XLV. THE HOUSE OF MEMORIES…

XLV. THE HOUSE OF MEMORIES

I was greatly touched, and made Mr. Swain many awkward acknowledgments, which he mercifully cut short. I asked him for a while to think over his offer. This seemed to please rather than displease him. And my first impulse on reaching the inn was to ask the captain's advice. I thought better of it however, and at length resolved to thrash out the matter for myself.

The next morning, as I sat reflecting, an overwhelming desire seized me to go to Marlboro' Street. Hitherto I could not have borne the sight of the old place. I gulped down my emotion as the gate creaked behind me, and made my way slowly to the white seat under the big chestnut behind the house, where my grandfather had been wont to sit reading his prints, in the warm weather. The flowers and the hedges had grown to a certain wildness; and the smell of the American roses carried me back-as odours will-to long-forgotten and trivial scenes. Here I had been caned many a day for Mr. Daaken's reports, and for earlier offences. And I recalled my mother as she once ran out at the sound of my cries to beg me off. So vivid was that picture that I could hear Mr. Carvel say: "He is yours, madam, not mine. Take him!"

I started up. The house was still, the sun blistering the green paint of the shutters. My eye was caught by those on the room that had been hers, and which, by my grandfather's decree, had lain closed since she left it. The image of it grew in my mind: the mahogany bed with its poppy counterpane and creamy curtains, and the steps at the side by which she was wont to enter it; and the 'prie-dieu', whence her soul had been lifted up to God. And the dresser with her china and silver upon it, covered by years of dust. For I had once stolen the key from Willis's bunch, crept in, and crept out again, awed. That chamber would be profaned, now, and those dear ornaments, which were mine, violated. The imagination choked me.

I would have them. I must. Nothing easier than to pry open a door or window in the north wing, by the ball-room. When I saw Grafton I would tell him. Nay, I would write him that day. I was even casting about me for an implement, when I heard a step on the gravel beside me.

I swung around, and came face to face with my uncle.

He must have perceived me. And after the first shock of my surprise had passed, I remarked a bearing on him that I had not seen before. He was master of the situation at last,--so it read. The realization gave him an easier speech than ever.

"I thought I might find you here, Richard," he said, "since you were not at the Coffee House."

He did not offer me his hand. I could only stare at him, for I had expected anything but this.

"I came from Carvel Hall to get you," he proceeded smoothly enough. "I heard but yesterday of your return, and some of your miraculous adventures. Your recklessness has caused us many a trying day, Richard, and I believe killed your grandfather. You have paid dearly, and have made us pay dearly, for your mad frolic of fighting cut-throats on the highroad."

The wonder was that I did not kill him on the spot. I cannot think what possessed the man,--he must have known me better.

"My recklessness!" I shouted, fairly hoarse with anger. I paid no heed to Mr. Swain's warning. "You d--d scoundrel!" I cried, "it was you killed him, and you know it. When you had put me out of the way and he was in your power, you tortured him to death. You forced him to die alone with your sneering face, while your shrew of a wife counted cards downstairs. Grafton Carvel, God knows you better than I, who know you two well. And He will punish you as sure as the crack of doom."

He heard me through, giving back as I came forward, his face blanching only a little, and wearing all the time that yellow smile which so fitted it.

"You have finished?" says he.

"Ay, I have finished. And now you may order me from this ground you have robbed me of. But there are some things in that house you shall not steal, for they are mine despite you."

"Name them, Richard," he said, very sorrowful.

"The articles in my mother's room, which were hers."

"You shall have them this day," he answered.

It was his way never to lose his temper, tho' he were called by the vilest name in the language. He must always assume this pious grief which made me long to throttle him. He had the best of me, even now, as he took the great key from his pocket.

"Will you look at them before you go?" he asked.

At first I was for refusing. Then I nodded. He led the way silently around by the front; and after he had turned the lock he stepped aside with a bow to let me pass in ahead of him. Once more I was in the familiar hall with the stairs dividing at the back. It was cool after the heat, and musty, and a touch of death hung in the prisoned air. We paused for a moment on the landing, beside the high, triple-arched window which the branches tapped on windy winter days, while Grafton took down the bunch of keys from beside the clock. I thought of my dear grandfather winding it every Sunday, and his ruddy face and large figure as he stood glancing sidewise down at me. Then the sound of Grafton's feet upon the bare steps recalled the present.

