He glanced around in search of the boy. "Why, bless my soul, he's gone!" he exclaimed. "There's a youngster you'll need to watch close, teacher," he said grimly.,
On this Captain Acton and his friend went on deck. The schooner was travelling three or four knots one way, and the stranger was heading directly for her at some small pace, so that the speed of the two vessels being combined, the sail might be expected to show a clear hull; which she did, and with the aid of their telescopes, Captain Acton and Sir William confirmed the conjecture of Captain Weaver. She was either a little brig or a brigantine—her after-sails were concealed; her burden was very small. The dusty and rusty complexion of her canvas neutralised the brilliance which most ships' sails shine with when the silver glory of the morning sun pours strong upon them. By half-past nine, three bells by the schooner's clock, the stranger was on the larboard-bow with her main topsail to the mast, and so close that it seemed almost possible to distinguish the faces of her people.,
The ordinary was held in a long room next to the room in which the seafaring men congregated. As a meal it was renowned in the district. Coarse it might have been called, coarse and plentiful, but it was of that sort of coarseness which makes very good eating. Mr Short, the landlord, was a liberal caterer, and he excelled in choice of rounds of beef, in joints of venison, in legs of pork and mutton, in fine dishes of veal; and this ordinary was always graced with a precedent dish of fish, which was invariably fresh from the sea, and whether turbot, cod, bake, soles, and many flat fish which the smacks brought with them into Old Harbour, were delicious in freshness and flavour. Short's cheeses, too, were always very fine, dry, crumbly, flakey, nutty, and without being too strong they flavoured the bread or the biscuit with what the palate knew to be real cheese. His cellars held a very fine old port, but it was seldom asked for unless some person of distinction and importance occupied a seat at that teeming and appetising board. Short brewed his [Pg 125]own beer, and a delicate amber draught it was; there was no better beer brewed in England..
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