छोटा परिणाम

छोटा परिणाम Download +128K "Then Jim he begged him not to do that. 'We'll pay you whatever's right fer your horse, sir,' he says, but Johnston jest snorted. 'Where would you get fifty dollars!' he says, but Jim, he nudged me to keep quiet, an' said: 'I've got fifty dollars of my very own, right here, sir. We'll buy your horse an' take chances on findin' him, if you'll sell him to us.',We have seen that the frame which bounded Mr Greyquill's portrait of honour was large. Most men recognising the handwriting would have denied themselves the right of reading this letter, because they had found it lying in[Pg 139] a public roadway, for two reasons: the handwriting was known to them, and the recent presence of the writer where that letter was found would have identified it as its owner's business in no wise to be intruded on by a man of honour.,"Exactly.","No, madam. He is ashore getting his dinner.",Billy waited for no more. He was up and away like a shot. Mrs. Wilson, clutching her gold piece in one hand and brushing back her deranged hair with the other, went back into the house.，He smiled now as he noted Billy's quick look of apprehension.，As he flung himself into this posture of taking aim, with some of the crew about the caboose cowering as do men who seek to dodge a missile, whilst Old Jim and the other stood in the foreground steadily staring at the enraged officer with the blood in his cheeks, Lucy Acton came on deck, and, standing with[Pg 338] her hand upon the companion-way, wild-eyed, and pale and dishevelled, with a mien of distraction which was a marvellously true copy of madness in momentary halt, watched the proceedings.，The watchers stood with eyes glued to the ridge-pole. By and by they saw a black tail-feather obtrude itself from a hole just beneath the roof's gable. A black body followed and Croaker came tiptoeing back along the ridge.Billy ducked into the path through the grove and Anson resumed his reluctant pace toward the Valley School. On the bridge across Levee creek he came up with Elgin Scraff. Elgin was standing with his arms on the bridge rail, looking dejectedly down into the water.

"Oh, I must say that Willium does do somethin' worth while, once in a long while," returned her neighbor, grudgingly. "But Anson, now—",She cried: "A dirty fellow giving her a letter, and beguiling her and luring her into some dreadful place, perhaps to her destruction! Oh dear! oh dear! what is to be done? Can't she be discovered? Can't the bell-man raise the alarm? Who can the wretch be that wrote to her? And why should she rush away to his help? Oh dear! oh dear! what is to be done?",By the time that Lucy was seated at the cabin table of the Aurora at the meal which had been prepared for her, with her father on one side and Sir William Lawrence on the other watching her with riveted eyes, listening to her with impassioned attention, putting such questions as must naturally arise from this most extraordinary adventure, the brig Louisa Ann was about three miles astern rolling and flapping onwards for Whitby, her larder enriched by two casks of beef and a cask of fresh water, whilst in her master's pocket was Captain Acton's address; for it had been agreed that in consideration of the brig's skipper having taken Miss Lucy Acton aboard his ship, he was to receive the fifty guineas reward which had been offered for her recovery, and which Captain Acton would forward when on his return he should know where to address the skipper.,"Why this way. Ma'll come creepin' up here in the dark, when she thinks we're asleep an' she'll come straight to this—your bed. She'll turn down the clothes an' give me a slash or two, thinkin' it's you. I'll let her baste me some—then I'll speak to her. She'll be so surprised she'll ferget all about whalin' you. She's that way, you know. Like as not she'll laugh to think she basted me—an' she'll be good-natured. You needn't worry any about a lickin', Anse.","Listened for the splash," Stanhope answered. "Are you loaded, Billy? There's another flock coming.","Do you belong to this ship?" she asked.,The Minorca's length did not very greatly exceed her beam. Her bows were round, though they fined down into keenness at her entry under water. She had a large square stern with windows, and her buttocks when her stern fell into the hollow, swept up as much foam as recoiled from the plunge of her bows. Upon the weather-side of the quarterdeck of the ship on this May morning in the English Channel Mr John Eagle, the mate of the vessel, was walking to and fro, sometimes directing his gaze to windward,[Pg 236] sometimes aloft, sometimes sending it along the ship's decks at the men who were employed on the numberless jobs which attend a sailing ship's departure from port. High aloft, perched on the fore-topgallant yard, was the figure of a look-out man, who was told to report anything that hove into sight and to continue to report how the distant sail was heading. These were Mr Lawrence's instructions.,"I think I told you, Sir William," said Captain Acton, after a short interval passed in reflection, "that the Minorca is in want of a captain.",Billy closed his eyes and took tight hold of his chair seat. He knew that if he did not summon all his self restraint he would surely spoil all he had accomplished through strategy. He longed to swoop down on his mother and hug her, slap her on the back and yell in her ear that she was a brick. But experience had taught him caution. And besides, Billy reasoned, there was still something more to be accomplished.,"Captain Acton and I were talking about you this morning," said the Admiral. "I was lamenting your inability to procure a berth of any sort, and told him that I could see no hope for you whilst you continued to hang about Old Harbour Town, and to lounge in and out of 'The Swan.'","Oh, aunt, whilst I think of it," cried Lucy, "poor Mr Eagle, the mate of the Minorca, is suffering badly from rheumatism in his ankles. He can hardly stand. I told him that I would ask you to send him something to ease him.","Maybe you're right," Maurice said, "but I'm goin' t' tell you I ain't feelin' any too much like prowlin' 'round that ha'nted house this night er any other night.".