Rushbet

Rushbet CHAPTER 9. The Sermon. The gate was thrust open and there entered Rear-Admiral Sir William Lawrence, a round-faced, bullet-headed seaman of the old type. He was dressed in a bottle-green coat, metal buttons, red waistcoat, knee breeches and stockings, shoes and large buckles; and being totally bald he wore a wig, perched at the back of which was a little round hat.,"Fellows were in a hurry," he explained good-naturedly, as he shook hands with a grip that made her wince. "Couldn't keep you girls waiting, anyway. Hullo, Elinor, how's the artist lady? Hullo, kid, give us your paw. Don't need to ask you how you are—you look out of sight.",The lashing whirlwinds cleave the vast profound;,Dew-diadem'd.",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.，"Well, John," said Pledge, "it's not for me nor the likes of me to interfere in such a galavantin' job as this. If the young lady's been run away with with her own consent, it's not for me, I says, to pay any attention to what's 'appening. People who fall in love with each other and are objected to by their relatives will sometimes carry on their business in a way as might make pious, respectable old parients feel their hair standing short up on their heads. I've lived long enough in this 'ere world to descover that no good ever comes to a man by messing about in other people's consarns. But when it comes to this ship being navigated to another port than the one agreed for, why, naturally you set me a-thinking, John. I don't know nothing about them sealed orders you refer to, but it seemed strange to me when I heard of it, and it's strange to me still, that Mr Lawrence should have been chosen to command this vessel when[Pg 274] the berth was yourn by right of sarvice. Was it because Captain Acton couldn't be sure of your a-executing his wishes? What d'ye think yourself, John? You've got to consider it's two naval officers acting together; they know each other's mind, and I guess that when Captain Acton chose Mr Lawrence to take charge of his ship he knew that he was in the 'ands of a man who'd listen to no talk, who was used to man-o'-war's discipline, and would act if it came to having to shoot men down so as to gain his ends."，“And Jimmy is already Roderick Dhu.”，"What an awful picture!" cried Miss Proudfoot."And," Maddoc resumed, "do you happen to know that he made a will, leaving all he possessed to you?"

"'In the midst of life we are in debt,'" says Nolly, solemnly. Which is the best thing he could have said, as it makes them all laugh in spite of their pending misfortunes.,Of Beauties but small would be found,"Jump in here, an' let's get fishin'.",Billy sighed. "That's awful good of you, Ma, an' I sure would like to have Jim over to supper, but he's so fond of his sister he won't go anywheres without her, you see.","Well, let's hear you, then.","Awfully early," puts in Geoffrey.,The praise acted like a tonic on the weary boy. He stood up.,"No, never mind. I bribed Anse to watch that gap fer me.",Evening veil'd in dewy shades,,Then some one puts on her again the coat she had taken off such a short time since, and some one else puts on her sealskin cap and twists her black lace round her white throat, and then she turns to go on her sad mission. All their joy is turned to mourning, their laughter to tears.,“Every tub must stan’ on its own bottom,” commented Mrs. Wopp. But even as she spoke, an unmistakable expression of gratified pride spread over her large motherly countenance.,Patricia smiled and opened her lips, but the words died away, as Bruce, now with a gayety that bespoke a different sort of announcement, mounted the model stand in the middle of the room, and rapped loudly for attention. Miss Jinny had vainly tried to grab his sleeve as he slipped past her and now stood with an expression of grim martyrdom glaring at Mr. Spicer, who was smiling at her openly and, Patricia thought, heartlessly..