"I often wish I was at sea again!" exclaimed Sir William, as the two started afresh on their quarterdeck walk. "What a noble, open, hearty, soul-stirring life it is! What good fellows one meets, what brave ships, what splendid crews! It is my hourly regret that my son should be out of it. Though I am his father, I say that this young man had in him—nay, he has in him—all the makings of a fine, dashing, even a great officer. But that devil drink—not that the vice is immoderate with him: but he takes too much; and when the fiend is in him, all that is weak in his nature appears, and he falls: drink—but not so as to justify the word drunkard—drink and gaming—these undid him. He was a favourite with all he sailed with, and yet, through his own accursed folly, he is forced to quit the Navy under circumstances which would bring the moisture into my eyes if half a century of hard weather had not dried all the dampness out of them.",
"Maurice, you've got about as much sense as a wood-tick," Billy replied in disgust. "How long d'ye s'pose my snakes an' bats an' lizards 'ud last if I turned Croaker loose in there?",
It was, perhaps, just as well for Anson that he kept out of Billy's way during this period. However very little that Billy did was missed by his pale blue eyes. He knew that his step-brother had visited the haunted house alone and had searched it nook and corner. For what? He had seen him fasten his rabbit-foot to a branch of a tree and dig, and dig. For what? He wanted to find out but dared not ask. Perhaps Billy was going crazy! He acted like it. Anson made up his mind that he would confide his suspicions in his mother. But on the very day that he had decided to pour into Mrs. Wilson's ear all the strange goings-on of his brother, Billy caught him out on a forest-path alone and, gripping him by the shoulder, threatened to conjure up by means of witchcraft at his command a seven-headed dragon with cat-fish hooks for claws who would rip his—Anson's—soul to shreds if he so much as breathed to his mother one word of what he had seen..
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