Book Of Xmas 2 pdf

Book Of Xmas 2 pdf Download +128K - V3.3.2 "Did you observe Mr Greyquill," continued[Pg 114] the Admiral, "on the wharf behind a little crowd of people viewing the ship under his lifted hand? He was there when you came on deck.",Between the fishermen of Sandtown and the farmers of the community existed no very strong bond of sympathy or friendship. The former were a dissolute, shiftless lot, quite content, with draw-seine and pound-net, to eke out a miserable existence in the easiest manner possible. They were tolerated just as the poor and shiftless of any community are tolerated; their children were allowed to attend the school the same as the children of the tax-payers.,The Admiral rose, and addressing her as though she were the consort of a king, said: "Madam, as the father of the person you speak of, I ask Almighty God, who is merciful and knows the human heart, to bless you for your words.","Here is her dog anyhow!" exclaimed the Admiral, as the little animal marched into the room and stood near Lucy's chair with fore-foot lifted as though she awaited her mistress.,It was nearly noon when Billy, bending beneath a load of wild ducks, came up the path to the cottage. Stanhope, reading his step, groped his way out to meet him. "Ho, Billy Boy," he cried, holding out his hands.，With wildly beating heart Billy passed through the pines, the twilight gloom adding to his feeling of awe. Croaker had become strangely silent and now flitted before him like a black spirit of a crow. It was almost a relief when at last the tumble-down shack grew up in its tangle of vines and weeds. Once more into the daylight and Croaker took up the interrupted thread of his conversation with himself. He ducked and side-stepped and gave voice to expressions which Billy had never heard him use before.，"Where is the Aurora going?" enquired Lucy.，She placed a cold little hand in the eager one which Hinter extended to her and her fleeting glance left him to fasten on the sick man in the arm chair."He can control himself," said Captain Acton. "Did you observe, Lucy, that he refused all refreshments last night? Now, a man who is radically and incurably a sot cannot view a decanter of anything to drink, and the stronger the worse, without thirsting[Pg 77] for it. And did ever such a man say no to an invitation to drink with the liquor standing up in a bottle in front of him?"

Next morning after Captain Acton had read prayers, he stepped on to the lawn to take the air for half an hour before breakfast, and was immediately followed by Lucy, who had hardly reached his side when Miss Acton appeared on the hall steps and carefully descended the broad flight, leaning on her crutch cane and followed by her pug.,She rounded from the bulkhead as she pronounced these words. Her eyes seemed to be on fire; her cheeks glowed. Again she bared her teeth in her wild, insane grin. She appeared transformed. He knew that certain violent and heart-changing passions and emotions could so work in a beautiful face as to make it look repulsive and devilish, such as jealousy or criminal insult, but he never could have believed of Lucy Acton that her loveliness could undergo the amazing transformation he witnessed; for he did not think to recall that her mother had been a great[Pg 261] actress, and that this girl might have inherited perhaps the finest side of her genius.,"That will be mutiny. To refuse an order aboard ship is mutiny. In the Navy we hang men for that sort of conduct.",He stood musing. It was, as we have seen, about a quarter past ten. Captain Acton would not have completed his business until[Pg 169] something after eleven. Should the Admiral invade him with the announcement of this strange disappearance of his ship? He considered the matter a little, and concluded that it must be impossible but that, although Captain Acton had been silent on the subject at the breakfast table, he must know the business of his ship, and that it was understood between him and Mr Lawrence that if the wind served, or anything unforeseen befell, or if Mr Lawrence in his judgment chose to sail before the time announced, he was at liberty to let go his fasts and blow into the open at any hour he pleased. Thus it struck the old man, though secretly he did not regard his own reasoning as sagacious.,He glanced at the door. Mrs. Keeler's square form interposed itself staunchly between him and that means of exit. His wild eyes strayed to the face of his chum. Maurice was grinning a glad, if swollen, grin. There was nothing to do but face the music.,It was a sure hand that raised the old gun, a sure eye that glanced along its brown barrels. At the first loud report of the black powder the leader of the flock crumpled up and the second in command drifted sidewise from the flock. The left barrel spoke and a third duck twisted from the remainder of the flock, to fall with a splash into the water.,Anson started to whimper. "I do have bad dreams," he confessed miserably, "but pie an' tarts ain't to blame fer it.","I can't tell how the fancies came to me," said Lucy. "I know that mad people see apparitions and reply to imaginary voices. I also remembered old Sarah Hutchinson who was thought mad because she was always trying to tear up things: her sheets, her gowns, anything that might be given to her. It was the remembrance of this disease in her that made me rip up my mattress and scatter the feathers about the cabin.","Why he's callin' us all the mean things he knows, I guess," laughed Billy. "We're in his way, you see.","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?","Oh, he's been raisin' high jinks with Ma ag'in," explained Billy. "He will get his claws full o' dirt an' pigeon-toe along her line of clean clothes, as soon as her back's turned.","Maybe you're right," Maurice said, "but I'm goin' t' tell you I ain't feelin' any too much like prowlin' 'round that ha'nted house this night er any other night.".