Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 6, 2025
In the British Greenland Fishery, under the corrupted title of Specksioneer, this old Dutch official is still retained, but his former dignity is sadly abridged. At present he ranks simply as senior Harpooneer; and as such, is but one of the captain's more inferior subalterns. Now, the grand distinction drawn between officer and man at sea, is this the first lives aft, the last forward.
In a rough, careless way they spoke of the specksioneer, with admiration enough for his powers as a sailor and harpooner; and from that they passed on to jesting mention of his power amongst women, and one or two girls' names were spoken of in connection with him. Hepburn silently added Annie Coulson and Sylvia Robson to this list, and his cheeks turned paler as he did so.
And I've a deal to tell you. 'To be sure to be sure. To think thou's been in Lunnon sin' I saw thee! well to be sure! There's a vast o' coming and going i' this world. Thou'll mind yon specksioneer lad, him as was cousin to t' Corneys Charley Kinraid? Mind him! As if he could forget him. 'Well! he's dead and gone. 'Dead! Who told you? I don't understand, said Philip, in strange bewilderment.
Two sailors were supporting a ghastly figure that, with feeble motions, was drawing near the open grave. 'It's t' specksioneer as tried to save him! It's him as was left for dead! the people murmured round. 'It's Charley Kinraid, as I'm a sinner! said Molly, starting forward to greet her cousin. But as he came on, she saw that all his strength was needed for the mere action of walking.
'By the way, Hester, does thee know where the parcel of best bandanas is gone? There was four left, as I'm pretty sure, when I set off to Sandsend; and to-day Mark Alderson came in, and would fain have had one, and I could find none nowhere. 'I sold t' last to-day, to yon sailor, the specksioneer, who fought the press-gang same time as poor Darley were killed.
No one on the lonely coast had remarked any sign of the presence of the men-of-war, or the tenders that accompanied them, for the purpose of impressment on the king's ships. At Shields, and at the mouth of the Tyne, where they lay in greedy wait, the owners of the Urania had caused strict search to be made for their skilled and protected specksioneer, but with no success.
T' captain put off sailing for two or three days, that he might ha' that much law; but when he heard as Kinraid were not at Corneys', but had left 'em a'most on to a week, he went off to them Northern seas wi' t' next best specksioneer he could find.
A resolution to be good, if she could, and always to be thinking on death, so that what seemed to her now as simply impossible, might come true that she might 'dread the grave as little as her bed'; a wish that Philip were not coming home with her; a wonder if the specksioneer really had killed a man, an idea which made her shudder; yet from the awful fascination about it, her imagination was compelled to dwell on the tall, gaunt figure, and try to recall the wan countenance; a hatred and desire of revenge on the press-gang, so vehement that it sadly militated against her intention of trying to be good; all these notions, and wonders, and fancies, were whirling about in Sylvia's brain, and at one of their promptings she spoke,
Her father and mother hailed her first signs of impatient petulance towards him as a return to the old state of things before Kinraid had come to disturb the tenour of their lives; for even Daniel had turned against the specksioneer, irritated by the Corneys' loud moans over the loss of the man to whom their daughter said that she was attached.
Kinraid took him by surprise from the hearty greeting he gave him, and which Philip would fain have avoided. But the specksioneer was full of kindliness towards all the world, especially towards all Sylvia's friends, and, convinced of her great love towards himself, had forgotten any previous jealousy of Philip.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking