Brave Viking

Brave Viking Register +88K Billy set the pails down on the block outside the milk-house and rubbed his cheek against Croaker, who had just alighted on his shoulder. "Are you goin' to show me where you found the gold-pieces, Croaker?" he asked, stroking the ruffled plumage smooth.,"It's got to do with us all, sir, not alone with me," was the answer.,At that moment the man at the mast-head with the telescope still at his eye, shouted the magic words: "Sail ho!",He found his father, mother and Anson seated at the breakfast table and as he took his place he was conscious of a foreboding of impending storm. The conviction was strengthened when his father's foot, reaching sympathetically underneath the table, touched his ever so gently. With perfect sangfroid he speared a strip of bacon with his fork and held his breath as he waited for the worst. Two taps of that foot meant "On your guard," three taps "Watch out for dodging.","Oh, you must not think of such things, madam. How fearful to be locked up in your bedroom, though it should be half as big as this ship, when the house is on fire! Would not you enjoy a short voyage? The trip to the West Indies is short. It is a tropical journey, and all the romance of the sea is in it."，As the wooded shore was reached they came up with the rescued men. Billy passed the chilled and wretched two the hot tea and after they had drunk he and Stanhope took the lead through the stumpy fields.，"I saw the yacht leave the pier," said Billy. "She sure was a dandy, wasn't she?"，"Ay, but they don't sing," said Captain Acton. "Give me the song of the thrush or the blackbird before all the finest feathers in the world.""Mr Lawrence would represent the voyage to the West Indies as beautiful, wonderful, and indeed magical, as an Arabian Nights dream," said Lucy. "But you did not tell me of cockroaches, sir," she added with a smile, and with one of those looks which in her seemed a brooding or dwelling of the eye, though if judged of its effect by time the look was scarcely more than a glance; yet this was[Pg 105] the consequence of the peculiar beauty of her heavy lids rendered yet more languid by the fringes through which the large dark brown orbs of vision directed their gaze. "And you said nothing about the beef blue with salt which creates thirst before it is tasted."

Billy shook his fist at the crow. "You old beggar," he said fondly, "if that rooster was wise he'd go out with the rest of the chickens an' scratch his breakfast, 'stead o' quarrelin' with you. He don't know that you're doin' your best to starve him to death.",The cabin was empty. Mr Pledge was again superintending work forward. Mr Eagle kept the look-out. This was the ship's first day from home. The watches had not been set, and it would be "all hands" with the ship's company until the second dog-watch came round. The vessel swayed on the heave of the swell with the ponderosity,[Pg 288] you would have looked for in one of her mould. She creaked in every timber. She pitched rapidly, albeit the blue afternoon hollow was very shallow, but the sullenness of the sturdy round bows was in her longwise motion. If Lucy meant to be sea-sick she was neglecting her chance, for here was movement more fitted to discompose the land-going stomach than the lofty billow that is swung by the storm. But so far this sweet and amazing young lady had proved herself as good a sailor as Mr Lawrence himself.,"I should be much obliged for a cask of beef, sir," he said, after touching the narrow penthouse of a queerly constructed fur cap. "It's still a long way home for that there Louisa Ann, whose bin a hundred and seventy days in bringing us so fur.","Has she eaten anything, can you tell me?",Anson shuddered. "Aw, who's goin' to peep?' he returned.,"What's tailin's?","'Gimme the money,' says Johnston.,It was nearly half an hour before Mr. Johnston summoned the boys and girls from the open windows to their seats. The room still smelled strongly of sulphur, but one might still breathe and live.,Anson chuckled, "Well, you ain't goin' to get no chance to do any funny stunts this afternoon," he promised. "I'm here to keep an eye on you.","The Minorca not in the Harbour!" exclaimed Miss Acton, staring at the cluster of rigs, beyond which rose the breadth of narrow sea shining in a blue tremble to its horizon. "No accident could have happened or you would have heard, brother.","But though you do not prosecute him, sir," said Lucy, "might not his story become known so that he might be arrested for piracy, and charged and convicted on the evidence of his crew?",But today Billy, musing darkly, knew that Scroggie would do what he had said he would do. The big woods was his, according to law; he could do as he wished with it, and he would wipe it out..