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BKB slot Download +128K Snug in Maurice's corn-husk bed in the attic, the boys lay and listened for the door to open and close. Then Maurice chuckled.,"I met Miss Acton as I was coming home," said Mr Lawrence, "and she said she had left you and her father talking about me.",Shure it's weary I am av that drear, sorry song,"Oh, pray continue, sir! Pray continue!" cried Miss Acton in a voice that was almost husky with the hysteric quality of her emotions.,Sir William looked firmly and somewhat sternly at Miss Acton and said: "I am very sorry, madam, that you should hold this opinion, very sorry indeed. I had thought you the friend and well-wisher of my son—in this respect eminently the charitable and warm-hearted sister of Captain Acton. But if you mean to imply that Mr Lawrence wrote the letter to Miss Lucy, then you have to confess (which would be an indignity done to a beautiful character) that your niece was a willing recipient of my son's missive, that she hastened to him on reading the contents of his communication and that in short, the design of the Minorca's premature sailing was that Mr[Pg 205] Lawrence and Miss Lucy Acton should elope—a thing not to be dreamt of—at an hour when few were abroad, and when there was little or no chance of the news reaching her home that Captain Acton's daughter had sailed in the Minorca."，"Miss Lucy went out at about half-past seven, sir," said the footman.，The boys wriggled their way through the thicket of sumach, and reached a clump of golden-rod inside the road fence just as Wilson came out of the lane.，"Well, somebody has to think in a case o' that kind," admitted Billy, "an' think quick. It was up to me to save you, an' I did the only thing I could think of right then.""But," said Captain Acton, who was perhaps helped to a display of comparative composure of mind by the Admiral's reception of the news, "though if possible we shall sail to-morrow evening or the following day in pursuit, my opinion is, sir, that even if Mr Lawrence were left to his own shifts he would never be able to compass his undertaking. First of all, he has a highly respectable man, who has proved a good servant to me, to deal with in his mate. Will Mr Eagle permit him to carry the Minorca to Rio? Will the crew have nothing to say? What will be thought by all hands when it gets about that my daughter is on board, a prisoner in confinement in the cabin? And is my daughter so enamoured of Mr Lawrence that because he has placed her in a highly equivocal[Pg 222] situation she will be willing to marry him, or to have anything to say to him on their arrival at Rio?"

Captain Weaver had been sent on board the Minorca to take charge of her; Mr Eagle remained as the barque's first mate, and Captain Acton himself navigated the Aurora to the English Channel. He had overhauled Mr Lawrence's cabin in the Minorca and found the "Secret Instructions" he was supposed to have written, and this paper he would have shown to Sir William Lawrence but for the circumstance of the envelope being sealed with the Acton crest, which signified that Mr Lawrence had taken an opportunity of borrowing a large silver seal which stood upon the library table in Old Harbour House, and replacing it, after using it for a nefarious purpose: Captain Acton[Pg 451] had himself used that seal the day before he followed in pursuit in the Aurora.,"Oh Jerusalem!" groaned the terrified Fatty, "It's the ghost! Look, it's sheddin' blue grave-mist! Fer the love of Mike let's git out'a this!",War had swept the narrow seas, and for hours in the day little more hove into view whether from the cliffs of our country or from those of the enemy opposite, than sometimes a large convoy glimmering cloud-like as it[Pg 234] floated, some compact, some scattered, under the protection of men-of-war up Channel to London town or to other ports, or down Channel to their several destinations in various parts of the globe.,"Had my supper," shouted Billy. He threw the kindling into the wood box and grinned encouragement at Maurice, who had sunk miserably down on a stool.,"Exactly. And, Benjamin, kin you imagine the old deacon's face in the mornin' when he sees what we've done?" And the two cronies went off laughing over their prospective raid.,"Mercies on us!" cried the amazed deacon, clutching the fence for support. "Whose voice was that? You heard it, men. Whose was it?","Mr Greyquill!" echoed the Admiral, looking with a changed face at the footman.,Billy's frown vanished. "Fine, Harry, fine," he commended, "an' I'll go down to the store with you. Come up to the house, now, and I'll manage to sneak you out some supper.",The boys eat up and stared at each other.,"Is that your opinion, sir?" Captain Weaver asked the Admiral.,"I should think I do, sir," answered Paul, grinning.,"Well, we don't play the game that way in these parts," said Billy and passed on, unheedful of the uncomplimentary names the chagrined driller threw after him..