FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116  
117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   >>  
grow up, under Sandy Bruce's teachings, into a sharp and successful man of the shipping business. And as they turn a corner they come near running into another fur-piled, swift-gliding sleigh, with a grizzled old head looking out of a tartan hood, and eyes like hawks',--Dalgetty himself; and as they pass the head nods and the eyes laugh, and a sharp voice cries, "Guineas it is!" "Better than guineas!" answered back Mrs. Sandy Bruce, quick as a flash; and in the same second cries Archie, from the front seat, with a saucy laugh, "And as long as she lives, Mr. Dalgetty!" The Captain of the "Heather Bell". You might have known he was a Scotchman by the name of his little steamer; and if you had not known it by that, you would have known it as soon as you looked at him. Scotch, pure, unmitigated, unmistakable Scotch, was Donald Mackintosh, from the crown of his auburn head down to the soles of his big awkward feet. Six feet two inches in his stockings he stood, and so straight that he looked taller even than that; blue-gray eyes full of a canny twinkle; freckles,--yes, freckles that were really past the bounds of belief, for up into his hair they ran, and to the rims of his eyes,--no pale, dull, equivocal freckles, such as might be mistaken for dingy spots of anything else, but brilliant, golden-brown freckles, almost auburn like his hair. Once seen, never to be forgotten were Donald Mackintosh's freckles. All this does not sound like the description of a handsome man; but we are not through yet with what is to be said about Donald Mackintosh's looks. We have said nothing of his straight massive nose, his tawny curling beard, which shaded up to yellow around a broad and laughing mouth, where were perpetually flashing teeth of an even ivory whiteness a woman might have coveted. No, not handsome, but better than handsome, was Donald Mackintosh; he was superb. Everybody said so: nobody could have been found to dispute it,--nobody but Donald himself; he thought, honestly thought, he was hideous. All that he could see on the rare occasions when he looked in a glass was an expanse of fiery red freckles, topped off with what he would have called a shock of red hair. Uglier than anything he had ever seen in his life, he said to himself many a time, and grew shyer and shyer and more afraid of women each time he said it; and all this while there was not a girl in Charlottetown that did not know him in her thoughts, i
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111   112   113   114   115   116  
117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   >>  



Top keywords:

freckles

 
Donald
 

Mackintosh

 

looked

 

handsome

 

thought

 

auburn

 

Scotch

 

straight

 

Dalgetty


shaded

 

yellow

 

whiteness

 

coveted

 

successful

 

perpetually

 

flashing

 

laughing

 

description

 

business


corner

 

forgotten

 

massive

 

shipping

 

curling

 

teachings

 

afraid

 

thoughts

 

Charlottetown

 

Uglier


dispute

 

honestly

 
hideous
 
superb
 

Everybody

 

topped

 

called

 

expanse

 

occasions

 

brilliant


steamer

 

Guineas

 

tartan

 

unmistakable

 

unmitigated

 

Scotchman

 

Better

 

Archie

 

answered

 
guineas