was the O. S. N. Co. who wasbuilding it, for the convenience of the mail service, on hisown advice. Captain Fidanza was good enough to say that itwas excellent advice. I remember him twisting up his moustachesand looking all round the cornice of the room beforehe proposed that old Giorgio should be made the keeper ofthat light.’‘I heard of this. I was consulted at the time,’ Mrs. Gouldsaid. ‘I doubted whether it would be good for these girls tobe shut up on that island as if in a prison.’‘The proposal fell in with the old Garibaldino’s humour.As to Linda, any place was lovely and delightful enough forher as long as it was Nostromo’s suggestion. She could waitfor her Gian’ Battista’s good pleasure there as well as anywhereelse. My opinion is that she was always in love with