Tales of the clipper ships

by Cicely Fox Smith

Captain Broughton sat stiffly erect in the opposite corner of the carriage, with its musty aroma of essence-of-funerals—that indescribable blend of new black clothes and moth-balls and damp horsehair and smelling salts and faded flowers. His square hands, cramped into unaccustomed black kid gloves which already showed a white split across the knuck..