भक्ति पचरा

भक्ति पचरा Whatever the words were which Mrs. Staines uttered almost in a whisper, The man who manages the farm generally—and is a plague and a blessing at the same time to his master—appears round a corner, and declares, respectfully, that he will be ready in a "jiffy" to accompany Miss Mona, if she will just give him time to "clane himself up a bit.","Must you really go, Geoffrey?—really?" asks Mona, miserably, looking the very personification of despair. She has asked the same question in the same tone ever since early dawn, and it is now four o'clock.,"Suppose," said Miss Acton, "that a French man-o'-war should capture you, and make you prisoners, what is to become of Lucy?,"I wonder," she says to herself, softly, "whether he will be with me at the usual hour to-morrow, or,—a little earlier!","I am a stranger; I know nothing," she says again, hardly knowing what to say, and moving a little as though she would depart.，“Gee whiz!” whistled Bob, the suddenness of the turn the talk had taken amazing him. “Then—then what I did was right?”，Her breakfast finished, Betty sought the company of Moses, who was in a small shed adjoining the kitchen. He was piling some fire-wood he had carried in from the yard.，What next? Feverishly he started to go through his pockets, hoping that in their hurried search the cowmen had overlooked his jackknife. If they had he could try to dig through the walls! Hope flared up for a moment but soon died, as all he could find was a loose button and a broken match that had lodged in the lining of his khaki jacket.“I suppose you can get along without Katrina’s help.”

Landon did not reply. He simply pressed the girl's cold hand. Hinter caught the look of suffering in her eyes as she arose and passed into the outer room. When she returned she carried a heavy, wicker-bound can.,“Please, please explain,” Bob implored. “I want to believe in him.”,"This is nicer than anything," she says, turning in a state of childish enthusiasm to Lady Lilias. "It is just like the floor in my uncle's house at home.","I am certain of all save one," replied Arkel, in a dissatisfied tone, "and the worst of it is that Dido is the one.","She held out her apron, an' I lefted the lid off the pail and pours what's in it into her lap.,"I should have answered your letter sooner but I have been so worried by debts and difficulties, by compulsory idleness and the absolute impossibility of finding anything congenial to do, that I have had no spirit to communicate with you or anybody else. But the wheel of fortune which has depressed me to the very bottom, has by another revolution, raised me. I must tell you that I am very heavily in debt. Even in this antiquated hole I owe an old scamp, named Greyquill, three hundred pounds, of which I have only had two hundred. I am in debt, some of them debts of honour, to several men, a few of whom I have spoken of in my time as brother-officers, and one of them quite recently threatened me with the law. In addition, I owe a lot to various tradespeople in London and elsewhere. So that my personal liberty hangs by a hair, and at any moment I may find myself clapped on the shoulder, arrested for debt, and flung into gaol, there to languish possibly for the remainder of my days, for it is quite certain that my father cannot, even if he would, come to my help. His private means are very small, and his pension inconsiderable, and though he has behaved very well in maintaining me since I quitted the Service, and allowed me to use his cottage as a home, he is a man whose morality is high and severe, and he is the last person to part with a farthing in discharge of debts which he regards as dishonourable.,I haven't been really willing before to write down in this wretched volume that I took that garment to the city with me and what Madame Rene did to it—remade it into the loveliest thing I ever saw, only I wouldn't let her alter the size one single inch. I'm honourable, as all women are at peculiar times. I think she understood, but she seemed not to, and worked a miracle on it with ribbon and lace. I've put it away on the top shelf of a cupboard, for it is a torment to look at it.,Turning sorrowfully away, she drops some silver into the poor widow's lap; whereon Geoffrey, who has been standing close to her all the time, covers it with two sovereigns.,Maurice swallowed hard, "I'm blame fool enough fer anythin' since I got knocked silly by that bolt," he answered, "so I'm game if you are.",Whereat the boy smiles and grins consumedly, as though charmed with his companion's metaphor, though in reality he understands it not at all.,The little leaning vessel, diminished by the distance from which she was surveyed into a size fit only to be manned by Liliputian sailors, crept like a small white cloud along the placid water of Old Harbour, and rounding the pier hauled the wind for a south-westerly course. They watched her as she streamed onwards with a sparkle as pretty as a rainbow at her fore-foot, and a short scope of trembling lustre astern as though she towed a length of satin. A few minutes before she disappeared from the sight of those who viewed her from the lawn of Old Harbour House, past the bluff or round of cliff on which stood the dropsical old lighthouse, she dipped her flag manifestly in response to a hidden salutation, and scarcely had she vanished when there stole out from the edge of the cliff round which she had gone, the slanting figure of a large three-masted schooner with the English ensign at her peak. She was steering directly for Old Harbour. Though she had evidently come a long journey, she made upon those silver-white rippling waters a far handsomer figure than the brig. She was clothed from truck[Pg 81] to waterway with sails which reflected the light of the morning with something of the splendour of polished metal. Her hull was black, but she was inclined sufficiently by the breeze to reveal a narrow breadth of copper sheathing, which sprang pulses of wet dazzling light upon the eye in keen flashes like gun fire.,"That idea has occurred to me," he said, "and I have dismissed it, sir, for what reception would the Commander-in-Chief give such a message as you propose? The master of a ship, who is fully empowered to act in the interests of his owners, chooses to leave a certain harbour some hours earlier than the[Pg 182] time announced. The reason he gives is that there is a Frenchman in the neighbourhood whom he is anxious to avoid and escape. The Commander-in-Chief's sympathy would be with him in that. It is no case of piracy to ship a pilot, and the mate and crew which the vessel carried last voyage; and besides, sir, would the sloop, corvette, or frigate which the Commander-in-Chief might choose to send, overhaul the Minorca if your son determined that his purpose, whatever it may be, should be prosecuted without interruption? She is certainly as swift as the fastest thing that we have in the Navy, and there is no reason to suppose that any vessel as fast would be despatched in chase. Plymouth is a long distance from this spot, and messengers are not always the rapid people we desire them to be. No, sir, we have to accept the position as it is. The ship has sailed; Mr Lawrence's conduct is unaccountable. We must continue to regard him as the honourable, well-meaning man which I have found him during our association in the matter of this command, and I must await with a certain degree of confidence a letter in which he will communicate the full meaning of what is now unintelligible to us.".