Like most sailors of his time Mr Lawrence possessed the instinct of superstition, a quality or element which has contributed the most brilliant of the rays to the glory of the[Pg 322] romance of the sea. He was sensible of an emotion of awe as he watched Lucy bowing to and addressing a royal apparition so well known to him as the Sailor Prince whose viewless eye might be upon him, whose invisible ear might be taking in his story whilst the wild-haired girl bowed apparently to the bulkhead or addressed the thin air.,
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.,
"May I have the great honour of showing you the cabin, Miss?" said Mr Lawrence..
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