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Chapter VII IT was longer than the squire imagined ere we were ready for the sea, and none of our first plans - not even Dr Livesey's of keeping me beside him - could be carried out as we intended. The doctor had to go to London for a physician to take charge of his practice; the squire was hard at work a Bristol; and I lived on at the Hall under the charge of old Redruth, the gamekeeper, almost a prisoner, but full of sea dreams and the most charming anticipations of strange island and adventures. I brooded by the hour together over the map, all the details of which I well remembered. Sitting by the fire in the house- keeper's room, I approached that island my fancy, from every possible direction; I explored every acre of its surface; I climbed a thousand times to that tall hill the call the Spy-glass, and from the top enjoyed the most wonderful and changing prospects. Sometimes the isle was thick with savages, with whom we fought; sometimes full of dangerous animals that hunted us; but in all my fancies nothing occurred to me so strange and tragic as our actual adventures.So the weeks passed on, till one fine day there came a letter addressed to Dr Livesey, with this addition, `To be opened in the case of his absence, by Tom Redruth, or young Hawkins.' Obeying this order, we found, or rather, I found - for the gamekeeper was a poor hand at reading anything but print - the following important news:-- `Old Anchor Inn, Bristol `Redruth,' said I, interrupting the letter, `Doctor Livesey will not like that. The squire has been talking, after all.' `Well, who's a better right?' growled the gamekeeper. `A pretty rum go if squire ain't to talk for Doctor Livesey, I should think.' At that I gave up all attempt at commentary, and read straight on:--
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