He gazed at her with the vacancy of a confounded mind, perplexed not infinitely, for few understandings were more limited, and then said: "I've got no power here, ma'am. It isn't for me to steer the ship, if you was to condescend to go on your bended knees, which the Lord forbid. Indeed, ma'am, I don't know what to say, and only know what I've been told, and can but judge by what I see. It's not for me as mate of this vessel to mess[Pg 333] about with something that may be all right or all wrong. There's one in this ship as could break me and would break me if so be I gave him the chance, and a chance he'd find"—here he lowered his voice and looked up at the skylight—"though no other captain would think of taking advantage of it. If you've been wronged, I'm 'eartily sorry for it. And if it's all right, why then, ma'am, I wish you joy, though it's a very bold henterprise—a very bold henterprise," he added, and he gloomily shook his head and sourly viewed her.,
Paul started, and answered: "She took me to the locker that's under the window, and, lifting the lid, pointed down into the inside, and began to laugh with a strange, crying noise, like a cat quarrelling, and then says she, 'Do you see it?' There was nothing in the locker, saving that in one end of it she'd made a sort of bird's nest out of the bed feathers which I 'adn't swept away, and in it was her rings, a piece of soap, a salt-cellar which I hadn't missed from the tray, and what I took for a ball, but which, I allow, was her gloves rolled up tight. 'Do you see it?' she said, looking so cunning and a-whispering so mysterious, it was more like dreaming than living to see and watch her. 'That's my secret!' and then she slams the lid of the locker to, with a noise which I thought your[Pg 314] honour would believe was a pistol-shot, and says, frownin' and starin' at me with eyes that seemed to be in a blaze, 'If you says a word about what you've seen I'll kill you.'",
Admiral Sir William Lawrence was also highly respected, and people spoke with pride of his living in their neighbourhood. It was likewise well known that Mr Lawrence was a friend of the Actons, and in a small town of small gossips the idea if not the circumstance of Mr Lawrence having offered for the hand of the beautiful Miss Acton was not likely to be[Pg 142] neglected or overlooked, and to do the gossips justice, they imputed the rejection of the handsome and dashing young Naval officer to his loose habits..
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