XII. NEWS FROM A FAR COUNTRY…

XII. NEWS FROM A FAR COUNTRY

If perchance, my dears, there creeps into this chronicle too much of an old man's heart, I know he will be forgiven. What life ever worth living has been without its tender attachment? Because, forsooth, my hair is white now, does Bess flatter herself I do not know her secret? Or does Comyn believe that these old eyes can see no farther than the spectacles before them? Were it not for the lovers, my son, satins and broadcloths had never been invented. And were it not for the lovers, what joys and sorrows would we lack in our lives!

That was a long summer indeed. And tho' Wilmot House was closed, I often rode over of a morning when the dew was on the grass. It cheered me to smoke a pipe with old McAndrews, Mr. Manners's factor, who loved to talk of Miss Dorothy near as much as I. He had served her grandfather, and people said that had it not been for McAndrews, the Manners fortune had long since been scattered, since Mr. Marmaduke knew nothing of anything that he should. I could not hear from my lady until near the first of October, and so I was fain to be content with memories--memories and hard work. For I had complete charge of the plantation now.

My Uncle Grafton came twice or thrice, but without his family, Aunt Caroline and Philip having declared their independence. My uncle's manner to me was now of studied kindness, and he was at greater pains than before to give me no excuse for offence. I had little to say to him. He spent his visits reading to Mr. Carvel, who sat in his chair all the day long. Mr. Allen came likewise, to perform the same office.

My contempt for the rector was grown more than ever. On my grandfather's account, however, I refrained from quarrelling with him. And, when we were alone, my plain speaking did not seem to anger him, or affect him in any way. Others came, too. Such was the affection Mr. Carvel's friends bore him that they did not desert him when he was no longer the companion he had been in former years. We had more company than the summer before.

In the autumn a strange thing happened. When we had taken my grandfather to the Hall in June, his dotage seemed to settle upon him. He became a trembling old man, at times so peevish that we were obliged to summon with an effort what he had been. He was suspicious and fault-finding with Scipio and the other servants, though they were never so busy for his wants. Mrs. Willis's dainties were often untouched, and he would frequently sit for hours between slumber and waking, or mumble to himself as I read the prints. But about the time of the equinoctial a great gale came out of the south so strongly that the water rose in the river over the boat landing; and the roof was torn from one of the curing-sheds. The next morning dawned clear, and brittle, and blue. To my great surprise, Mr. Carvel sent for me to walk with him about the place, that he might see the damage with his own eyes. A huge walnut had fallen across the drive, and when he came upon it he stopped abruptly.

"Old friend!" he cried, "have you succumbed? After all these years have you dropped from the weight of a blow?" He passed his hand caressingly along the trunk, and scarce ever had I seen him so affected. In truth, for the instant I thought him deranged. He raised his cane above his shoulder and struck the bark so heavily that the silver head sunk deep into the wood. "Look you, Richard," he said, the water coming into his eyes, "look you, the heart of it is gone, lad; and when the heart is rotten 'tis time for us to go. That walnut was a life friend, my son. We have grown together," he continued, turning from me to the giant and brushing his cheeks, "but by God's good will we shall not die so, for my heart is still as young as the days when you were sprouting."

And he walked back to the house more briskly than he had come, refusing, for the first time, my arm. And from that day, I say, he began to mend. The lacing of red came again to his cheeks, and before we went back to town he had walked with me to Master Dingley's tavern on the highroad, and back.

We moved into Marlboro' Street the first part of November. I had seen my lady off for England, wearing my faded flowers, the panniers of the fine gentleman in a neglected pile at her cabin door. But not once had she deigned to write me. It was McAndrews who told me of her safe arrival. In Annapolis rumours were a-flying of conquests she had already made. I found Betty Tayloe had had a letter, filled with the fashion in caps and gowns, and the mention of more than one noble name. All of this being, for unknown reasons, sacred, I was read only part of the postscript, in which I figured: "The London Season was done almost before we arrived," so it ran. "We had but the Opportunity to pay our Humble Respects to their Majesties; and appear at a few Drum-Majors and Garden Fetes. Now we are off to Brighthelmstone, and thence, so Papa says, to Spa and the Continent until the end of January. I am pining for news of Maryland, dearest Betty. Address me in care of Mr. Ripley, Barrister, of Lincoln's Inn, and bid Richard Carvel write me."

"Which does not look as if she were coming back within the year," said Betty, as she poured me a dish of tea.

Alas, no! But I did not write. I tried and failed. And then I tried to forget. I was constant at all the gayeties, gave every miss in town a share of my attention, rode to hounds once a week at Whitehall or the South River Club with a dozen young beauties. But cantering through the winter mists 'twas Dolly, in her red riding-cloak and white beaver, I saw beside me. None of them had her seat in the saddle, and none of them her light hand on the reins. And tho' they lacked not fire and skill, they had not my lady's dash and daring to follow over field and fallow, stream and searing, and be in at the death with heightened colour, but never a look away.

Then came the first assembly of the year. I got back from Bentley Manor, where I had been a-visiting the Fotheringays, just in time to call for Patty in Gloucester Street.

"Have you heard the news from abroad, Richard?" she asked, as I handed her into my chariot.

"Never a line," I replied.

"Pho!" exclaimed Patty; "you tell me that! Where have you been hiding? Then you shall not have it from me."

I had little trouble, however, in persuading her. For news was a rare luxury in those days, and Patty was plainly uncomfortable until she should have it out.

"I would not give you the vapours to-night for all the world, Richard," she exclaimed. "But if you must,--Dr. Courtenay has had a letter from Mr. Manners, who says that Dolly is to marry his Grace of Chartersea. There now!"

"And I am not greatly disturbed," I answered, with a fine, careless air.

The lanthorn on the chariot was burning bright. And I saw Patty look at me, and laugh.

"Indeed!" says she; "what a sex is that to which you belong. How ready are men to deny us at the first whisper! And I thought you the most constant of all. For my part, I credit not a word of it. 'Tis one of Mr. Marmaduke's lies and vanities."

"And for my part, I think it true as gospel," I cried. "Dolly always held a coronet above her colony, and all her life has dreamed of a duke."

"Nay," answered Patty, more soberly; "nay, you do her wrong. You will discover one day that she is loyal to the core, tho' she has a fop of a father who would serve his Grace's chocolate. We are all apt to talk, my dear, and to say what we do not mean, as you are doing."

"Were I to die to-morrow, I would repeat it," I exclaimed. But I liked Patty the better for what she had said.

"And there is more news, of less import," she continued, as I was silent. "The Thunderer dropped anchor in the roads to-day, and her officers will be at the assembly. And Betty tells me there is a young lord among them,--la! I have clean forgot the string of adjectives she used,--but she would have had me know he was as handsome as Apollo, and so dashing and diverting as to put Courtenay and all our wits to shame. She dined with him at the Governor's."

I barely heard her, tho' I had seen the man-o'-war in the harbour as I sailed in that afternoon.

The assembly hall was filled when we arrived, aglow with candles and a-tremble with music, the powder already flying, and the tables in the recesses at either end surrounded by those at the cards. A lively scene, those dances at the old Stadt House, but one I love best to recall with a presence that endeared it to me. The ladies in flowered aprons and caps and brocades and trains, and the gentlemen in brilliant coats, trimmed with lace and stiffened with buckram. That night, as Patty had predicted, there was a smart sprinkling of uniforms from the Thunderer. One of those officers held my eye. He was as well-formed a lad, or man (for he was both), as it had ever been my lot to see. He was neither tall nor short, but of a good breadth. His fair skin was tanned by the weather, and he wore his own wavy hair powdered, as was just become the fashion, and tied with a ribbon behind.

"Mercy, Richard, that must be his Lordship. Why, his good looks are all Betty claimed for them!" exclaimed Patty. Mr. Lloyd, who was standing by, overheard her, and was vastly amused at her downright way.

"I will fetch him directly, Miss Swain," said he, "as I have done for a dozen ladies before you." And fetch him he did.

"Miss Swain, this is my Lord Comyn," said he. "Your Lordship, one of the boasts of our province."

Patty grew red as the scarlet with which his Lordship's coat was lined. She curtseyed, while he made a profound bow.

"What! Another boast, Mr. Lloyd!" he cried. "Miss Swain is the tenth I have met. But I vow they excel as they proceed."

"Then you must meet no more, my Lord," said Patty, laughing at Mr. Lloyd's predicament.

"Egad, then, I will not," declared Comyn. "I protest I am satisfied."

Then I was presented. He had won me on the instant with his open smile and frank, boyish manner.

"And this is young Mr. Carvel, whom I hear wins every hunt in the colony?" said he.

"I fear you have been misinformed, my Lord," I replied, flashing with pleasure nevertheless.

"Nay, my Lord," Mr. Lloyd struck in; "Richard could ride down the devil himself, and he were a fox. You will see for yourself to-morrow."

"I pray we may not start the devil," said his Lordship; "or I shall be content to let Mr. Carvel run him down."

This Comyn was a man after my own fancy, as, indeed, he took the fancy of every one at the ball. Though a viscount in his own right, he gave himself not half the airs over us provincials as did many of his messmates. Even Mr. Jacques, who was sour as last year's cider over the doings of Parliament, lost his heart, and asked why we were not favoured in America with more of his sort.

By a great mischance Lord Comyn had fallen into the tender clutches of my Aunt Caroline. It seemed she had known his uncle, the Honourable Arthur Comyn, in New York; and now she undertook to be responsible for his Lordship's pleasure at Annapolis, that he might meet only those of the first fashion. Seeing him talking to Patty, my aunt rose abruptly from her loo and made toward us, all paint and powder and patches, her chin in the air, which barely enabled her to look over Miss Swain's head.

"My Lord," she cries, "I will show you our colonial reel, which is about to begin, and I warrant you is gayer than any dance you have at home."

"Your very devoted, Mrs. Carvel," says his Lordship, with a bow, "but Miss Swain has done me the honour."

"O Lud!" cries my aunt, sweeping the room, "I vow I cannot keep pace with the misses nowadays. Is she here?"

"She was but a moment since, ma'am," replied Comyn, instantly, with a mischievous look at me, while poor Patty stood blushing not a yard distant.

There were many who overheard, and who used their fans and their napkins to hide their laughter at the very just snub Mrs. Grafton had received. And I wondered at the readiness with which he had read her character, liking him all the better. But my aunt was not to be disabled by this, --not she. After the dance she got hold of him, keeping him until certain designing ladies with daughters took him away; their names charity forbids me to mention. But in spite of them all he contrived to get Patty for supper, when I took Betty Tayloe, and we were very merry at table together. His Lordship proved more than able to take care of himself, and contrived to send Philip about his business when he pulled up a chair beside us. He drank a health to Miss Swain, and another to Miss Tayloe, and was on the point of filling a third glass to the ladies of Maryland, when he caught himself and brought his hand down on the table.

"Gad's life!" cried he, "but I think she's from Maryland, too!"

"Who?" demanded the young ladies, in a breath.

But I knew.

"Who!" exclaimed Comyn. "Who but Miss Dorothy Manners! Isn't she from Maryland?" And marking our astonished nods, he continued: "Why, she descended upon Mayfair when they were so weary for something to worship, and they went mad over her in a s'ennight. I give you Miss Manners!"

"And you know her!" exclaimed Patty, her voice quivering with excitement.

"Faith!" said his Lordship, laughing. "For a whole month I was her most devoted, as were we all at Almack's. I stayed until the last minute for a word with her,--which I never got, by the way,--and paid near a guinea a mile for a chaise to Portsmouth as a consequence. Already she has had her choice from a thousand a year up, and I tell you our English ladies are green with envy."

I was stunned, you may be sure. And yet, I might have expected it.

"If your Lordship has left your heart in England," said Betty, with a smile, "I give you warning you must not tell our ladies here of it."

"I care not who knows it, Miss Tayloe," he cried. That fustian, insincerity, was certainly not one of his faults. "I care not who knows it. To pass her chariot is to have your heart stolen, and you must needs run after and beg mercy. But, ladies," he added, his eye twinkling; "having seen the women of your colony, I marvel no longer at Miss Manners's beauty."

He set us all a-laughing.

"I fear you were not born a diplomat, sir," says Patty. "You agree that we are beautiful, yet to hear that one of us is more so is small consolation."

"We men turn as naturally to Miss Manners as plants to the sun, ma'am," he replied impulsively. "Yet none of us dare hope for alliance with so brilliant and distant an object. I make small doubt those are Mr. Carvel's sentiments, and still he seems popular enough with the ladies. How now, sir? How now, Mr. Carvel? You have yet to speak on so tender a subject."

My eyes met Patty's.

"I will be no more politic than you, my Lord," I said boldly, "nor will I make a secret of it that I adore Miss Manners full as much."

"Bravo, Richard!" cries Patty; and "Good!" cries his Lordship, while Betty claps her hands. And then Comyn swung suddenly round in his chair.

"Richard Carvel!" says he. "By the seven chimes I have heard her mention your name. The devil fetch my memory!"

"My name!" I exclaimed, in surprise, and prodigiously upset.

"Yes," he answered, with his hand to his head; "some such thought was in my mind this afternoon when I heard of your riding. Stay! I have it! I was at Ampthill, Ossory's place, just before I left. Some insupportable coxcomb was boasting a marvellous run with the hounds nigh across Hertfordshire, and Miss Manners brought him up with a round turn and a half hitch by relating one of your exploits, Richard Carvel. And take my word on't she got no small applause. She told how you had followed a fox over one of your rough provincial counties, which means three of Hertfordshire, with your arm broken, by Heaven! and how they lifted you off at the death. And, Mr. Carvel," said my Lord, generously, looking at my flushed face, "you must give me your hand for that."

So Dorothy in England had thought of me at least. But what booted it if she were to marry a duke! My thoughts began to whirl over all Comyn had said of her so that I scarce heard a question Miss Tayloe had put.

"Marry Chartersea! That profligate pig!" Comyn was saying. "She would as soon marry a chairman or a chimneysweep, I'm thinking. Why, Miss Tayloe, Sir Charles Grandison himself would scarce suit her!"

"Good lack!" said Betty, "I think Sir Charles would be the very last for Dorothy."

RICHARD CARVEL

By Winston Churchill

Volume 3.

XIII. Mr. Allen shows his Hand XIV. The Volte Coupe XV. Of which the Rector has the Worst XVI. In which Some Things are made Clear XVII. South River XVIII. The Black Moll XIX. A Man of Destiny

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XIII. MR. ALLEN SHOWS HIS HAND

So Dorothy's beauty had taken London by storm, even as it had conquered Annapolis! However, 'twas small consolation to me to hear his Grace of Chartersea called a pig and a profligate while better men danced her attendance in Mayfair. Nor, in spite of what his Lordship had said, was I quite easy on the score of the duke. It was in truth no small honour to become a duchess. If Mr. Marmaduke had aught to say, there was an end to hope. She would have her coronet. But in that hour of darkness I counted upon my lady's spirit.

Dr. Courtenay came to the assembly very late, with a new fashion of pinchbeck buckles on his pumps and a new manner of taking snuff. (I caught Fotheringay practising this by the stairs shortly after.) Always an important man, the doctor's prominence had been increased that day by the letter he had received. He was too thorough a courtier to profess any grief over Miss Manners's match, and went about avowing that he had always predicted a duke for Miss Dorothy. And he drew a deal of pleasure from the curiosity of those who begged but one look at the letter. Show it, indeed! For no consideration. A private communication from one gentleman to another must be respected. Will Fotheringay swore the doctor was a sly dog, and had his own reasons for keeping it to himself.

The doctor paid his compliment to the captain of the Thunderer, and to his Lordship; hoped that he would see them at the meet on the morrow, tho' his gout forbade his riding to hounds. He saluted me in the most friendly way, for I played billiards with him at the Coffee House now, and he won my money. He had pronounced my phaeton to be as well appointed as any equipage in town, and had done me the honour to drive out with me on several occasions. It was Betty that brought him humiliation that evening.

"What do you think of the soar our Pandora hath taken, Miss Betty?" says he. "From a Maryland manor to a ducal palace. 'Tis a fable, egad! No less!"

"Indeed, I think it is," retorted Betty. "Mark me, doctor, Dorothy will not put up an instant with a roue and a brute."

"A roue!" cries he, "and a brute! What the plague, Miss Tayloe! I vow I do not understand you."

"Then ask my Lord Comyn, who knows your Duke of Chartersea," said Betty.

Dr. Courtenay's expression was worth a pistole.

"Comyn know him!" he repeated.

"That he does," replied Betty, laughing. "His Lordship says Chartersea is a pig and a profligate, and I remember not what else. And that Dolly will not look at him. And so little Mr. Marmaduke may go a-hunting for another title."

No wonder I had little desire for dancing that night! I wandered out of the assembly-room and through the silent corridors of the Stadt House, turning over and over again what I had heard, and picturing Dorothy reigning over the macaronies of St. James's Street. She had said nothing of this in her letter to Betty, and had asked me to write to her. But now, with a duke to refuse or accept, could she care to hear from her old playmate? I took no thought of the time, until suddenly my conscience told me I had neglected Patty.

As I entered the hall I saw her at the far end of it talking to Mr. Allen. This I thought strange, for I knew she disliked him. Lord Comyn and Mr. Carroll, the barrister, and Singleton, were standing by, listening. By the time I was halfway across to them the rector turned away. I remember thinking afterwards that he changed colour when he said: "Your servant, Mr. Richard." But I thought nothing of it at the time, and went on to Patty.

"I have come for a country dance, before we go, Patty," I said.

Then something in her mien struck me. Her eyes expressed a pain I had remarked in them before only when she spoke to me of Tom, and her lips were closed tightly. She flushed, and paled, and looked from Singleton to Mr. Carroll. They and his Lordship remained silent.

"I--I cannot, Richard. I am going home," she said, in a low voice.

"I will see if the chariot is here," I answered, surprised, but thinking of Tom.

She stopped me.

"I am going with Mr. Carroll," she said.

I hope a Carvel never has to be rebuffed twice, nor to be humbled by craving an explanation before a company. I was confounded that Patty should treat me thus, when I had done nothing to deserve it. As I made for the door, burning and indignant, I felt as tho' every eye in the room was upon me.' Young Harvey drove me that night.

"Marlboro' Street, Mr. Richard?" said he.

"Coffee House," replied I, that place coming first into my head.

Young Harvey seldom took liberties; but he looked down from the box.

"Better home, sir; your pardon, sir."

"D--n it!" I cried, "drive where I bid you!"

I pulled down the fore-glass, though the night was cold, and began to cast about for the cause of Patty's action. And then it was the rector came to my mind. Yes, he had been with her just before I came up, and I made sure on the instant that my worthy instructor was responsible for the trouble. I remembered that I had quarrelled with him the morning before I had gone to Bentley Manor, and threatened to confess his villany and my deceit to Mr. Carvel. He had answered me with a sneer and a dare. I knew than Patty put honour and honesty before all else in the world, and that she would not have suffered my friendship for a day had she believed me to lack either. But she, who knew me so well, was not likely to believe anything he might say without giving me the chance to clear myself. And what could he have told her?

I felt my anger growing big within me, until I grew afraid of what I would do if I were tempted. I had a long score and a heavy score against this rector of St. Anne's,--a score that had been gathering these years. And I felt that my uncle was somewhere behind him; that the two of them were plotters against me, even as Harvey had declared; albeit my Uncle Grafton was little seen in his company now. And finally, in a sinister flash of revelation, came the thought that Grafton himself was at the back of this deception of my grandfather, as to my principles. Fool that I was, it had never occurred to me before. But how was he to gain by it? Did he hope that Mr. Carvel, in a fit of anger, would disinherit me when he found I had deceived him? Yes. And so had left the matter in abeyance near these two years, that the shock might be the greater when it came. I recalled now, with a shudder, that never since the spring of my grandfather's illness had my uncle questioned me upon my politics. I was seized with a fit of fury. I suspected that Mr. Allen would be at the Coffee House after the assembly. And I determined to seize the chance at once and have it out with him then and there.

