w hall, where the breakfast was
beginning. To say what was on the table would be only waste of time,
because it has all been eaten so long ago; but the farmer was vexed
because there were no shrimps. Not that he cared half the clip of a
whisker for all the shrimps that ever bearded the sea, only that he
liked to seem to love them, to keep Mary at work for him. The flower
of his flock, and of all the flocks of the world of the universe to his
mind, was his darling daughter Mary: the strength of his love was upon
her, and he liked to eat any thing of her cooking.

His body was too firm to fidget; but his mind was out of its usual
comfort, because the pride of his heart, his Mary, seemed to be hiding
something from him. And with the justice to be expected from far clearer
minds than his, being vexed by one, he was ripe for the relief of
snapping at fifty others. Mary, who could read him, as a sailor reads
his compass, by the corner of one eye, awaited with good content the
usual result--an outbreak of words upon the indolent Willie, whenever
that young farmer should come down to breakfast, then a comforting
glance from the mother at her William, followed by a plate kept hot for
him, and then a fine shake of the master's shoulders, and a stamp of
departure for business. But instead of that, what came to pass was this.

In the first place, a mighty bark of dogs arose; as needs must be, when
a man does his duty toward the nobler animals; for sure it is that the
dogs will not fail of their part. Then an inferior noise of men, crying,
"Good dog! good dog!" and other fulsome flatteries, in the hope of
avoiding any tooth-mark on their legs; and after that a shaking down
and settlement of sounds, as if feet were brought into good order, and
stopped. Then a tall man, with a body full of corners, and a face of
grim temper, stood in the doorway.

"Well, well, captain, now!" cried Stephen Anerley, getting up after
waiting to be spoken to, "the breath of us all is hard to get, with
doing of our duty, Sir. Come ye in, and sit doon to table, and his
Majesty's forces along o' ye."

"Cadman, Ellis, and Dick, be damned!" the lieutenant shouted out to
them; "you shall have all the victuals you want, by-and-by. Cross legs,
and get your winds up. Captain of the coast-defense, I am under your
orders, in your own house." Carroway was starving, as only a man with
long and active jaws can starve; and now the appearance of the farmer's
mouth, h