We passed Mr. Carvel's room and went down the little corridor over the ball-room, until we came to the full-storied wing. My uncle flung open the window and shutters opposite and gave me the key. A delicacy not foreign to him held him where he was. Time had sealed the door, and when at last it gave before my strength, a shower of dust quivered in the ray of sunlight from the window. I entered reverently. I took only the silverbound prayer-book, cast a lingering look at the old familiar objects dimly defined, and came out and locked the door again. I said very quietly that I would send for the things that afternoon, for my anger was hushed by what I had seen.

We halted together on the uncovered porch in front of the house, that had a seat set on each side of it. Marlboro' Street was still, the wide trees which flanked it spreading their shade over walk and roadway. Not a soul was abroad in the midday heat, and the windows of the long house opposite were sightless.

"Richard," said my uncle, staring ahead of him, "I came to offer you a home, and you insult me brutally, as you have done unreproved all your life. And yet no one shall say of me that I shirk my duty. But first I must ask you if there is aught else you desire of me."

"The black boy, Hugo, is mine," I said. I had no great love for Hugo, save for association's sake, and I had one too many servants as it was; but to rescue one slave from Grafton's clutches was charity.

"You shall have him," he replied, "and your chaise, and your wardrobe, and your horses, and whatever else I have that belongs to you. As I was saying, I will not shirk my duty. The memory of my dear father, and of what he would have wished, will not permit me to let you go a-begging. You shall be provided for out of the estate, despite what you have said and done."

This was surely the quintessence of a rogue's imagination. Instinctively I shrank from him. With a show of piety that 'turned me sick he continued:

"Let God witness that I carry out my father's will!"

"Stop there, Grafton Carvel!" I cried; "you shall not take His name in vain. Under this guise of holiness you and your accomplice have done the devil's own work, and the devil will reward you."

This reference to Mr. Allen, I believe, frightened him. For a second only did he show it.

"My--my accomplice, sir!" he stammered. And then righting himself: "You will have to explain this, by Heaven."

"In ample time your plot shall be laid bare, and you and his Reverence shall hang, or lie in chains."

"You threaten, Mr. Carvel?" he shouted, nearly stepping off the porch in his excitement.

"Nay, I predict," I replied calmly. And I went down the steps and out of the gate, he looking after me. Before I had turned the corner of Freshwater Lane, he was in the seat, and fanning himself with his hat.

I went straight to Mr. Swain's chambers in the Circle, where I found the good barrister and Captain Daniel in their shirt-sleeves, seated between the windows in the back room. Mr. Swain was grave enough when he heard of my talk with Grafton, but the captain swore I was my father's son (for the fiftieth time since I had come back), and that a man could no more help flying at Grafton's face than Knipe could resist his legs; or Cynthia his back, if he went into her stall. I had scarce finished my recital, when Mr. Renwick, the barrister's clerk, announced Mr. Tucker, which caused Mr. Swain to let out a whistle of surprise.

"So the wind blows from that quarter, Daniel," said he. "I thought so."

Mr. Tucker proved to be the pettifogger into whose hands Grafton had put his affairs, taking them from Mr. Dulany at Mr. Carvel's death. The man was all in a sweat, and had hardly got in the door before he began to talk. He had no less astonishing a proposition to make than this, which he enunciated with much mouthing of the honour and sense of duty of Mr. Grafton Carvel. His client offered to Mr. Richard Carvel the estate lying in Kent County, embracing thirty-three hundred acres more or less of arable land and woodland, with a fine new house, together with the indented servants and negroes and other chattels thereon. Mr. Richard Carvel would observe that in making this generous offer for the welfare of his nephew, Mr. Tucker's client was far beyond the letter of his obligations; wherefore Mr. Grafton Carvel made it contingent upon the acceptance of the estate that his nephew should sign a paper renouncing forever any claims upon the properties of the late Mr. Lionel Carvel. This condition was so deftly rolled up in law-Latin that I did not understand a word of it until Mr. Swain stated it very briefly in English. His quiet laugh prodigiously disconcerted the pettifogger, who had before been sufficiently ill at ease in the presence of the great lawyer. Mr. Tucker blew his nose loudly to hide his confusion.

"And what say you, Richard?" said Mr. Swain, without a shade of accent in his voice.

