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indibet review Download +128K "Next mornin'," continued Cobin, "Frank went over to see old Scroggie. He wanted to hear him say what he told him the night afore, ag'in. It was gettin' along towards spring; the day was warm an' smelled of maple sap. Scroggie's cabin door was standin' ajar, Frank says. The ol' man was sittin' in his chair, a Bible upside down on his knees. He was dead!,"What's this matter got to do with you?" said Mr Lawrence fiercely.,"Oh, look, Bill," said Maurice, "they're stoppin' at your place.","Nobody," echoed Fatty, "nobody but Bill.","Well now, I can't see why a dozen wouldn't keep as well as three," returned the keeper, as he pulled the punt high on shore.，Lou started to count the money. Billy sat back, watching her. "Yes, sir," he mused, "it certainly takes a good woman to steady a man." For ten glorious minutes he built air castles and dreamed dreams.，He finished his supper in a very gloomy mood. His character has been imperfectly drawn if it leaves upon the reader the impression that he was no more than a gallant, handsome, hectoring scoundrel, a drunkard, a liar, and a gambler. He was more than this, and better than this. In him was a very great deal of honest, sturdy, British human nature, and amongst those who saw the white skin of his character peeping through the rags and tatters of his morals was the young lady whom he had locked up in his cabin. Was he driving, had he driven her mad? This was an awful thought to him, a figure, a presentment on the canvas of his scheme which his utmost imagination never could have painted. He was passionately [Pg 298]fond of her. In truth he was risking his neck to win her. His inmost sensibility as a man and as a gentleman was in perpetual posture of recoil over the reflection that his hand it was that had made this gently-nurtured, beautiful, adorable girl a prisoner in a little ship that was rolling to a port in which she was to be fraudulently sold. He thought of her in the lovely drawing-room of Old Harbour House: the soft illumination of wax lights; the sweet incense of flowers; the piano whose keys were accompanied by her own melodious warblings; her little dog; all the comforts and luxuries which wealth could provide her with; all that a tender-hearted and loving father could endow his only child whom he loved with. And then he thought of her torn from all this pleasantness and sweetness and elegance, so robed that in a short period she must become beggarly to the eye; after her father's hospitable and plentiful table, fed with the poor fare of a common little ship.，"Why, yes, sir, course I do. But I never should ha' thought it. Why of all the young ladies——"Billy pinched off a fox-tail stock and chewed it thoughtfully. "Maybe," he said, cheerfully. "He certainly tapped you some, but then you're always huntin' trouble, an' it serves you right."

"But do I understand," said Captain Acton, "that you mean that Lucy was secretly attached to the man whose hand she declined, and that she speeds to him at the first call that is made upon her by such a missive as the fellow Paul delivered?","Oh Jerusalem!" groaned the terrified Fatty, "It's the ghost! Look, it's sheddin' blue grave-mist! Fer the love of Mike let's git out'a this!","Had my supper," shouted Billy. He threw the kindling into the wood box and grinned encouragement at Maurice, who had sunk miserably down on a stool.,"Well, run along then. I best keep right on. Your poor Ma'll be needin' me.","Leg nuthin'!" Billy removed his hand from his trousers-pocket and waved something before two pairs of fear-widened eyes.,"Yes, sir, so he said; but the will was never found.",The circumstance of a sail heaving into sight was necessarily brimful of excitement and interest to Captain Acton and the Admiral. She might prove a peaceful trader or a man-of-war, a friend or an enemy, a privateer, or as likely as not the Minorca rolling home in charge of Eagle and her[Pg 350] crew, who, conscious of the presence of Lucy on board, and having learnt that the ship's destination was any port but Kingston, had mutinied, and locked up the Captain in his cabin, and turned tail for Old Harbour Town.,"An' so he got away!" sighed Maurice.,"Now teacher," he said, dropping into a seat by the fire, "give us the news.",Mr Lawrence descended the steps into the cabin, which has already been described, with its plain sea furniture and stand of arms, and entered the after berth which he had pretended to convert into a sick bay. Here were two rough bunks, one on top of the other, each containing a mattress and bolster. It was the middle berth betwixt the Captain's and the pantry. Mr Lawrence's sea-chest, clothes, and nautical instruments were here collected. He stepped to a shelf and took from it a tin box containing the ship's papers, and from this box he drew out a large, portentous, heavily-sealed [Pg 247]envelope, whose enclosure of stout paper rendered it somewhat thick and bulky. He looked at the address. Upon the envelope in a bold clerkly hand was written:,"I guess maybe it's your fancy playin' pranks on you, Mary," he suggested hesitatingly. "Two years of livin' in this lonesome spot has kinder got on your nerves.","No, I bored it but it belongs to Pennsylvania Scroggie, the man whom you helped defeat the Southern lease ring.".