The inn was ablaze, but as yet deserted; Mr. Claude expectant. He bowed me from my chariot door, and would know what took me from the ball. I threw him some short answer, bade Harvey go home, saying that I would have some fellow light me to Marlboro' Street when I thought proper. And coming into the long room I flung aside my greatcoat and commanded a flask of Mr. Stephen Bordley's old sherry, some of which Mr. Claude had obtained at that bachelor's demise.

The wine was scarce opened before I heard some sort of stir at the front, and two servants in a riding livery of scarlet and white hurried in to seek Mr. Claude. The sight of them sufficed mine host, for he went out as fast as his legs would go, giving the bell a sharp pull as he passed the door; and presently I heard him complimenting two gentlemen into the house. The voice of one I knew,--being no other than Captain Clapsaddle's; and him I had not seen for the past six months. I was just risen to my feet when they came in at the door beside me.

"Richard!" cried the captain, and grasped my hand in both his own. I returned his pressure, too much pleased to speak. Then his eye was caught by my finery.

"So ho!" says he, shaking his head at me for a sad rogue. "Wine and women and fine clothes, and not nineteen, or I mistake me. It was so with Captain Jack, who blossomed in a week; and few could vie with him, I warrant you, after he made his decision. But bless me!" he went on, drawing back, "the lad looks mature, and a fair two inches broader than last spring. But why are you not at the assembly, Richard?"

"I have but now come from there, sir," I replied, not caring in the presence of a stranger to enter into reasons.

At my answer the captain turned from me to the gentleman behind him, who had been regarding us both as we talked. There are some few men in the world, I thank God for it, who bear their value on their countenance; who stand unmistakably for qualities which command respect and admiration and love! We seem to recognize such men, and to wonder where we have seen them before. In reality we recognize the virtues they represent. So it was with him I saw in front of me, and by his air and carriage I marked him then and there as a man born to great things. You all know his face, my dears, and I pray God it may live in the sight of those who come after you, for generation upon generation!

"Colonel Washington," said the captain, "this is Mr. Richard Carvel, the son of Captain Carvel."

Mr. Washington did not speak at once. He stood regarding me a full minute, his eye seeming to penetrate the secrets of my life. And I take pride in saying it was an eye I could meet without flinching.

"Your father was a brave man, sir," he said soberly, "and it seems you favour him. I am happy in knowing the son."

For a moment he stood debating whether he would go to the house of one of his many friends in Annapolis, knowing that they would be offended when they learned he had stopped at the inn. He often came to town, indeed, but seldom tarried long; and it had never been my fortune to see him. Being arrived unexpectedly, and obliged to be away early on the morrow, he decided to order rooms of Mr. Claude, sat down with me at the table, and commenced supper. They had ridden from Alexandria. I gathered from their conversation that they were on their way to Philadelphia upon some private business, the nature of which, knowing Captain Daniel's sentiments and those of Colonel Washington, I went not far to guess. The country was in a stir about the Townshend duties; and there being some rumour that all these were to be discharged save only that on tea, anxiety prevailed in our middle colonies that the merchants of New York would abandon the association formed and begin importation. It was of some mission to these merchants that I suspected them.

As I sat beside Colonel Washington, I found myself growing calmer, and ashamed of my lack of self-control. Unconsciously, when we come in contact with the great of character, we mould our minds to their qualities. His very person seemed to exhale, not sanctity, but virility. I felt that this man could command himself and others. In his presence self-command came to me, as a virtue gone out of him. 'Twas not his speech, I would have you know, that took hold of me. He was by no means a brilliant talker, and I had the good fortune to see him at his ease, since he and the captain were old friends. As they argued upon the questions of the day, the colonel did not seek to impress by words, or to fascinate by manner. His opinions were calm and moderate, and appeared to me so just as to admit of no appeal. He scrupled not to use a forceful word when occasion demanded. And yet, now and then, he had a lively way about him with all his dignity. When he had finished his supper he bade Mr. Claude bring another bottle of Mr. Bordley's sherry, having tested mine, and addressed himself to me.

He would know what my pursuits had been; for my father's sake, what were my ambitions? He questioned me about Mr. Carvel's plantation, of which he had heard, and appeared pleased with the answers I gave as to its management and methods. Captain Daniel was no less so. Mr. Washington had agriculture at his finger ends, and gave me some advice which he had found serviceable at Mount Vernon.

"'Tis a pity, Richard," said he, smiling thoughtfully at the captain, "'tis a pity we have no service afield open to our young men. One of your spirit and bearing should be of that profession. Captain Jack was as brave and dashing an officer as I ever laid eyes on."

I hesitated, the tingling at the compliment.

"I begin to think I was born for the sea, sir," I answered, at length.

"What!" cried the captain; "what news is this, Richard? 'Slife! how has this come about?"

My anger subdued by Mr. Washington's presence, a curious mood had taken its place. A foolish mood, I thought it, but one of feeling things to come.

"I believe I shall one day take part in a great sea-fight," I said. And, tho' ashamed to speak of it, I told him of Stanwix's prophecy that I should pace the decks of a man-o'-war.

"A pox on Stanwix!" said the captain, "an artful old seadog! I never yet knew one who did not think the sun rises and sets from poop to forecastle, who did not wheedle with all the young blood to get them to follow a bow-legged profession."

Colonel Washington laughed.

"Judge not, Clapsaddle," said he; "here are two of us trying to get the lad for our own bow-legged profession. We are as hot as Methodists to convert."

"Small conversion he needed when I was here to watch him, colonel. And he rides with any trooper I ever laid eyes on. Why, sir, I myself threw him on a saddle before he could well-nigh walk, and 'twere a waste of material to put him in the navy."

"But what this old man said of a flag not yet seen in heaven or earth interests me," said Colonel Washington. "Tell me," he added with a penetration we both remarked, "tell me, does your Captain Stanwix follow the times? Is he a man to read his prints and pamphlets? In other words, is he a man who might predict out of his own heated imagination?"

"Nay, sir," I answered, "he nods over his tobacco the day long. And I will make bold to swear, he has never heard of the Stamp Act."

"'Tis strange," said the colonel, musing; "I have heard of this second sight--have seen it among my own negroes. But I heartily pray that this may be but the childish fancy of an old mariner. How do you interpret it, sir?" he added, addressing himself to me.

"If a prophecy, I can interpret it in but one way," I began, and there I stopped.

"To be sure," said Mr. Washington. He studied me awhile as though weighing my judgment, and went on: "Needless to say, Richard, that such a service, if it comes, will not be that of his Majesty."

"And it were, colonel, I would not embark in it a step," I cried.

He laughed.

"The lad has his father's impulse," he said to Captain Daniel. "But I thought old Mr. Carvel to be one of the warmest loyalists in the colonies."

I bit my lip; for, since that unhappy deception of Mr. Carvel, I had not meant to be drawn into an avowal of my sentiments. But I had, alas, inherited a hasty tongue.

"Mr. Washington," said the captain, "old Mr. Carvel has ever been a good friend to me. And, though I could not but perceive which way the lad was tending, I had held it but a poor return for friendship had I sought by word or deed to bring him to my way of thinking. Nor have I ever suffered his views in my presence."

"My dear sir, I honour you for it," put in the colonel, warmly.

"It is naught to my credit," returned the captain. "I would not, for the sake of my party and beliefs, embitter what remains of my old friend's life."

I drew a long breath and drained the full glass before me.

"Captain Daniel!" I cried, "you must hear me now. I have been waiting your coming these months. And if Colonel Washington gives me leave, I will speak before him."

The colonel bade me proceed, avowing that Captain Carvel's son should have his best assistance.

With that I told them the whole story of Mr. Allen's villany. How I had been sent to him because of my Whig sentiments, and for thrashing a Tory schoolmaster and his flock. This made the gentlemen laugh, tho' Captain Daniel had heard it before. I went on to explain how Mr. Carvel had fallen ill, and was like to die; and how Mr. Allen, taking advantage of his weakness when he rose from his bed, had gone to him with the lie of having converted me. But when I told of the scene between my grandfather and me at Carvel Hall, of the tears of joy that the old gentleman shed, and of how he had given me Firefly as a reward, the captain rose from his chair and looked out of the window into the blackness, and swore a great oath all to himself. And the expression I saw come into the colonel's eyes I shall never forget.

"And you feared the consequences upon your grandfather's health?" he asked gravely.

"So help me God!" I answered, "I truly believe that to have undeceived him would have proved fatal."

"And so, for the sake of the sum he receives for teaching you," cried the captain, with another oath, "this scoundrelly clergyman has betrayed you into a lie. A scheme, by God's life! worthy of a Machiavelli!"

"I have seen too many of his type in our parishes," said Mr. Washington; "and yet the bishop of London seems powerless. And so used have we become in these Southern colonies to tippling and gaming parsons, that I warrant his people accept him as nothing out of the common."

"He is more discreet than the run of them, sir. His parishioners dislike him, not because of his irregularities, but because he is attempting to obtain All Saints from his Lordship, in addition to St. Anne's. He is thought too greedy."

He was silent, his brow a little furrowed, and drummed with his fingers upon the table.

"But this I cannot reconcile," said he, presently, "that the reward is out of all proportion to the risk. Such a clever rascal must play for higher stakes."

I was amazed at his insight. And for the moment was impelled to make a clean breast of my suspicions,--nay, of my convictions of the whole devil's plot. But I had no proofs. I remembered that to the colonel my uncle was a gentleman of respectability and of wealth, and a member of his Excellency's Council. That to accuse him of scheming for my inheritance would gain me nothing in Mr. Washington's esteem. And I caught myself before I had said aught of Mr. Allen's conduct that evening.

"Have you confronted this rector with his perfidy, Richard?" he asked.

"I have, colonel, at my first opportunity." And I related how Mr. Allen had come to the Hall, and what I had said to him, and how he had behaved. And finally told of the picquet we now had during lessons, not caring to shield myself. Both listened intently, until the captain broke out. Mr. Washington's indignation was the stronger for being repressed.

"I will call him out!" cried Captain Daniel, fingering his sword, as was his wont when angered; "I will call him out despite his gown, or else horse him publicly!"

"No, my dear sir, you will do nothing of the kind," said the colonel. "You would gain nothing by it for the lad, and lose much. Such rascals walk in water, and are not to be tracked. He cannot be approached save through Mr. Lionel Carvel himself, and that channel, for Mr. Carvel's sake, must be closed."

"But he must be shown up!" cried the captain.

"What good will you accomplish?" said Mr. Washington; "Lord Baltimore is notorious, and will not remove him. Nay, sir, you must find a way to get the lad from his influence." And he asked me how was my grandfather's health at present.

I said that he had mended beyond my hopes.

"And does he seem to rejoice that you are of the King's party?"

"Nay, sir. Concerning politics he seems strangely apathetic, which makes me fear he is not so well as he appears. All his life he has felt strongly."

"Then I beg you, Richard, take pains to keep neutral. Nor let any passing event, however great, move you to speech or action."

The captain shook his head doubtfully, as tho' questioning the ability of one of my temper to do this.

"I do not trust myself, sir," I answered.

He rose, declaring it was past his hour for bed, and added some kind things which I shall cherish in my memory. As he was leaving he laid his hand on my shoulder.

"One word of advice, my lad," he said. "If by any chance your convictions are to come to your grandfather's ears, let him have them from your own lips." And he bade me good night.

The captain tarried but a moment longer.

"I have a notion who is to blame for this, Richard," he said. "When I come back from New York, we shall see what we shall see."

"I fear he is too slippery for a soldier to catch," I answered.

He went away to bed, telling me to be prudent, and mind the colonel's counsel until he returned from the North.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XIV. THE VOLTE COUPE

I was of a serious mind to take the advice. To prove this I called for my wrap-rascal and cane, and for a fellow with a flambeau to light me. But just then the party arrived from the assembly. I was tempted, and I sat down again in a corner of the room, resolved to keep a check upon myself, but to stay awhile.

The rector was the first in, humming a song, and spied me.

"Ho!" he cried, "will you drink, Richard? Or do I drink with you?"

He was already purple with wine.

"God save me from you and your kind!" I replied.

"'Sblood! what a devil's nest of fireworks!" he exclaimed, as he went off down the room, still humming, to where the rest were gathered. And they were soon between bottle and stopper, and quips a-coursing. There was the captain of the Thunderer, Collinson by name, Lord Comyn and two brother officers, Will Fotheringay, my cousin Philip, openly pleased to be found in such a company, and some dozen other toadeaters who had followed my Lord a-chair and a-foot from the ball, and would have tracked him to perdition had he chosen to go; and lastly Tom Swain, leering and hiccoughing at the jokes, in such a beastly state of drunkenness as I had rarely seen him. His Lordship recognized me and smiled, and was pushing his chair back, when something Collinson said seemed to restrain him.

I believe I was the butt of more than one jest for my aloofness, though I could not hear distinctly for the noise they made. I commanded some French cognac, and kept my eye on the rector, and the sight of him was making me dangerous.

I forgot the advice I had received, and remembered only the months he had goaded me. And I was even beginning to speculate how I could best pick a quarrel with him on any issue but politics, when an unexpected incident diverted me. Of a sudden the tall, ungainly form of Percy Singleton filled the doorway, wrapped in a greatcoat. He swept the room at a glance, and then strode rapidly toward the corner where I sat.

"I had thought to find you here," he said, and dropped into a chair beside me. I offered him wine, but he refused.

"Now," he went on, "what has Patty done?"

"What have I done that I should be publicly insulted?" I cried.

"Insulted!" says he, "and did she insult you? She said nothing of that."

"What brings you here, then?" I demanded.

"Not to talk, Richard," he said quietly, "'tis no time tonight. I came to fetch you home. Patty sent me."

Patty sent him! Why had Patty sent him? But this I did not ask, for I felt the devil within me.

"We must first finish this bottle," said I, offhand, "and then I have a little something to be done which I have set my heart upon. After that I will go with you."

"Richard, Richard, will you never learn prudence? What is it you speak of?"

I drew my sword and laid it upon the table.

"I mean to spit that eel of a rector," said I, "or he will bear a slap in the face. And you must see fair play."

Singleton seized my coat, at the same time grasping the hilt of my sword with the other hand. But neither my words nor my action had gone unnoticed by the other end of the room. The company there fell silent awhile, and then we heard Captain Collinson talking in even, drawling tones.

"'Tis strange," said he, "what hot sparks a man meets in these colonies. They should be stamped out. His Majesty pampers these d--d Americans, is too lenient by far. Gentlemen, this is how I would indulge them!" He raised a closed fist and brought it down on the board.

He spoke to Tories, but he forgot that Tories were Americans. In those days only the meanest of the King's party would listen to such without protest from an Englishman. But some of the meaner sort were there: Philip and Tom laughed, and Mr. Allen, and my Lord's sycophants. Fotheringay and some others of sense shook their heads one to another, comprehending that Captain Collinson was somewhat gone in wine. For, indeed, he had not strayed far from the sideboard at the assembly. Comyn made a motion to rise.

"It is already past three bells, sir, and a hunt to-morrow," he said.

"From bottle to saddle, and from saddle to bottle, my Lord. We must have our pleasure ashore, and sleep at sea," and the captain tipped his flask with a leer. He turned his eye uncertainly first on me, then on my Lord. "We are lately from Boston, gentlemen, that charnel-house of treason, and before we leave, my Lord, I must tell them how Mr. Robinson of the customs served that dog Otis, in the British Coffee House. God's word, 'twas as good as a play."

I know not how many got to their feet at that, for the story of the cowardly beating of Mr. Otis by Robinson and the army officers had swept over the colonies, burning like a flame all true-hearted men, Tory and Whig alike. I wrested my sword from Singleton's hold, and in a trice I had reached the captain over chairs and table, tearing myself from Fotheringay on the way. I struck a blow that measured a man on the floor. Then I drew back, amazed.

I had hit Lord Comyn instead! The captain stood a yard beyond me.

The thing had been so deftly done by the rector of St. Anne's--Comyn jostled at the proper moment between me and Collinson--that none save me guessed beyond an accident; least of all my Lord Comyn himself. He was up again directly and his sword drawn, addressing me.

"Bear witness, my Lord, that I have no desire to fight with you," said I, with what coolness I could muster. "But there is one here I would give much for a chance to run through."

And I made a step toward Mr. Allen with such a purpose in my face and movements that he could not mistake. I saw the blood go from his face; yet he was no coward to physical violence. But he (or I?) was saved by the Satan's luck that followed him, for my Lord stepped in between us with a bow, his cheek red where I had struck him.

"It is my quarrel now, Mr. Carvel," he cried.

"As you please, my Lord," said I.

"It boots not who crosses with him," Captain Collinson put in. "His Lordship uses the sword better than any here. But it boots not so that he is opposed by a loyal servant of the King."

I wheeled on him for this.

"I would have you know that loyalty does not consist in outrage and murder, sir," I answered, "nor in the ridiculing of them. And brutes cannot be loyal save through interest."

He was angered, as I had desired. I had hopes then of shouldering the quarrel on to him, for I had near as soon drawn against my own brother as against Comyn. I protest I loved him then as one with whom I had been reared.

"Let me deal with this young gamecock, Comyn," cried the captain, with an oath. "He seems to think his importance sufficient."

But Comyn would brook no interference. He swore that no man should strike him with impunity, and in this I could not but allow he was right.

"You shall hear from me, Mr. Carvel," he said.

"Nay," I answered, "and fighting is to be done, sir, let us be through with it at once. A large room upstairs is at our disposal; and there is a hunt to-morrow which one of us may like to attend."

There was a laugh at this, in which his Lordship joined.

"I would to God, Mr. Carvel," he said, "that I had no quarrel with you!"

"Amen to that, my Lord," I replied; "there are others here I would rather fight." And I gave a meaning look at Mr. Allen. I was of two minds to announce the scurvy trick he had played, but saw that I would lose rather than gain by the attempt. Up to that time the wretch had not spoken a word; now he pushed himself forward, though well clear of me.

"I think it my duty as Mr. Carvel's tutor, gentlemen, to protest against this matter proceeding," he said, a sneer creeping into his voice. "Nor can I be present at it. Mr. Carvel is young and, besides, is not himself with liquor. And, in the choice of politics, he knows not which leg he stands upon. My Lord and gentlemen, your most humble and devoted."

He made a bow and, before the retort on my lips could be spoken, left the tavern. My cousin Philip left with him. Tom Swain had fallen asleep in his chair.

Captain Collinson and Mr. Furness, of the Thunderer, offered to serve his Lordship, which made me bethink that I, too, would have need of some one. 'Twas then I remembered Singleton, who had passed from my mind.

He was standing close behind me, and nodded simply when I asked him. And Will Fotheringay came forward.

"I will act, Richard, if you allow me," he said. "I would have you know I am in no wise hostile to you, my Lord, and I am of the King's party. But I admire Mr. Carvel, and I may say I am not wholly out of sympathy with that which prompted his act."

It was a noble speech, and changed Will in my eyes; and I thanked him with warmth. He of all that company had the courage to oppose his Lordship!

Mr. Claude was called in and, as is the custom in such cases, was told that some of us would play awhile above. He was asked for his private room. The good man had his suspicions, but could not refuse a party of such distinction, and sent a drawer thither with wine and cards. Presently we followed, leaving the pack of toadies in sad disappointment below.

We gathered about the table and made shift at loo until the fellow had retired, when the seconds proceeded to clear the room of furniture, and Lord Comyn and I stripped off our coats and waistcoats. I had lost my anger, but felt no fear, only a kind of pity that blood should be shed between two so united in spirit as we. Yes, my dears, I thought of Dorothy. If I died, she would hear that it was like a man--like a Carvel. But the thought of my old grandfather tightened my heart. Then the clock on the inn stairs struck two, and the noise of harsh laughter floated up to us from below.

