Sir William looked firmly and somewhat sternly at Miss Acton and said: "I am very sorry, madam, that you should hold this opinion, very sorry indeed. I had thought you the friend and well-wisher of my son—in this respect eminently the charitable and warm-hearted sister of Captain Acton. But if you mean to imply that Mr Lawrence wrote the letter to Miss Lucy, then you have to confess (which would be an indignity done to a beautiful character) that your niece was a willing recipient of my son's missive, that she hastened to him on reading the contents of his communication and that in short, the design of the Minorca's premature sailing was that Mr[Pg 205] Lawrence and Miss Lucy Acton should elope—a thing not to be dreamt of—at an hour when few were abroad, and when there was little or no chance of the news reaching her home that Captain Acton's daughter had sailed in the Minorca.",
"Ut was while pokin' about I was among the twigs on the ground, whisperin' a bit av witch-talk that belongs to me charm, that I discovered human foot-prints in the earth av the hollow. This I would not have thought strange a'tall a'tall, but the foot prints led right into the ha'nted grove. 'Begobs,' thinks I, 'no ghost iver wore boots the size av them now!' On me hands and knees I crawled forrard an' right in the edge av the grove I glimpsed somethin', I did, beneath the ferns, somethin' that sparkled in the mornin' light like a bit av star-dust on the edge av a cloud. Thinkin' only av me blessid charm, I crawled further in, and phwat do you suppose I picked up, Billy Bye? A bottle ut was, an' almost full av prime liquor.,
"This is the yarn, Fellowes," said the Admiral, who, it had been pre-arranged, was[Pg 422] to tell the story. "My friend Acton is the owner of this schooner; he is also the owner of another ship, called the Minorca. Now, this ship, of which my friend was good enough to give the command to my son——".
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