FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   236   237   238   239   240   241   242   243   244   245   246   >>  
"But the doctor says we must on no account have any talking; so come away, Henry; and here, Jack, is the fruit for Mr D'Arcy. He may eat as much of it as he likes," said Miss Alice. I recollect this scene; but I fancy after it I got a relapse, through which, however, I was mercifully carried, after a tough contest with death. Oh! how tenderly and kindly I was nursed; every want was attended to--every wish gratified, almost before expressed--by an old black woman, who, day or night, scarcely ever left my bedside. I quite loved her good, old, ugly face--for ugly it was, without the possibility of contradiction, according to all European notions of beauty, though some of the descendants of Ham, in her own torrid land, might at one time have thought it lovely. She was assisted in her labours by a damsel of the same ebon hue, who had been saved out of the slave ship; and I believe that the attention of the two women was redoubled on account of the way I had treated their unhappy countrymen on board that vessel. Jack Stretcher had been obliged to rejoin the brig, and had gone away in her. I was, however, frequently favoured by a visit from Miss Alice Marlow and her kind father, in whose house I remained for many months, treated as if I had been a well-loved son. At length I was one morning riding down by the seashore, when the wide-spread canvas of a man-of-war caught my sight, standing in for the land. I recognised her at once as the _Opossum_, and was therefore not surprised when, some hours afterwards, Waller walked into Mr Marlow's drawing-room. Captain Idle and the doctor followed soon afterwards, and a consultation having been held, I was pronounced fit for duty, and compelled, with many regrets, to leave my kind friends, and to go on board. The brig soon afterwards returned to the coast of Africa, where we took some slavers, went through various adventures, and lost several officers and men with fever; and I again fell sick, so that my life was despaired of. Now, entertaining as these sort of things may be to read about, no one was sorry when, one fine morning, another brig-of-war hove in sight, bringing us orders to return home. "Hurra for old England!" was the general cry, fore and aft. "Hurra! hurra!" At length I once more found myself an inmate of Daisy Cottage, and many happy weeks I spent there--perhaps the happiest in my life--in the society of my uncle and aunt and young cousins. I there slowly,
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   236   237   238   239   240   241   242   243   244   245   246   >>  



Top keywords:
treated
 

length

 

account

 

morning

 

Marlow

 
doctor
 
consultation
 

riding

 

friends

 
compelled

regrets

 

pronounced

 
surprised
 

spread

 

Opossum

 
canvas
 

recognised

 
caught
 

drawing

 
standing

Captain

 

seashore

 

Waller

 
walked
 
general
 

England

 

bringing

 
orders
 
return
 

inmate


society

 
slowly
 

cousins

 

happiest

 
Cottage
 

adventures

 

officers

 

slavers

 

returned

 
Africa

things

 
despaired
 

entertaining

 

redoubled

 

nursed

 

kindly

 

attended

 

tenderly

 

carried

 
contest