Commodore Junk. Fenn George Manville

said Bart shaking his head. Then, as if a bright thought had suddenly flashed across his brain —

      “Look here. We’ll wait for him, and then – I ar’n’t afeard of his sword – we’ll make him marry her.”

      “You don’t want him to marry her,” said Abel, staring, and utilising the time by stropping his knife on his boot.

      “Nay, I can do what she wants, I will as long as I live.”

      “Ah! you always was fond of her, Bart,” said Abel, slowly.

      “Ay, I always was, and always shall be, my lad. But look here,” whispered Bart, leaning towards his companion; “if he says he won’t marry her – ”

      “Ah! suppose he says he won’t!” said Abel to fill up a pause, for Bart stood staring at him.

      “If he says he won’t, and goes and marries that fine madam – will you do it?”

      “I’ll do anything you’ll do, mate,” said Abel in a low voice.

      “Then we’ll make him, my lad.”

      “Hist!” whispered Abel, as the inner door opened, and Mary entered the room, looking haggard and wild, to gaze sharply from one to the other, as if she suspected that they had been making her the subject of their conversation.

      “How do, Mary?” said Bart, in a consciously awkward fashion.

      “Ah, Bart!” she said, coldly, as she gazed full in his eyes till he dropped his own and moved toward the door.

      “I’m just going to have a look at my boat, Abel, lad,” he said. “Coming down the shore?”

      Abel nodded, and Bart shuffled out of the doorway, uttering a sigh of relief as soon as he was in the open air; and taking off his flat fur cap, he wiped the drops of perspiration from his brow.

      “She’s too much for me, somehow,” he muttered, as he sauntered down towards the shore. “I allus thought as being in love with a gell would be very nice, but it ar’n’t. She’s too much for me.”

      “What were you and Bart Wrigley talking about?” said Mary Dell, as soon as she was alone with her brother.

      “You,” said Abel, going on scraping his netting-needle.

      “What about me?”

      “All sorts o’ things.”

      “What do you mean?”

      “What do I mean? Why, you know. About your being a fool – about the fine captain and his new sweetheart. Why, you might ha’ knowed, Mary.”

      “Look here, Abel,” cried Mary, catching him by the wrist, and dragging at it so that he started to his feet and they stood face to face, the stunted brother and the well-grown girl wonderfully equal in size, and extremely alike in physique and air; “if you dare to talk to me again like that, we shall quarrel.”

      “Well, let’s quarrel, then.”

      “What?” cried Mary, staring, for this was a new phase in her brother’s character.

      “I say, let’s quarrel, then,” cried Abel, folding his arms. “Do you think I’ve been blind? Do you think I haven’t seen what’s been going on, and how that man has served you? Why, it has nearly broken poor old Bart’s heart.”

      “Abel!”

      “I don’t care, Polly, I will speak now. You don’t like Bart.”

      “I do. He is a good true fellow as ever stepped, but – ”

      “Yes, I know. It ar’n’t nat’ral or you to like him as he likes you; but you’ve been a fool, Polly, to listen to that fine jack-a-dandy; and – curse him! I’ll half-kill him next time we meet!”

      Mary tried to speak, but her emotion choked her.

      “You – you don’t know what you are saying,” she panted at last.

      “Perhaps not,” he said, in a low, muttering way; “but I know what I’m going to do!”

      “Do!” she cried, recovering herself, and making an effort to regain her old ascendency over her brother. “I forbid you to do anything. You shall not interfere.”

      “Very well,” said the young man, with a smile; and as his sister persisted he seemed to be subdued.

      “Nothing, I say. Any quarrel I may have with Captain Armstrong is my affair, and I can fight my own battle. Do you hear?”

      “Yes, I hear,” said Abel, going toward the door.

      “You understand! I forbid it. You shall not even speak to him.”

      “Yes, I understand,” said Abel, tucking the netting-needle into his pocket, and thrusting his knife into its sheath; and then, before Mary could call up sufficient energy to speak again, the young man passed out of the cottage and hurried after Bart.

      Mary went to the little casement and stood gazing after him thoughtfully for a few minutes, till he passed out of her sight among the rocks on his way to where the boat lay.

      “No,” she said, softly; “he would not dare!”

      Then turning and taking the seat her brother had vacated, a desolate look of misery came over her handsome face, which drooped slowly into her hands, and she sat there weeping silently as she thought of the wedding that was to take place the next day.

      Chapter Three

      At the Church Door

      Captain James Armstrong had a few more words with his cousin, Lieutenant Humphrey, anent his marriage.

      “Perhaps you would like me to marry that girl off the beach,” he said, “Mr Morality?”

      “I don’t profess to be a pattern of morality, cousin,” replied the lieutenant, shortly.

      “And don’t like pretty girls, of course,” sneered the captain. “Sailors never do.”

      “I suppose I’m a man, Jem,” said Humphrey, “and like pretty girls; but I hope I should never be such a scoundrel as to make a girl miserable by professing to care for her, and then throwing her away like a broken toy.”

      “Scoundrel, eh?” said the captain, hotly.

      “Yes. Scoundrel – confounded scoundrel!” retorted the lieutenant. “We’re ashore now, and discipline’s nowhere, my good cousin, so don’t ruffle up your hackles and set up your comb and pretend you are going to peck, for you are as great a coward now, as you were when I was a little schoolboy and you were the big tyrant and sneak.”

      “You shall pay for this, sir,” cried the captain.

      “Pish! Now, my good cousin, you are not a fool. You know I am not in the least afraid of you.”

      “I’ll make you some day,” said the captain, bitterly. “You shall smart for all this.”

      “Not I. It is you who will smart. There, go and marry your rich wife, and much happiness may you get out of the match! I’m only troubled about one thing, and that is whether it is not my duty to tell the lady – poor creature! – what a blackguard she is going to wed.”

      Captain James Armstrong altered the sit of his cocked hat, brushed some imaginary specks off his new uniform, and turned his back upon his cousin, ignoring the extended hand. But he did as he was told – he went and was duly married, Lieutenant Humphrey being present and walking close behind, to see just outside the church door the flashing eyes and knitted brow of Mary Dell on one side; while beyond her, but unseen by Humphrey, were her brother Abel, and Bart, who stood with folded arms and a melodramatic scowl upon his ugly face.

      “She’s going to make a scene,” thought Humphrey; and, pushing before the bride and bridegroom, he interposed, from a feeling of loyalty to the former, perhaps from a little of the same virtue toward a member of his family.

      Mary looked up at him, at first in surprise, and then she smiled bitterly.

      “Don’t