aviator1windownload

aviator1windownload Download +128K "Well, God love his gentle heart, ut's himself now'll hardly be carin' phwat becomes o' the money, let alone he gets possession av the thousand acre hardwoods, I'm thinkin'," he said, fastening his eyes on Billy's face. "I'd be wishin' the young t'acher to be ginerous, byes.",Mr Pledge had eaten his last morsel of cheese and was leaving the table, when his attention was arrested by a knocking on Lucy's door, accompanied by the cries of a female; but what she said he could not hear. So Mr Pledge, taking some steps, stood close to the door.,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.,O'Dule had cut a window in the cabin, installed an old stove, table and chairs, and succeeded in making the place home-like enough to suit his simple taste. To-night he stood by the stove, frying potatoes and humming an Irish song. On the table lay a loaf of bread and some butter in a saucer, while close beside it a coal oil lamp gave a smoky light to the room. In the center of the table reposed a huge blue-grey cat, its amber eyes on Harry and its forepaws curled contentedly beneath its furry breast. All about the room hung the skins of wild animals—deer, bear, lynx and coon. A pile of skins lay in one corner. This was O'Dule's bed.,"God love us, it's a crow!" he cried, "and the rascal has appropriated my glasses! Laid 'em on my chair-arm for an instant and the cheeky beggar swooped in through the open window and picked 'em up."，He endeavoured to recollect himself that, by calming his terrors his memory might better serve him. Urgent alarms often induce vain hopes which we should laugh at in the cool mood. He believed he might have put that letter down in his bedroom, and perfectly well knowing that he had not done so, and yet coaxed by a will-o'-the-wisp hope, he ransacked the room as though he knew that in it was to be found a gold piece of value whose discovery demanded a careful search only. What was certain in his mind was that that letter was in his pocket when he walked that morning to visit the Minorca. He remembered withdrawing it from his pocket, but in what part of the walk he knew not, and re-perusing a portion of it to refresh his memory. He tried to find comfort in the recollection that the letter bore no address and no signature. But a thundercloud of horror came down on this feeble streak of sunshine when he recalled the damning, incriminating contents of that sheet[Pg 152] which he had scrawled in pencil at "The Swan Inn." Whoever found it would know that Mr Lawrence, and Mr Lawrence alone, had written it, and this, too, irrespective of the handwriting.，"Elgin Scraff," spoke up Billy, promptly.，"It is a step," continued the Admiral, "that may lead to other and even better things. But first and foremost it finds you in employment, and will put some money into your pocket, and relieve the pressure which not only you but I am made to feel. I do not choose that Mr Greyquill should visit me. Yet he calls to enquire after you."Mr Lawrence, who was on deck at noon, wisely concluding that the then peculiar rig of the Minorca would challenge the attention and excite the suspicion of one or another of the convoying men-of-war, hoisted British colours, and as no observation of the sun[Pg 329] was deemed necessary when there hung plain in sight the famous promontory of the Lizard from which a departure was to be made, he overhung the rail gazing apparently with absorbed interest at the grand spectacle of ships which were making a more southerly course than he. Indeed he was so absorbed either by that "vision splendid" or by thinking of the mad pictures he had witnessed in the little berth from which he had lately emerged, that he failed to notice that some of the hands forward for whom the dinner-hour had arrived and who were hanging about the caboose, were staring at him with a degree of obstinacy which perhaps had he regarded it he would have deemed something more than strange, as they had a fine show to arrest and detain their gaze on the bow. One of the most steadfast of these starers was the man Mr Pledge familiarly styled Old Jim.

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.,"But pray, Lucy," exclaimed Captain Acton, "what was Mr Eagle about? Did not he know that you were Mr Lawrence's prisoner, though he might not have been able to guess that it was Mr Lawrence's intention to navigate the ship to Rio to sell her there? Did not he make any effort to rescue you by appeals to the Captain, or by so working up the crew as to determine them to sail the ship back to Old Harbour Town?",Now, as we have seen, the 4th day of June had come, and the Aurora, with a light air aloft which put a gentle breathing into her gaff top-sails and lighter canvas, was slowly scoring her way through the heart of a wide circle of Atlantic ocean, along which the swell ran gently, whilst the surface at a distance resembled a motionless sheet of ice under a blue sky.,"Two Great Danes and a 'bull-dog' should be protection enough for any man," he would laugh to Landon, the light-house keeper, when the latter shook his head doubtfully over Hinter's foolhardiness in riding this lone night trail. And Landon, whose asthma made talking difficult for him, would say no more, realizing that it was useless.,"I told Mr Eagle to keep a bright look-out for ships, and he reported one to me when she was hull up. She might have been a Frenchman, and if so, we should now be occupying her hold. You will please keep a bright look-out for ships, sir!" he added, with which he stepped to the weather-side of the quarterdeck, and Pledge crossed to[Pg 310] leeward thinking to himself: "If he talks to old Jim like this and with that there face and manner, he'll find out that the discipline of the British Merchant Service ain't all his Navy ideas would like to see it. Damn me, on top of his talking to me like this, if I don't 'ave a yarn with old Jim after breakfast, and blast the consequences," and he sent a scowl at Mr Lawrence, who was looking to windward.,Nelson flourished a salutation. Lucy sank in a curtsy that was almost the same as kneeling. Most girls have a favourite hero, and Nelson was her's, and had been her's ever since he came into renown on the glorious St Valentine's Day. Had her father not been fascinated by the figure on the Victory, he might have witnessed the almost magical art with which his daughter had alarmed Mr Lawrence into releasing her, by a brief study of her face as she gazed at the little figure on the deck of the Victory, with his untenanted sleeve secured to his breast, and a smile of acknowledgment on his pale and worn face, seamed about the mouth with wrinkles such as are sometimes seen in persons deformed in the back, or suffering from spinal complaint.,"'Tain't enough fer a three-way split," said Maurice.,"How? Unarmed!" exclaimed Nelson.,"Well done, Tupman!" cried Captain Acton, who watched the manœuvre with a sailor's interest. "Sluggard as you are, you [Pg 80]have your little ship and her people well in hand. I wonder if there's a foreigner afloat that could have made sail with the despatch that brig exhibited?",Hinter knit his brows. "I'm afraid they are," he answered. "But my friends are their friends, you see. There is only one other person besides yourself and myself who can do what you are doing now, though.","Good-bye, Sir William," said Lucy, and in silence the two gentlemen watched her walk to the gate and pass out.,"Bill," Jim cried eagerly. "I got a bit of news for you that'll make you want to stand on your head and kick splinters off the trees.".