And Comyn,--of what was he thinking? Of some fair home set upon the downs across the sea, of some heroic English mother who had kept her tears until he was gone? Her image rose in dumb entreaty, invoked by the lad before me. What a picture was he in his spotless shirt with the ruffles, his handsome boyish face all that was good and honest!

I had scarce felt his Lordship's wrist than I knew I had to deal with a pupil of Angelo. At first his attacks were all simple, without feint or trickery, as were mine. Collinson cursed and cried out that it was buffoonery, and called on my Lord not to let me off so easily; swore that I fenced like a mercer, that he could have stuck me like a pin-cushion twenty and twenty times. Often have I seen two animals thrust into a pit with nothing but good-will between them, and those without force them into anger and a deadly battle. And so it was, unconsciously, between Comyn and me. I forgot presently that I was not dealing with Captain Collinson, and my feelings went into my sword. Comyn began to press me, nor did I give back. And then, before it came over me that we had to do with life and death, he was upon me with a volte coupe, feinting in high carte and thrusting in low tierce, his point passing through a fold in my shirt. And I were not alive to write these words had I not leaped out of his measure.

"Bravo, Richard!" cried Fotheringay.

"Well made, gads life!" from Mr. Furness.

We engaged again, our faces hot. Now I knew that if I did not carry the matter against him I should be killed out of hand, and Heaven knows I was not used to play a passive part. I began to go carefully, but fiercely; tried one attack after another that my grandfather and Captain Daniel had taught me,--flanconnades, beats, and lunges. Comyn held me even, and in truth I had much to do to defend myself. Once I thought I had him in the sword-arm, after a circular parry, but he was too quick for me. We were sweating freely by now, and by reason of the buzzing in my ears I could scarce hear the applause of the seconds.

What unlucky chance it was I know not that impelled Comyn to essay again the trick by which he had come so near to spitting me; but try it he did, this time in prime and seconde. I had come by nature to that intuition which a true swordsman must have, gleaned from the eyes of his adversary. Long ago Captain Daniel had taught me the remedy for this coupe. I parried, circled, and straightened, my body in swift motion and my point at Comyn's heart, when Heaven brought me recollection in the space of a second. My sword rang clattering on the floor.

His Lordship understood, but too late. Despairing his life, he made one wild lunge at me that had never gone home had I held to my hilt. But the rattle of the blade had scarce reached my ears when there came a sharp pain at my throat, and the room faded before me. I heard the clock striking the half-hour.

I was blessed with a sturdy health such as few men enjoy, and came to myself sooner than had been looked for, with a dash of cold water. And the first face I beheld was that of Colonel Washington. I heard him speaking in a voice that was calm, yet urgent and commanding.

"I pray you, gentlemen, give back. He is coming to, and must have air. Fetch some linen!"

"Now God be praised!" I heard Captain Daniel cry.

With that his Lordship began to tear his own shirt into strips, and the captain bringing a bowl and napkin, the colonel himself washed the wound and bound it deftly, Singleton and Captain Daniel assisting. When Mr. Washington had finished, he turned to Comyn, who stood, anxious and dishevelled, at my feet.

"You may be thankful that you missed the artery, my Lord," he said.

"With all my heart, Colonel Washington!" cried his Lordship. "I owe my life to his generosity."

"What's that, sir?"

Mr. Carvel dropped his sword, rather than run me through."

"I'll warrant!" Captain Daniel put in; "'Od's heart! The lad has skill to point the eye of a button. I taught him myself."

Colonel Washington stood up and laid his hand on the captain's arm.

"He is Jack Carvel over again," I heard him say, in a low voice.

I tried to struggle to my feet, to speak, but he restrained me. And sending for his servants, he ordered them to have his baggage removed from the Roebuck, which was the best bed in the house. At this moment the door opened, and Mr. Swain came in hurriedly.

"I pray you, gentlemen," he cried, "and he is fit to be moved, you will let me take him to Marlboro' Street. I have a chariot at the door."

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XV. OF WHICH THE RECTOR HAS THE WORST

'Twas late when I awoke the next day with something of a dull ache in my neck, and a prodigious stiffness, studying the pleatings of the bed canopy over my head. And I know not how long I lay idly thus when I perceived Mrs. Willis moving quietly about, and my grandfather sitting in the armchair by the window, looking into Freshwater Lane. As my eyes fell upon him my memory came surging back,--first of the duel, then of its cause. And finally, like a leaden weight, the thought of the deception I had practised upon him, of which he must have learned ere this. Nay, I was sure from the troubled look of his face that he knew of it.

"Mr. Carvel," I said.

At the sound of my voice he got hastily from his chair and hurried to my side.

"Richard," he answered, taking my hand, "Richard!"

I opened my mouth to speak, to confess. But he prevented me, the tears filling the wrinkles around his eyes.

"Nay, lad, nay. We will not talk of it. I know all."

"Mr. Allen has been here--" I began.

"And be d--d to him! Be d--d to him for a wolf in sheep's clothing!" shouted my grandfather, his manner shifting so suddenly to anger that I was taken back. "So help me God I will never set foot in St. Anne's while he is rector. Nor shall he come to this house!"

And he took three or four disorderly turns about the room.

"Ah!" he continued more quietly, with something of a sigh, "I might have known how stubborn your mind should be. That you was never one to blow from the north one day and from the south the next. I deny not that there be good men and able of your way of thinking: Colonel Washington, for one, whom I admire and honour; and our friend Captain Daniel. They have been here to-day, Richard, and I promise you were good advocates."

Then I knew that I was forgiven. And I could have thrown myself at Mr. Carvel's feet for happiness.

"Has Colonel Washington spoken in my favour, sir?"

"That he has. He is upon some urgent business for the North, I believe, which he delayed for your sake. Both he and the captain were in my dressing-room before I was up, ahead of that scurrilous clergyman, who was for pushing his way to my bed-curtains. Ay, the two of them were here at nigh dawn this morning, and Mr. Allen close after them. And I own that Captain Daniel can swear with such a consuming violence as to put any rogue out of countenance. 'Twas all Mr. Washington could do to restrain Clapsaddle from booting his Reverence over the balustrade and down two runs of the stairs, the captain declaring he would do for every cur's son of the whelps. 'Diomedes,' says I, waking up, 'what's this damnable racket on the landing? Is Mr. Richard home?' For I had some notion it was you, sir, after an over-night brawl. And I profess I would have caned you soundly. The fellow answered that Captain Clapsaddle's honour was killing Mr. Allen, and went out; and came back presently to say that some tall gentleman had the captain by the neck, and that Mr. Allen was picking his way down the ice on the steps outside. With that I went in to them in my dressing-gown.

"'What's all this to-do, gentlemen?' said I.

"'I'd have finished that son of a dog,' says the captain, 'and Colonel Washington had let me.'

"'What, what!' said I. 'How now? What! Drive a clergyman from my house gentlemen?'

"'What's Richard been at now?'

"Mr. Washington asked me to dress, saying that they had something very particular to speak about; that they would stay to breakfast with me, tho' they were in haste to be gone to New York. I made my compliments to the colonel and had them shown to the library fire, and hurried down after them. Then they told me of this affair last night, and they cleared you, sir. 'Faith,' cried I, 'and I would have fought, too. The lad was in the right of it, though I would have him a little less hasty.' D--n me if I don't wish you had knocked that sea captain's teeth into his throat, and his brains with them. I like your spirit, sir. A pox on such men as he, who disgrace his Majesty's name and set better men against him."

"And they told you nothing else, sir?" I asked, with misgiving.

"That they did. Mr. Washington repeated the confession you made to them, sir, in a manner that did you credit. He made me compliments on you, --said that you were a man, sir, though a trifle hasty: in the which I agreed. Yes, d--n me, a trifle hasty like your father. I rejoice that you did not kill his Lordship, my son."

The twilight was beginning; and the old gentleman going back to his chair was set amusing, gazing out across the bare trees and gables falling gray after the sunset.

What amazed me was that he did not seem to be shocked by the revelation near as much as I had feared. So this matter had brought me happiness where I looked for nothing but sorrow.

"And the gentlemen are gone north, sir?" said I, after a while.

"Yes, Richard, these four hours. I commanded an early dinner for them, since the colonel was pleased to tarry long enough for a little politics and to spin a glass. And I profess, was I to live neighbours with such a man, I might come to his way of thinking, despite myself. Though I say it that shouldn't, some of his Majesty's ministers are d--d rascals."

I laughed. As I live, I never hoped to hear such words from my grandfather's lips.

"He did not seek to convince, like so many of your hotheaded know-it-alls," said Mr. Carvel; "he leaves a man to convince himself. He has great parts, Richard, and few can stand before him." He paused. And then his smooth-shaven face became creased in a roguish smile which I had often seen upon it. "What baggage is this I hear of that you quarrelled over at the assembly? Ah, Sir, I fear you are become but a sad rake!" says he.

But by great good fortune Dr. Leiden was shown in at this instant. And the candles being lighted, he examined my neck, haranguing the while in his vile English against the practice of duelling. He bade me keep my bed for two days, thereby giving me no great pleasure.

"As I hope to live," said Mr. Carvel when the doctor was gone, "one would have thought his Excellency himself had been pinked instead of a whip of a lad, for the people who have been here. His Lordship and Dr. Courtenay came before the hunt, and young Mr. Fotheringay, and half a score of others. Mr. Swain is but now left to go to Baltimore on some barrister's business."

I was burning to learn what the rector had said to Patty, but it was plain Mr. Carvel knew nothing of this part of the story. He had not mentioned Grafton among the callers. I wondered what course my uncle would now pursue, that his plans to alienate me from my grandfather had failed. And I began debating whether or not to lay the whole plot before Mr. Carvel. Prudence bade me wait, since Grafton had not consorted with the rector openly, at least--for more than a year. And yet I spoke.

"Mr. Carvel!"

He stirred in his chair.

"Yes, my son."

He had to repeat, and still I held my tongue. Even as I hesitated there came a knock at the door, and Scipio entered, bearing candles.

"Massa Grafton, suh," he said.

My uncle was close at his heels. He was soberly dressed in dark brown silk, and his face wore that expression of sorrow and concern he knew how to assume at will. After greeting his father with his usual ceremony, he came to my bedside and asked gravely how I did.

"How now, Grafton!" cried Mr. Carvel; "this is no funeral. The lad has only a scratch, thank God!"

My uncle looked at me and forced a smile.

"Indeed I am rejoiced to find you are not worried over this matter, father," said he. "I am but just back from Kent to learn of it, and looked to find you in bed."

"Why, no, sir, I am not worried. I fought a duel in my own day,--over a lass, it was."

This time Grafton's smile was not forced.

"Over a lass, was it?" he asked, and added in a tone of relief, "and how do you, nephew?"

Mr. Carvel saved me from replying.

"'Od's life!" he cried; "no, I did not say this was over a lass. I have heard the whole matter; how Captain Collinson, who is a disgrace to the service, brought shame upon his Majesty's supporters, and how Richard felled the young lord instead. I'll be sworn, and I had been there, I myself would have run the brute through."

My uncle did not ask for further particulars, but took a chair, and a dish of tea from Scipio. His smug look told me plainer than words that he thought my grandfather still ignorant of my Whig sentiments.

"I often wish that this deplorable practice of duelling might be legislated against," he remarked. "Was there no one at the Coffee House with character enough to stop the lads?"

Here was my chance.

"Mr. Allen was there," I said.

"A devil's plague upon him!" shouted my grandfather, beating the floor with his stick. "And the lying hypocrite ever crosses my path, by gad's life! I'll tear his gown from his back!"

I watched Grafton narrowly. Such as he never turn pale, but he set down his tea so hastily as to spill the most of it on the dresser.

"Why, you astound me, my dear father!" he faltered; "Mr. Allen a lying hypocrite? What can he have done?"

"Done!" cried my grandfather, sputtering and red as a cherry with indignation. "He is as rotten within as a pricked pear, I tell you, sir! For the sake of retaining the lad in his tuition he came to me and lied, sir, just after I had escaped death, and said that by his influence Richard had become loyal, and set dependence upon Richard's fear of the shock 'twould give me if he confessed--Richard, who never told me a falsehood in his life! And instead of teaching him, he has gamed with the lad at the rectory. I dare make oath he has treated your son to a like instruction. 'Slife, sir, and he had his deserts, he would hang from a gibbet at the Town Gate."

I raised up in bed to see the effect of this on my uncle. But however the wind veered, Grafton could steer a course. He got up and began pacing the room, and his agitation my grandfather took for indignation such as his own.

"The dog!" he cried fiercely. "The villain! Philip shall leave him to-morrow. And to think that it was I who moved you to put Richard to him!"

His distress seemed so real that Mr. Carvel replied:

"No, Grafton, 'twas not your fault. You were deceived as much as I. You have put your own son to him. But if I live another twelve hours I shall write his Lordship to remove him. What! You shake your head, sir!"

"It will not do," said my uncle. "Lord Baltimore has had his reasons for sending such a scoundrel--he knew what he was, you may be sure, father. His Lordship, sir, is the most abandoned rake in London, and that unmentionable crime of his but lately in the magazines--"

"Yes, yes," my grandfather interrupted; "I have seen it. But I will publish him in Annapolis."

My uncle's answer startled me, so like was it to the argument Colonel Washington himself had used.

"What would you publish, sir? Mr. Allen will reply that what he did was for the lad's good, and your own. He may swear that since Richard mentioned politics no more he had taken his conversion for granted."

My grandfather groaned, and did not speak, and I saw the futility of attempting to bring Grafton to earth for a while yet.

My uncle had recovered his confidence. He had hoped, so he said, that I had become a good loyalist: perchance as I grew older I would see the folly of those who called themselves Patriots. But my grandfather cried out to him not to bother me then. And when at last he was gone, of my own volition I proposed to promise Mr. Carvel that, while he lived, I would take no active part in any troubles that might come. He stopped me with some vehemence.

"I pray God there may be no troubles, lad," he answered; "but you need give me no promise. I would rather see you in the Whig ranks than a trimmer, for the Carvels have ever been partisans."

I tried to express my gratitude. But he sighed and wished me good night, bidding me get some rest.

I had scarce finished my breakfast the next morning when I heard a loud rat-tat-tat upon the street door-surely the footman of some person of consequence. And Scipio was in the act of announcing the names when, greatly to his disgust, the visitors themselves rushed into my bedroom and curtailed the ceremony. They were none other than Dr. Courtenay and my Lord Comyn himself. His Lordship had no sooner seen me than he ran to the bed, grasped both my hands and asked me how I did, declaring he would not have gone to yesterday's hunt had he been permitted to visit me.

"Richard," cried the doctor, "your fame has sprung up like Jonah's gourd. The Gazette is but just distributed. Here's for you! 'Twill set the wags a-going, I'll warrant."

He drew the newspaper from his pocket and began to read, stopping now and anon to laugh:

"Rumour hath it that a Young Gentleman of Quality of this Town, who is possessed of more Valour than Discretion, and whose Skill at Fence and in the Field is beyond his Years, crossed Swords on Wednesday Night with a Young Nobleman from the Thunderer. The Cause of this Deplorable Quarrel, which had its Origin at the Ball, is purported to have been a Young Lady of Wit and Beauty. (& we doubt it not; for, alas! the Sex hath Much to answer for of this Kind.)

"The Gentlemen, with their Seconds, repaired after the Assembly to the Coffee House. 'Tis said upon Authority that H-s L-dsh-p owes his Life to the Noble Spirit of our Young American, who cast down his Blade rather than sheathe it in his Adversary's Body, thereby himself receiving a Grievous, the' happily not Mortal, Wound. Our Young Gentleman is become the Hero of the Town, and the Subject of Prodigious Anxiety of all the Ladies thereof."

"There's for you, my lad!" says he; "Mr. Green has done for you both cleverly."

"Upon my soul," I cried, raising up in bed, "he should be put in the gatehouse for his impudence! My Lord,--"

"Don't 'My Lord' me," says Comyn; "plain 'Jack' will do."

There was no resisting such a man: and I said as much. And took his hand and called him 'Jack,' the doctor posing before the mirror the while, stroking his rues. "Out upon you both," says he, "for a brace of sentimental fools!"

"Richard," said Comyn, presently, with a roguish glance at the doctor, "there were some reason in our fighting had it been over a favour of Miss Manners. Eh? Come, doctor," he cried, "you will break your neck looking for the reflection of wrinkles. Come, now, we must have little Finery's letter. I give you my word Chartersea is as ugly as all three heads of Cerberus, and as foul as a ship's barrel of grease. I tell you Miss Dorothy would sooner marry you."

"And she might do worse, my Lord," the doctor flung back, with a strut.

"Ay, and better. But I promise you Richard and I are not such fools as to think she will marry his Grace. We must have the little coxcomb's letter."

"Well, have it you must, I suppose," returns the doctor. And with that he draws it from his pocket, where he has it buttoned in. Then he took a pinch of Holland and began.

The first two pages had to deal with Miss Dorothy's triumph, to which her father made full justice. Mr. Manners world have the doctor (and all the province) to know that peers of the realm, soldiers, and statesmen were at her feet. Orders were as plentiful in his drawing-room as the candles. And he had taken a house in Arlington Street, where Horry Walpole lived when not at Strawberry, and their entrance was crowded night and day with the footmen and chairmen of the grand monde. Lord Comyn broke in more than once upon the reading, crying,--"Hear, hear!" and,--"My word, Mr. Manners has not perjured himself thus far. He has not done her justice by half." And I smiled at the thought that I had aspired to such a beauty!

"'Entre noes, mon cher Courtenay,' Mr. Manners writes, 'entre noes, our Dorothy hath had many offers of great advantage since she hath been here. And but yesterday comes a chariot with a ducal coronet to our door. His Grace of Chartersea, if you please, to request a private talk with me. And I rode with him straightway to his house in Hanover Square.'"

"'Egad! And would gladly have ridden straightway to Newgate, in a ducal chariot!" cried his Lordship, in a fit of laughter.

"'I rode to Hanover Square,' the doctor continued, 'where we discussed the matter over a bottle. His Grace's generosity was such that I could not but cry out at it, for he left me to name any settlement I pleased. He must have Dorothy at any price, said he. And I give you my honour, mon cher Courtenay, that I lost no time in getting back to Arlington Street, and called Dorothy down to tell her.'"

"Now may I be flayed," said Comyn, "if ever there was such another ass!"

The doctor took more snuff and fell a-laughing.

"But hark to this," said he, "here's the cream of it all:

"You will scarce believe me when I say that the baggage was near beside herself with anger at what I had to tell her. 'Marry that misshapen duke!' cries she, 'I would quicker marry Doctor Johnson!' And truly, I begin to fear she hath formed an affection for some like, foul-linened beggar. That his Grace is misshapen I cannot deny; but I tried reason upon her. 'Think of the coronet, my dear, and of the ancient name to which it belongs.' She only stamps her foot and cries out:

"'Coronet fiddlesticks! And are you not content with the name you bear, sir?" 'Our name is good as any in the three kingdoms,' said I, with truth. 'Then you would have me, for the sake of the coronet, joined to a wretch who is steeped in debauchery. Yes, debauchery, sir! You might then talk, forsooth, to the macaronies of Maryland, of your daughter the Duchess.'"

"There's spirit for you, my lad!" Comyn shouted; "I give you Miss Dorothy." And he drained a glass of punch Scipio had brought in, Doctor Courtenay and I joining him with a will.

"I pray you go on, sir," I said to the doctor.

"A pest on your impatience!" replied he; "I begin to think you are in love with her yourself."

"To be sure he is," said Comyn; "he had lost my esteem and he were not."

The doctor gave me an odd look. I was red enough, indeed.

"'I could say naught, my dear Courtenay, to induce her to believe that his Grace's indiscretions arose from the wildness of youth. And I pass over the injustice she hath unwittingly done me, whose only efforts are for her bettering. The end of it all was that I must needs post back to the duke, who was stamping with impatience up and down, and drinking Burgundy. I am sure I meant him no offence, but told him in as many words, that my daughter had refused him. And, will you believe me, sir? He took occasion to insult me (I cannot with propriety repeat his speech), and he flung a bottle after me as I passed out the door. Was he not far gone in wine at the time, I assure you I had called him out for it.'"

