Captain Wentworth

“ How she might have felt had there been no Captain Wentworth in the case, was not worth enquiry; for there was a Captain Wentworth; and be the conclusion of the present suspense good or bad, her affection would be his for ever. Their union, she believed, could not divide her more from other men, than their final separation. ”

“ "Captain Wentworth, which way are you going? Only to Gay Street, or farther up the town?"
"I hardly know," replied Captain Wentworth, surprised.
"Are you going as high as Belmont? Are you going near Camden Place? Because, if you are, I shall have no scruple in asking you to take my place, and give Anne your arm to her father's door. She is rather done for this morning, and must not go so far without help, and I ought to be at that fellow's in the Market Place. ”

“ Anne found an unexpected interest here. She felt its application to herself, felt it in a nervous thrill all over her; and at the same moment that her eyes instinctively glanced towards the distant table, Captain Wentworth's pen ceased to move, his head was raised, pausing, listening, and he turned round the next instant to give a look, one quick, conscious look at her. ”

“ "Now I have done," cried Captain Wentworth. "When once married people begin to attack me with,--'Oh! you will think very differently, when you are married.' I can only say, 'No, I shall not;' and then they say again, 'Yes, you will,' and there is an end of it." ”

“ It had never seemed comprehensible that an active and capable man should miss so easy a catch as that provided by Louisa. But if Captain Wentworth slipped and fell as she jumped, she would come down with him. ”

“ Never was there a better sloop than the Asp in her day. For an old built sloop you would not see her equal. Lucky fellow to get her! He knows there must have been twenty better men than himself applying for her at the same time. Lucky fellow to get anything so soon, with no more interest than his.’
“‘I felt my luck, Admiral, I assure you,’ replied Captain Wentworth seriously. ‘I was as well satisfied with my appointment as you can desire. ”

“ He is a few years older, a young naval officer, full of spirit, energy, and brightness. The natural consequences ensue, and for a short time the young people are rapturously happy; but both Sir Walter Elliot and Lady Russell regard the engagement with strong disfavour. He considers any untitled marriage as beneath his daughter's acceptance, whilst Lady Russell objects to a long engagement, dislikes the uncertainty of the naval profession, and does not believe that Captain Wentworth will ever make a fortune.
"Such opposition as these feelings produced was more than Anne could combat. ”

“ There, now! write away, and never trouble your mind about strange people. Have you sufficient light?"
And, as she spoke, she touched a cord which set at right angles with the lower one the upper inside shutter of another window as she had adjusted the first.
I wrote two hasty notes, one on further consideration to Captain Wentworth himself, who might, after all, be at that very time in that same hotel—"Quien sabe?" as Favraud used to say with his significant shrug, which no Frenchman ever excelled or Spaniard equalled (albeit they shrug severally) . ”

“ Louisa seemed the principal arranger of the plan; and, as she went a little way with them, down the hill, still talking to Henrietta, Mary took the opportunity of looking scornfully around her, and saying to Captain Wentworth--
"It is very unpleasant, having such connexions! But, I assure you, I have never been in the house above twice in my life."
She received no other answer, than an artificial, assenting smile, followed by a contemptuous glance, as he turned away, which Anne perfectly knew the meaning of. ”

“ The falsehood then had been Neal's! Captain Davenal glanced at Sara. But the sergeant's wife spoke again.
"Could you interest yourself for me with Wentworth, sir?"
"Ah, I don't know. It is a ticklish thing, you see, to interfere between man and wife," added the captain, a jesting smile upon his lips. "What is your grievance against Wentworth?"
Mrs. Wentworth entered on her grievances; a whole catalogue. She required that her husband should send for her to be with him in India, or else that he should make her a better allowance, so that she could live "as a lady." ”

“ The fighting seamen; some wounded, disengaged themselves, scrambled to the companionway and almost flung themselves to the deck below. Wentworth leaned back against the rail and found himself facing one of the largest men he had ever seen. The captain of the Molly Ann had come aboard his ship.
At first the captain thought that Wentworth was one of his fighting crew who had failed to obey his command. He sprang forward with a hand like a ham lifted to strike. But he saw his mistake and stopped his hand just as the emergency police car screamed its way out upon the old pier below them. ”

