Frank R. Stockton
Kate Bonnet
Published by Good Press, 2020
EAN 4064066412272
Table of Contents
I. Two young people, a ship, and a fish
II. A fruit-basket and a friend
VI. A pair of shoes and stockings
VIII. Ben Greenway is convinced that Bonnet is a pirate
XIII. Captain Bonnet goes to church
XVIII. I have no right; I am a pirate
XXIII. The address of the letter
XXVI. Dickory stretches his legs
XXX. Dame Charter makes a friend
XXXI. Mr. Delaplaine leads a boarding party
XXXII. The delivery of the letter
XXXIII. Blackbeard gives Greenway some difficult work
XXXIV. Captain Thomas of the Royal James
XXXVII. Bonnet and Greenway part company
XXXVIII. Again Dickory was there
XXXIX. The blessings which come from the death of the wicked
XL. Captain Ichabod puts the case
I. Two young people, a ship, and a fish
THE month was September and the place was in the neighbourhood of Bridgetown, in the island of Barbadoes. The seventeenth century was not seventeen years old, but the girl who walked slowly down to the river bank was three years its senior. She carried a fishing-rod and line, and her name was Kate Bonnet. She was a bright-faced, quick-moving young person, and apparently did not expect to catch many fish, for she had no basket in which to carry away her finny prizes. Nor, apparently, did she have any bait, except that which was upon her hook and which had been affixed there by one of the servants at her home, not far away. In fact, Mistress Kate was too nicely dressed and her gloves were too clean to have much to do with fish or bait, but she seated herself on a little rock in a shady spot not far from the water and threw forth her line. Then she gazed about her; a little up the river and a good deal down the river.
It was truly a pleasant scene which lay before her eyes. Not half a mile away was the bridge which gave this English settlement its name, and beyond the river were woods and cultivated fields, with here and there a little bit of smoke, for it was growing late in the afternoon, when smoke meant supper. Beyond all this the land rose from the lower ground near the river and the sea, in terrace after terrace, until the upper stretches of its woodlands showed clear against the evening sky.
But Mistress Kate Bonnet now gazed steadily down the stream, beyond the town and the bridge, and paid no more attention to the scenery than the scenery did to her, although one was quite as beautiful as the other.
There was a bunch of white flowers in the hat of the young girl; not