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"Lord love us!" Mrs. Wilson started to undo her apron. "Why didn't you tell me before, you freckle-faced jackass, you! Lord knows what use you boys are anyways! Think of you, hangin' 'round here askin' fer Billy and your poor Ma at home groanin' in pain an' needin' help. Ain't you 'shamed of yourself?", Lucy had often viewed this scene: her pause now was dictated by a trifling feeling of curiosity. Against the wharves on the left-hand side and over against the stump-ended projection of pier was moored her father's ship the Minorca, of which she had just now been assured Sir William Lawrence's son was to be offered the command. This vessel lay with two or three others, a brig or two and a schooner, at the wharves, and with her own and the drying sails of the others, the tall spars, the yards across, the complicated lines of the rigging, provided a bold and even ample figure of shipping to the eye. But in addition to these there lay in the harbour a number of fishing craft, and this side the extremity of the wharves within musket shot of where Lucy stood was moored the Saucy brig-of-war of about one hundred and eighty tons armed with thirty-two pounder carronades. She was one of a number of the like sort of brig which were to be found in that year (1805) on the coasts of Sussex, Suffolk, and Norfolk. These brigs were usually hauled into creeks or laid up in snug corners where the Lieutenant, as Sir William had pointed out, had his cabbage garden and pig-sty. They were designed as a provision against[Pg 27] the invasion of the French, and were quite worthless, as they were never ready, and always so anchored or so secured as to demand as much time in getting under weigh as would take a French army of invasion to march from Dover to Ashford., Billy considered. "I'll try," he promised, "but it's goin' to take a whole lot of coaxin' to do it. That old witchcoon has been prowlin' down through the tamarack swale huntin' copperhead snakes for a week now, gettin' ready to do fer somebody er other.".