“ When they returned to the ship, it was recreation hour, and the music of the “ship’s band” greeted the newcomers across the water. Half a dozen hands were stretched over the side to catch the painter of the launch as she approached the side ladder. The Chairman and the Captain were standing on deck ready to welcome Mr. Jackson.
Bob immediately took the mail below [153] and sorted it out according to regulations, while Mr. Wentworth went to the clothes locker to find a suit of “whites”, and a blue working suit to fit the new apprentice seaman, William Brown. ”

“ I know I liked our supper at the barracks ten times better—you didn't hear me come home this morning did you, Floss, at seven o'clock, by Musgrave's sledge?"
"No, but you must be tired then."
"Not a whit—Musgrave's affair is the most confoundedly clumsy contrivance I ever saw though: I promised to show him Wentworth's Russian sledge some day. Ha! ha! old fellow," continued the Captain as Lord Wentworth entered, "you went and did it, by Jove, though." ”

“ Go, in the fiend's name, if you like, and lose everything: thank heaven I have yet a string that will not break should this fail."
"And what if I do lose all, Captain de Vere? what is the use of this loveless grandeur? I would rather see and speak to Wentworth ten minutes than live a year in guilty, solitary splendour. You know not what a woman's heart is—let me go?"
"In troth not I; a woman's heart is an enigma not easy to read ”

“ Of course this caused much speculation among the troopers. Had the captain given up the pursuit, or had he overtaken and scattered the thieves and recovered Mr. Wentworth's stock? Bob was inclined to hold to the latter opinion.
Telegraphing by Smoke.
"The captain is a hard man to get away from when he once makes up his mind for business," said he; "and I just know that he's got those cattle, or the most of them. If he has, Mr. Wentworth is all right, for we have got his boys. ”

“ Old Andrew, grinning with joy, hastened to get the punch as he knew the Captain liked it, whilst all his old allies gathered round him, and beset him with questions on all sides.
"Preserve me from my friends; why, you will be driving me into the fire, and one in a family is enough for it. Egad, I am thawing now: how are you, Wentworth, hearty, and you Arranmore, old boy? I was very sorry for poor dear Edith; how the devil did she go and manage to get burned? ah, I see you are still tender about it; never mind, time will cure you of the burn. And you, Scroop: ha! ”

“ I do so long to see the wonderful pew; do you think, Wentworth, it will be altered all nicely now?"
"I fancy so; Taylor knows me too well now to neglect my orders again. Are you going?" continued Lord Wentworth, addressing a young man who then entered, followed by the Marquis of Arranmore.
This was Captain de Vere; to look at him one could not help calling him handsome: his dark eye, and closely-cut black hair gave him a military air—a dashing, soldierly appearance, and his height, which exceeded the Earl's slightly, combined with a splendid figure, gave him a fine manly mien ”

“ Zey do to me evairy insult—zey keek me, zey jump on me, zey roll me in ze mud, I will not fight zem, for I haf not my revenge.”
“Come, Captain,” cried Wentworth, “let’s settle away the sails, and out with the oars.”
He flew to the jib halyards, and the Captain to the mainsail. In a minute, both sails were clewed down, and the mainsail boom lashed one side to the cleat. ”

“ But the old woman runs as fast as our runner; but she only catches him as he is jumping into the ship; she tears off the shirt, and the skin of his neck and back with it, and he falls into the ship.
The captain goes directly to the serpent: “We have got the flint.”
He says to him, “I know it.”
He gives him the medicine and the good drink, in order that the man may be cured by the morrow, and that he may go again. But the man says, “No,” that he does not want to see that red-eyed old woman any more. They tell him that they still want the tinder-box. The next day they give him the good drink. ”

