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Updated: May 23, 2025
On Sunday, June 12, 1864, the United States sloop-of-war Kearsarge lay at anchor off the sleepy town of Flushing, Holland. Her commander, John Ancrum Winslow, had served in the navy of the United States for thirty-seven years, and had done good work off Vera Cruz in the war with Mexico, but the crowning achievement of his life was at hand.
Was it that, apart from the influence of heredity, the young fellow's moral perception at this time was not ethical at all, but aesthetic a matter of taste, of the presence or absence of certain ideal and poetic elements in conduct? At any rate his friendship for old Barbier drew closer and closer, and Ancrum, who had begun to feel a lively affection for him, could see but little of him.
Yes, the minister was going would look out at Manchester for an opening for David, in the bookselling trade by preference, and would write at once. But Davy must not leave a quarrel behind him. He must, if possible, get his uncle's consent, which Mr. Ancrum thought would be given.
He had taken what was practically the only money left them in the world about twenty pounds from Dora's cashbox, and some clothes, packing these last in a knapsack which still remained to him from the foreign tramps of years before. The efforts made by Dora, David, and Ancrum, whom David called in to help, to track the fugitive, were quite useless.
'You will be glad, won't you, that she should have some one to protect her in such a strait? he added, after a minute's pause, his eyes on the fire. 'Yes, said the other after a moment. 'Thank you. Won't you have your tea? Mr. Ancrum swallowed his emotion, and they sat down to table in silence.
Ancrum, cried the other, amazed. 'Davy! The two looked at each other. Then Mr. Ancrum gripped the lad's arm. 'Help me along, Davy. It's only a bruise. It'll go off. Where are you going? 'Up Piccadilly way with a parcel, said Davy, looking askance at his companion's nether man. 'Did I knock your bad leg, sir? 'Oh no, nothing never mind. Well now, Davy, this is queer decidedly queer.
Do be rational! Ancrum sprang up, hobbled with unusual alacrity across the room, and, laying hold of David, made a feint of ejecting his visitor. 'You get along and leave me to my wittles! he said with the smile of a schoolboy; 'I don't spy on you when you're at your meals. David crossed his arms. 'I shall have to send Lucy down every morning to housekeep with Mrs. Elsley, he said firmly.
And the old man rose with effusion, his queer eyes and face beaming and blinking with a light of affectionate memory, for Ancrum stood in the doorway, smiling a mute inquiry at Lucy as to whether he might come in. David sprang up to bring him into the circle. Hannah held out an ungracious hand.
Mr. Ancrum pressed the matter a little, but his patient merely shook his head, and the sight of him as he lay there on the pillow was soon enough to silence the minister. On the evening before they left Paris he called for a telegraph form, wrote a message and paid the reply, but Mr. Ancrum saw nothing of either.
The sister's license of speech and behaviour towards the men who became her acquaintances provoked in the brother what often seemed to Ancrum who, of course, remembered Reuben, and had heard many tales of old James Grieve, the lad's grandfather a sort of Puritan reaction, the reaction of his race and stock against 'lewdness. Louie's complete independence, however, and the distance she preserved between his amusements and hers, left David no other weapon than sarcasm, which he employed freely.
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