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Naturally the arrival of the Aurora, as of any ship, but particularly a vessel belonging to the port, must be an incident full of active interest. The wives and children of the crew lived in Old Harbour Town; the men were related to two-thirds of the people of the place. The return from a considerable voyage of a ship in those days was not the commonplace familiar happening of every day which it now is. Ships sailed in convoys, and arrived in groups at long intervals. Again a ship was attended with a passion of interest which is no longer felt. Will she fall in with the enemy? Will she escape him? There was much to tell after a voyage in those days no matter into what regions of the globe a vessel[Pg 91] sailed: new lands to discover; amazing and enriching products of the soil to be reported. New races were to be met with. Indeed in 1805 Sydney Cove in New Holland, which had been settled by Phillip in 1787, was scarcely thought of as a new land in this country, it was too recent and remote; it was to supply reports later on, news which was to startle and excite the nation, differing only in kind from the information ships returned with from the East Indies and China and the great continent of South America. "I am sorry you are not better than middling," she said. "I like the idea," said Captain Acton, "of a naval officer being in charge of my vessel. The men of the Merchant Service are a very rough lot. Many of the masters and mates can scarcely read or write. They grope their way about by dead reckoning. They so little understand the treatment of men that their crews consider themselves as good as they, particularly when they bring the sailors aft, and hob-and-nob with the rum cask lifted through the hatch and broached in the cabin, till half the company lie motionless in drink, and the rest are fighting and running about mad. Two things the Navy teaches us: discipline and the art of it.".
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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.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
"Patricia, he'll hear you!" gasped the scandalized Judith.
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Conrad
Lucy was not a young lady to sit idle. She could find something to do in every hour in the day. As Miss Acton did the housekeeping, Lucy was left to her own inventions, and being a girl of several[Pg 83] resources, she was very happy in pleasing herself. Miss Acton went to look after the affairs of the home, and to attend to the needs of a little congregation of poor who were ushered into the housekeeper's room one after another every morning, excepting Sunday, where they stated their wants and obtained such relief as Miss Acton's closets, stocked from her own purse, could supply; and if they did not get always exactly what they wished, they were sure of tender and consoling words, of sympathetic enquiry into their troubles, of a promise of some stockings for little James next week, of a roll of flannel for old Martha the day after to-morrow. Pleasant and instructive it might have been to witness this old lady in her hoop and flowered gown asking questions, handing purges, promising little gifts of apparel to the poor people, who ceaselessly sank in curtsies, or plucked at wisps of hair upon their foreheads whilst they scraped the ground behind with their feet. Mr Lawrence pursued the same road home by which he had gained Old Harbour. In all probability had Mr Greyquill not looked back, the young gentleman would have found his letter where he had unconsciously dropped it. That side of the bridge—the up-river water path—was much unfrequented, save on a Sunday, when lovers walked along it, and now and again a little family dressed in their best. It was many chances to one that the two or three who had passed along that path since Mr Lawrence and Mr Greyquill had stood in conversation upon it, would have[Pg 146] picked up the letter or even taken notice of it, so very remote from their ideas of things worth stopping for and examining on the highway was a folded sheet of paper. "Dad says not," the other boy replied. "Faith," sighed Harry, "ut's meself is willin' to be riskin' a little in return fer a bite to eat, fer it's fastin' long I've been an' as impty as a church, I am.".
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