Ludo All Star : लूडो ऑल स्टार

Ludo All Star : लूडो ऑल स्टार "With pleasure, if she wishes it," he said, in his low, musical tones. "Yes sir. They said 'bout half-past ten.",Elinor showed a neat parcel tucked under her muff-arm. "Chicken and lettuce," she said delectably. "White grapes for dessert. Have you seen Margaret Howes and Griffin?","I make de spell. I know. De spell say dat doctor, he marry you!","But, darn it all, Bill," Maurice objected, "there won't be no ghost to lead the way to the stuff in the daytime.",Billy looked his relief. "I don't think I'm quite as bad as I used to be," he said. "Why say, there was a time when you couldn't get me inside that grove. But lately I've been feelin' different about it. I don't s'pose there re'lly is such a thing as a ghost, is there?"，The laugh with which the malicious old fellow accompanied this sally caused the sailor to gaze eagerly round the ground as though for a stone to heave at him.，Once ashore they made their way as near to the rapids as possible. The water boiled in fury as it rushed by the rocks that opposed its way.，He was just sick and tired of seeing those apples in that good-for-nothing garden. Good-for-nothing it certainly was, and very, very old. There was only one apple tree besides the one Johnny was so interested in, but its fruit could scarcely be called apples at all. He would call them croquet balls—such hard green things as they were—hard as rocks. Of course if any of them were on the ground, he bit into them. In fact, he had eaten a good many of them first and last, but they were horrid things, anyway.He seemed to know the handwriting on the envelope, and there was a frown upon his face as he broke the big seal. He read it where he stood. It was a letter from a Captain Rousby informing him that he owed him the sum of one hundred guineas, that this money as a debt of honour had been payable immediately on proof of the loss of the wager, but that so far from having received it, Captain Rousby had been waiting for nine months without obtaining further satisfaction than the now wearisome and well-worn excuse that Mr Lawrence could not immediately pay, that he was expecting to obtain employment in the course of the month which would enable him to discharge this debt with interest if Captain Rousby thought proper. The Captain informed Mr Lawrence that last week Mrs Rousby had presented him with twins, a catastrophe which greatly increased his expenses at a time when he was without employment, and when money was never more urgently needed. Captain Rousby then went on to inform[Pg 123] Mr Lawrence that if a portion of this debt, say twenty-five guineas, was not sent to him by the first of June, it would be his unpleasant duty to visit Old Harbour Town, call upon Sir William Lawrence and state the facts of the case to him as an officer and a gentleman. If he could obtain no satisfaction from the Admiral, it would be his painful duty—a duty that must be singularly distasteful to a man who had been a messmate and shipmate of Mr Lawrence—to take such steps as his lawyer might advise.

He was Mr Walter Lawrence, a son of Admiral Lawrence, and down to a recent period a lieutenant in the Royal Navy. He was something over thirty years of age, but drink, dissipation, the hard life of the sea and some fever which had got into his blood and proved intermittent, had worked in his face like time, and he might have passed for any age between thirty-five and forty-five. Nevertheless he was an extremely handsome man, of the classic Greek type in lineament, but improved, at least to the British eye, by the Saxon colouring of hair, skin, and eyes. His teeth were extraordinarily white and good for a sailor who had lived on gun-room fare in times when the ship's biscuit was flint, and the peas which rolled about in the discoloured hot water called soup, fit only for loading a blunderbuss with to shoot men dead. His eyes told their tale of drink, but they were large and fine and spirited; his light brown hair, according to the fashion of[Pg 39] the age, was combed down his back and lay in a rope-shaped tail there. He wore a wide-brimmed round hat, and his attire, a little the worse for wear, consisted of a blue coat, white waistcoat, sage-green kerseymere breeches, and, needless to say, the cravat was high and full. He stood about six feet, his figure was extremely well proportioned, and in addition to these merits his carriage had the easy elegance which the flow of the billow and the heave of the deck infuse into all human figures not radically vile and deformed. His voice was soft, winning, and somewhat plaintive, and no man, whether on or off the stage, not even Incledon, sang a song with more exquisite feeling and sweeter sincerity of passion.,"Ain't it jest?" agreed Maurice. "Say, Bill, there ain't no law ag'in shootin' robbers is there—store-robbers, I mean?",Elinor looked her surprise. "Why, I didn't know Hannah Ann liked me specially," she protested. "I thought Miss Pat was her favorite.","Bet ye I am.","Not even to you," very gravely. There is reproof in her tone. They are standing somewhat apart, and her eyes have been turned from him. Now, as she says this, she changes her position slightly, and looks at him very earnestly. From the distant ballroom the sound of the dying music comes sadly, sweetly; a weeping fountain in a corner mourns bitterly, as it seems to Mona, tear by tear, perhaps for some lost nymph.,All day long, and often far into the night, these two sat on a near-by hill and wailed, and their mourning was sad.,"Oh, yes, you may go," says Mona. Geoffrey says nothing. He is looking at her with curiosity, in which deep love is mingled. She is so utterly unlike all other women he has ever met, with their petty affectations and mock modesties, their would-be hesitations and their final yieldings. She has no idea she is doing anything that all the world of women might not do, and can see no reason why she should distrust her friend just because he is a man.,Patricia found the Haldens, mother and daughters, so much to her mind that she was full of regret that she had not met them earlier. They were kindly, whole-hearted people who lived without any quarrel with life, and Patricia, as well as Elinor and Miss Jinny, rejoiced openly in the prospect of a summer together in dear old Rockham.,"Now you've done it!" cried Judith in distress. "She knows all about it, and I meant it for a surprise! Oh dear!",In the meantime I feel that it will be good for his judgeship for me to let him "draw" me at least a little way. I may get hurt, but I shall at least have only myself to thank for it. When we reached home, the judge stopped under the old lilac bush that leans over my side-gate and kissed my hand. Old Lilac shook a laugh of perfume all over us, and I believe signalled the event with the top of his bough to the white clump on the other side of the garden. I'm glad Aunt Adeline isn't in the flower fraternity. Suppose she had seen or heard!,“Mebbe so. I dunno, but go on.”,Through the dusky twilight, soft with woodland dews and sweet with odor of ferns and wild flowers, Billy walked slowly. For the first time in long days his heart felt at peace. The canker of loneliness that had gnawed at his spirit was there no longer. It was a pretty good old world after all..