Page:Demon ship, or, The pirate of the Mediterranean.pdf/2



I was the only son of a widowed mother, who, though far from affluent, was not pennyless;—you will naturally suppose, therefore, I was a most troublesome, disagreeable, spoiled child. Such I might have been, but for the continual drawback on all my early gratifieationsgratifications [sic], whiehwhich [sic] my maternal home presented, in the shape of an old dowager countess, a forty-ninth cousin of my mother's. Whatever I was doing, wherever I was going, there was she reproving, rebuking, exhorting, and all to save me from idling, or drowning, or quarrelling, or straying, or a hundred etceteras. I grew up, went to school, to eollegecollege [sic]—finally, into the army, and with it to Ireland; and had the satisfaetionsatisfaction [sic], at five-and-twenty, to hear the dowager say I was good for nothing. She was of a somewhat maliciousmalieious [sic] disposition, and perhaps I did not well to make her my enemy. At this time I had the offer of a good military appointment to India, and yet I hesitated to aceeptaccept [sic] it. There was in my native village a retired SeotehScotch [sic] offieerofficer [sic], for whom I had conceived a strong attaehmentattachment [sic]. His daughter I had known and loved from childhood, and when this gave place to womanhood, my affection ehangedchanged [sic] in kind while it strengthened in degree. Margaret Cameron was at this period seventeen, and, eonsequentlyconsequently [sic], eight years my junior. She was young, beautiful, and spoiled by a doating parent—yet I saw in her a fine natural disposition, and the seeds of many noble qualities. To both father and daughter I openly unfolded my affection. Captain Cameron, naturally, pleaded the youth of his daughter. Margaret laughed at the idea of my even entertaining a thought of her, and declared she would as soon think of marrying an elder brother as myself. I listened to her assertions with profound silence, scorned to whine and plead my cause, bowed with an air of haughty resignation, and left her.

When next I saw Margaret I was in a travelling dress at her father's residenceresidenee [sic]. I found her alone in the garden, occupiedoeeupied [sic] in watering her flowers. 'I am come, Margaret,' I said, 'to bid you farewell.'—'Why, where are you going?'—'To London, to sea, to India.'—'Nonsense!'—'You always think there is nonsense in truth; every thing that is serious to is a jest to you'—'Complementary this morning.'—'Adieu, Margaret; may you retain through life the same heartlessness of disposition. It will preserve you from many a pang that might reach a more sensitive bosom.'—'You do my strength of mind infinite honour. Every girl