Chapter 1. The Rover‘s Return
_ CHAPTER ONE. THE ROVER‘S RETURN
On a certain summer morning, about the middle of the present century, a big bluff man, of seafaring aspect, found himself sauntering in a certain street near London Bridge. He was a man of above fifty, but looked under forty in consequence of the healthful vigour of his frame, the freshness of his saltwater face, and the blackness of his shaggy hair.
Although his gait, pilot-cloth coat, and pocketed hands proclaimed him a sailor, there were one or two contradictory points about him. A huge beard and moustache savoured more of the diggings than the deep, and a brown wide-awake with a prodigiously broad brim suggested the backwoods.
Pausing at the head of one of those narrow lanes which--running down between warehouses, filthy little rag and bone shops, and low poverty-stricken dwellings--appear to terminate their career, not unwillingly, in the Thames, the sailor gazed before him with nautical earnestness for

......
全部内容，请购买此书。