United States or Cook Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The boat was lowered, the empty casks were put into her, and Charles Dicey, with two other gentlemen, carrying their fowling-pieces, went on shore. How delicious was their first ample draught of water! A cask being filled, they sent back the boat with it to the ship while they filled the others. This done, they proceeded over the hills in search of game.
"Bless you! that I will, Mr Dicey," said the good woman, perfectly ready herself to sup off her biscuit and salt butter. She began at once to persuade the young ladies to eat a portion of the delicacies which she had received. She was at length successful. "And now, marm," she added, "just a thimbleful of rum; it will do you good, I'm sure.
The ice is getting rather thick around us, and I had to charge a lump of it." "It's all very well to beg pardon," said the captain, "but that won't mend my crockery!" "Or dry my head," growled Mr Dicey; "it's as bad as if I'd been dipped overboard, it is." Before Mr Dicey's grumbling remarks were finished all three of them had reached the deck.
After a time the doctor came back to the launch; he appeared to have quieted the young ensign, though he left directions with his companions to watch him narrowly, observing that he could not answer for his not suddenly taking it into his head to leap overboard. "Hilloa!" cried a voice, after the doctor had returned. "Is that you, Dicey? I was fast asleep till this moment. I am so glad."
Harry feared that he should be compelled to heave to should the wind increase. He had been at the helm during the middle and morning watch. Willy was on the look-out forward. "Land! land!" he shouted. Daylight had just broke. "There are cliffs ahead, with high lands rising beyond them," he added. Paul Lizard was awake in a moment, looking out with him. "You are right, Mr Dicey."
Little Bessy, left an orphan, was adopted by Sergeant and Mrs Rumbelow, and, growing up a good, steady girl, married young Broke, who, become a warrant officer, found his way at length to New Zealand, where he ultimately settled. Willy Dicey is now a post-captain, and Harry Shafto, though still young, an admiral.
He resumed his self-imposed task of counting the rifle balls, and now and then a sharp click told that another was consigned to that limbo guarded by Towse. Mrs. Dicey stood in silence for a time, gazing upon the unutterably gloomy forest, the distant, throbbing stars, and the broad, wan flashes at long intervals gleaming through the sky.
Dicey, you go draw yo' pallet close-t outside the do', an' lay down an' I'll set here by the fire an' keep watch. How my ol' stockin'-feet do tromp! Do lemme hurry an' set down! Seem like this room's awful rackety, the fire a-poppin' an' tumblin', an' me breathin' like a porpoise. Even the clock ticks ez excited ez I feel. Wonder how they sleep through it all! But they do.
Dicey feel with this sum of money in reserve, that she would not agree that Birt should work on the old terms with the tanner. Birt was dismayed by this temerity. Once more, however, he recognized her acumen, for Jubal Perkins, although he left the house in a huff, came back again and promised good wages.
Willy Dicey had done the same, though, weary as he was, he could not for some time go to sleep an unusual event in a midshipman's career. He was thinking of home and the loved ones there, and those voyaging like himself; and when he did sleep, he continued dreaming of, that same home, and of his brother and sisters, now probably far distant from it.
Word Of The Day