If Admiral Darling
smiled, it was to the landscape and the offing, for he knew that
Stubbard was of rather touchy fibre, and relished no jokes unless of
home production. His slow, solid face was enough to show this, and the
squareness of his outline, and the forward thrust of his knees as he
walked, and the larkspur impress of his lingering heels. And he seldom
said much, without something to say.
"Well," cried the Admiral, growing tired of sitting so long upon a
fallen trunk, "what conclusion do you feel inclined to come to? 'Tis
a fine breezy place to clear the brain, and a briny air to sharpen the
judgment."
"Only one tree need come down--this crooked one at the southeast
corner." Captain Stubbard began to swing his arms about, like a windmill
uncertain of the wind. "All gentlemen hate to have a tree cut down,
all blackguards delight in the process. Admiral, we will not hurt
your trees. They will add to our strength, by masking it. Six long
twenty-fours of the new make, here in front, and two eighteens upon
either flank, and I should like to see the whole of the Boulogne
flotilla try to take yonder shore by daylight. That is to say, of
course, if I commanded, with good old salts to second me. With
your common artillery officers, landlubbers, smell-the-wicks,
cross-the-braces sons of guns, there had better not be anything at all
put up. They can't make a fortification; and when they have made it,
they can't work it.
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