I bowed my head. I knew that the honest barrister had read my heart when he spoke of noblesse oblige. That senseless pride of cast, so deep-rooted in those born in our province, had made itself felt. To be a factor (so I thought, for I was young) was to renounce my birth. Until that moment of travail the doctrine of equality had seemed very pretty to me. Your fine gentleman may talk as nobly as he pleases over his Madeira, and yet would patronize Monsieur Rousseau if he met him; and he takes never a thought of those who knuckle to him every day, and clean his boots and collect his rents. But when he is tried in the fire, and told suddenly to collect some one else's rents and curse another's negroes, he is fainthearted for the experiment. So it was with me when I had to meet the issue. I might take Grafton's offer, and the chance to marry Dorothy was come again. For by industry the owner of the Kent lands would become rich.

The room was hot, and still save for the buzzing of the flies. When I looked up I discovered the eyes of all three upon me.

"You may tell your client, Mr. Tucker, that I refuse his offer," I said.

He got to his feet, and with the customary declaration of humble servitude bowed himself out.

The door was scarce closed on him when the captain had me by the hands.

"What said I, Henry?" he cried. "Did I not know the lad?"

Mr. Swain did not stir from his seat. He was still gazing at me with a curious expression. And then I saw the world in truer colour. This good Samaritan was not only taking me into his home, but would fight for my rights with the strong brain that had lifted him out of poverty and obscurity. I stood, humbled before him.

"I would accept your kindness, Mr. Swain," I said, vainly trying to steady my voice, "but I have the faithful fellow, Banks, who followed me here from England, dependant on me, and Hugo, whom I rescued from my uncle. I will make over the black to you and you will have him."

He rose, brushed his eyes with his shirt, and took me by the arm. "You and the captain dine with me to-day," says he. "And as for Banks, I think that can be arranged. Now I have an estate, I shall need a trained butler, egad. I have some affairs to keep me in town to-day, Richard. But we'll be off for Cordon's Pride in the morning, and I know of one little girl will be glad to see us."

We dined out under the apple tree in Gloucester Street. And the captain argued, in his hopeful way, that Tucker's visit betrayed a weak point in Grafton's position. But the barrister shook his head and said that Grafton was too shrewd a rogue to tender me an estate if he feared me. It was Mr. Swain's opinion that the motive of my uncle was to put himself in a good light; and perhaps, he added, there was a little revenge mixed therein, as the Kent estate was the one Mr. Carvel had given him when he cast him off.

A southerly wind was sending great rolls of fog before it as Mr. Swain and I, with Banks, crossed over to Kent Island on the ferry the next morning. We traversed the island, and were landed by the other ferry on the soil of my native county, Queen Anne's. In due time we cantered past Master Dingley's tavern, the sight of which gave me a sharp pang, for it is there that the by-road turns over the bridge to Carvel Hall and Wilmot House; and force of habit drew my reins to the right across the horse's neck, so that I swerved into it. The barrister had no word of comment when I overtook him again.

'Twas about two o'clock when we came to the gate Mr. Swain had erected at the entrance to his place; the land was a little rolling, and partly wooded, like that on the Wye. But the fields were prodigiously unkempt. He drew up, and glanced at me.

"You will see there is much to be done with such fallows as these," said he. "The lessees from his Lordship were sportsmen rather than husbandmen, and had an antipathy to a constable or a sheriff like a rat to a boar cat. That is the curse of some of your Eastern Shore gentlemen, especially in Dorchester," he added; "they get to be fishmongers."

Presently we came in sight of the house, long and low, like the one in Gloucester Street, with a new and unpainted wing just completed. That day the mist softened its outline and blurred the trees which clustered about it. Even as we swung into the circle of the drive a rounded and youthful figure appeared in the doorway, gave a little cry, and stood immovable. It was Patty, in a striped dimity gown with the sleeves rolled up, and her face fairly shone with joy as I leaped from my horse and took her hands.

"So you like my surprise, girl?" said her father, as he kissed her blushing face.

For answer she tore herself away, and ran through the hall to the broad porch in front.

"Our barrister is come, mother," we heard her exclaiming, "and whom do you think he has brought?"

"Is it Richard?" asked the gentler voice, more hastily than usual.

I stepped out on the porch, where the invalid sat in her armchair. She was smiling with joy, too, and she held out her wasted hands and drew me toward her, kissing me on both cheeks.

"I thank God for His goodness," said she.

"And the boy has come to stay, mother," said her husband, as he stooped over her.

"To stay!" cries Patty.

