- Libros en formato MOBI -
Denis
Dent
"Land ahead!"
The North Foreland had been made advisedly snug
for the night. In the middle watch she was under
her three lower topsails and fore topmast
staysail only. Not that it blew very hard, but
the night was dark and hazy, with a heavy swell.
And it was the last night of the voyage.
At eight bells there had been a cast of the deep-sea
lead, with the significant result that the
skipper had been the first to turn in; gradually
the excited passengers had followed his example,
instead of staying on deck to see the Otway
light. The second mate had said there would be
no Otway that night, and what the second said
was good enough for most. The saloon skylight
had become a clean-edged glimmer in the middle
of the poop, the binnacle a fallen moon; not a
port-hole twinkled on the rushing ink; and the
surviving topsails, without visible stitch or
stick aloft or alow, hovered over the ship like
gigantic bats.
Four persons remained upon the poop: the middy
of the watch, tantalized by muffled guffaws from
the midshipmen's berth in the after-house; the
man at the wheel, in eclipse above the belt,
with the binnacle light upon one weather-beaten
hand; and on the weather side, the second mate
in reluctant conversation with a big cigar that
glowed at intervals into a bearded and
spectacled face, the smooth brown one of the
young officer sharing the momentary illumination...
The
Unbidden Guest
Arabella was the first at the farm to
become aware of Mr. Teesdale's return from
Melbourne. She was reading in the parlour, with
her plump elbows planted upon the faded green
table-cloth, and an untidy head of light-coloured
hair between her hands; looking up from her book
by chance, she saw through the closed window her
father and the buggy climbing the hill at the
old mare's own pace. Arabella went on reading
until the buggy had drawn up within a few feet
of the verandah posts and a few more of the
parlour window. Then she sat in doubt, with her
finger on the place; but before it appeared
absolutely necessary to jump up and run out, one
of the men had come up to take charge of the
mare, and Arabella was enabled to remove her
finger and read on.
The parlour was neither very large nor at all
lofty, and the shut window and fire-place
closely covered by a green gauze screen, to keep
the flies out, made it disagreeably stuffy.
There were two doors, but both of these were
shut also, though the one at the far end of the
room, facing the hearth, nearly always stood
wide open. It led down a step into a very little
room where the guns were kept and old newspapers
thrown, and where somebody was whistling rather
sweetly as the other door opened and Mr.
Teesdale entered, buggy-whip in hand.....
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