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Two men were distinguished through the gloom clinging to the rock, at the foot of which fragments of the hapless "Sea-Gull" were tossing up and down in the foaming waves. Another sea such as that which wrecked their vessel might at any moment wash the men from their hold. A rope was hove to them, they fastened it round their waists and were dragged on board. They proved to be Reuben's two sons.
"I doubt if that oak Billy Beartup throwed in Reuben's Ghyll will be fit for her drawin-room floor in less than seven," Cloke drawled. "Yes, that's my work," said Sophie. "And we shan't even know where we've gone wrong with your new carriage drive before that time either," said Cloke, ever anxious to keep the balance true with an ounce or two in Sophie's favour.
Death would come like the slow approach of a corpse, stealing gradually towards him through the forest, and showing its ghastly and motionless features from behind a nearer and yet a nearer tree. But such must have been Reuben's own fate had he tarried another sunset; and who shall impute blame to him if he shrink from so useless a sacrifice?
"Nurse," said Marten, when he found her, "I am come to ask you to get mine and Reuben's things ready to-night, for I am going to take him with me to spend a couple of days at Mr.
She was not so much absorbed, however, that her manner did not clearly indicate her misliking sense of Reuben's nearness every time she passed him, though she did not so much as cast a glance in his direction. By-and-by the two Elds appeared, and the customary business of the afternoon began.
He himself was the first person who advanced to greet us. Behind him stood Ashatea, a lovely specimen of an Indian girl, her countenance beaming with that intelligence which education could alone have given her. Though she met Manilick with a bashful reserve, I had little doubt that she had at length bestowed on him the heart he sought. Still I recollected honest Reuben's admiration.
When the ink had been rolled out to the requisite thinness, he took Reuben's hand and pressed the thumb lightly but firmly on to the inked plate; then, transferring the thumb to one of the cards, which he directed me to hold steady on the table, he repeated the pressure, when there was left on the card a beautifully sharp and clear impression of the bulb of the thumb, the tiny papillary ridges being shown with microscopic distinctness, and even the mouths of the sweat glands, which appeared as rows of little white dots on the black lines of the ridges.
Reuben's a gude lad and a kind I have aye allowed that; but as to his not allowing inquiry anent the scandal of Marjory Kittlesides and Rory MacRand, under pretence that they have southered sin wi' marriage, it's clear agane the Christian discipline o' the kirk.
But his firmness was shaken before he concluded. "Carry my blessing to Dorcas, and say that my last prayer shall be for her and you. Bid her to have no hard thoughts because you left me here," Reuben's heart smote him, "for that your life would not have weighed with you if its sacrifice could have done me good.
Robbie lay insensible to all Reuben's appeals, whether of the nature of banter or half-serious menace. "Weel, weel, the lad has had a fair cargo intil him this voyage, anyway."
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