"Gordon's Pride is henceforth his home," replied the barrister. "And now I can return in peace to my musty law, and know that my plantation will be well looked after."

Patty gasped.

"Oh, I am so glad!" said she, "I could almost rejoice that his uncle cheated him out of his property. He is to be factor of Gordon's Pride?"

"He is to be master of Gordon's Pride, my dear," says her father, smiling and tilting her chin; "we shall have no such persons as factors here."

At that the tears forced themselves into my own eyes. I turned away, and then I perceived for the first time the tall form of my old friend, Percy Singleton.

"May I, too, bid you welcome, Richard," said he, in his manly way; "and rejoice that I have got such a neighbour?"

"Thank you, Percy," I answered. I was not in a state to say much more.

"And now," exclaims Patty, "what a dinner we shall have in the prodigal's honour! I shall make you all some of the Naples biscuit Mrs. Brice told me of."

She flew into the house, and presently we heard her clear voice singing in the kitchen.

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XLVI. GORDON'S PRIDE

The years of a man's life that count the most are often those which may be passed quickest in the story of it. And so I may hurry over the first years I spent as Mr. Swain's factor at Gordon's Pride. The task that came to my hand was heaven-sent.

That manor-house, I am sure, was the tidiest in all Maryland, thanks to Patty's New England blood. She was astir with the birds of a morning, and near the last to retire at night, and happy as the days were long. She was ever up to her elbows in some dish, and her butter and her biscuits were the best in the province. Little she cared to work samplers, or peacocks in pretty wools, tho' in some way she found the time to learn the spinet. As the troubles with the mother country thickened, she took to a foot-wheel, and often in the crisp autumn evenings I would hear the bumping of it as I walked to the house, and turn the knob to come upon her spinning by the twilight. She would have no English-made linen in that household. "If mine scratch your back, Richard," she would say, "you must grin and bear, and console yourself with your virtue." It was I saw to the flax, and learned from Ivie Rawlinson (who had come to us from Carvel Hall) the best manner to ripple and break and swingle it. And Mr. Swain, in imitation of the high example set by Mr. Bordley, had buildings put up for wheels and the looms, and in due time kept his own sheep.

If man or woman, white or black, fell sick on the place, it was Patty herself who tended them. She knew the virtue of every herb in the big chest in the storeroom. And at table she presided over her father's guests with a womanliness that won her more admiration than mine. Now that the barrister was become a man of weight, the house was as crowded as ever was Carvel Hall. Carrolls and Pacas and Dulanys and Johnsons, and Lloyds and Bordleys and Brices and Scotts and Jennings and Ridouts, and Colonel Sharpe, who remained in the province, and many more families of prominence which I have not space to mention, all came to Gordon's Pride. Some of these, as their names proclaim, were of the King's side; but the bulk of Mr. Swain's company were stanch patriots, and toasted Miss Patty instead of his Majesty. By this I do not mean that they lacked loyalty, for it is a matter of note that our colony loved King George.

I must not omit from the list above the name of my good friend, Captain Clapsaddle.

Nor was there lack of younger company. Betty Tayloe, who plied me with questions concerning Dorothy and London, but especially about the dashing and handsome Lord Comyn; and the Dulany girls, and I know not how many others. Will Fotheringay, when he was home from college, and Archie Brice, and Francis Willard (whose father was now in the Assembly) and half a dozen more to court Patty, who would not so much as look at them. And when I twitted her with this she would redden and reply: "I was created for a housewife, sir, and not to make eyes from behind a fan." Indeed, she was at her prettiest and best in the dimity frock, with the sleeves rolled up.

'Twas a very merry place, the manor of Gordon's Pride. A generous bowl of punch always stood in the cool hall, through which the south winds swept from off the water, and fruit and sangaree and lemonade were on the table there. The manor had no ball-room, but the negro fiddlers played in the big parlour. And the young folks danced till supper time. In three months Patty's suppers grew famous in a colony where there was no lack of good cooks.

The sweet-natured invalid enjoyed these festivities in her quiet way, and often pressed me to partake. So did Patty beg me, and Mr. Swain. Perhaps a false sense of pride restrained me, but my duties held me all day in the field, and often into the night when there was curing to be done, or some other matters of necessity. And for the rest, I thought I detected a change in the tone of Mr. Fotheringay, and some others, tho' it may have been due to sensibility on my part. I would put up with no patronage.

