CT Interactve

CT Interactve Register +128K As a quick step sounded outside, she lowered herself slowly to a high-backed chair and waited, hands locked closely upon her lap.,"Certainly; it's young Billy Wilson. You know—the lad who is always roaming the woods.","How greatly Mr Lawrence has improved, not indeed in manners, for he was always a very fine gentleman, a very pretty gentleman, but in appearance, since you gave him the command of the Minorca, Captain Acton.","Only the other day," replied Lucy, "I told Mr Eagle, the mate of the vessel, that I could not imagine a pleasanter trip than a voyage to the West Indies in the Minorca, but I stipulated that the sea should be always smooth.",Billy nodded.，Reading in the dry, suffering eyes she had turned upon him a purpose stronger than life itself, what could he do but take her in his arms and ask her to forgive him for the old meddler he was? Perhaps he had erred in this. He did not want to think so. But she looked so much like her mother that morning it might be—，"Yep, I saw it last spring—in the Eau rice beds, it was. I was tryin' to find a blue-winged teal's nest. Saw the drake trail off an' knowed the duck must be settin' somewhere on the high land close beside the pond. As I was standin' still, lookin' about, this little water snake come swimmin' 'cross a mushrat run. Jest then I saw a shadder cross the reeds, an' a fish-hawk swooped down an' made a grab at the snake. The snake dived an' come up close to shore. The hawk wheeled an' swooped ag'in. This time the water was too shallow fer snakie to get clear away. The hawk grabbed him in his claws an' started up with him. 'Goodbye, little snake,' I thought, an' jest then I noticed that the hawk was havin' trouble; fer one thing, he wasn't flyin' straight, an' he was strikin' with his curved beak without findin' anythin'. Pretty soon he started saggin' down to the reeds. I jumped into the punt an' made fer the spot where I thought he'd come down. Jest as I got there he splashed into the shallow water. I stood up in the punt, an' then I saw what had happened. The little water-snake had coiled round the hawk's neck an' had kept its head close under his throat. You know that a water snake has two little saw teeth, one on each side of the upper jaw. I've often wondered what good a pair of teeth like that could be to 'em, but I don't any more, 'cause that little snake had cut that hawk's throat with them snags an' saved himself."，Just here the whistle of bob-white sounded from a little distance along the trail."What brings that old man here peering and mopping and mowing? Has he heard of your appointment? I wish he may not be hatching some scheme, planning some design to end this, your fortunate command, by arresting you unless you pay him up in full."

Sir William Lawrence halted in the quarterdeck walk the two were taking upon that bright green oval lawn, and looked at the ocean which ran in a white line, pale and faint[Pg 11] as ice at the horizon, betwixt the two points of the ravine crowned on the right by the lighthouse and on the left by a windmill; but the waters of the Channel broadened down from their pearl-like margin into a delicate blue, which changed into dark green and brown as the sea shoaled into the land. The Admiral seemed to find something to delight him in the prospect, and Captain Acton standing at his side viewed a scene, very familiar indeed to him, with pleasure, which increased with the attention he gave it.,Captain Acton's eyes opened wide; the Admiral gurgled a nervous laugh.,Softly the last note died, and then the player emerged from the grove. He was little and bent. He wore a ragged suit of corduroys and a battered felt hat with a red feather stuck jauntily in its band. His face was small, dark, and unshaven. In one grimy hand he carried a small demijohn. Arriving opposite Caleb, he lifted his battered hat and bowed low as a courtier would do.,"An' did they find it?" gasped Billy.,"An' that's why you throwed it," exclaimed the admiring Maurice. "Gosh, nobody else would'a thought of that.","Yes.","The lady thumped and I went to see what was the matter, sir," said Mr Pledge, awed in his old man-o'-war instincts by the over-bearing, I may say, the overwhelming demeanour of Mr Lawrence, which was to his words as the thunder of the explosion is to the message of the firearm.,"We must defy every chance in our determination to recover my child," answered her brother.,"Brothers, you heard what our minister said, an' he's right. I, fer one, am ashamed of the thoughts I've thought to'rds them fishermen of Sandtown. I've acted mean to 'em in lots of ways, I'll admit. An' so have you—you can't deny it!","What are you doing at that cabin door, sir?" asked Mr Lawrence. "I do not enquire what you are doing in this cabin, for, according to the custom of this ship, and perhaps of others in your Service, you take your meals here. But what are you doing at that door, conversing through it with the lady inside?","Listen, Ma," said Billy gently. "That old Johnston was awful mean to us kids, there's no mistake about that. He whipped us fer nothin', an' what's worse, he was always sneerin' at us fer being low-born an' ignorant, an' that meant sayin' things ag'in our folks. But we was willin' to stand all that, cause we'd promised Teacher Stanhope that we'd do our best to put up with the teacher in his place. But, Ma, if you could'a seen that poor ol' horse, so starved that every rib showed like the ridges in your wash-board, lookin' over that school-yard fence at the long grass an' beggin' with his hungry eyes fer jest a bite—","It is," said Caleb shortly, "and my eyes are gettin' sharper every day, Billy.".