In which the Mariner’s Rest and the Ancient Mariner himself receive particular Attention.

The next day being Sunday, the Captain’s little friends did not go down to see him, and the day after being stormy, they could not. So, when Tuesday came, they were all the more eager for the visit that it had been delayed; and accordingly they hurried off at a very early hour. Indeed, the old man was only too glad to have them come down at any time, for he had during these past few days become so used to their being with him, and he had taken such a fancy to them, that he felt himself quite lost and lonely when a day passed by without seeing them. He was, as we have already seen, rather afraid they might disturb him if he said, “Come at any hour you please,” instead of “Come at four o’clock, or three, or two o’clock,” as the case might be; but he had discovered them to be such well-behaved and gentle children, that he made up his mind they could never trouble or annoy him. So when last they parted, he said to them, “Come in the morning, if you like, and play all day about the grounds, and if I have work to do you must not mind. Nobody will disturb you"; and, in truth, there was nobody there to disturb them, for besides the old man and his boy, Main Brace, there was no living thing about the house, if we except two fine old Newfoundland dogs which the Captain had brought home with him from his last voyage, and which he called “Port” and “Starboard.” He had also a flock of handsome chickens, and some foreign ducks. “And now,” said he, “when you have seen all these, and Main Brace, and me, you have seen my family, for this is all the family that I have, unless I count the pretty little birds that hop and skip and sing among the trees.”

Main Brace did all the work about the house, except what the Captain did himself. He cooked, and set the Captain’s table, and kept the Captain’s house in order generally. As for the house itself, there was not much of it to keep in order. We have already seen that it was very small and but one story high. There was no hall in it, and only five rooms upon the floor. Let us look into it more particularly.

Entering it from the front through the little porch covered over with honeysuckle vines that are smelling sweet all the summer through, we come at once into the largest of the rooms, where the Captain takes his meals and does many other things. But he never calls it his dining-room. Nothing can induce him to call it anything but his “quarter-deck.” On the right-hand side there are two doors, and there are two more on the left-hand side, and directly before us there are two windows, looking out into the Captain’s garden, where there are fruits and vegetables of every kind growing in abundance. The first door on the right opens into a little room where Main Brace sleeps. This the Captain calls the “forecastle.” The other door on the right opens into the kitchen, which the Captain calls his “galley.” The first door on the left is closed, but the second opens into what the Captain calls his “cabin,” and this connects with a little room behind the door that is closed, which he calls his “state-room,” and, in truth, it looks more like a state-room of a ship than a chamber. It has no bed in it, but a narrow berth on one side, just like a state-room berth. All sorts of odd-fashioned clothes are hanging on the walls, which the Captain says he has worn in the different countries where he has travelled. Odd though this state-room is, it is not half so odd as the Captain’s cabin.

Let us examine this cabin of the Captain. There is an old table in the centre of it. There are a few old books in an old-fashioned bookcase. There is no carpet to be seen, but the floor is almost covered over with skins of different kinds of animals, among which are a Bengal tiger, a Polar bear, a South American ocelot, a Rocky Mountain wolf, and a Siberian fox. In a great glass case, standing against the wall, there is a variety of stuffed birds. On the very top of this case there is a huge white-headed eagle, with his large wings spread out, and at the bottom of it there is a pelican with no wings at all. On the right-hand side there is an enormous albatross, and on the left-hand side there is a tall red flamingo; while in the very centre a snowy owl stands straight up and looks straight at you out of his great glass eyes. And then there are still other birds, birds little and birds big, birds bright and birds dingy, all scattered about wherever there is room, each sitting or standing on its separate perch, and looking, for all the world, as if it were alive and would fly away only for the glass.

On the walls of this singular room are hanging all sorts of singular weapons, and many other things which the Captain has picked up in his travels. There is a Turkish scimitar, a Moorish gun, an Italian stiletto, a Japanese “happy despatch,” a Norman battle-axe, besides spears and lances and swords of shapes and kinds too numerous to mention. In one corner, on a bracket, there is a model of a ship, in another a Chinese junk, in a third an old Dutch clock, and in the fourth there is a stone idol of the Incas, while above the door there is the figure-head of a small vessel, probably a schooner.

When the children came down, running all the way at a very lively rate, the Captain was in his cabin overhauling all these treasures, and dusting and placing them so that they would show to the very best advantage. Indeed, there were so many “traps,” as he called them, hanging and lying about, that the place might well have been called a “curiosity shop” rather than a cabin. In truth, it had nothing of the look of a cabin about it.

When the Captain heard the children coming, he said to himself, “I’ll give them a surprise to-day,” and he looked out through the open window, and called to them. They answered with a merry laugh, and, running around to the door, rushed into the “quarter-deck,” and were with the Captain in a twinkling.

“O, what a jolly place!” exclaimed William; “such a jolly lot of things! Why didn’t you show them to us before, Captain Hardy?”

“One thing at a time, my lad; I can’t show you everything at once,” answered the old man.

“But where did you get them all, Captain Hardy?”

“As for that, I picked them up all about the world, and I could tell a story about every one of them.”

“O, isn’t that splendid? won’t you tell us now?” inquired William.

“And knock off telling you what the Dean and I were doing up there by the North Pole, on that island without a name?”

William was a little puzzled to know what reply he should make to that, for he thought the Captain looked as if he did not half like what he had said; so he satisfied himself with exclaiming, “No, no, no,” a great number of times, and then asked, “But won’t you tell us all about them when you get out of the North Pole scrape?”

“Maybe so, my lad, maybe so; we’ll see about that; one thing at a time is a good rule in story-telling as well as in other matters. And now you may look at all these things, and when you are satisfied, and I have got done putting them to rights, we’ll go on with the story again.”

The children were greatly delighted with everything they saw, and they passed a very happy hour, helping the Captain to put his cabin in “ship-shape order,” as he said. Then they all crowded up into one corner, and the Captain, seated on an old camp-stool, which had evidently seen much service in a great number of places, did as he had promised.

What he said, however, deserves a chapter by itself; and so we’ll turn another leaf and start fresh again.