"And, gentlemen," said the doctor, when our merriment was somewhat spent, "I'll lay a pipe of the best Madeira, that our little fool never knows the figure he has cut with his Grace."

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XVI. IN WHICH SOME THINGS ARE MADE CLEAR

The Thunderer weighed the next day, Saturday, while I was still upon my back, and Comyn sailed with her. Not, however, before I had seen him again. Our affection was such as comes not often to those who drift together to part. And he left me that sword with the jewelled hilt, that hangs above my study fire, which he had bought in Toledo. He told me that he was heartily sick of the navy; that he had entered only in respect for a wish of his father's, the late Admiral Lord Comyn, and that the Thunderer was to sail for New York, where he looked for a release from his commission, and whence he would return to England. He would carry any messages to Miss Manners that I chose to send. But I could think of none, save to beg him to remind her that she was constantly in my thoughts. He promised me, roguishly enough, that he would have thought of a better than that by the time he sighted Cape Clear. And were I ever to come to London he would put me up at Brooks's Club, and warrant me a better time and more friends than ever had a Caribbee who came home on a visit.

My grandfather kept his word in regard to Mr. Allen, and on Sunday commanded the coach at eight. We drove over bad roads to the church at South River. And he afterwards declined the voluntary aid he hitherto had been used to give to St. Anne's. In the meantime, good Mr. Swain had called again, bringing some jelly and cake of Patty's own making; and a letter writ out of the sincerity of her heart, full of tender concern and of penitence. She would never cease to blame herself for the wrong she now knew she had done me.

Though still somewhat weak from my wound and confinement, after dinner that Sunday I repaired to Gloucester Street. From the window she saw me coming, and, bare-headed, ran out in the cold to meet me. Her eyes rested first on the linen around my throat, and she seemed all in a fire of anxiety.

"I had thought you would come to-day, when I heard you had been to South River," she said.

I was struck all of a sudden with her looks. Her face was pale, and I saw that she had suffered as much again as I. Troubled, I followed her into the little library. The day was fading fast, and the leaping flames behind the andirons threw fantastic shadows across the beams of the ceiling. We sat together in the deep window.

"And you have forgiven me, Richard?" she asked.

"An hundred times," I replied. "I deserved all I got, and more."

"If I had not wronged and insulted you--"

"You did neither, Patty," I broke in; "I have played a double part for the first and last time in my life, and I have been justly punished for it."

"'Twas I sent you to the Coffee House," she cried, "where you might have been killed. How I despise myself for listening to Mr. Allen's tales!"

"Then it was Mr. Allen!" I exclaimed, fetching a long breath.

"Yes, yes; I will tell you all."

"No," said I, alarmed at her agitation; "another time."

"I must," she answered more calmly; "it has burned me enough. You recall that we were at supper together, with Betty Tayloe and Lord Comyn, and how merry we were, altho' 'twas nothing but 'Dorothy' with you gentlemen. Then you left me. Afterwards, as I was talking with Mr. Singleton, the rector came up. I never have liked the man, Richard, but I little knew his character. He began by twitting me for a Whig, and presently he said: 'But we have gained one convert, Miss Swain, who sees the error of his ways. Scarce a year since young Richard Carvel promised to be one of those with whom his Majesty will have to reckon. And he is now become,' --laughing,--'the King's most loyal and devoted.' I was beside myself. 'That is no subject for jest, Mr. Allen,' I cried; I will never believe it of him!' 'Jest!' said he; I give you my word I was never soberer in my life.' Then it all came to me of a sudden that you sat no longer by the hour with my father, as you used, and you denounced the King's measures and ministers no more. My father had spoken of it. 'Tell me why he has changed?' I asked, faltering with doubt of you, which I never before had felt. 'Indeed, I know not,' replied the rector, with his most cynical smile; unless it is because old Mr. Carvel might disinherit a Whig. But I see you doubt my word, Miss Swain. Here is Mr. Carroll, and you may ask him.' God forgive me, Richard! I stopped Mr. Carroll, who seemed mightily surprised. And he told me yes, that your grandfather had said but a few days before, and with joy, that you were now of his Majesty's party."

"Alas! I might have foreseen this consequence," I exclaimed. "Nor do I blame you, Patty."

"But my father has explained all," Patty continued, brightening. "His admiration for you is increased tenfold, Richard. Your grandfather told him of the rector's treachery, which he says is sufficient to make him turn Methodist or Lutheran. We went to the curate's service to-day. And --will you hear more, sir? Or do your ears burn? That patriots and loyalists are singing your praises from Town Gate to the dock, and regretting that you did not kill that detestable Captain Collinson--but I have something else, and of more importance, to tell you, Richard," she continued, lowering her voice.

"What Mr. Carroll had told me stunned me like a blow, such had been my faith in you. And when Mr. Allen moved off, I stood talking to Percy Singleton and his Lordship without understanding a word of the conversation. I could scarce have been in my right mind. It was not your going over to the other side that pained me so, for all your people are Tories. But I had rather seen you dead than a pretender and a hypocrite, selling yourself for an inheritance. Then you came. My natural impulse should have been to draw you aside and there accuse you. But this was beyond my strength. And when I saw you go away without a word I knew that I had been unjust. I could have wept before them all. Mr. Carroll went for his coach, and was a full half an hour in getting it. But this is what I would tell you in particular, Richard. I have not spoken of it to a soul, and it troubles me above all else: While Maria was getting my cardinal I heard voices on the other side of the dressing-room door. The supper-room is next, you know. I listened, and recognized the rector's deep tones: 'He has gone to the Coffee House,' he was saying; Collinson declares that his Lordship is our man, if we can but contrive it. He is the best foil in the service, and was taught by--there! I have forgot the name."

"Angelo!" I cried.

"Yes, yes, Angelo it was. How did you know?" she demanded, rising in her excitement.

"Angelo is the great fencing-master of London," I replied.

"When I heard that," she said, "I had no doubt of your innocence. I ran out into the assembly room as I was, in my hood, and tried to find Tom. But he--" She paused, ashamed.

"Yes, I know," I said hurriedly; "you could not find him."

She glanced at me in gratitude.

"How everybody stared at me! But little I cared! 'Twas that gave rise to Mr. Green's report. I thought of Percy Singleton, and stopped him in the midst of a dance to bid him run as fast as his legs would carry him to the Coffee House, and to see that no harm befell you. 'I shall hold you responsible for Richard,' I whispered. 'You must get him away from Mr. Claude's, or I shall never speak to you again.' He did not wait to ask questions, but went at once, like the good fellow he is. Then I rode home with Maria. I would not have Mr. Carroll come with me, though he begged hard. Father was in here, writing his brief. But I was all in pieces, Richard, and so shaken with sobbing that I could tell him no more than that you had gone to the Coffee House, where they meant to draw you into a duel. He took me up to my own room, and I heard him going out to wake Limbo to harness, and at last heard him driving away in our coach. I hope I may never in my life spend such another hour as I passed then."

The light in the sky had gone out. I looked up at the girl before me as she stood gazing into the flame, her features in strong relief, her lips parted, her hair red-gold, and the rounded outlines of her figure softened. I wondered why I had never before known her beauty. Perchance it was because, until that night, I had never seen her heart.

I leaped to my feet and seized her hands. For a second she looked at me, startled. Then she tore them away and ran behind the dipping chair in the corner.

"Richard, Richard!" she exclaimed. "Did Dorothy but know!"

"Dorothy is occupied with titles," I said.

Patty's lip quivered. And I knew, blundering fool that I was, that I had hurt her.

"Oh, you wrong her!" she cried; "believe me when I say that she loves you, and you only, Richard."

"Loves me!" I retorted bitterly,--brutally, I fear. "No. She may have once, long ago. But now her head is turned."

"She loves you now," answered Patty, earnestly; "and I think ever will, if you but deserve her."

And with that she went away, leaving me to stare after her in perplexity and consternation.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XVII. SOUTH RIVER

My grandfather's defection from St. Anne's called forth a deal of comment in Annapolis. His Excellency came to remonstrate, but to no avail, and Mr. Carvel denounced the rector in such terms that the Governor was glad to turn the subject. My Uncle Grafton acted with such quickness and force as would have served to lull the sharpest suspicions. He forbid the rector his house, attended the curate's service, and took Philip from his care. It was decided that both my cousin and I were to go to King's College after Christmas. Grafton's conduct greatly pleased my grandfather. "He has behaved very loyally in this matter, Richard." he said to me. "I grow to reproach myself more every day for the injustice I once did him. He is heaping coals of fire upon my old head. But, faith! I cannot stomach your Aunt Caroline. You do not seem to like your uncle, lad."

I answered that I did not.

"It was ever the Carvel way not to forget," he went on. "Nevertheless, Grafton hath your welfare at heart, I think. His affection for you as his brother's son is great."

O that I had spoken the words that burned my tongue!

Christmas fell upon Monday of that year, 1769. There was to be a ball at Upper Marlboro on the Friday before, to which many of us were invited. Though the morning came in with a blinding snowstorm from the north, the first of that winter, about ten of the clock we set out from Annapolis an exceeding merry party, the ladies in four coaches-and-six, the gentlemen and their servants riding at the wheels. We laughed and joked despite the storm, and exchanged signals with the fair ones behind the glasses.

But we had scarce got two miles beyond the town gate when a messenger overtook us with a note for Mr. Carvel, writ upon an odd slip of paper, and with great apparent hurry:

HONOURED SIR,

"I have but just come to Annapolis from New York, with Instructions to put into your Hands, & no Others, a Message of the greatest Import. Hearing you are but now set out for Upper Marlboro I beg of you to return for half an Hour to the Coffee House. By so doing you will be of service to a Friend, and confer a Favour upon y'r most ob'd't Humble Servant,

"SILAS RIDGEWAY."

Our cavalcade had halted while I read, the ladies letting down the glasses and leaning out in their concern lest some trouble had befallen me or my grandfather. I answered them and bade them ride on, vowing that I would overtake the coaches before they reached the Patuxent. Then I turned Cynthia's head for town, with Hugo at my heels.

Patty, leaning from the window of the last coach, called out to me as I passed. I waved my hand in return, and did not remember until long after the anxiety in her eyes.

As I rode, and I rode hard, I pondered over the words of this letter. I knew not this Mr. Ridgeway from the Lord Mayor of London; but I came to the conclusion before I had reprised the gate that his message was from Captain Daniel. And I greatly feared that some evil had befallen my good friend. So I came to the Coffee House, and throwing my bridle to Hugo, I ran in.

I found Mr. Ridgeway neither in the long room nor in the billiard room nor the bar. Mr. Claude told me that indeed a man had arrived that morning from the North, a spare person with a hooked nose and scant hair, in a brown greatcoat with a torn cape. He had gone forth afoot half an hour since. His messenger, a negro lad whose face I knew, was in the stables with Hugo. He had never seen the stranger till he met him that morning in State House Circle inquiring for Mr. Carvel, and had been given a shilling to gallop after me. Impatient as I was to be gone, I sat me down in the coffee room, thinking every minute the man must return, and strongly apprehensive that Captain Daniel must be in some grave predicament. That the favour he asked was of such a nature as I, and not my grandfather, could best fulfil.

At length, about a quarter after noon, my man comes in with Mr. Claude close behind him. I liked his looks less than his description, and the moment I clapped eyes on him I knew that Captain Daniel had never chose such a messenger.

"This is Mr. Richard Carvel," said Mr. Claude.

The fellow made me a low bow, which I scarcely returned.

"I am sure, 'sir," he began in a whining voice, "that I crave your forbearance for this prodigious, stupid mistake I have made."

"Mistake!" I exclaimed hotly; "you mean to say, sir, that you have brought me back for nothing?"

The man's eye shifted, and he made me another bow.

"I scarce know what to say, Mr. Carvel," he answered with much humility; "to speak truth, 'twas zeal to my employers, and methought to you, that caused you to retrace your steps in this pestiferous storm. I travel," he proceeded with some importance, "I travel for Messrs. Rinnell and Runn, Barristers of the town of New York, and carry letters to men of mark all over these middle and southern colonies. And my instructions, sir, were to come to Annapolis with all reasonable speed with this double-sealed enclosure for Mr. Carvel: and to deliver it to him, and him only, the very moment I arrived. As I came through your town I made inquiries, and was told by a black fellow in the Circle that Mr. Carvel was but just left for Upper Marlboro with a cavalcade of four coaches-and-six and some dozen gentlemen with their servants. I am sure my mistake was pardonable, Mr. Carvel," he concluded with a smirk; "this gentleman was plainly of the first quality, as was he to whom I was directed. And as he was about to leave town for I knew not how long, I hope I was in the right in bidding the black ride after him, for I give you my word the business was most pressing for him. I crave your forgiveness, and the pleasure of drinking your honour's health."

I barely heard the fellow through, and was turning on my heel in disgust, when it struck me to ask him what Mr. Carvel he sought, for I feared lest my grandfather had got into some lawsuit.

"And it please your honour, Mr. Grafton Carvel," said he; "your uncle, I understand. Unfortunately he has gone to his estate in Kent County, whither I must now follow him."

I bade Mr. Claude summon my servant, not stopping to question the man further, such was my resentment against him. And in ten minutes we were out of the town again, galloping between the nearly filled tracks of the coaches, now three hours ahead of us. The storm was increasing, and the wind cutting, but I dug into Cynthia so that poor Hugo was put to it to hold the pace, and, tho' he had a pint of rum in him, was near perished with the cold. As my anger cooled somewhat I began to wonder how Mr. Silas Ridgeway, whoever he was, could have been such a simpleton as his story made him out. Indeed, he looked more the rogue than the ass; nor could I conceive how reliable barristers could hire such a one. I wished heartily that I had exhausted him further, and a suspicion crossed my brain that he might have come to Mr. Allen, who had persuaded him to deliver a letter to Grafton intended for me. Some foreboding beset me, and I was once close to a full mind for going back, and slacked Cynthia's pace to a trot. But the thought of the pleasures at Upper Marlboro' and the hope of overtaking the party at Mr. Dorsey's place, over the Patuxent, where they looked to dine, decided me in pushing on. And thus we came to South River, with the snow so thick that we could scarce see ten yards in front of us.

Beyond, the road winds up the hill'around the end of Mr. Wiley's plantation and plunges shortly into the woods, gray and cold indeed to-day. At their skirt a trail branches off which leads to Mr. Whey's warehouses, on the water's edge a mile or so below. And I marked that this path was freshly trodden. I recall a small shock of surprise at this, for the way was used only in the early autumn to connect with some fields beyond the hill. And then I heard a sharp cry from Hugo and pulled Cynthia short. He was some ten paces behind me.

"Marse Dick!" he shouted, the whites of his eyes rolled up. "We'se gwine to be robbed, Marse Dick." And he pointed to the footprints in the snow; "somefin done tole Hugo not come to-day."

"Nonsense!" I cried; "Mr. Wiley is making his lazy beggars cut wood against Christmas."

When in this temper the poor fellow had more fear of me than of aught else, and he closed up to my horse's flank, glancing apprehensively to the right and left, his teeth rattling. We went at a brisk trot. We know not, indeed, how to account for many things in this world, for with. each beat of Cynthia's feet I found myself repeating the words South River and Marlboro, and seeking in my mind a connection to something gone before. Then, like a sudden gust of wind, comes to me that strange talk between Grafton and the rector, overheard by old Harvey in the stables at Carvel Hall. And Cynthia's ears were pointing forward.

With a quick impulse I loosed the lower frogs of my coat, for my sword was buckled beneath, and was reaching for one of the brace of pistols in my saddle-bags. I had but released them when Hugo cried out: "Gawd, Marse Dick, run for yo' life!" and I caught a glimpse of him flying down the road. As I turned a shot rang out, Cynthia reared high with a rough brute of a fellow clinging to her bridle. I sent my charge full into his chest, and as he tumbled in the snow I dug my spurs to the rowels.

What happened then is still a blurred picture in my brain. I know that Cynthia was shot from under me before she had taken her leap, and we fell heavily together. And I was scarcely up again and my sword drawn, when the villains were pressing me from all sides. I remember spitting but one, and then I heard a great seafaring oath, the first word out of their mouths, and I was felled from behind with a mighty blow.

THE "BLACK MOLL"

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XVIII. THE "BLACK MOLL"

I have no intention, my dears, of dwelling upon that part of my adventures which must be as painful to you as to me, the very recollection of which, after all these years, suffices to cause the blood within me to run cold. In my youth men whose natures shrank not from encounter with their enemies lacked not, I warrant you, a checkered experience. Those of us who are wound the tightest go the farthest and strike the hardest. Nor is it difficult for one, the last of whose life is being recorded, to review the outspread roll of it, and trace the unerring forces which have drawn for themselves.

Some, indeed, traverse this world weighing, before they partake, pleasure and business alike. But I am not sure, my children, that they better themselves; or that God, in His all-wise judgment, prefers them to such as are guided by the divine impulse with which He has endowed them. Far be it from me to advise rashness or imprudence, as such; nor do I believe you will take me so. But I say unto you: do that which is right, and let God, not man, be your interpreter.

My narrative awaits me.

I came to my wits with an immoderate feeling of faintness and sickness, with no more remembrance of things past than has a man bereft of reason. And for some time I swung between sense and oblivion before an overpowering stench forced itself upon my nostrils, accompanied by a creaking, straining sound and sweeping motion. I could see nothing for the pitchy blackness. Then I recalled what had befallen me, and cried aloud to God in my anguish, for I well knew I had been carried aboard ship, and was at sea. I had oftentimes heard of the notorious press-gang which supplied the need of the King's navy, and my first thought was that I had fallen in their clutches. But I wondered that they had dared attack a person of my consequence.

I had no pain. I lay in a bunk that felt gritty and greasy to the touch, and my hair was matted behind by a clot of blood. I had been stripped of my clothes, and put into some coarse and rough material, the colour and condition of which I could not see for want of light. I began to cast about me, to examine the size of the bunk, which I found to be narrow, and plainly at some distance from the deck, for I laid hold upon one of the rough beams above me. By its curvature I knew it to be a knee, and thus I came to the caulked sides of the vessel, and for the first time heard the rattling thud and swish of water on the far side of it. I had no sooner made this discovery, which drew from me an involuntary groan, when a ship's lanthorn was of a sudden thrust over me, and I perceived behind it a head covered with shaggy hair and beard, and beetling brows. Never had I been in such a terrifying presence.

"Damn my blood and bones, life signals at last! Another three bells gone, my silks and laces, and we had given you to the sharks."

The man hung his lanthorn to a hook on the beam, and thrust a case-bottle of rum toward me, at the same time biting off a great quid of tobacco. For all my alarm I saw that his manner was not unkindly, and as I was conscious of a consuming thirst I seized and tipped it eagerly.

"'Tis no fine Madeira, my blood," said he, "such as I fancy your palate is acquainted with. Yet 'tis as fair a Jamaica as ever Griggs put ashore i' the dark."

"Griggs!" I cried, the whole affair coming to me: Griggs, Upper Marlboro', South River, Grafton and the rector plotting in the stalls, and Mr. Silas Ridgeway the accomplice.

"Ay, Griggs," replied he; "ye may well repeat it, the-------, I'll lay a puncheon he'll be hailing you shortly. Guinea Griggs, Gold-Coast Griggs, Smuggler Griggs, Skull-and-Bones Griggs. Damn his soul and eyes, he hath sent to damnation many a ship's company."

He drained what remained of the bottle, took down the lanthorn, and left me sufficiently terrified to reflect upon my situation, which I found desperate enough, my dears. I have no words to describe what I went through in that vile, foul-smelling place. My tears flowed fast when I thought of my grandfather and of the dear friends I had left behind, and of Dorothy, whom I never hoped to see again. And then, perchance 'twas the rum put heart into me, I vowed I would face the matter show this cut-throat of a Griggs a bold front. Had he meant to murder me, I reflected, he had done the business long since. Then I fell asleep.

