A shabby little traveling man , who was just then comingcomeout of the store on his way to the saloon , stoppedstopand gazedgazestupidly at the shining mass of hair she baredbarewhen she tooktakeoff her veil ; two thick braids , pinned about her head in the German way , with a fringe of reddish-yellow curls blowingblowout from under her cap .
He tooktakehis cigar out of his mouth and heldholdthe wet end between the fingers of his woolen glove .
His hand was still unsteady when he tooktakehis glass from the bartender .
How they affected my aunt , nobody knew ; for immediately upon the separationseparation, she tooktakeher maiden name again , boughtbuya cottage in a hamlet on the sea-coast a long way off , establishedestablishherself there as a single woman with one servant , and was understood to live secluded , ever afterwards , in an inflexible retirement .
My father , who tooktakethe living of Paleham about the year 1797 , became possessed of a good many of old Mr Pontifex 's drawings , which were always of local subjects , and so unaffectedly painstaking that they might have passed for the work of some good early master .
The impressionimpressionI had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East ; the most western of splendid bridges over the Danube , which is here of noble width and depth , tooktakeus among the traditions of Turkish rule .
So soon as I was well enough I trekkedtrekdown to the Diamond Fields , soldsellsuch ivory as I had , together with my wagon and oxen , dischargeddischargemy hunters , and tooktakethe post-cart to the Cape .
In the evening my aunt tooktakeme with her to visit the house of mourning .
He now tooktakethe stick from my hands and examinedexamineit for a few minutes with his naked eyes .
From my small medical shelf I tooktakedown the Medical Directory and turnedturnup the name .
Out of the dusk her violin tooktakeup the organ theme , and the candle-light revealedrevealher in a straight golden frock , her arm archedarchto the bow , her lips serious .
I tooktakepart of a small house in the Old Jewry ; and being advisedadviseto alter my condition , I marriedmarryMrs. Mary Burton , second daughter to Mr. Edmund Burton , hosier , in Newgate-street , with whom I receivedreceivefour hundred pounds for a portion .
I ateeatthem by two or three at a mouthful , and tooktakethree loaves at a time , about the bigness of musket bullets .
Well , Judge Thatcher he tooktakeit and putputit out at interest , and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year round -- more than a body could tell what to do with .
The Widow Douglas she tooktakeme for her son , and allowed she would sivilize me ; but it was rough living in the house all the time , considering how dismal regular and decent the widow was in all her ways ; and so when I could n't stand it no longer I litlightout .
Her sister , Miss Watson , a tolerable slim old maid , with goggles on , had just comecometo live with her , and tooktakea set at me now with a spelling-book .
Please tell your moral husband that I tooktakehis words deeply to heart , and that ever since my returnreturnto Worcester I have been spending one afternoon a week reading poetry with the inmates of the Female Inebriate Asylum .
CHAPTER I I TAKE A COUNTRY HOUSE This is the story of how a middle-aged spinster lostloseher mind , deserteddeserther domestic gods in the city , tooktakea furnished house for the summer out of town , and foundfindherself involved in one of those mysterious crimes that keep our newspapers and detective agencies happy and prosperous .
Of course we tooktakethe place ; it was not my idea of comfort , being much too large and sufficiently isolated to make the servant question serious .
The property was owned by Paul Armstrong , the president of the Traders ' Bank , who at the time we tooktakethe house was in the west with his wife and daughter , and a Doctor Walker , the Armstrong family physician .
This I tooktakefor a sign that he had himself something to produce and that we should only have to wait .
After darkly lookinglookat his leg and me several times , he camecomecloser to my tombstone , tooktakeme by both arms , and tiltedtiltme back as far as he could hold me ; so that his eyes lookedlookmost powerfully down into mine , and mine lookedlookmost helplessly up into his .
She tooktakedown a jar from one of the shelves as she passedpass; it was labelled ‘ ORANGE MARMALADE ’ , but to her great disappointmentdisappointmentit was empty : she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody , so managed to putputit into one of the cupboards as she fellfallpast it .
She pausedpausewhile our friend tooktakein these things , and it was as if a good deal of talk had already passed .
However , I did not act quite so hastily as the first heat of my resolutionresolutionprompted ; but I tooktakemy mother at a time when I thought her a little more pleasant than ordinary , and told her that my thoughts were so entirely bent upon seeing the world that I should never settle to anything with resolution enough to go through with it , and my father had better give me his consent than force me to go without it ; that I was now eighteen years old , which was too late to go apprentice to a trade or clerk to an attorney ; that I was sure if I did I should never serve out my time , but I should certainly run away from my master before my time was out , and go to sea ; and if she would speak to my father to let me go one voyage abroad , if I came home again , and did not like it , I would go no more ; and I would promise , by a double diligence , to recover the time that I had lost .
Then abroad again -- to Rome this time , where he dallieddallywith architecture and painting in turn , tooktakeup the violin , and wrotewritesome ghastly Italian sonnets , supposedly the ruminations of a thirteenth-century monk on the joys of the contemplative life .
He tooktakedown a heavy brown volume from his shelves .
In a moment , however , wisely judgingjudgethat one token of her shame would but poorly serve to hide another , she tooktakethe baby on her arm , and with a burning blushblush, and yet a haughty smilesmile, and a glanceglancethat would not be abashed , lookedlookaround at her townspeople and neighbours .
Clerks in the express office tooktakecharge of him ; he was cartedcartabout in another wagon ; a truck carriedcarryhim , with an assortment of boxes and parcels , upon a ferry steamer ; he was truckedtruckoff the steamer into a great railway depot , and finally he was depositeddepositin an express car .
Big Medicine interruptedinterrupt, and tooktakeup the tale , which might have been entitled “ Some Cowpunching I Have Seen . ”
PART ONE -- The Old Buccaneer 1 The Old Sea-dog at the Admiral Benbow SQUIRE TRELAWNEY , Dr. Livesey , and the rest of these gentlemen having askedaskme to write down the whole particulars about Treasure Island , from the beginning to the end , keeping nothing back but the bearings of the island , and that only because there is still treasure not yet lifted , I taketakeup my pen in the year of grace 17 __ and gogoback to the time when my father kept the Admiral Benbow inn and the brown old seaman with the sabre cut first tooktakeup his lodging under our roof .
He was only once crossedcross, and that was towards the end , when my poor father was far gone in a decline that tooktakehim off .
It would have been a satisfaction to him just then to have been left to himself , and permitted to work on quietly at his profession , and to write his papers for the _ Lancet _ , and to see his friends now and then when he chose ; for Dr Marjoribanks was not a man who had any great need of sympathy by nature , or who was at all addicted to demonstrations of feeling ; consequently , he drewdrawhis wife 's sofa a little farther from the fire , and tooktakehis seat on it soberly , quite unaware that , by so doing , he was putting a knife into his daughter 's heart .
Figures darker than the gloom approachedapproachand tooktakeshape , and in the light turned out to be those of a white man and a heavily packed burro .