classic royale garden

classic royale garden Register +188K CHAPTER XXVI A GOLDEN WEDDING GIFT,"Have you seen a letter," cried Mr Lawrence, "a broad piece of paper folded into four lying in the road?",The Aurora's boat was swept alongside the brig, and Captain Acton and the Admiral clambered over the side up a short flight of steps, and in an instant Lucy was clasped in the devouring embrace of her father. Such an old-world scene taxes the highest gifts of the pen or the brush. This Louisa Ann was about fifty years old; she was nearly as broad as she was long. Her fore-mast was stepped far in the bows; her decks were stained and grimy; the paint had faded out of the inside of her bulwarks. Her sails were patched and so dingy that they might have been coloured as a smack's. Her rusty sides were lined with yawning seams amid which three little circular windows were merged with no accentuation from the dirt-shrouded glass which prevented the sea from entering the blistered, worn, mani-coloured hull. Her sailors looked as though[Pg 359] they were shipwrecked: long-haired, bearded, sallow, in clothes considerably tattered, in aspect melancholy and dejected with lack of nourishment, dullness of sailing and ceaseless motion: for here was the tub wallowing like a buoy in a popple upon a smooth sea, and the frightful weather she would make off Cape Horn or in a gale of wind the imagination of a sailor could readily picture by witnessing her motions now.,"It is a draft or copy," said Captain Acton. "It is undated, and it is without the formal beginning of My dear, etc.","I remember that, too. Well?"，"Oh, I'm so glad you came, Billy," she said. "You can help me decorate uncle's grave."，He was now seized with a passion of delight.，As he passed up the aisle something strange and mysterious seemed to draw his eyes toward a certain spot. He looked and there, gazing at him from eyes of blue, rose-bud lips half parted in a smile, was a girl—and such a girl!"Sure he came back. He's a wise crow, that Croaker, an', Oh gosh! don't he hate Ma, though! He gets up in a tree out o' reach of her broom, an' jest don't he call her names in crow talk? Ma says she'll kill him if ever she gets close enough to him an' she will, too."

"Oh, no ma'am. I gotta get right back home to Ma. She's not very well, an' she'll be needin' me.",Mrs. Wilson sank down on a chair. "Willium's right," she sighed. "Anson's mind is gettin' a little unbalanced. I'll have to put him on diet and feed him slippery-elm bark and alloways.","Can I trust your Royal Highness with a secret?... How good you are, sir! Your Royal Highness shall see my treasure, but you are too great as a Prince, and too virtuous as a man, to betray me.","I have no piano in this cabin, sir," she answered, without raising her eyes. "And I have no heart to sing without music.","The whole job of the ship sailing before her time is a mystery to me, sir," said Captain Weaver.,"Oh thank you, mum, thank you, and it's deeply beholden I am to you and Miss Acton for calling and enquiring after them, not to mention presents which leaves my Sarah most grateful indeed. That there little Tommy of mine grows like a ship you're arisin'. Because I'm his father I'm not goin' to pretend he don't improve every voyage.","Oh, Captain Weaver, there are many wicked people at sea!" cried Miss Acton. "Think of the pirates! Think of the slavers! My poor, poor niece!","Who is to work the ship for him?" asked Pledge. "For you may depend upon it that if the crew are to be carried away to an unbeknown place, they'll all go below to a man, for Jack's as good as his master when it comes to his having to do something which he didn't agree for.","Yes.","What is she doing?",Captain Acton easily perceived what was happening, and might as easily have guessed what was to come. The Admiral was as perceptive as his friend, and as reserved.,For some time after he had closed his knife and fork he sat at table shading and supporting his forehead with his hand, his elbow resting, and deep thought was in his attitude. To one who knew his story he submitted a picture for memory to cherish. Night was near, though not yet come, but[Pg 299] its shadow was upon the ship, and three or four stars like little balls of quicksilver ran to and fro athwart the gleaming black panes of the skylight glass. The hum of a steady breeze in the stout shrouds, in the cat-harpings, in the drumming hollow of many sails sounded like the strains of an organ muffled to the ear by the walls of the church that holds it. The low thunder of the surge washing past the ship was as constant as its accompaniment of the concert of creakings, jarrings, shocks in bulkhead, rudder-post and strong fastenings..