I awoke, I know not how soon, to discover the same shaggy countenance, and the lanthorn.

"Canst walk, Mechlin?" says he.

"I can try, at least," I answered.

He seemed pleased at this.

"You have courage a-plenty, and, by G--, you will have need of it all with that of a Griggs!" He gave me his bottle again, and assisted me down, and I found that my legs, save for the rocking of the ship, were steady enough. I followed him out of the hole in which I had lain on to a deck, which, in the half light, I saw covered with slush and filth. It was small, and but dimly illuminated by a hatchway, up the which I pushed after him, and then another. And so we came to the light of day, which near blinded me: so that I was fain to clap my hand to mine eyes, and stood for a space looking about me like a man dazed. The wind, tho' blowing stiff, was mild, and league after league of the green sea danced and foamed in the morning sunlight, and I perceived that I was on a large schooner under full sail, the crew of which were littered about at different occupations. Some gaming and some drinking, while on the forecastle two men were settling a dispute at fisticuffs. And they gave me no more notice, nor as much, than I had been a baboon thrust among them. From this indifference to a captive I augured no good. Then my conductor, whom I rightly judged to be the mate of this devil's crew, took me roughly by the shoulder and bade me accompany him to the cabin.

As we drew near the topgallant poop there sounded in my ears a noise like a tempest, which I soon became aware was a man swearing with a prodigious vehemence in a fog-horn of a voice. "Sdeath and wounds! Where is that dog-fish of a Cockle? Damn his entrails, and he is not come soon, I'll mast-head him naked, by the seven holy spritsails!" And much more and worse to the same tune until we passed the door and stood before him, when he let out an oath like the death-cry of a monster.

He was a short, lean man with a leathery face and long, black ropy hair, and beady black eyes that caught the light like a cat's. His looks, indeed, would have scared a timid person into a fit; but I resolved I would die rather than show the fear with which he inspired me. He was dressed in an old navy uniform with dirty lace. His cabin was bare enough, being scattered about with pistols and muskets and cutlasses, with a ragged pallet in one corner, and he sat behind an oaken table covered with greasy charts and spilled liquor and tobacco.

"So ho, you are risen from the dead, are you, my fine buck? Mr. What-do-they-call-you?" cried the captain, with a word as foul as any he had yet uttered. "By the Lord, you shall pay for running my bosun through!"

"And by the Lord, Captain What's-your-name," I cried back, for the rum I had taken had heated me, "you and your fellow-rascals shall pay in blood for this villanous injury!"

Griggs got to his feet and seized his hanger, his face like livid marble seamed with blue. And from force of habit I made motion for my sword, to make the shameful discovery that I was clothed from head to foot in linsey-woolsey.

"G-d---my soul," he roared, "if I don't slit you like a herring! The devil burn me to a cinder if I don't give your guts to the sharks!" And he made at me in such a fury that I would certainly have been cut to pieces had I not grasped a cutlass and parried his blow, Cockle looking on with his jaw dropped like a peak without haulyards. With a stroke of my weapon I disarmed Captain Griggs, his sword flying through the cabin window. For I made up my mind I would better die fighting than expire at a hideous torture, which I doubted not he would inflict, and so I took up a posture of defence, with one eye on the mate; despite the kind offices of the latter below I knew not whether he were disposed to befriend me before the captain. What was my astonishment, therefore, to behold Griggs's truculent manner change.

"Avast, my man-o-war," he cried; "blood and wounds! I had more than an eye when they brought thee aboard, else I would have killed thee like a sucking-pig under the forecastle, as I have given oath to do. By the Ghost, you are worth seven of that Roger Spratt whom you sent to hell in his boots."

Wherewith Cockle, who for all his terrible appearance stood in a mighty awe of his captain, set up a loud laugh, and vowed that Griggs knew a man when he spared me, and was cursed for his pains.

"So you were contracted to murder me, Captain Griggs?" said I.

"Ay," he replied, a devilish gleam coming into his eye, "but I have now got you and the money to boot. But harkye, I'll stand by my half of the bargain, by G--. If ever you reach Maryland alive, they may hang me to the yardarm of a ship-of-the-line."

And I live long enough, my dears, I hope some day to write for you the account of all that befell me on this slaver, Black Moll, for so she was called. 'Twould but delay my story now. Suffice it to say that we sailed for a fortnight or so in the West India seas. From some observations that fell from the mouth of Griggs I gathered that he was searching for an island which evaded him; and each day added to his vexation at not finding it. At times he was drunk for forty hours at a stretch, when he would shut himself in his cabin and leave his ship to the care of Cockle, who navigated with the sober portion of the crew. And such a lousy, brawling lot of convicts I had never clapped eyes upon. As for me, I was treated indifferently well, though 'twas in truth punishment enough to live in that filthy ship, to eat their shins of beef and briny pork and wormy biscuit, to wear rough clothes that chafed my skin. I shared Cockle's cabin, in every way as dirty a place as the den I had left, but with the advantage of air, for which I fervently thanked God.

I think the mate had some little friendship for me, though he was too hardened by the life he had led to care a deal what became of me. He encouraged me secretly to continue to beard Griggs as I had begun, saying that it was my sole chance of a whole skin, and vowing that if he had had the courage to pursue the same course his own back had not been checkered like a grating. He told me stories of the captain's cruelty which I dare not repeat for their very horror, and indeed I lacked not for instances to substantiate what he said; men with their backs beaten to a pulp, and others with ears cut off, and mouths slit, and toes missing. So that I lived in hourly fear lest in some drunken fit Griggs might command me to be tortured. But, fortunately, he held small converse with me, and when sober busied himself in trying to find the island and in cursing the fate by which it eluded him.

So I existed, and prayed daily for deliverance. I plied Cockle with questions as to what they purposed doing with me, but he was wont to turn sulky, and would answer me not a word. But once, when he was deeper in his cups than common, he let me know that Griggs was to sell me to a certain planter. You may well believe that this did not serve to liven my spirits.

At length, one morning, Captain Griggs came out of his cabin and climbed upon the poop, calling all hands aft to the quarterdeck. Whereupon he proceeded to make them a speech that for vileness exceeded aught I have ever heard before or since. He finished by reminding them that this was the anniversary of the scuttling of the sloop Jane, which had made them all rich a year before, off the Canaries; the day that he had sent three and twenty men over the plank to hell. Wherefore he decreed a holiday, as the weather was bright and the trades light, and would serve quadruple portions of rum to every man jack aboard; and they set up a cheer that started the Mother Careys astern.

I have no language to depict the bestiality of that day; and if I had I would think it sin to write of it. The helm was lashed on the port tack, the haulyards set taut, and all hands down to the lad who was the cook's scullion proceeded to get drunk. I took the precaution to have a hanger at my side and to slip one of Cockle's pistols within the band of my breeches. I was in an exquisite' agony of indecision as to what manner to act and how to defend myself from their drunken brutality, for I well knew that if I refused to imbibe with them I should probably be murdered for my abstemiousness; and, if I drank, the stuff was so near to alcohol that I could not hope to keep my senses. While in this predicament I received a polite invitation to partake in the captain's company, which I did not see my way clear to refuse, and repaired to the cabin accordingly.

There I found Griggs and Cockle seated, and a fair-sized barrel of rum between them that the captain had just moved thither. By way of welcome he shot at me a volley of curses and bade me to fill up, and through fear of offending him I took down my first mug with a fair good grace. Then, in his own particular language, he began the account of the capture of the Jane, taking care in the pauses to see that my mug was full. But, as luck would have it, he got no farther than the boarding by the Black Moll's crew, when he fell to squabbling with Cockle as to who had been the first man over the side; and while they were settling this difference I grasped the opportunity to escape.

The maudlin scene that met my eyes on deck defies description; some were fighting, others grinning with a hideous laughter, and still others shouting tavern jokes unspeakable. And suddenly, whilst I was observing these things from a niche behind the cabin door, I heard the captain cry from within, "The ensign, the ensign!" Forgetting his dispute with Cockle, he bumped past me and made his way with some trouble to the poop. I climbed the ladder after him, and to my horror beheld him in a drunken frenzy drag a black flag with a rudely painted skull and cross-bones from the signal-chest, and with uncertain fingers toggle it to the ensign haulyards and hoist to the peak, where it fluttered grimly in the light wind like an evil augur on a fair day. At sight of it the wretches on deck fell to shouting and huzzaing, Griggs standing leering up at it. Then he gravely pulled off his hat and made it a bow, and turned upon me.

"Salute it, ye lubberly! Ye are no first-rate here," he thundered. "Salute the flag!"

Unless fear had kept me sober, 'tis past my understanding why I was not as drunk as he. Be that as it may, I was near as quarrelsome, and would as soon have worshipped the golden calf as saluted that rag. I flung back some reply, and he lugged out and came at me with a spring like a wild beast; and his men below, seeing us fall out, made a rush for the poop with knives and cutlasses drawn. Betwixt them all I should soon have been in slivers had not the main shrouds offered themselves handy. And up them I sprung, the captain cutting at my legs as I left the sheer-pole, and I stopped not until I reached the schooner's cross-trees, where I drew my cutlass. They pranced around the mast and showered me with oaths, for all the world like a lot of howling dogs which had treed a cat.

I began to feel somewhat easier, and cried aloud that the first of them who came up after me would go down again in two pieces. Despite my warning a brace essayed to climb the ratlines, as pitiable an attempt as ever I witnessed, and fell to the deck again. 'Twas a miracle that they missed falling into the sea. And after a while, becoming convinced that they could not get at me, and being too far gone to shoot with any accuracy, they tumbled off the poop swearing to serve me in a hundred horrible ways when they caught me, and fell again to drinking and quarrelling amongst themselves. I was indeed in an unenviable plight, by no means sure that I would not be slain out of hand when they became sufficiently sober to capture me. As I marked the progress of their damnable orgy I cast about for some plan to take advantage of their condition. I observed that a stupor was already beginning to overcome a few of them. Then suddenly an incident happened to drive all else from my mind.

Nothing less, my dears, than a white speck of sail gleaming on the southern horizon!

For an hour I watched it, now in a shiver of apprehension lest it pass us by, now weeping in an ecstasy of joy over a possible deliverance. But it grew steadily larger, and when about three miles on our port bow I saw that the ship was a brigantine. Though she had long been in sight from our deck, 'twas not until now that she was made out by a man on the forecastle, who set up a cry that brought about him all who could reel thither, Griggs staggering out of his cabin and to the nettings. The sight sobered him somewhat, for he immediately shouted orders to cast loose the guns, himself tearing the breeching from the nine-pounder next him and taking out the tompion. About half the crew were in a liquorish stupor from which the trump itself could scarce have aroused them; the rest responded with savage oaths, swore that they would boil their suppers in the blood of the brigantine's men and give their corpses to the sea. They fell to work on the port battery in so ludicrous a manner that I was fain to laugh despite the gravity of the situation. But when they came to rig the powderhoist and a couple of them descended into the magazine with pipes lighted, I was in imminent expectation of being blown as high as a kite.

So absorbed had I been in these preparations that I neglected to watch the brigantine, which I discovered to be standing on and off in a very undecided manner, as though hesitating to attack. My spirits fell again at this, for with all my inexperience I knew her to be a better sailer than the Black Moll. Her master, as Griggs remarked, "was no d--d slouching lubber, and knew a yardarm from a rattan cane."

Finally, about six bells of the watch, the stranger wore ship and bore down across our bows, hoisting English colours, at sight of which I could scarce forbear a cheer. At this instant, Captain Griggs woke to the fact that his helm was still lashed, and bestowing a hearty kick on his prostrate quartermaster stuck fast to the pitchy seams of the deck, took the wheel himself, and easing off before the wind to bring the vessels broadside to broadside, commanded that the guns be shooed to the muzzle, an order that was barely executed before the brigantine came within close range. Aboard her was all order and readiness; the men at her guns fuse in hand, an erect and pompous figure of a man, in a cocked hat, on the break of her poop. He raised his hand, two puffs of white smoke darted out, and I heard first the shrieking of shot, the broadside came crashing round us, one tearing through the mainsail below me, another mangling two men in the waist of our schooner, and Griggs gave the order to touch off. But two of his guns answered, one of which had been so gorged with shot that it burst in a hundred pieces and sent the fellow with the swab to perdition, and such a hell of blood and confusion as resulted is indescribable. I saw Griggs in a wild fit of rage force the helm down, the schooner flying into the wind. And by this time, the brigantine having got round and presented her port battery, raked us at a bare hundred yards, and I was the first to guess by the tilting forward of the mast that our hull was hit between wind and water, and was fast settling by the bow.

The schooner was sinking like a gallipot.

That day, with the sea flashing blue and white in the sun, I saw men go to death with a curse upon their lips and a fever in their eyes, with murder and defiance of God's holy will in their hearts. Overtaken in bestiality, like the judgment of Nineveh, five and twenty disappeared from beneath me, and I had scarce the time to throw off my cutlass before I, too, was engulfed. So expired the Black Moll.

RICHARD CARVEL

By Winston Churchill

Volume 4.

XIX. A Man of Destiny XX. A Sad Home-coming XXI. The Gardener's Cottage XXII. On the Road XXIII. London Town XXIV. Castle Yard XXV. The Rescue

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XIX. A MAN OF DESTINY

I was picked up and thrown into the brigantine's long-boat with a head and stomach full of salt water, and a heart as light as spray with the joy of it all. A big, red-bearded man lifted my heels to drain me.

"The mon's deid," said he.

"Dead!" cried I, from the bottom-board. "No more dead than you!"

I turned over so lustily that he dropped my feet, and I sat up, something to his consternation. And they had scarce hooked the ship's side when I sprang up the sea-ladder, to the great gaping of the boat's crew, and stood with the water running off me in rivulets before the captain himself. I shall never forget the look of his face as he regarded my sorry figure.

"Now by Saint Andrew," exclaimed he, "are ye kelpie or pirate?"

"Neither, captain," I replied, smiling as the comical end of it came up to me, "but a young gentleman in misfortune."

"Hoots!" says he, frowning at the grinning half-circle about us, "it's daft ye are--"

But there he paused, and took of me a second sizing. How he got at my birth behind my tangled mat of hair and wringing linsey-woolsey I know not to this day. But he dropped his Scotch and merchant-captain's manner, and was suddenly a French courtier, making me a bow that had done credit to a Richelieu.

"Your servant, Mr.--"

"Richard Carvel, of Carvel Hall, in his Majesty's province of Maryland."

He seemed sufficiently impressed.

"Your very humble servant, Mr. Carvel. 'Tis in faith a privilege to be able to serve a gentleman."

He bowed me toward his cabin, and then in sharp, quick tones he gave an order to his mate to get under way, and I saw the men turning to the braces with wonder in their eyes. My own astonishment was as great. And so, with my clothes sucking to my body and a trail of water behind me like that of a wet walrus, I accompanied the captain aft. His quarters were indeed a contrast to those of Griggs, being so neat that I paused at the door for fear of profaning them; but was so courteously bid to enter that I came on again. He summoned a boy from the round house.

"William," said he, "a bottle of my French brandy. And my compliments to Mr. MacMuir, and ask him for a suit of clothes. You are a larger man than I, Mr. Carvel," he said to me, "or I would fit you out according to your station."

I was too overwhelmed to speak. He poured out a liberal three fingers of brandy, and pledged me as handsomely as I had been an admiral come thither in mine own barge, instead of a ragged lad picked off a piratical slaver, with nothing save my bare word and address. 'Twas then I had space to note him more particularly. His skin was the rich colour of a well-seasoned ship's bell, and he was of the middle height, owned a slight, graceful figure, tapering down at the waist like a top, which had set off a silk coat to perfection and soured the beaus with envy. His movements, however, had all the decision of a man of action and of force. But his eye it was took possession of me--an unfathomable, dark eye, which bore more toward melancholy than sternness, and yet had something of both. He wore a clean, ruffled shirt, an exceeding neat coat and breeches of blue broadcloth, with plate burnished buttons, and white cotton stockings. Truly, this was a person to make one look twice, and think oftener. Then, as I went to pledge him, I, too, was caught for his name.

"Paul," said he; "John Paul, of the brigantine John, of Kirkcudbright, in the West India trade."

"Captain Paul--" I began. But my gratitude stuck fast in my throat and flowed out of my eyes. For the thought of the horrors from which he had saved me for the first time swept over me; his own kind treatment overcame me, and I blubbered like a child. With that he turned his back.

"Hoots," says he, again, "dinna ye thank me. 'Tis naething to scuttle a nest of vermin, but the duty of ilka man who sails the seas." By this, having got the better of his emotion, he added: "And if it has been my good fortune to save a gentleman, Mr. Carvel, I thank God for it, as you must."

Save for a slackness inside the leg and in the hips, Macbluir's clothes fitted me well enough, and presently I reappeared in the captain's cabin rigged out in the mate's shore suit of purplish drab, and brass-buckled shoes that came high over the instep, with my hair combed clear and tied with a ribbon behind. I felt at last that I might lay some claim to respectability. And what was my surprise to find Captain Paul buried to his middle in a great chest, and the place strewn about with laced and broidered coats and waistcoats, frocks and Newmarkets, like any tailor's shop in Church Street. So strange they looked in those tropical seas that he was near to catching me in a laugh as he straightened up. 'Twas then I noted that he was a younger man than I had taken him for.

"You gentlemen from the southern colonies are too well nourished, by far," says he; "you are apt to be large of chest and limb. 'Odds bods, Mr. Carvel, it grieves me to see you apparelled like a barber surgeon. If the good Lord had but made you smaller, now," and he sighed, "how well this skyblue frock had set you off."

"Indeed, I am content, and more, captain," I replied with a smile, "and thankful to be safe amongst friends. Never, I assure you, have I had less desire for finery."

"Ay," said he, "you may well say that, you who have worn silk all your life, and will the rest of it, and we get safe to port. But believe me, sir, the pleasure of seeing one of your face and figure in such a coat as that would not be a small one."

And disregarding my blushes and protests, he held up the watchet blue frock against me, and it was near fitting me but for my breadth,--the skirts being prodigiously long. I wondered mightily what tailor had thrust this garment upon him; its fashion was of the old king's time, the cuffs slashed like a sea-officer's uniform, and the shoulders made carefully round. But other thoughts were running within me then.

"Captain," I cut in, "you are sailing eastward."

"Yes, yes," he answered absently, fingering some Point d'Espagne.

"There is no chance of touching in the colonies?" I persisted.

"Colonies! No," said he, in the same abstraction; "I am making for the Solway, being long overdue. But what think you of this, Mr. Carvel?"

And he held up a wondrous vellum-hole waistcoat of a gone-by vintage, and I saw how futile it were to attempt to lead him, while in that state of absorption, to topics which touched my affair. Of a sudden the significance of what he had said crept over me, the word Solway repeating itself in my mind. That firth bordered England itself, and Dorothy was in London! I became reconciled. I had no particle of objection to the Solway save the uneasiness my grandfather would come through, which was beyond helping. Fate had ordered things well.

Then I fell to applauding, while the captain tried on (for he was not content with holding up) another frock of white drab, which, cuffs and pockets, I'll take my oath mounted no less than twenty-four: another plain one of pink cut-velvet; tail-coats of silk, heavily broidered with flowers, and satin waistcoats with narrow lace. He took an inconceivable enjoyment out of this parade, discoursing the while, like a nobleman with nothing but dress in his head, or, perhaps, like a mastercutter, about the turn of this or that lapel, the length from armpit to fold, and the number of button-holes that was proper. And finally he exhibited with evident pride a pair of doeskins that buttoned over the calf to be worn with high shoes, which I make sure he would have tried on likewise had he been offered the slightest encouragement. So he exploited the whole of his wardrobe, such an unlucky assortment of finery as I never wish to see again; all of which, however, became him marvellously, though I think he had looked well in anything. I hope I may be forgiven the perjury I did that day. I wondered greatly that such a foible should crop out in a man of otherwise sound sense and plain ability.

