The Ghost Ship by Richard Middleton
page 11 of 184 (05%)
page 11 of 184 (05%)
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she'll want it moved." We went up to her and touched the side, and it
was as hard as a real ship. "Now there's folks in England would call that very curious," he said. Now I don't know much about ships, but I should think that that ghost-ship weighed a solid two hundred tons, and it seemed to me that she had come to stay, so that I felt sorry for landlord, who was a married man. "All the horses in Fairfield won't move her out of my turnips," he said, frowning at her. Just then we heard a noise on her deck, and we looked up and saw that a man had come out of her front cabin and was looking down at us very peaceably. He was dressed in a black uniform set out with rusty gold lace, and he had a great cutlass by his side in a brass sheath. "I'm Captain Bartholomew Roberts," he said, in a gentleman's voice, "put in for recruits. I seem to have brought her rather far up the harbour." "Harbour!" cried landlord; "why, you're fifty miles from the sea." Captain Roberts didn't turn a hair. "So much as that, is it?" he said coolly. "Well, it's of no consequence." Landlord was a bit upset at this. "I don't want to be unneighbourly," he said, "but I wish you hadn't brought your ship into my field. You see, my wife sets great store on these turnips." The captain took a pinch of snuff out of a fine gold box that he pulled out of his pocket, and dusted his fingers with a silk handkerchief in a very genteel fashion. "I'm only here for a few |
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