MORLEY ASHTON: A Story of the Sea. BY JAMES GRANT, AUTHOR OF "THE ROMANCE OF WAR," "FAIRER THAN A FAIRY," ETC. In Three Volumes VOL. I. LONDON: TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, W.C. 1876. [_All rights reserved._] CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. The Blind Goddess CHAPTER II. Laurel Lodge CHAPTER III. Cramply Hawkshaw CHAPTER IV. Rivalry CHAPTER V. Suspicion CHAPTER VI. For the Last Time CHAPTER VII. The Rejection CHAPTER VIII. Morley and Hawkshaw CHAPTER IX. Alarm CHAPTER X. Poor Ethel CHAPTER XI. Darkness made Light CHAPTER XII. On board the good Ship "_Hermione_," of London CHAPTER XIII. Acton Chine CHAPTER XIV. The Rescue CHAPTER XV. An Old Shipmate CHAPTER XVI. Under the Tropic of Capricorn CHAPTER XVII. Second Hearing CHAPTER XVIII. Rio de Janeiro CHAPTER XIX. Ethel amid the Atlantic Isles CHAPTER XX. Moonlight on the Sea CHAPTER XXI. The Story of a Brave Boy CHAPTER XXII. Zuares and the Shark CHAPTER XXIII. Hawkshaw's Old Friends CHAPTER XXIV. Up Anchor CHAPTER XXV. The Suspicious Sail CHAPTER XXVI. The Strange Island CHAPTER XXVII. The Hermit MORLEY ASHTON. CHAPTER I. THE BLIND GODDESS. It was the evening of one of the last days of spring, when that delightful season is blending with the approaching summer, and when the sun was setting on one of those green and fertile landscapes which we find nowhere but in England, that a young man paused upon the crest of the eminence which overlooks, from the southward, the beautiful little vale and sequestered village of Acton-Rennel, and, with a kindling eye and flushing cheek, surveyed the scene and all its features, on which he had not gazed for what now seemed a long and weary lapse of time. Morley Ashton--for it was he whom we introduce at once to the reader--was a handsome and active young fellow, with a lithe and well-knit figure, somewhat above the middle height; but he was thin and rather sallow in face, as if wasted by recent sickness or suffering. His short-shorn hair and well-pointed moustache, together with the general contour of his head, suggested the idea of a soldier, and yet no soldier was he. Forethought and penetration were perceptible in the form and lines of his brow; his keen, bright, but contemplative eyes, and the shape of his lower jaw, betokened firmness, decision, and courage; and well did Morley Ashton require them all, for these pages, and the course of our story, which opens at no remote date, but only a very short time ago, will show that he had a very desperate game to play.