At length, when the last chest was shut again and locked, and I had exhausted my ingenuity at commendation, and my patience also, he turned to me as a man come out of a trance.

"Od's fish, Mr. Carvel," he cried, "you will be starved. I had forgot your state."

I owned that hunger had nigh overcome me, whereupon he became very solicitous, bade the boy bring in supper at once, and in a short time we sat down together to the best meal I had seen for a month. It seemed like a year. Porridge, and bacon nicely done, and duff and ale, with the sea rushing past the cabin windows as we ate, touched into colour by the setting sun. Captain Paul did not mess with his mates, not he, and he gave me to understand that I was to share his cabin, apologizing profusely for what he was pleased to call poor fare. He would have it that he, and not I, were receiving favour.

"My dear sir," he said once, "you cannot know what a bit of finery is to me, who has so little chance for the wearing of it. To discuss with a gentleman, a connoisseur (I know a bit of French, Mr. Carvel), is a pleasure I do not often come at."

His simplicity in this touched me; it was pathetic.

"How know you I am a gentleman, Captain Paul?" I asked curiously.

"I should lack discernment, sir," he retorted, with some heat, "if I could not see as much. Breeding shines through sack-cloth, sir. Besides," he continued, in a milder tone, "the look of you is candour itself. Though I have not greatly the advantage of you in age, I have seen many men, and I know that such a face as yours cannot lie."

Here Mr. Lowrie, the second mate, came in with a report; and I remarked that he stood up hat in hand whilst making it, very much as if Captain Paul commanded a frigate. The captain went to a locker and brought forth some mellow Madeira, and after the mate had taken a glass of it standing, he withdrew. Then we lighted pipes and sat very cosey with a lanthorn swung between us, and Captain Paul expressed a wish to hear my story.

I gave him my early history briefly, dwelling but casually upon the position enjoyed in Maryland by my family; but I spoke of my grandfather, now turning seventy, gray-haired in the service of King and province. The captain was indeed a most sympathetic listener, now throwing in a question showing keen Scotch penetration, and anon making a most ludicrous inquiry as to the dress livery our footmen wore, and whether Mr. Carvel used outriders when he travelled abroad. This was the other side of the man. As the wine warmed and the pipe soothed, I spoke at length of Grafton and the rector; and when I came to the wretched contrivance by which they got me aboard the Black Moll, he was stalking hither and thither about the cabin, his fists clenched and his voice thick, breaking into Scotch again and vowing that hell were too good for such as they.

His indignation, which seemed real and generous, transformed him into another man. He showered question after question upon me concerning my uncle and Mr. Allen; declared that he had known many villains, but had yet to hear of their equals; and finally, cooling a little, gave it as his judgment that the crime could never be brought home to them. This was my own opinion. He advised me, before we turned in, to "gie the parson a Grunt" as soon as ever I could lay hands upon him.

The John made a good voyage for that season, with fair winds and clear skies for the most part. 'Twas a stout ship and a steady, with generous breadth of beam, and kept by the master as clean and bright as his porringer. He was Emperor aboard her. He spelt Command with a large C, and when he inspected, his jacks stood to attention like man-o'-war's men. The John mounting only four guns, and but two of them ninepounders, I expressed my astonishment that he had dared attack a pirate craft like the Black Moll, without knowing her condition and armament.

"Richard," says he, impressively, for we had become very friendly, "I would close with a thirty-two and she flew that flag. Why, sir, a bold front is half the battle, using circumspection, of a course. A pretty woman, whatever her airs and quality, is to be carried the same way, and a man ought never to be frightened by appearances."

Sometimes, at our meals, we discussed politics. But he seemed lukewarm upon this subject. He had told me that he had a brother William in Virginia, who was a hot Patriot. The American quarrel seemed to interest him very little. I should like to underscore this last sentence, my dears, in view of what comes after. What he said on the topic leaned perhaps to the King's side, tho' he was careful to say nothing that would give me offence. I was not surprised, for I had made a fair guess of his ambitions. It is only honest to declare that in my soberer moments my estimate of his character suffered. But he was a strange man,--a genius, as I soon discovered, to rouse the most sluggish nature to enthusiasm.

The joy of sailing is born into some men, and those who are marked for the sea go down thither like the very streams, to be salted. Whatever the sign, old Stanwix was not far wrong when he read it upon me, and 'twas no great while before I was part and parcel of the ship beneath my feet, breathing deep with her every motion. What feeling can compare with that I tasted when the brigantine lay on her side, the silver spray hurling over the bulwarks and stinging me to life! Or, in the watches, to hear the sea lashing along her strakes in never ending music! I gave MacMuir his shore suit again, and hugely delighted and astonished Captain Paul by donning a jacket of Scotch wool and a pair of seaman's boots, and so became a sailor myself. I had no mind to sit idle the passage, and the love of it, as I have said, was in me. In a fortnight I went aloft with the best of the watch to reef topsails, and trod a foot-rope without losing head or balance, bent an easing, and could lay hand on any lift, brace, sheet, or haulyards in the racks. John Paul himself taught me to tack and wear ship, and MacMuir to stow a headsail. The craft came to me, as it were, in a hand-gallop.

At first I could make nothing of the crew, not being able to understand a word of their Scotch; but I remarked, from the first, that they were sour and sulky, and given to gathering in knots when the captain or MacMuir had not the deck. For Mr. Lowrie, poor man, they had little respect. But they plainly feared the first mate, and John Paul most of all. Of me their suspicion knew no bounds, and they would give me gruff answers, or none, when I spoke to them. These things roused both curiosity and foreboding within me.

Many a watch I paced thro' with MacMuir, big and red and kindly, and I was not long in letting him know of the interest which Captain Paul had inspired within me. His own feeling for him was little short of idolatry. I had surmised much as to the rank of life from which the captain had sprung, but my astonishment was great when I was told that John Paul was the son of a poor gardener.

"A gardener's son, Mr. MacMuir!" I repeated.

"Just that," said he, solemnly, "a guid man an' haly' was auld Paul. Unco puir, by reason o' seven bairns. I kennt the daddie weel. I mak sma' doubt the captain'll tak ye hame wi' him, syne the mither an' sisters still be i' the cot i' Mr. Craik's croft."

"Tell me, MacMuir," said I, "is not the captain in some trouble?"

For I knew that something, whatever it was, hung heavy on John Paul's mind as we drew nearer Scotland. At times his brow would cloud and he would fall silent in the midst of a jest. And that night, with the stars jumping and the air biting cold (for we were up in the 40's), and the John wish-washing through the seas at three leagues the hour, MacMuir told me the story of Mungo Maxwell. You may read it for yourselves, my dears, in the life of John Paul Jones.

"Wae's me!" he said, with a heave of his big chest, "I reca' as yestreen the night Maxwell cam aboord. The sun gaed loon a' bluidy, an' belyve the morn rose unco mirk an' dreary, wi' bullers (rollers) frae the west like muckle sowthers (soldiers) wi' white plumes. I tauld the captain 'twas a' the faut o' Maxwell. I ne'er cad bide the blellum. Dour an' din he was, wi' ae girn like th' auld hornie. But the captain wadna hark to my rede when I tauld him naught but dool wad cooin o' taking Mungo."

It seemed that John Paul, contrary to MacMuir's advice, had shipped as carpenter on the voyage out--near seven months since--a man by the name of Mungo Maxwell. The captain's motive had nothing in it but kindness, and a laudable desire to do a good turn to a playmate of his boyhood. As MacMuir said, "they had gaed barefit thegither amang the braes." The man hailed from Kirkbean, John Paul's own parish. But he had within him little of the milk of kindness, being in truth a sour and mutinous devil; and instead of the gratitude he might have shown, he cursed the fate that had placed him under the gardener's son, whom he deemed no better than himself. The John had scarce cleared the Solway before Maxwell showed signs of impudence and rebellion.

The crew was three-fourths made of Kirkcudbright men who had known the master from childhood, many of them, indeed, being older than he; they were mostly jealous of Paul, envious of the command he had attained to over them, and impatient under the discipline he was ever ready to inflict. 'Tis no light task to enforce obedience from those with whom one has birdnested. But, having more than once felt the weight of his hand, they feared him.

Dissatisfaction among such spreads apace, if a leader is but given; and Maxwell was such a one. His hatred for John Paul knew no bounds, and, having once tasted of his displeasure, he lay awake o' nights scheming to ruin him. And this was the plot: when the Azores should be in the wake, Captain Paul was to be murdered as he paced his quarterdeck in the morning, the two mates clapt into irons, and so brought to submission. And Maxwell, who had no more notion of navigation than a carpenter should, was to take the John to God knows where,--the Guinea coast, most probably. He would have no more navy regulations on a merchant brigantine, he promised them, nor banyan days, for the matter o' that.

Happily, MacMuir himself discovered the affair on the eve of its perpetration, overhearing two men talking in the breadroom, and he ran to the cabin with the sweat standing out on his forehead. But the captain would have none of the precautions he urged; declared he would walk the deck as usual, and vowed he could cope single-handed with a dozen cowards like Maxwell. Sure enough, at crowdie-time, the men were seen coming aft, with Maxwell in the van carrying a bowl, on the pretext of a complaint against the cook.

"John Paul," said MacMuir, with admiration in his voice and gesture, "John Paul wasna feart a pickle, but gaed to the mast, whyles I stannt chittering i' my claes, fearfu' for his life. He teuk the horns from Mungo, priet (tasted) a soup o' the crowdie, an' wi' that he seiz't haut o' the man by baith shouthers ere the blastie (scoundrel) raught for 's knife. My aith upo't, sir, the lave (rest) o' the batch cowert frae his e'e for a' the wand like thumpit tykes.'"

So ended that mutiny, by the brave act of a brave man. The carpenter was clapt into irons himself, and given no less of the cat-o'-nine-tails than was good for him, and properly discharged at Tobago with such as had supported him. But he brought Captain Paul before the vice-admiralty court of that place, charging him with gross cruelty, and this proceeding had delayed the brigantine six months from her homeward voyage, to the great loss of her owners. And tho' at length the captain was handsomely acquitted, his character suffered unjustly, for there lacked not those who put their own interpretation upon the affair. He would most probably lose the brigantine. "He expected as much," said MacMuir.

"There be mony aboord," he concluded, with a sigh, "as'll muckle gash (gossip) when we win to Kirkcudbright."

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XX. A SAD HOME-COMING

Mr. Lowrie and Auctherlonnie, the Dumfries bo'sun, both of whom would have died for the captain, assured me of the truth of MacMuir's story, and shook their heads gravely as to the probable outcome. The peculiar water-mark of greatness that is woven into some men is often enough to set their own community bitter against them. Sandie, the plodding peasant, finds it a hard matter to forgive Jamie, who is taken from the plough next to his, and ends in Parliament. The affair of Mungo Maxwell, altered to suit, had already made its way on more than one vessel to Scotland. For according to Lowrie, there was scarce a man or woman in Kirkcudbrightshire who did not know that John Paul was master of the John, and (in their hearts) that he would be master of more in days to come. Human nature is such that they resented it, and cried out aloud against his cruelty.

On the voyage I had many sober thoughts of my own to occupy me of the terrible fate, from which, by Divine inter position, I had been rescued; of the home I had left behind. I was all that remained to Mr. Carvel in the world, and I was sure that he had given me up for dead. How had he sustained the shock? I saw him heavily mounting the stairs upon Scipicks arm when first the news was brought to him. Next Grafton would come hurrying in from Kent to Marlboro Street, disavowing all knowledge of the messenger from New York, and intent only upon comforting his father. And when I pictured my uncle soothing him to his face, and grinning behind his bed-curtains, my anger would scald me, and the realization of my helplessness bring tears of very bitterness.

What would I not have given then for one word with that honest and faithful friend of our family, Captain Daniel! I knew that he suspected Grafton: he had told me as much that night at the Coffee House. Perhaps the greatest of my fears was that my uncle would deny him access to Mr. Carvel when he returned from the North.

In the evening, when the sun settled red upon the horizon, I would think of Patty and my friends in Gloucester Street. For I knew they missed me sadly of a Sunday at the supper-table. But it has ever been my nature to turn forward instead of back, and to accept the twists and flings of fortune with hope rather than with discouragement. And so, as we left league after, league of the blue ocean behind us, I would set my face to the forecastle. For Dorothy was in England.

On a dazzling morning in March, with the brigantine running like a beagle in full cry before a heaping sea that swayed her body,--so I beheld for the first time the misty green of the high shores of Ireland. Ah! of what heroes' deeds was I capable as I watched the lines come out in bold relief from a wonderland of cloud! With what eternal life I seemed to tingle! 'Twas as though I, Richard Carvel, had discovered all this colour; and when a tiny white speck of a cottage came out on the edge of the cliff, I thought irresistibly of the joy to live there the year round with Dorothy, with the wind whistling about our gables, and the sea thundering on the rocks far below. Youth is in truth a mystery.

How long I was gazing at the shifting coast I know not, for a strange wildness was within me that made me forget all else, until suddenly I became conscious of a presence at my side, and turned to behold the captain.

"'Tis a braw sight, Richard," said he, "but no sae bonnie as auld Scotland. An' the wind hands, we shall see her shores the morn."

His voice broke, and I looked again to see two great tears rolling upon his cheeks.

"Ah, Scotland!" he pressed on, heedless of them, "God aboon kens what she is to me! But she hasna' been ower guid to me, laddie." And he walked to the taffrail, and stood looking astern that two men who had come aft to splice a haulyard might not perceive his disorder. I followed him, emboldened to speak at last what was in me.

"Captain Paul," said I, "MacMuir has told me of your trouble. My grandfather is rich, and not lacking in gratitude,"--here I paused for suitable words, as I could not solve his expression,--"you, sir, whose bravery and charity will have restored me to him, shall not want for friends and money."

He heard me through.

"Mr. Carvel," he replied with an impressiveness that took me aback, "reward is a thing that should not be spoken of between gentlemen."

And thus he left me, upbraiding myself that I should have mentioned money. And yet, I reflected secondly, why not? He was no more nor less than a master of a merchantman, and surely nothing was out of the common in such a one accepting what he had honestly come by. Had my affection for him been less sincere, had I not been racked with sympathy, I had laughed over his notions of gentility. I resolved, however, that when I had reached London and seen Mr. Dix, Mr. Carvel's agent, he should be rewarded despite his scruples. And if he lost his ship, he should have one of my grandfather's.

But at dinner he had plainly forgot any offence, and I had more cause than ever to be puzzled over his odd mixture of confidence and aloofness. He talked gayly on a score of subjects,--on dress, of which he was never tired, and described ports in the Indies and South America, in a fashion that betrayed prodigious powers of acute observation; nor did he lack for wit when he spoke of the rich planters who had wined him, and had me much in laughter. We fell into a merry mood, in Booth, jingling the glasses in many toasts, for he had a list of healths to make me gasp, near as long as the brigantine's articles,--Inez in Havana and Maraquita in Cartagena, and Clotilde, the Creole, of Martinico, each had her separate charm. Then there was Bess, in Kingston, the relict of a customs official, Captain Paul relating with ingenuous gusto a midnight brush with a lieutenant of his Majesty, in which the fair widow figured, and showed her preference, too. But his adoration for the ladies of the more northern colonies, he would have me to understand, was unbounded. For example, Miss Arabella Pope of Norfolk, in Virginia,--and did I know her? No, I had not that pleasure, though I assured him the Popes of Virginia were famed. Miss Pope danced divinely as any sylph, and the very memory of her tripping at the Norfolk Assembly roused the captain to such a pitch of enthusiasm as I had never seen in him. Marvellous to say, his own words failed him, and he had recourse to the poets:

"Her feet beneath her petticoat Like little mice stole in and out, As if they feared the light; But, oh, she dances such a way! No sun upon an Easter-day Is half so fine a sight."

The lines, he told me, were Sir John Suckling's; and he gave them standing, in excellent voice and elegant gesture.

He was in particular partial to the poets, could quote at will from Gay and Thomson and Goldsmith and Gray, and even from Shakespeare, much to my own astonishment and humiliation. Saving only Dr. Courtenay of Annapolis I had never met his equal for versatility of speech and command of fine language; and, having heard that he had been at sea since the age of twelve, I made bold to ask him at what school he had got his knowledge.

"At none, Richard," he answered with pride, "saving the rudiments at the Parish School at Kirkbean. Why, sir, I hold it to be within every man's province to make himself what he will, and I early recognized in Learning the only guide for such as me. I may say that I married her for the furtherance of my fortunes, and have come to love her for her own sake. Many and many the 'tween-watch have I passed in a coil of rope in the tops, a volume of the classics in my hand. And 'my happiest days, when not at sea, have been spent in my brother William's little library. He hath a modest estate near Fredericksburg, in Virginia, and none holds higher than he the worth of an education. Ah, Richard," he added, with a certain sadness, "I fear you little know the value of that which hath been so lavishly bestowed upon you. There is no creation in the world to equal your fine gentleman!"

It struck me indeed as strange that a man of his powers should set store by such trumpery, and, too, that these notions had not impaired his ability as a seaman. I did not reply. He gave no heed, however, but drew from a case a number of odes and compositions, which he told me were his own. They were addressed to various of his enamouritas, abounded in orrery, and were all, I make no doubt, incredibly fine, tho' not so much as one sticks in my mind. To speak truth I listened with a very ill grace, longing the while to be on deck, for we were about to sight the Isle of Man. The wine and the air of the cabin had made my eyes heavy. But presently, when he had run through with some dozen or more, he put them by, and with a quick motion got from his chair, a light coming into his dark eyes that startled me to attention. And I forgot the merchant captain, and seemed to be looking forward into the years.

"Mark you, Richard," said he, "mark well when I say that my time will come, and a day when the best of them will bow to me. And every ell of that triumph shall be mine, sir,-ay, every inch!"

Such was his force, which sprang from some hidden fire within him, that I believed his words as firmly as they had been writ down in the Book of Isaiah. Brimming over with enthusiasm, I pledged his coming greatness in a reaming glass of Malaga.

"Alack," he cried, "an' they all had your faith, laddie, a fig for the prophecy! Ya maun ken th' incentive's the maist o' the battle."

There was more of wisdom in this than I dreamed of then. Here lay hid the very keynote of that ambitious character: he stooped to nothing less than greatness for a triumph over his slanderers.

I rose betimes the next morning to find the sun peeping above the wavy line of the Scottish hills far up the. Solway, and the brigantine sliding smoothly along in the lee of the Galloway Rhinns. And, though the month was March, the slopes of Burrow Head were green as the lawn of Carvel Hall in May, and the slanting rays danced on the ruffed water. By eight of the clock we had crept into Kirkcudbright Bay and anchored off St. Mary's Isle, the tide running ebb, and leaving a wide brown belt of sand behind it.

St. Mary's Isle! As we looked upon it that day, John Paul and I, and it lay low against the bright water with its bare oaks and chestnuts against the dark pines, 'twas perhaps as well that the future was sealed to us.

Captain Paul had conned the brigantine hither with a master's hand; but now that the anchor was on the ground, he became palpably nervous. I had donned again good MacMuir's shore suit, and was standing by the gangway when the captain approached me.

"What'll ye be doing now, Dickie lad?" he asked kindly.

What indeed! I was without money in a foreign port, still dependent upon my benefactor. And since he had declared his unwillingness to accept any return I was of no mind to go farther into his debt. I thanked him again for his goodness in what sincere terms I could choose, and told him I should be obliged if he would put me in the way of working my passage to London upon some coasting vessel. But my voice was thick, my affection for him having grown-past my understanding.

"Hoots!" he replied, moved in his turn, "whyles I hae siller ye shallna lack. Ye maun gae post-chaise to London, as befits yere station."

