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Whilst he walked Mr Lawrence came up from the cabin through the companion-hatch, and after standing a few moments looking about him, he stepped to the side of Mr Eagle. The contrast between the two men was remarkable. You could scarcely have believed that they belonged to the same nation. Mr Lawrence's tall, elegant, and dignified figure towered above the poor, unshapely conformation of Eagle; his handsome face wore an expression of haughtiness, distance, and reserve. Both Mr Eagle and the boatswain, named Thomas Pledge, who[Pg 237] acted as second mate, and the rest of the crew had already discovered that their captain perfectly well understood and remembered that he had been an officer in the Royal Navy, a sailor of His Majesty the King, that comparatively brief as his story was it was brilliant with heroic incident and adventure, and that instead of being greatly obliged to Captain Acton for this command, he considered that he was acting with a very uncommon degree of condescension in taking charge of a merchant vessel, unless indeed she was a prize to his man-o'-war. "I should have answered your letter sooner but I have been so worried by debts and difficulties, by compulsory idleness and the absolute impossibility of finding anything congenial to do, that I have had no spirit to communicate with you or anybody else. But the wheel of fortune which has depressed me to the very bottom, has by another revolution, raised me. I must tell you that I am very heavily in debt. Even in this antiquated hole I owe an old scamp, named Greyquill, three hundred pounds, of which I have only had two hundred. I am in debt, some of them debts of honour, to several men, a few of whom I have spoken of in my time as brother-officers, and one of them quite recently threatened me with the law. In addition, I owe a lot to various tradespeople in London and elsewhere. So that my personal liberty hangs by a hair, and at any moment I may find myself clapped on the shoulder, arrested for debt, and flung into gaol, there to languish possibly for the remainder of my days, for it is quite certain that my father cannot, even if he would, come to my help. His private means are very small, and his pension inconsiderable, and though he has behaved very well in maintaining me since I quitted the Service, and allowed me to use his cottage as a home, he is a man whose morality is high and severe, and he is the last person to part with a farthing in discharge of debts which he regards as dishonourable. "Mr Lawrence has a beautiful voice," said[Pg 78] Lucy. "How touchingly he sang 'Tom Bowling'!".
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Conrad
On the top-most branch of a tall, dead pine, close beside the wood-pile, sat the tame crow, Croaker, his head cocked demurely on one side, as he listened to the woman's righteous abuse. Croaker could no more help filling his claws with chips and dirt and wobbling the full length of a line filled with snowy, newly-washed clothes than he could help upsetting the pan of water in the chicken-pen, when he saw the opportunity. He hated anything white with all his sinful little heart and he hated the game rooster in the same way. He was always in trouble with Ma Wilson, always in trouble with the rooster. Only when safe in the highest branch of the pine was he secure, and in a position to talk back to his persecutors. "Well, we may go with you some day, sir," said Captain Acton good-humouredly, "but peace must be declared before I embark. We are keeping Miss Acton waiting." "Gee! how am I to know; it's right here somewheres, though." Captain Acton with a violent effort had by this time recollected himself..
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