He looked attentively at the seals, which were impressed with the Acton crest. He mused for a little while over this document manifestly thinking of other things. Though his brow was knit, his handsome face was a-work with thought. Under that knitted brow the expression of the idea in him came and went. There never could have been a finer study for an artist than this tall and elegant creature, slightly bowed, his beauty lighted up so to speak by the several colours of the moods which inspired him, and which seemed by the occasional movement of his lips to indicate the rehearsal of a passage that was to follow. With an impulse almost passionate as an effect of stern resolution he replaced the tin box, walked out of the berth,[Pg 248] and dangling a key which he had withdrawn from his pocket, stood listening for a few moments at the door of the berth which adjoined the one he had quitted.,
"Who is to work the ship for him?" asked Pledge. "For you may depend upon it that if the crew are to be carried away to an unbeknown place, they'll all go below to a man, for Jack's as good as his master when it comes to his having to do something which he didn't agree for.",
"I often wish I was at sea again!" exclaimed Sir William, as the two started afresh on their quarterdeck walk. "What a noble, open, hearty, soul-stirring life it is! What good fellows one meets, what brave ships, what splendid crews! It is my hourly regret that my son should be out of it. Though I am his father, I say that this young man had in him—nay, he has in him—all the makings of a fine, dashing, even a great officer. But that devil drink—not that the vice is immoderate with him: but he takes too much; and when the fiend is in him, all that is weak in his nature appears, and he falls: drink—but not so as to justify the word drunkard—drink and gaming—these undid him. He was a favourite with all he sailed with, and yet, through his own accursed folly, he is forced to quit the Navy under circumstances which would bring the moisture into my eyes if half a century of hard weather had not dried all the dampness out of them.".
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