Kate Bonnet | Page 4

else. No, I will give it to you, Master
Newcombe; I suppose in your house you can cook and eat what you please."
"Yes," said he; "but how delightful it would be if we could eat it together."
"Meaning," said she, "that I should never eat other fish than those from this river. No, sir;
that may not be. I have a notion that the first foreign fish I shall eat will be found in the
island of Jamaica, for my father said, that possibly he might first take a trip there, where
lives my mother's brother, whom we have not seen for a long time. But, as I told you
before, nobody must know this. And now I must go to my supper, and you must take
yours home with you."
"And I am sure it will be the sweetest fish," he said, "that was ever caught in all these
waters. But I beg, before you go, you will promise me one thing."
"Promise you!" said she, quite loftily.
"Yes," he answered; "tell me that, no matter where you go, you will not leave Bridgetown
without letting me know of it?"
"I will not, indeed," said she; "and if it is to Jamaica we go, perhaps my father--but no, I
don't believe he will do that. He will be too much wrapped up in his ship to want for
company to whom he must attend and talk."
"Ah! there would be no need of that!" said Newcombe, with a lover's smile.
She smiled back at him.
"Good-night!" she said, "and see to it that you eat your fish to-night while it is so fresh."
Then she ran up the winding path to her home.
He stood and looked after her until she had disappeared among the shrubbery, after which
he walked away.
"I should have said more than I did," he reflected; "seldom have I had so good a chance
to speak and urge my case. It was that confounded ship. Her mind is all for that and not
for me."

CHAPTER II
A FRUIT-BASKET AND A FRIEND

Major Stede Bonnet, the father of Kate, whose mother had died when the child was but a
year old, was a middle-aged Englishman of a fair estate, in the island of Barbadoes. He
had been an officer in the army, was well educated and intelligent, and now, in vigorous
middle life, had become a confirmed country gentleman. His herds and his crops were, to
him, the principal things on earth, with the exception of his daughter; for, although he had
married for the second time, there were a good many things which he valued more than
his wife. And it had therefore occasioned a good deal of surprise, and more or less small
talk among his neighbours, that Major Bonnet should want to buy a ship. But he had been
a soldier in his youth, and soldiers are very apt to change their manner of living, and so, if
Major Bonnet had grown tired of his farm and had determined to go into commercial
enterprises, it was not, perhaps, a very amazing thing that a military man who had turned
planter should now turn to be something else.
Madam Bonnet had heard of the ship, although she had not been told anything about her
step-daughter taking a trip in her, and if she had heard she might not have objected. She
had regarded, in an apparently careless manner, her husband's desire to navigate the sea;
for, no matter to what point he might happen to sail, his ship would take him away from
Barbadoes, and that would very well suit her. She was getting tired of Major Bonnet. She
did not believe he had ever been a very good soldier; she was positively sure that he was
not a good farmer; and she had the strongest kind of doubt as to his ability as a
commercial man. But as this new business would free her from him, at least for a time,
she was well content; and, although she should feel herself somewhat handicapped by the
presence of Kate, she did not intend to allow that young lady to interfere with her plans
and purposes during the absence of the head of the house. So she went her way, saying
nothing derisive about the nautical life, except what she considered it necessary for her to
do, in order to maintain her superior position in the household.
Major Bonnet was now very much engaged and a good deal disturbed, for he found that
projected sailing, even in one's own craft, is not always smooth sailing. He was putting
his vessel in excellent order, and was fitting her out generously in the way of stores and
all manner of nautical needfuls, not forgetting