And scouting my expostulations, he commanded the longboat, bidding me be ready to go ashore with him. I had nothing to do but to say farewell to MacMuir and Lowrie and Auctherlonnie, which was hard enough. For the honest first mate I had a great liking, and was touched beyond speech when he enjoined me to keep his shore suit as long as I had want of it.

"But you will be needing it, MacMuir," I said, suspecting he had no other.

"Haith! I am but a plain man, Mr. Carvel, and ye can sen' back the claw frae London, wi' this geordie."

He slipped a guinea into my hand, but this I positively refused to take; and to hide my feelings I climbed quickly over the side and into the stern of the boat, beside the captain, and was rowed away through the little fleet of cobles gathering about the ship. Twisting my neck for a parting look at the John, I caught a glimpse of MacMuir's ungainly shoulders over the fokesle rail, and I was near to tears as he shouted a hearty "God speed" after me.

As we drew near the town of Kirkcudbright, which lies very low at the mouth of the river Dee, I made out a group of men and women on the wharves. The captain was silent, regarding them. When we had got within twenty feet or so of the landing, a dame in a red woollen kerchief called out:

"What hae ye done wi' Mungo, John Paul?"

"CAPTAIN John Paul, Mither Birkie," spoke up a coarse fellow with a rough beard. And a laugh went round.

"Ay, captain! I'll captain him!" screamed the carlin, pushing to the front as the oars were tossed, "I'll tak aith Mr. Currie'll be captaining him for his towmond voyage o' piratin'. He be leukin' for ye noo, John Paul." With that some of the men on the thwarts, perceiving that matters were likely to go ill with the captain, began to chaff with their friends above. The respect with which he had inspired them, however, prevented any overt insult on their part. As for me, my temper had flared up like the burning of a loose charge of powder, and by instinct my right hand sought the handle of the mate's hanger. The beldame saw the motion.

"An' hae ye murder't MacMuir, John Paul, an' gien's claw to a Buckskin gowk?"

The knot stirred with an angry murmur: in truth they meant violence, --nothing less. But they had counted without their man, for Paul was born to ride greater crises. With his lips set in a line he stepped lightly out of the boat into their very midst, and they looked into his eyes to forget time and place. MacMuir had told me how those eyes could conquer mutiny, but I had not believed had I trot been thereto see the pack of them give back in sullen wonder. And so we walked through and on to the little street beyond, and never a word from the captain until we came opposite the sign of the Hurcheon."

"Do you await me here, Richard," he said quite calmly; "I mast seek Mr. Currie, and make my report."

I have still the remembrance of that pitiful day in the clean little village. I went into the inn and sat down upon an oak settle in a corner of the bar, under the high lattice, and thought of the bitterness of this home-coming. If I was amongst strangers, he was amongst worse: verily, to have one's own people set against one is heaviness of heart to a man whose love of Scotland was great as John Paul's. After a while the place began to fill, Willie and Robbie and Jamie arriving to discuss Paul's return over their nappy. The little I could make of their talk was not to my liking, but for the captain's sake I kept my anger under as best I could, for I had the sense to know that brawling with a lot of alehouse frequenters would not advance his cause. At length, however, came in the same sneering fellow I had marked on the wharf, calling loudly for swats. "Ay, Captain Paul was noo at Mr. Curries, syne banie Alan seed him gang forbye the kirk." The speaker's name, I learned, was Davie, and he had been talking with each and every man in the long-boat. Yes, Mungo Maxwell had been cat-o'-ninetailed within an inch of his life; and that was the truth; for a trifling offence, too; and cruelly discharged at some outlandish port because, forsooth, he would not accept the gospel of the divinity of Captain Paul. He would as soon sign papers with the devil.

This Davie was gifted with a dangerous kind of humour which I have heard called innuendo, and he soon had the bar packed with listeners who laughed and cursed turn about, filling the room to a closeness scarce supportable. And what between the foul air and my resentment, and apprehension lest John Paul would come hither after me, I was in prodigious discomfort of body and mind. But there was no pushing my way through them unnoticed, wedged as I was in a far corner; so I sat still until unfortunately, or fortunately, the eye of Davie chanced to fall upon me, and immediately his yellow face lighted malignantly.

"Oh! here be the gentleman the captain's brocht hame!" he cried, emphasizing the two words; "as braw a gentleman as eer taen frae pirates, an' nae doubt sin to ae bien Buckskin bonnet-laird."

I saw through his game of getting satisfaction out of John Paul thro' goading me, and determined he should have his fill of it. For, all in all, he had me mad enough to fight three times over.

"Set aside the gentleman," said I, standing up and taking off MacMuir's coat, "and call me a lubberly clout like yourself, and we will see which is the better clout." I put off the longsleeved jacket, and faced him with my fists doubled, crying: "I'll teach you, you spawn of a dunghill, to speak ill of a good man!"

A clamour of "Fecht! fecht!" arose, and some of them applauded me, calling me a "swankie," which I believe is a compliment. A certain sense of fairness is often to be found where least expected. They capsized the fat, protesting browsterwife over her own stool, and were pulling Jamie's coat from his back, when I began to suspect that a fight was not to the sniveller's liking. Indeed, the very look of him made me laugh out --'twas now as mild as a summer's morn.

"Wow," says Jamie, "ye maun fecht wi' a man o' yere ain size."

"I'll lay a guinea that we weigh even," said I; and suddenly remembered that I had not so much as tuppence to bless me.

Happily he did not accept the wager. In huge disgust they hustled him from the inn and put forward the blacksmith, who was standing at the door in his leather apron. Now I had not bargained with the smith, who seemed a well-natured enough man, and grinned broadly at the prospect. But they made a ring on the floor, I going over it at one end, and he at the other, when a cry came from the street, those about the entrance parted, and in walked John Paul himself. At sight of him my new adversary, who was preparing to deal me out a blow to fell an ox, dropped his arms in surprise, and held out his big hand.

"Haith! John Paul," he shouted heartily, forgetting me, "'tis blythe I am to see yere bonnie face ance mair!

"An' wha are ye, Jamie Darrell," said the captain, "to be bangin' yere betters? Dinna ye ken gentry when ye see't?"

A puzzled look spread over the smith's grimy face.

"Gentry!" says he; "nae gentry that I ken, John Paul. Th' fecht be but a bit o' fun, an' nane o' my seekin'."

"What quarrel is this, Richard?" says John Paul to me.

"In truth I have no quarrel with this honest man," I replied; "I desired but the pleasure of beating a certain evil-tongued Davie, who seems to have no stomach for blows, and hath taken his lies elsewhere."

So quiet was the place that the tinkle of the guidwife's needle, which she had dropped to the flags, sounded clear to all. John Paul stood in the middle of the ring, erect, like a man inspired, and the same strange sense of prophecy that had stirred my blood crept over him and awed the rest, as tho' 'twere suddenly given to see him, not as he was, but as he would be. Then he spoke.

"You, who are my countrymen, who should be my oldest and best friends, are become my enemies. You who were companions of my childhood are revilers of my manhood; you have robbed me of my good name and my honour, of my ship, of my very means of livelihood, and you are not content; you would rob me of my country, which I hold dearer than all. And I have never done you evil, nor spoken aught against you. As for the man Maxwell, whose part you take, his child is starving in your very midst, and you have not lifted your hands. 'Twas for her sake I shipped him, and none other. May God forgive you! He alone sees the bitterness in my heart this day. He alone knows my love for Scotland, and what it costs me to renounce her."

He had said so much with an infinite sadness, and I read a response in the eyes of more than one of his listeners, the guidwife weeping aloud. But now his voice rose, and he ended with a fiery vigour.

"Renounce her I do," he cried, "now and forevermore! Henceforth I am no countryman of yours. And if a day of repentance should come for this evil, remember well what I have said to you."

They stood for a moment when he had finished, shifting uneasily, their tongues gone, like lads caught in a lie. I think they felt his greatness then, and had any one of them possessed the nobility to come forward with an honest word, John Paul might yet have been saved to Scotland. As it was, they slunk away in twos and threes, leaving at last only the good smith with us. He was not a man of talk, and the tears had washed the soot from his face in two white furrows.

"Ye'll hae a waught wi' me afore ye gang, John," he said clumsily, "for th' morns we've paddl' 't thegither i' th' Nith."

The ale was brought by the guidwife, who paused, as she put it down, to wipe her eyes with her apron. She gave John Paul one furtive glance and betook herself again to her knitting with a sigh, speech having failed her likewise. The captain grasped up his mug.

"May God bless you, Jamie," he said.

"Ye'll be gaen noo to see the mither," said Jamie, after a long space.

"Ay, for the last time. An', Jamie, ye'll see that nae harm cams to her when I'm far awa'?"

The smith promised, and also agreed to have John Paul's chests sent by wagon, that very day, to Dumfries. And we left him at his forge, his honest breast torn with emotion, looking after us.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XXI. THE GARDENER'S COTTAGE

So we walked out of the village, with many a head craned after us and many an eye peeping from behind a shutter, and on into the open highway. The day was heavenly bright, the wind humming around us and playing mad pranks with the white cotton clouds, and I forgot awhile the pity within me to wonder at the orderly look of the country, the hedges with never a stone out of place, and the bars always up. The ground was parcelled off in such bits as to make me smile when I remembered our own wide tracts in the New World. Here waste was sin: with us part and parcel of a creed. I marvelled, too, at the primness and solidity of the houses along the road, and remarked how their lines belonged rather to the landscape than to themselves. But I was conscious ever of a strange wish to expand, for I felt as tho' I were in the land of the Liliputians, and the thought of a gallop of forty miles or so over these honeycombed fields brought me to a laugh. But I was yet to see some estates of the gentry.

I had it on my tongue's tip to ask the captain whither he was taking me, yet dared not intrude on the sorrow that still gripped him. Time and time we met people plodding along, some of them nodding uncertainly, others abruptly taking the far side of the pike, and every encounter drove the poison deeper into his soul. But after we had travelled some way, up hill and down dale, he vouchsafed the intelligence that we were making for Arbigland, Mr. Craik's seat near Dumfries, which lies on the Nith twenty miles or so up the Solway from Kirkcudbright. On that estate stood the cottage where John Paul was born, and where his mother and sisters still dwelt.

"I'll juist be saying guidbye, Richard," he said; "and leave them a bit siller I hae saved, an' syne we'll be aff to London thegither, for Scotland's no but a cauld kintra."

"You are going to London with me?" I cried.

"Ay," answered he; "this is hame nae mair for John Paul."

I made bold to ask how the John's owners had treated him.

"I have naught to complain of, laddie," he answered; "both Mr. Beck and Mr. Currie bore the matter of the admiralty court and the delay like the gentlemen they are. They well know that I am hard driven when I resort to the lash. They were both sore at losing me, and says Mr. Beck: I We'll not soon get another to keep the brigantine like a man-o'-war, as did you, John Paul.' I thanked him, and told him I had sworn never to take another merchantman out of the Solway. And I will keep that oath."

He sighed, and added that he never hoped for better owners. In token of which he drew a certificate of service from his pocket, signed by Messrs. Currie and Beck, proclaiming him the best master and supercargo they had ever had in their service. I perceived that talk lightened him, and led him on. I inquired how he had got the 'John'.

"I took passage on her from Kingston, laddie. On the trip both Captain Macadam and the chief mate died of the fever. And it was I, the passenger, who sailed her into Kirkcudbright, tho' I had never been more than a chief mate before. That is scarce three years gone, when I was just turned one and twenty. And old Mr. Currie, who had known my father, was so pleased that he gave me the ship. I had been chief mate of the 'Two Friends', a slaver out of Kingston."

"And so you were in that trade!" I exclaimed.

He seemed to hesitate.

"Yes," he replied, "and sorry I am to say it. But a man must live. It was no place for a gentleman, and I left of my own accord. Before that, I was on a slaver out of Whitehaven."

"You must know Whitehaven, then."

I said it only to keep the talk going, but I remembered the remark long after.

"I do," said he. "'Tis a fair sample of an English coast town. And I have often thought, in the event of war with France, how easy 'twould be for Louis's cruisers to harry the place, and an hundred like it, and raise such a terror as to keep the British navy at home."

I did not know at the time that this was the inspiration of an admiral and of a genius. The subject waned. And as familiar scenes jogged his memory, he launched into Scotch and reminiscence. Every barn he knew, and cairn and croft and steeple recalled stories of his boyhood.

We had long been in sight of Criffel, towering ahead of us, whose summit had beckoned for cycles to Helvellyn and Saddleback looming up to the southward, marking the wonderland of the English lakes. And at length, after some five hours of stiff walking, we saw the brown Nith below us going down to meet the Solway, and so came to the entrance of Mr. Craik's place. The old porter recognized Paul by a mere shake of the head and the words, "Yere back, are ye?" and a lowering of his bushy white eyebrows. We took a by-way to avoid the manor-house, which stood on the rising ground twixt us and the mountain, I walking close to John Paul's shoulder and feeling for him at every step. Presently, at a turn of the path, we were brought face to face with an elderly gentleman in black, and John Paul stopped.

"Mr. Craik!" he said, removing his hat.

But the gentleman only whistled to his dogs and went on.

"My God, even he!" exclaimed the captain, bitterly; "even he, who thought so highly of my father!"

A hundred yards more and we came to the little cottage nigh hid among the trees. John Paul paused a moment, his hand upon the latch of the gate, his eyes drinking in the familiar picture. The light of day was dying behind Criffel, and the tiny panes of the cottage windows pulsed with the rosy flame on the hearth within, now flaring, and again deepening. He sighed. He walked with unsteady step to the door and pushed it open. I followed, scarce knowing what I did, halted at the threshold and drew back, for I had been upon holy ground.

John Paul was kneeling upon the flags by the ingleside, his face buried on the open Bible in his mother's lap. Her snowy-white head was bent upon his, her tears running fast, and her lips moving in silent prayer to Him who giveth and taketh away. Verily, here in this humble place dwelt a love that defied the hard usage of a hard world!

After a space he came to the door and called, and took me by the hand, and I went in with him. Though his eyes were wet, he bore himself like a cavalier.

"Mother, this is Mr. Richard Carvell heir to Carvel Hall in Maryland,--a young gentleman whom I have had the honour to rescue from a slaver."

I bowed low, such was my respect for Dame Paul, and she rose and curtseyed. She wore a widow's cap and a black gown, and I saw in her deep-lined face a resemblance to her son.

"Madam," I said, the title coming naturally, "I owe Captain Paul a debt I can never repay."

"An' him but a laddie!" she cried. "I'm thankful, John, I'm thankful for his mither that ye saved him."

"I have no mother, Madam Paul," said I, "and my father was killed in the French war. But I have a grandfather who loves me dearly as I love him."

Some impulse brought her forward, and she took both my hands in her own.

"Ye'll forgive an auld woman, sir," she said, with a dignity that matched her son's, "but ye're sae young, an' ye hae sic a leuk in yere bonny gray e'e that I ken yell aye be a true friend o' John's. He's been a guid sin to me, an' ye maunna reek what they say o' him."

When now I think of the triumph John Paul has achieved, of the scoffing world he has brought to his feet, I cannot but recall that sorrowful evening in the gardener's cottage, when a son was restored but to be torn away. The sisters came in from their day's work,--both well-favoured lasses, with John's eyes and hair,--and cooked the simple meal of broth and porridge, and the fowl they had kept so long against the captain's home-coming. He carved with many a light word that cost him dear. Did Janet reca' the simmer nights they had supped here, wi' the bumclocks bizzin' ower the candles? And was Nancy, the cow, still i' the byre? And did the bees still give the same bonnie hiney, and were the red apples still in the far orchard? Ay, Meg had thocht o' him that autumn, and ran to fetch them with her apron to her face, to come back smiling through her tears. So it went; and often a lump would rise in my throat that I could not eat, famished as I was, and the mother and sisters scarce touched a morsel of the feast.

The one never failing test of a son, my dears, lies in his treatment of his mother, and from that hour forth I had not a doubt of John Paul. He was a man who had seen the world and become, in more than one meaning of the word, a gentleman. Whatever foibles he may have had, he brought no conscious airs and graces to this lowly place, but was again the humble gardener's boy.

But time pressed, as it ever does. The hour came for us to leave, John Paul firmly refusing to remain the night in a house that belonged to Mr. Craik. Of the tenderness, nay, of the pity and cruelty of that parting, I have no power to write. We knelt with bowed heads while the mother prayed for the son, expatriated, whom she never hoped to see again on this earth. She gave us bannocks of her own baking, and her last words were to implore me always to be a friend to John Paul.

Then we went out into the night and walked all the way to Dumfries in silence.

We lay that night at the sign of the "Twa Naigs," where Bonnie Prince Charlie had rested in the Mars year(1715). Before I went to bed I called for pen and paper, and by the light of a tallow dip sat down to compose a letter to my grandfather, telling him that I was alive and well, and recounting as much of my adventures as I could. I said that I was going to London, where I would see Mr. Dix, and would take passage thence for America. I prayed that he had been able to bear up against the ordeal of my disappearance. I dwelt upon the obligations I was under to John Paul, relating the misfortunes of that worthy seaman (which he so little deserved!). And said that it was my purpose to bring him to Maryland with me, where I knew Mr. Carvel would reward him with one of his ships, explaining that he would accept no money. But when it came to accusing Grafton and the rector, I thought twice, and bit the end of the feather. The chances were so great that my grandfather would be in bed and under the guardianship of my uncle that I forbore, and resolved instead to write it to Captain Daniel at my first opportunity.

I arose early to discover a morning gray and drear, with a mist falling to chill the bones. News travels apace the world over, and that of John Paul's home-coming and of his public renunciation of Scotland at the "Hurcheon" had reached Dumfries in good time, substantiated by the arrival of the teamster with the chests the night before. I descended into the courtyard in time to catch the captain in his watchet-blue frock haggling with the landlord for a chaise, the two of them surrounded by a muttering crowd anxious for a glimpse of Mr. Craik's gardener's son, for he had become a nine-day sensation to the country round about. But John Paul minded them not so much as a swarm of flies, and the teamster's account of the happenings at Kirkcudbright had given them so wholesome a fear of his speech and presence as to cause them to misdoubt their own wit, which is saying a deal of Scotchmen. But when the bargain had been struck and John Paul gone with the 'ostler to see to his chests, mine host thought it a pity not to have a fall out of me.

"So ye be the Buckskin laud," he said, with a wink at a leering group of farmers; "ye hae braw gentles in America."

He was a man of sixty or thereabout, with a shrewd but not unkindly face that had something familiar in it.

"You have discernment indeed to recognize a gentleman in Scotch clothes," I replied, turning the laugh on him.

"Dinna raise ae Buckskin, Mr. Rawlinson," said a man in corduroy.

"Rawlinson!" I exclaimed at random, "there is one of your name in the colonies who knows his station better."

"Trowkt!" cried mine host, "ye ken Ivie o' Maryland, Ivie my brither?"

"He is my grandfather's miller at Carvel Hall," I said.

"Syne ye maun be nane ither than Mr. Richard Carvel. Yere servan', Mr. Carvel," and he made me a low bow, to the great dropping of jaws round about, and led me into the inn. With trembling hands he took a packet from his cabinet and showed me the letters, twenty-three in all, which Ivie had written home since he had gone out as the King's passenger in '45. The sight of them brought tears to my eyes and carried me out of the Scotch mist back to dear old Maryland. I had no trouble in convincing mine host that I was the lad eulogized in the scrawls, and he put hand on the very sheet which announced my birth, nineteen years since,--the fourth generation of Carvels Ivie had known.

So it came that the captain and I got the best chaise and pair in place of the worst, and sat down to a breakfast such as was prepared only for my Lord Selkirk when he passed that way, while I told the landlord of his brother; and as I talked I remembered the day I had caught the arm of the mill and gone the round, to find that Ivie had written of that, too!

After that our landlord would not hear of a reckoning. I might stay a month, a year, at the "Twa Naigs" if I wished. As for John Paul, who seemed my friend, he would say nothing, only to advise me privately that the man was queer company, shaking his head when I defended him. He came to me with ten guineas, which he pressed me to take for Ivies sake, and repay when occasion offered. I thanked him, but was of no mind to accept money from one who thought ill of my benefactor.

