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Maurice was off like a shot. As he rounded the house on a lope he ran into Billy, coming from the opposite direction. Billy's cotton blouse was bulging. In one hand he carried the smoking bake-pan, in the other a fat cookie deeply scalloped on one side. At the sound of his voice the horse lifted his head and gazed at the boy in seeming surprise. A wisp of grass dangled from his mouth; his ears pricked forward. Perhaps something in the boy's voice recalled a voice he had known far back along his checkered life, when he was a colt and a bare-legged youngster fed him sugar and rode astride his back. "Yep, that's him. Now," he cried tossing Croaker into a tree, "I'll tell you what we gotta do. We gotta move these pets down to that old sugar-shanty in our woods. Ma's got so nervous with havin' 'em here that I'm afraid Anse might take it in his head to let 'em out, er kill 'em. I've got 'em all boxed nice an' snug. All I want you to do is help me carry 'em. We can do it in two trips. Ringdo, of course, 'll stay along up here. Ma's not scared of him like she is of the other things. Come along.".
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Conrad
With some astonishment Thomas Pledge answered: "I do, sir." "Oh, madam, in magnificent sunsets, in storms of fire which harm not, though they are as sublime as one might figure a vision of Hell viewed through such tremendous doors as Milton described; in birds of exquisite plumage, and flight which is beyond all other forms of grace; in fish of a thousand lustrous dyes, and the dark wet blue of the long shark; in nights magnificent with such stars as do not shine upon these Islands. For as you strike south, madam, the glory of things which[Pg 100] are glorious waxes hourly, the moon expands into a nobler shield, and her path upon the water is a torrent of silver that seems to mark the depth of the mystic realm it sounds——" The ordinary was held in a long room next to the room in which the seafaring men congregated. As a meal it was renowned in the district. Coarse it might have been called, coarse and plentiful, but it was of that sort of coarseness which makes very good eating. Mr Short, the landlord, was a liberal caterer, and he excelled in choice of rounds of beef, in joints of venison, in legs of pork and mutton, in fine dishes of veal; and this ordinary was always graced with a precedent dish of fish, which was invariably fresh from the sea, and whether turbot, cod, bake, soles, and many flat fish which the smacks brought with them into Old Harbour, were delicious in freshness and flavour. Short's cheeses, too, were always very fine, dry, crumbly, flakey, nutty, and without being too strong they flavoured the bread or the biscuit with what the palate knew to be real cheese. His cellars held a very fine old port, but it was seldom asked for unless some person of distinction and importance occupied a seat at that teeming and appetising board. Short brewed his [Pg 125]own beer, and a delicate amber draught it was; there was no better beer brewed in England. "It is you, my dear Dick, and old companion, mess-mate and friend, with whom I have enjoyed many a jaunt to which I could never[Pg 213] recur without passionately lamenting the days that are no more, who will help me in this desperate undertaking. I propose to navigate the vessel, not to Kingston, Jamaica, to which port she ought to be bound, but to the port in which you live, Rio de Janeiro. By a ruse which must prove successful, I think, I shall inveigle Miss Lucy Acton on board, and everything being ready, shall make sail immediately after she is carefully confined in my cabin. I have had a cabin set apart for my own use, which I represented to Captain Acton was to serve as a sick-bay. This drama has been well rehearsed. When far out at sea the crew will be summoned aft. I shall read some pretended sealed orders from Captain Acton, requiring me to carry the ship to Rio de Janeiro, and to sell her, if possible, after discharging the mate and crew, who will receive from Captain Acton, on application, treble the amount of their wages they would have got for sailing the vessel to Kingston. I shall also take care to destroy the ship's papers. And my story will be that I was overhauled by an American cruiser, who sent an officer on board. He examined the box of papers and took it away to show to his Captain, as he considered them unsatisfactory. The cruiser then braced her main top-sail yard to the wind and sailed away with the box of papers. On my arrival, we will consult together as to the safest course to be adopted for the sale of the ship and cargo, by which time I have no doubt the lady will have agreed to marry me either for love,[Pg 214] or because she has been placed in a situation which must render marriage imperative to her in the name of honour. With the money which I shall make, thanks to you, through this business, I will pay off all my debts in England, and Lucy Acton being my wife, or promising me her hand, I may count with absolute certainty upon the forgiveness of her father, who is not likely to abandon his only child for a behaviour that was no fault of hers, and the rest must be left to time..
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