“ Then she’ll drive.”
The Captain and Wentworth seized the halyards, and up went the sails. Harrington took the tiller, and while they busied themselves at the reefing nettles, the boat moved silently through the black water between the long vista made by the dark hulls of the vessels on either side. The wind was in the lull preceding the tempest, but it was sufficient to belly the sail, and push them with silent swiftness before it. ”

“ A few mornings later Wentworth worked his way, with much balancing and grasping of stanchions, along the deck, for the ship rolled fearfully, but the person he sought was nowhere visible. He thought he would go into the smoking-room, but changed his mind at the door, and turned down the companion-way to the main saloon. ”

“ Circling the deck for the last time, Richard Wentworth came to a sudden halt as he rounded a corner and caught sight of the passenger who stood by the railing. Tall and strongly built, Wentworth's athletic stride ended with such abruptness as to indicate a man whose mind and body worked in perfect unison. ”

“ Master Wentworth, I have been fully satisfied with your conduct in the fight, and although you are young in years you have a man's head on your shoulders. You will now have your first command, for I propose to put you in charge of the prize with seven men to work her. You must keep in company with the Gannet till off the Barbary coast, where you will have to shape a course for Tangier, which now belongs to His Majesty King Charles. Should we be compelled to part company, I will rely on you to work the ship into that port. You can, of course, use a sextant? ”

“ April 16th, 1814, to the Diomede troop-ship, Captain Charles Montagu Fabian; and, June 16th, 1815, to be flag lieutenant to Sir John T. Duckworth, port-admiral at Plymouth. His promotion to the rank of commander took place April 19th, 1817. ”

“ To begin, then, at the commencement I must sail back many years. I am an old man now, and have had a rough cruise through life. I was then a young lad just ready to be launched out on the sea of life; it is forty years gone by now, but I remember all as if it had happened yesterday. The Earl of Wentworth, your father, was then but just of age, and had been celebrating his majority with great merry-making. ”

“ Afterwards he served in Holland until the peace of Ryswick. Wentworth was in the vanguard at the battle of Steinkirk in 1692, when his squadron was reduced to forty-three men, and he received a slight wound. In consequence of his bravery William III, on the recommendation of Domfre, lieutenant-general of the Dutch troops, promised him early promotion, and next year he became aide-de-camp to the king. After the battle of Landen (1693) , Wentworth was made groom of the bedchamber, and was promoted to be a major of the first troop of guards. ”

“ Wentworth's attitude towards life, of which he was so fond of speaking, was perhaps rather like that of a shrimper who, in ankle-deep water, watches the heavily freighted whale boats come towering in. He does not quite know why he, of all men, with his special equipment for the purpose, and his expert handling of the net, does not also catch whales. That they seldom swim in two-inch water does not occur to him. ”

“ Standing there in the doorway, carelessly smoking as if guns had never whined bullets past his head, as if his swift justice had never taken life, Wentworth showed no evidence of his minutes-old tussle with death. What first impressed you about him was the remarkable physical alertness of the man. Five feet eleven, with the tapered body and light stride of an athlete, he had a keen, tanned face and the friendly interested eyes of a man who has long since learned the secret of enjoying life. ”

“ The brutal murder had infuriated him, and he wanted nothing better than to meet the one- armed man with the iron hook.
He decided, finally, that it might be possible to make somebody, the man with the hook preferably, come off the ship. The ship was on the upstream side of the dock and the tide, going out, was pressing it against the dock. In consequence the mooring lines were loose.
Wentworth walked across to the aft mooring line and lifted the heavy hawser from its mooring pin, dropping it upon the dock. Then he went back to the opposite side of the pier and sat down to finish his cigarette. ”

“ It was not till 3 March that the fleet came off Cartagena, and not till the 9th could they decide where to land. Two small forts were then reduced, and in the afternoon the landing began; but as Wentworth could not make up his mind as to what guns or stores he wanted, everything was put on shore, and thus four days were wasted. Vernon urged on the general that, to the army, delay was most dangerous, for the wet season was approaching. Wentworth laid the blame on the engineers. ”