The feud between her and Dodd continued, but under a false impression.
The lady had one advantage over the gentler specimens of her sex; she was
never deterred from a kind action by want of pluck, as they are. Pluck?
Aquilina was brimful of it. When she found Dodd was wounded, she cast her
wrongs to the wind, and offered to go and nurse him. Her message came at
an unlucky moment, and by an unlucky messenger: the surgeon said hastily,
"I can't have him bothered." The stupid servant reported, "He can't be
worried;" and Mrs. Beresford, thinking Dodd had a hand in this answer,
was bitterly mortified; and with some reason. She would have forgiven
him, though, if he had died; but, as he lived, she thought she had a
right to detest him, and did; and showed her sentiments like a lady, by
never speaking to him, nor looking at him, but ignoring him with frigid
magnificence on his own quarter-deck.
Now, among the crew of this ship was a favourite goat, good-tempered,
affectionate, and playful; but a single vice counterbalanced all his
virtues: he took a drop. A year or two ago some light-hearted tempter
taught him to sip grog; he took to it kindly, and was now arrived at such
a pitch that at grog-time he used to butt his way in among the sailors,
and get close to the canteen; and, -by arrangement, an allowance was
always served out to him.
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