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"Well sir, you jest rest easy an' I'll get your horse myself." The breeze was so light that it was scarcely to be felt on deck. The gaff topsails faintly swelled with a summer-like softness and tenderness of gleaming curve and delicately-fingered shadow; but the heavier canvas hung with an occasional sway of boom only, as though the little ship was at rest in a harbour into whose water breathed the slow, low swell of the outer sea. "I should have answered your letter sooner but I have been so worried by debts and difficulties, by compulsory idleness and the absolute impossibility of finding anything congenial to do, that I have had no spirit to communicate with you or anybody else. But the wheel of fortune which has depressed me to the very bottom, has by another revolution, raised me. I must tell you that I am very heavily in debt. Even in this antiquated hole I owe an old scamp, named Greyquill, three hundred pounds, of which I have only had two hundred. I am in debt, some of them debts of honour, to several men, a few of whom I have spoken of in my time as brother-officers, and one of them quite recently threatened me with the law. In addition, I owe a lot to various tradespeople in London and elsewhere. So that my personal liberty hangs by a hair, and at any moment I may find myself clapped on the shoulder, arrested for debt, and flung into gaol, there to languish possibly for the remainder of my days, for it is quite certain that my father cannot, even if he would, come to my help. His private means are very small, and his pension inconsiderable, and though he has behaved very well in maintaining me since I quitted the Service, and allowed me to use his cottage as a home, he is a man whose morality is high and severe, and he is the last person to part with a farthing in discharge of debts which he regards as dishonourable..
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kez_ h (Kez_h)
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"When I saw the ship starting," said he, "I walked over to her and asked Mr Lawrence, who was standing right aft watching the crew working, making sail and so forth, what made him in such a hurry, and he answered that he had received news on the previous night of a French cruiser that was hovering over this part of the coast, that when last seen she was standing to the east'ard, and that he had made up his mind to sneak the Minorca out at daybreak if possible so as to have the heels of her should she shift her helm, as he had no mind to start his first voyage in Captain Acton's employ by being taken by a French cruiser and locked up for a time no man could detarmine."I tried logging in using my phone number and I
was supposed to get a verification code text,but didn't
get it. I clicked resend a couple time, tried the "call
me instead" option twice but didn't get a call
either. the trouble shooting had no info on if the call
me instead fails.There was
"The Phœbe."
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Conrad
Harry chuckled. "Faith, ut's crazy he thought I was I guess," he cried. "'Ould man,' sez he, 'somebody has been playin' a trick on ye. I know no such place as Gibson's Grove.' Thin begobs! he laughed, like he saw the humor av ut, and had me sate meself in the shade and smoke a cigar while I risted. So I'm thinkin', byes, them min jest wanted to get rid av me the while they ransacked me house and belongin's, bad cess to 'em!" He lifted the basket to the counter and, taking the parcels from it, carefully emptied their contents back into the drawers from which they had been filled. Then from beneath the counter he drew out a box and with exquisite pains filled each of the empty bags and the cracker-box with sawdust. He tied the bags, packed them in the basket, tucked a roll of tea lead in the bottom, to give the basket weight, and placed it on the counter. Then he went outside to sit on the bench and await Billy's return. "Still begging of your honours' pardon," said Captain Weaver, "suppose the Minorca do back her topsail and we launch our boat; Mr Lawrence makes out his father and Captain Acton in the starn sheets. Will he stay to receive ye? Won't he fill on his topsail and be off?" She turned her eyes upon him when the surly shell-back had come to this part of his thoughts, and frowned without recognition in her face as he read it. She stared at him, not with the heavy-lidded, beautiful eyes of Lucy Acton, but with orbs of sight whose glances seemed keen as rays of light as they shot from under her knitted brows. Though her fair forehead was deformed by a scowl, her lips were curved into a meaningless smile—the very expression of the idiot's highest facial effort, and all meaning or no meaning that was in her countenance was accentuated by the unusual, uncommon, very faint tinge which had taken the place of the habitual bloom of her cheeks and paled her into an aspect of distraction, wildness, and insanity..
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