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Scarcely was the ensign blowing from its halliards when the brig fired a second shot, and as the passage of the Aurora and the shifting of her helm had brought the brig's trysail-gaff into view the schooner's crew saw the French flag streaming from the end of it. "What's she a-doing' of here?" enquired Pledge, pulling away his plate heavy with meat and fat. "You kin stay if your want to, Willium," she said, "only see that you are home bright and early in the mornin'. Your Pa'll want you to help hill potaters.".
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kez_ h (Kez_h)
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Rest easy knowing that your data and transactions are safe at Misery Mining. With advanced encryption and secure payment gateways, we prioritize your security above all else. Play with peace of mind!I tried logging in using my phone number and I
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Conrad
This cool indifference on the part of the lieutenants in command of the brigs is rendered the more surprising by contrast with the sincere terrors which the prospect of invasion raised in the country. The alarm indeed was very seriously justified, for in that year the French Emperor had at his disposal at the Texel, Ostend, Dunkirk, Calais, Boulogne and Havre, a total of one hundred and eighty thousand men, with a fleet of twenty-one sail of the line, besides frigates and transports at Brest, a squadron at Rochefort, and a powerful fleet at Toulon, and at this time Spain had joined her forces with those of France against us. Nevertheless the lieutenants in charge of the gun-brigs stationed on the coasts took life with that unconcern which is one of the blessings of peace; they cultivated their cabbage gardens, they attended to their pig-stys, and they smoked their pipes and drank strong beer at taverns with sounding names such as "The Coach and Horses," or "The Maid and the Harp"; and one of the worst offenders was[Pg 28] Lieutenant Tupman of the brig Saucy, which lay within gun-shot of where Lucy stood. "I heard the bell-man recite your notice," said Sir William, speaking leisurely, as one who is tired out; "that, and the bill which they were beginning to paste as I came this way, should help. I've walked my legs off. I have enquired everywhere. I, too, asked if Miss Lucy had been seen down at the harbour at any hour this morning. But my fixed idea was, and still is, that the person who wrote to her through the Minorca's steward was somebody that she helped, somebody in poverty and[Pg 203] want, and I called upon everybody likely to know of the existence of such an individual; but to no purpose. The parson, the apothecary, all the tradespeople I looked in upon, could tell me nothing. Once I thought I had run the person we want to earth. Mrs Moore, who keeps the greengrocer's shop, told me that there was an old woman who lived in a cottage just out of Lower Street, out of whose house she had once seen Miss Lucy Acton issue. I got the address, called at the cottage and saw a squalid female who said she was Mrs Mortimer's niece, and that Mrs Mortimer had died that morning at five o'clock. She said it was true that Miss Acton occasionally visited Mrs Mortimer and brought her little comforts and read to her. I got no further. This is the extent and value of my report, and I am as profoundly puzzled," said the Admiral, raising the glass of brandy and seltzer and examining it before he drank, "as I was this morning." It was not very long before the eleven sail of the line with their attendant frigates were swelling large, bristling, and close to the Aurora, at whose signal halliards stood two sailors who dipped to such battle-ships as the schooner passed receiving the acknowledgment of small ensigns gaff-ended, and then hauled down to be hoisted no more. The picture was full of a grandeur that borrowed majesty from the sense of the power and the empire[Pg 397] the ships symbolised. They were lordly in slow motion; they bowed to the swell as though in lofty homage to their mistress the sea; they were terrible in triple rows of cannon and by virtue of the traditional magnificent spirit, silent and concealed behind their lofty and invincible defences. It was the breakfast hour, but the people aboard the Aurora were very willing to wait to break their fast. Not a man but was fascinated by the sight and presence of that tall, majestic ship out there, with the little flag at the fore. For Nelson—the Nelson of the North, of Aboukir Bay, of Teneriffe, of St Vincent, the Nelson of a hundred wounds, the first of all sea chieftains in the history of the world, Nelson, the truest sailor, the kindest shipmate, the man of the purest and loftiest spirit of chivalry and patriotism that ever stepped the planks of a ship's decks—this great, this sublime hero, to be even greater and sublimer in his victorious and immortal death a few months later—Nelson was in her! "Tomorrow," said the doctor, retiring once more into his professional shell, "I shall remove the pressure that obstructs your vision. The operation, which will be most simple, can be performed here. We have but to remove all pressure on the nerve centres that refuse their function now—and you will see.".
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