the freelancer season 1

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Mr Lawrence, with his back turned upon this cabin door, heard Lucy's voice, but not what she said. If Paul answered her his voice was so sunk by the awfulness of her presence, by all that she meant being at sea, by all that she had typified to this forlorn vagrant when on shore, that his accents were inaudible in the cabin.,

"You know, madam—Miss Acton—Lucy—my Lucy—that I am a man of broken fortunes. I have struggled hard to retrieve the past, but the world is full, and I have been unable to find room in it. You came in my way. I adored your beauty, and worshipped you for your character. You would not accept my hand, but I felt in my secret soul that I was not indifferent to you—nay, that if I could advance higher claims than those of a broken lieutenant and a man with the[Pg 254] reputation of being a gambler and a drunkard, you would have listened to me, you would have consented. Nor would your father have objected, for he loves our service, and his partiality for Sir William would have helped me. I determined to win you, no matter the machinery I might set in motion. I was determined to escape the horrible trouble of bankruptcy, and the intolerable menace of a debtor's gaol, by carrying this ship to a port and there selling her and her cargo through the agency of a man who is known to me, and with the money thus got, I mean to pay off all my creditors in England, and return with you as my wife, assured of Captain Acton's forgiveness for your sake, and equally assured of his approval, as it is my intention to hoist the flag of honour as high as my father has mastheaded it, to be a gentleman, to live as a gentleman, and to be deemed by the part I hope to play in the drama of life, worthy of being the husband of Lucy Acton, and the son-in-law of her gallant, generous, noble-hearted father.",

"I feel that I am greatly to blame in this dreadful trouble," said Lucy. "I am sure that it was his love for me, his desire to gain me as[Pg 409] his wife, his horror at the prospect of being an outcast through debt, his resolution to lead an honest life and perhaps a noble life, should I become his wife and should he obtain your forgiveness; these things I am convinced drove him into a sort of madness in which he invented this desperate plot which could never be forgiven in any man who was not as brave and well-bred as Mr Lawrence, nor as—as——",

"Sir," he answered, "I am much sneered at in this town and district. I am very well aware that few have a kind word for me. If you, sir, or Admiral Lawrence condescend to bestow a nod upon me as I respectfully pass you in the street, it has the character of the recognition with which you would honour something you disdain, which you are compelled to see, and by that nod acknowledge the existence of. Your beautiful daughter, Miss Lucy, on the other hand, has always been gracious and kind to me. In the light and sweetness of her presence I am sensible of the warmth and glow which make me feel that I am human and a man. There is no office I would not discharge to oblige her. I make money by lending it, but I would[Pg 217] give her money—much if she needed it, for the delight I take in her sympathetic, tender and generous nature. When I read the letter you hold, sir, I did not believe that Mr Lawrence would have the power or the art to carry out his scheme of kidnapping your daughter, and I was only assured that his base plot, as you term it, had proved triumphant by the calling of the bell-man, and by the letterpress on the placards which they are pasting about the place. Then I was determined that you should be instantly apprised through the medium of Mr Lawrence's own letter of what had become of your daughter. Otherwise, sir, the loss of your ship by an act of piracy must be nothing to me. Mr Lawrence promises in his letter that he will repay all his creditors, of which I am one to the extent of three hundred pounds. And as I am of opinion that this is his honest intention in order to enable him to dwell in England at liberty, I resolved to keep my own counsel and to await the receipt of my money."

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"Nope, that man's name's Sanderson. He don't have anythin' to do with the drillers. Nope, Bill, Jacobs hain't never been seen, but I'm dead sure he's the boss of the outfit.",

"His Ma wouldn't let him come. Afraid he'd get wet an' go sick ag'in. Gee! that coffee smells good, Erie.",

"I suppose that is Lord Garlies whom he is addressing," exclaimed Captain Acton, on the arrival of the lieutenant at his ship.,

"Fish ought'a bite fine today," said Maurice as he stowed the cookies away in his bosom.