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It is certain, anyway, that about nine months after the return of the Aurora, Captain Acton, Sir William Lawrence, and Miss Lucy Acton, left Old Harbour Town, for the neighbourhood of London, where after an interval, the exact period of which being uncertain, is not of historic value enough to demand research, Old Harbour Town received the news, this time in print, in the Annual Register or La Belle Assemblée, or some such publication of the period, that Mr Walter Lawrence, late of His Majesty's Royal Navy,[Pg 454] only son of Rear-Admiral Sir William Lawrence, K.C.B., was on such a day united in the bonds of Holy Matrimony to Lucy, only daughter and co-heiress of Captain Acton, R.N. (retired).,

"Don't you have nuthin' to do with it, Ma!" he cried. "That Croaker's a witch crow, that's what he is! He's tryin' to tempt you with gold!",

Tom Holt, the proud possessor of a watch, consulted it. "Ten twelve an' a half," he answered, holding the dial to the moon-light. "Sandtown'll be sound asleep. Come on, let's go down to the lake an' make a haul.",

It was the evening of the next day. Frank Stanhope lay on a couch in a darkened room, a black bandage across his eyes. Erie Landon sat beside him, holding his hand. The pungent odor of ether hung in the air. Out in the dining room old Doctor Allworth, from Bridgetown, was discussing with the specialist things known only to those men of science.

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In silence they passed on through the upland gowned in hazy, golden spray. At the height of land they paused to look down across the sweeping country below them. Then blue eyes sought grey and hand in hand, with a new glad vista of life opening before them, they went on into the valley.,

"Sir," he answered, "I am much sneered at in this town and district. I am very well aware that few have a kind word for me. If you, sir, or Admiral Lawrence condescend to bestow a nod upon me as I respectfully pass you in the street, it has the character of the recognition with which you would honour something you disdain, which you are compelled to see, and by that nod acknowledge the existence of. Your beautiful daughter, Miss Lucy, on the other hand, has always been gracious and kind to me. In the light and sweetness of her presence I am sensible of the warmth and glow which make me feel that I am human and a man. There is no office I would not discharge to oblige her. I make money by lending it, but I would[Pg 217] give her money—much if she needed it, for the delight I take in her sympathetic, tender and generous nature. When I read the letter you hold, sir, I did not believe that Mr Lawrence would have the power or the art to carry out his scheme of kidnapping your daughter, and I was only assured that his base plot, as you term it, had proved triumphant by the calling of the bell-man, and by the letterpress on the placards which they are pasting about the place. Then I was determined that you should be instantly apprised through the medium of Mr Lawrence's own letter of what had become of your daughter. Otherwise, sir, the loss of your ship by an act of piracy must be nothing to me. Mr Lawrence promises in his letter that he will repay all his creditors, of which I am one to the extent of three hundred pounds. And as I am of opinion that this is his honest intention in order to enable him to dwell in England at liberty, I resolved to keep my own counsel and to await the receipt of my money.",

The white-fish run was on and when the boys, launching the big flat-bottomed fish boat, carefully cast and drew in the long seine it held more great gleaming fish than they knew how to dispose of.,

"Pshaw! Bill, he couldn't hurt Spotba, the womper, could he?"