The Argosy — page 160: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

146 [jan 2, 1688 IN A WEST INDIA HURRICANE. “ C’ILENCE ! the Admiral is going to tell us a story.” “Well,” replied a weather-beaten, nautical-looking old gentle- man, “if you really want a story, I'll tell you one. “Twas a midshipman in the Eurotas, at that time forming one of the fleet on the West India station. There had been a great deal of sickness in the fleet, and I, among the rest, had been laid up with the fever. When I recovered, I and one of my brother middies got per- mission to go up to Barbadoes for change of air. ‘ T had a friend, or rather a distant relative, who was living a little way out of Bndge Town. I had never seen him, but he, hearing that I was on that station, had written home to say how pleased he should be if I could pay him a visit. “ Accordingly, I and my friend, whose name was Grant, took a pas- sage from Jamaica in a Baltimore schooner, bound for Carlisle Bay. ‘Tt took us six days to beat up to Barbadoes ; and on the seventh we landed at Bridge Town, and at once made our way to Mount St. Ehiza- beth, the name of my frend’s residence. ‘‘Qur arrival was quite unexpected, for in those days it took longer to forward letters from island to island than it did to send one home ; but, though I took my friend by surprise, and had also brought Grant with me on spec., our welcome was such as put us instantly at our ease. ‘“‘'The weather, for some days past, had been very sultry, and this one the hottest of any; we were, therefore, not very sorry, after having per- formed our ablutions, to find ourselves seated in the cool verandah of Mount St. Elizabeth. | ‘“¢ Mr. Walkingshaw was Barbadian born, but his wife, though a ven- table Cockney, was, from long residence, quite a Creole. She had the true West India drawl, and both in look and manner was as much a Creole as either her husband or her daughter. Indeed, more so than her daughter, for Julia Walkingshaw, though a Barbadian, had been long in England, and still retained the beautiful rose-tint on her cheeks which 1s the characteristic of English beauty. “Julia was the only member of the family to whom I was known. She and I, however, were old friends; in short, in days gone and past, I had been a sort of boy-lover of hers, and, as I fancied, a favoured one, and I at least still continued to cherish the old passion. ‘I suppose I must have shown my preference, for I had not been many cays in Bridge Town before I came across some pale but envious comicaooks GO)