The refusal of these recalled the chaise, and I took the trouble to expostulate with the captain on that score, pointing out as delicately as I might that, as he had brought me to Scotland, I held it within my right to incur the expense of the trip to London, and that I intended to reimburse him when I saw Mr. Dix. For I knew that his wallet was not over full, since he had left the half of his savings with his mother. Much to my secret delight, he agreed to this as within the compass of a gentleman's acceptance. Had he not, I had the full intention of leaving him to post it alone, and of offering myself to the master of the first schooner.

Despite the rain, and the painful scenes gone through but yesterday, and the sour-looking ring of men and women gathered to see the start, I was in high spirits as we went spinning down the Carlisle road, with my heart leaping to the crack of the postilion's whip.

I was going to London and to Dorothy!

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

XXII. ON THE ROAD

Many were the ludicrous incidents we encountered on our journey to London. As long as I live, I shall never forget John Paul's alighting upon the bridge of the Sark to rid himself of a mighty farewell address to Scotland he had been composing upon the road. And this he delivered with such appalling voice and gesture as to frighten to a standstill a chaise on the English side of the stream, containing a young gentleman in a scarlet coat and a laced hat, and a young lady who sobbed as we passed them. They were, no doubt, running to Gretna Green to be married.

Captain Paul, as I have said, was a man of moods, and strangely affected by ridicule. And this we had in plenty upon the road. Landlords, grooms, and'ostlers, and even our own post-boys, laughed and jested coarsely at his sky-blue frock, and their sallies angered him beyond all reason, while they afforded me so great an amusement that more than once I was on the edge of a serious falling-out with him as a consequence of my merriment. Usually, when we alighted from our vehicle, the expression of mine host would sour, and his sir would shift to a master; while his servants would go trooping in again, with many a coarse fling that they would get no vails from such as we. And once we were invited into the kitchen. He would be soar for half a day at a spell after a piece of insolence out of the common, and then deliver me a solemn lecture upon the advantages of birth in a manor. Then his natural buoyancy would lift him again, and he would be in childish ecstasies at the prospect of getting to London, and seeing the great world; and I began to think that he secretly cherished the hope of meeting some of its votaries. For I had told him, casually as possible, that I had friends in Arlington Street, where I remembered the Manners were established.

"Arlington Street!" he repeated, rolling the words over his tongue; "it has a fine sound, laddie, a fine sound. That street must be the very acme of fashion."

I laughed, and replied that I did not know. And at the ordinary of the next inn we came to, he took occasion to mention to me, in a louder voice than was necessary, that I would do well to call in Arlington Street as we went into town. So far as I could see, the remark did not compel any increase of respect from our fellow-diners.

Upon more than one point I was worried. Often and often I reflected that some hitch might occur to prevent my getting money promptly from Mr. Dix. Days would perchance elapse before I could find the man in such a great city as London; he might be out of town at this season, Easter being less than a se'nnight away. For I had heard my grandfather say that the elder Mr. Dix had a house in some merchant's suburb, and loved to play at being a squire before he died. Again (my heart stood at the thought), the Manners might be gone back to America. I cursed the stubborn pride which had led the captain to hire a post-chaise, when the wagon had served us so much better, and besides relieved him of the fusillade of ridicule he got travelling as a gentleman. But such reflections always ended in my upbraiding myself for blaming him whose generosity had rescued me from perhaps a life-long misery.

But, on the whole, we rolled southward happily, between high walls and hedges, past trim gardens and fields and meadows, and I marvelled at the regular, park-like look of the country, as though stamped from one design continually recurring, like our butter at Carvel Hall. The roads were sometimes good, and sometimes as execrable as a colonial byway in winter, with mud up to the axles. And yet, my heart went out to this country, the home of my ancestors. Spring was at hand; the ploughboys whistled between the furrows, the larks circled overhead, and the lilacs were cautiously pushing forth their noses. The air was heavy with the perfume of living things.

The welcome we got at our various stopping-places was often scanty indeed, and more than once we were told to go farther down the street, that the inn was full. And I may as well confess that my mind was troubled about John Paul. Despite all I could say, he would go to the best hotels in the larger towns, declaring that there we should meet the people of fashion. Nor was his eagerness damped when he discovered that such people never came to the ordinary, but were served in their own rooms by their own servants.

"I shall know them yet," he would vow, as we started off of a morning, after having seen no more of my Lord than his liveries below stairs. "Am I not a gentleman in all but birth, Richard? And that is a difficulty many before me have overcome. I have the classics, and the history, and the poets. And the French language, though I have never made the grand tour. I flatter myself that my tone might be worse. By the help of your friends, I shall have a title or two for acquaintances before I leave London; and when my money is gone, there is a shipowner I know of who will give me employment, if I have not obtained preferment."

The desire to meet persons of birth was near to a mania with him. And I had not the courage to dampen his hopes. But, inexperienced as I was, I knew the kind better than he, and understood that it was easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle, than for John Paul to cross the thresholds of the great houses of London. The way of adventurers is hard, and he could scarce lay claim then to a better name.

"We shall go to Maryland together, Captain Paul," I said, "and waste no time upon London save to see Vauxhall, and the opera, and St. James's and the Queen's House and the Tower, and Parliament, and perchance his Majesty himself," I added, attempting merriment, for the notion of seeing Dolly only to leave her gave me a pang. And the captain knew nothing of Dolly.

"So, Richard, you fear I shall disgrace you," he said reproachfully. "Know, sir, that I have pride enough and to spare. That I can make friends without going to Arlington Street."

I was ready to cry with vexation at this childish speech.

"And a time will come when they shall know me," he went on. "If they insult me now they shall pay dearly for it."

"My dear captain," I cried; "nobody will insult you, and least of all my friends, the Manners." I had my misgivings about little Mr. Marmaduke. "But we are, neither of us, equipped for a London season. I am but an unknown provincial, and you--" I paused for words.

For a sudden realization had come upon me that our positions were now reversed. It seemed strange that I should be interpreting the world to this man of power.

"And I?" he repeated bitterly.

"You have first to become an admiral," I replied, with inspiration; "Drake was once a common seaman."

He did not answer. But that evening as we came into Windsor, I perceived that he had not abandoned his intentions. The long light flashed on the peaceful Thames, and the great, grim castle was gilded all over its western side.

The captain leaned out of the window.

"Postilion," he called, "which inn here is most favoured by gentlemen?"

"The Castle," said the boy, turning in his saddle to grin at me. "But if I might be so bold as to advise your honour, the 'Swan' is a comfortable house, and well attended."

"Know your place, sirrah," shouted the captain, angrily, "and drive us to the 'Castle.'"

The boy snapped his whip disdainfully, and presently pulled us up at the inn, our chaise covered with the mud of three particular showers we had run through that day. And, as usual, the landlord, thinking he was about to receive quality, came scraping to the chaise door, only to turn with a gesture of disgust when he perceived John Paul's sea-boxes tied on behind, and the costume of that hero, as well as my own.

The captain demanded a room. But mine host had turned his back, when suddenly a thought must have struck him, for he wheeled again.

"Stay," he cried, glancing suspiciously at the sky-blue frock; "if you are Mr. Dyson's courier, I have reserved a suite."

This same John Paul, who was like iron with mob and mutiny, was pitiably helpless before such a prop of the aristocracy. He flew into a rage, and rated the landlord in Scotch and English, and I was fain to put my tongue in my cheek and turn my back that my laughter might not anger him the more.

And so I came face to face with another smile, behind a spying-glass,--a smile so cynical and unpleasant withal that my own was smothered. A tall and thin gentleman, who had come out of the inn without a hat, was surveying the dispute with a keen delight. He was past the middle age. His clothes bore that mark which distinguishes his world from the other, but his features were so striking as to hold my attention unwittingly.

After a while he withdrew his glass, cast one look at me which might have meant anything, and spoke up.

"Pray, my good Goble, why all this fol-de-rol about admitting a gentleman to your house?"

I scarce know which was the more astonished, the landlord, John Paul, or I. Goble bowed at the speaker.

"A gentleman, your honour!" he gasped. "Your honour is joking again. Surely this trumpery Scotchman in Jews' finery is no gentleman, nor the longshore lout he has got with him. They may go to the 'Swan.'"

"Jews' finery!" shouted the captain, with his fingers on his sword.

But the stranger held up a hand deprecatingly.

"'Pon my oath, Goble, I gave you credit for more penetration," he drawled; "you may be right about the Scotchman, but your longshore lout has had both birth and breeding, or I know nothing."

John Paul, who was in the act of bowing to the speaker, remained petrified with his hand upon his heart, entirely discomfited. The landlord forsook him instantly for me, then stole a glance at his guest to test his seriousness, and looked at my face to see how greatly it were at variance with my clothes. The temptation to lay hands on the cringing little toadeater grew too strong for me, and I picked him up by the scruff of the collar,--he was all skin and bones,--and spun him round like a corpse upon a gibbet, while he cried mercy in a voice to wake the dead. The slim gentleman under the sign laughed until he held his sides, with a heartiness that jarred upon me. It did not seem to fit him.

"By Hercules and Vulcan," he cried, when at last I had set the landlord down, "what an arm and back the lad has! He must have the best in the house, Goble, and sup with me."

Goble pulled himself together.

"And he is your honour's friend," he began, with a scowl.

"Ay, he is my friend, I tell you," retorted the important personage, impatiently.

The innkeeper, sulky, half-satisfied, yet fearing to offend, welcomed us with what grace he could muster, and we were shown to "The Fox and the Grapes," a large room in the rear of the house.

John Paul had not spoken since the slim gentleman had drawn the distinction between us, and I knew that the affront was rankling in his breast. He cast himself into a chair with such an air of dejection as made me pity him from my heart. But I had no consolation to offer. His first words, far from being the torrent of protest I looked for, almost startled me into laughter.

"He can be nothing less than a duke," said the captain. "Ah, Richard, see what it is to be a gentleman!"

"Fiddlesticks! I had rather own your powers than the best title in England," I retorted sharply.

He shook his head sorrowfully, which made me wonder the more that a man of his ability should be unhappy without this one bauble attainment.

"I shall begin to believe the philosophers have the right of it," he remarked presently. "Have you ever read anything of Monsieur Rousseau's, Richard?"

The words were scarce out of his mouth when we heard a loud rap on the door, which I opened to discover a Swiss fellow in a private livery, come to say that his master begged the young gentleman would sup with him. The man stood immovable while he delivered this message, and put an impudent emphasis upon the gentleman.

"Say to your master, whoever he may be," I replied, in some heat at the man's sneer, "that I am travelling with Captain Paul. That any invitation to me must include him."

The lackey stood astounded at my answer, as though he had not heard aright. Then he retired with less assurance than he had come, and John Paul sprang to his feet and laid his hands upon my shoulders, as was his wont when affected. He reproached himself for having misjudged me, and added a deal more that I have forgotten.

"And to think," he cried, "that you have forgone supping with a nobleman on my account!"

"Pish, captain, 'tis no great denial. His Lordship--if Lordship he is --is stranded in an inn, overcome with ennui, and must be amused. That is all."

Nevertheless I think the good captain was distinctly disappointed, not alone because I gave up what in his opinion was a great advantage, but likewise because I could have regaled him on my return with an account of the meal. For it must be borne in mind, my dears, that those days are not these, nor that country this one. And in judging Captain Paul it must be remembered that rank inspired a vast respect when King George came to the throne. It can never be said of John Paul that he lacked either independence or spirit. But a nobleman was a nobleman then.

So when presently the gentleman himself appeared smiling at our door, which his servant had left open, we both of us rose up in astonishment and bowed very respectfully, and my face burned at the thought of the message I had sent him. For, after all, the captain was but twenty-one and I nineteen, and the distinguished unknown at least fifty. He took a pinch of snuff and brushed his waistcoat before he spoke.

"Egad," said he, with good nature, looking up at me, "Mohammed was a philosopher, and so am I, and come to the mountain. 'Tis worth crossing an inn in these times to see a young man whose strength has not been wasted upon foppery. May I ask your name, sir?"

"Richard Carvel," I answered, much put aback.

"Ah, Carvel," he repeated; "I know three or four of that name. Perhaps you are Robert Carvel's son, of Yorkshire. But what the devil do you do in such clothes? I was resolved to have you though I am forced to take a dozen watchet-blue mountebanks in the bargain."

"Sir, I warn you not to insult my friend," I cried, in a temper again.

"There, there, not so loud, I beg you," said he, with a gesture. "Hot as pounded pepper,--but all things are the better for a touch of it. I had no intention of insulting the worthy man, I give my word. I must have my joke, sir. No harm meant." And he nodded at John Paul, who looked as if he would sink through the floor. "Robert Carvel is as testy as the devil with the gout, and you are not unlike him in feature."

"He is no relation of mine," I replied, undecided whether to laugh or be angry. And then I added, for I was very young, "I am an American, and heir to Carvel Hall in Maryland."

"Lord, lord, I might have known," exclaimed he. "Once I had the honour of dining with your Dr. Franklin, from Pennsylvania. He dresses for all the world like you, only worse, and wears a hat I would not be caught under at Bagnigge Wells, were I so imprudent as to go there."

"Dr. Franklin has weightier matters than hats to occupy him, sir," I retorted. For I was determined to hold my own.

He made a French gesture, a shrug of his thin shoulders, which caused me to suspect he was not always so good-natured.

"Dr. Franklin would better have stuck to his newspaper, my young friend," said he. "But I like your appearance too well to quarrel with you, and we'll have no politics before eating. Come, gentlemen, come! Let us see what Goble has left after his shaking."

He struck off with something of a painful gait, which he explained was from the gout. And presently we arrived at his parlour, where supper was set out for us. I had not tasted its equal since I left Maryland. We sat down to a capon stuffed with eggs, and dainty sausages, and hot rolls, such as we had at home; and a wine which had cobwebbed and mellowed under the Castle Inn for better than twenty years. The personage did not drink wine. He sent his servant to quarrel with Goble because he had not been given iced water. While he was tapping on the table I took occasion to observe him. His was a physiognomy to strike the stranger, not by reason of its nobility, but because of its oddity. He had a prodigious length of face, the nose long in proportion, but not prominent. The eyes were dark, very bright, and wide apart, with little eyebrows dabbed over them at a slanting angle. The thin-lipped mouth rather pursed up, which made his smile the contradiction it was. In short, my dears, while I do not lay claim to the reading of character, it required no great astuteness to perceive the scholar, the man of the world, and the ascetic--and all affected. His conversation bore out the summary. It astonished us. It encircled the earth, embraced history and letters since the world began. And added to all this, he had a thousand anecdotes on his tongue's tip. His words he chose with too great a nicety; his sentences were of a foreign formation, twisted around; and his stories were illustrated with French gesticulations. He threw in quotations galore, in Latin, and French, and English, until the captain began casting me odd, uncomfortable looks, as though he wished himself well out of the entertainment. Indeed, poor John Paul's perturbation amused me more than the gentleman's anecdotes. To be ill at ease is discouraging to any one, but it was peculiarly fatal with the captain. This arch-aristocrat dazzled him. When he attempted to follow in the same vein he would get lost. And his really considerable learning counted for nothing. He reached the height of his mortification when the slim gentleman dropped his eyelids and began to yawn. I was wickedly delighted. He could not have been better met. Another such encounter, and I would warrant the captain's illusions concerning the gentry to go up in smoke. Then he might come to some notion of his own true powers. As for me, I enjoyed the supper which our host had insisted upon our partaking, drank his wine, and paid him very little attention.

"May I make so bold as to ask, sir, whether you are a patron of literature?" said the captain, at length.

"A very poor patron, my dear man," was the answer. "Merely a humble worshipper at the shrine. And I might say that I partake of its benefits as much as a gentleman may. And yet," he added, with a laugh and a cough, "those silly newspapers and magazines insist on calling me a literary man."

"And now that you have indulged in a question, and the claret is coming on," said he, "perhaps you will tell me something of yourself, Mr. Carvel, and of your friend, Captain Paul. And how you come to be so far from home." And he settled himself comfortably to listen, as a man who has bought his right to an opera box.

Here was my chance. And I resolved that if I did not further enlighten John Paul, it would be no fault of mine.

"Sir," I replied, in as dry a monotone as I could assume, "I was kidnapped by the connivance of some unscrupulous persons in my colony, who had designs upon my grandfather's fortune. I was taken abroad in a slaver and carried down to the Caribbean seas, when I soon discovered that the captain and his crew were nothing less than pirates. For one day all hands got into a beastly state of drunkenness, and the captain raised the skull and cross-bones, which he had handy in his chest. I was forced to climb the main rigging in order to escape being hacked to pieces."

He sat bolt upright, those little eyebrows of his gone up full half an inch, and he raised his thin hands with an air of incredulity. John Paul was no less astonished at my little ruse.

"Holy Saint Clement!" exclaimed our host; "pirates! This begins to have a flavour indeed. And yet you do not seem to be a lad with an imagination. Egad, Mr. Carvel, I had put you down for one who might say, with Alceste: 'Etre franc et sincere est mon plus grand talent.' But pray go on, sir. You have but to call for pen and ink to rival Mr. Fielding."

With that I pushed back my chair, got up from the table, and made him a bow. And the captain, at last seeing my drift, did the same.

"I am not used at home to have my word doubted, sir," I said. "Sir, your humble servant. I wish you a very good evening." He rose precipitately, crying out from his gout, and laid a hand upon my arm.

"Pray, Mr. Carvel, pray, sir, be seated," he said, in some agitation. "Remember that the story is unusual, and that I have never clapped eyes on you until to-night. Are all young gentlemen from Maryland so fiery? But I should have known from your face that you are incapable of deceit. Pray be seated, captain."

I was persuaded to go on, not a little delighted that I had scored my point, and broken down his mask of affectation and careless cynicism. I told my story, leaving out the family history involved, and he listened with every mark of attention and interest. Indeed, to my surprise, he began to show some enthusiasm, of which sensation I had not believed him capable.

"What a find! what a find!" he continued to exclaim, when I had finished. "And true. You say it is true, Mr. Carvel?"

"Sir!" I replied, "I thought we had thrashed that out."

"Yes, yes, to be sure. I beg pardon," said he. And then to his servant: "Colomb, is my writing-tablet unpacked?"

I was more mystified than ever as to his identity. Was he going to put the story in a magazine?

After that he seemed plainly anxious to be rid of us. I bade him good night, and he grasped my hand warmly enough. Then he turned to the captain in his most condescending manner. But a great change had come over John Paul. He was ever quick to see and to learn, and I rejoiced to remark that he did not bow over the hand, as he might have done two hours since. He was again Captain Paul, the man, who fought his way on his own merits. He held himself as tho' he was once more pacing the deck of the John.

The slim gentleman poured the width of a finger of claret in his glass, soused it with water, and held it up.

"Here's to your future, my good captain," he said, "and to Mr. Carvel's safe arrival home again. When you get to town, Mr. Carvel, don't fail to go to Davenport, who makes clothes for most of us at Almack's, and let him remodel you. I wish to God he might get hold of your doctor. And put up at the Star and Garter in Pall Mall: I take it that you have friends in London."

I replied that I had. But he did not push the inquiry.

"You should write out this history for your grandchildren, Mr. Carvel," he added, as he bade his Swiss light us to our room. "A strange yarn indeed, captain."

"And therefore," said the captain, coolly, "as a stranger give it welcome.

"'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'"

Had a meteor struck at the gentleman's feet, he could not have been more taken aback.

"What! What's this?" he cried. "You quote Hamlet! And who the devil are you, sir, that you know my name?"

"Your name, sir!" exclaims the captain, in astonishment.

"Well, well," he said, stepping back and eying us closely, "'tis no matter. Good night, gentlemen, good night."

And we went to bed with many a laugh over the incident.

"His name must be Horatio. We'll discover it in the morning," said John Paul.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us