There was no change of tone, at least, with the elder gentlemen. They plainly showed me an added respect. And so I fell into the habit, after my work was over, of joining them in their suppers rather than the sons and daughters. There I was made right welcome. The serious conversation spiced with the wit of trained barristers and men of affairs better suited my changed condition of life. The times were sober, and for those who could see, a black cloud was on each horizon. 'Twas only a matter of months when the thunder-clap was to come-indeed, enough was going on within our own province to forebode a revolution. The Assembly to which many of these gentlemen belonged was in a righteous state of opposition to the Proprietary and the Council concerning the emoluments of colonial officers and of clergymen. Honest Governor Eden had the misfortune to see the justice of our side, and was driven into a seventh state by his attempts to square his conscience. Bitter controversies were waging in the Gazette, and names were called and duels fought weekly. For our cause "The First Citizen" led the van, and the able arguments and moderate language of his letters soon identified him as Mr. Charles Carroll of Carrollton, one of the greatest men Maryland has ever known. But even at Mr. Swain's, amongst his few intimate friends, Mr. Carroll could never be got to admit his 'nom de guerre' until long after 'Antilon' had been beaten.

I write it with pride, that at these suppers I was sometimes asked to speak; and, having been but lately to England, to give my opinion upon the state of affairs there. Mr. Carroll honoured me upon two occasions with his confidence, and I was made clerk to a little club they had, and kept the minutes in my own hand.

I went about in homespun, which, if good enough for Mr. Bordley, was good enough for me. I rode with him over the estate. This gentleman was the most accomplished and scientific farmer we had in the province. Having inherited his plantation on Wye Island, near Carvel Hall, he resigned his duties as judge, and a lucrative practice, to turn all his energies to the cultivation of the soil. His wheat was as eagerly sought after as was Colonel Washington's tobacco.

It was to Mr. Bordley's counsel that the greater part of my success was due. He taught me the folly of ploughing with a fluke,--a custom to which the Eastern Shore was wedded, pointing out that a double surface was thus exposed to the sun's rays; and explained at length why there was more profit in small grain in that district than heavy tobacco. He gave me Dr. Eliot's "Essays on Field Husbandry," and Mill's "Husby," which I read from cover to cover. And I went from time to time to visit him at Wye Island, when he would canter with me over that magnificent plantation, and show me with pride the finished outcome of his experiments.

Mr. Swain's affairs kept him in town the greater part of the twelve months, and Mrs. Swain and Patty moved to Annapolis in the autumn. But for three years I was at Cordon's Pride winter and summer alike. At the end of that time I was fortunate enough to show my employer such substantial results as to earn his commendation--ay, and his confidence, which was the highest token of that man's esteem. The moneys of the estate he left entirely at my order. And in the spring of '73, when the opportunity was suddenly offered to buy a thousand acres of excellent wheat land adjoining, I made the purchase for him while he was at Williamsburg, and upon my own responsibility.

This connected the plantation on the east with Singleton's. It had been my secret hope that the two estates might one day be joined in marriage. For of all those who came a-courting Patty, Percy was by far the best. He was but a diffident suitor; he would sit with me on the lawn evening after evening, when company was there, while Fotheringay and Francis Willard made their compliments within,--silly flatteries, at which Patty laughed.

Percy kept his hounds, and many a run we had together' in the sparkling days that followed the busy summer, when the crops were safe in the bottoms; or a quiet pipe and bottle in his bachelor's hall, after a soaking on the duck points.

And this brings me to a subject on which I am loth to write. Where Mr. Singleton was concerned, Patty, the kindest of creatures, was cruelty itself. Once, when I had the effrontery to venture a word in his behalf, I had been silenced so effectively as to make my ears tingle. A thousand little signs led me to a conclusion which pained me more than I can express. Heaven is my witness that no baser feeling leads me to hint of it here. Every day while the garden lasted flowers were in my room, and it was Banks who told me that she would allow no other hands than her own to place them by my bed. He got a round rating from me for violating the pledge of secrecy he had given her. It was Patty who made my shirts, and on Christmas knitted me something of comfort; who stood on the horse-block in the early morning waving after me as I rode away, and at my coming her eyes would kindle with a light not to be mistaken.

None of these things were lost upon Percy Singleton, and I often wondered why he did not hate me. He was of the kind that never shows a hurt. Force of habit still sent him to Gordon's Pride, but for days he would have nothing to say to the mistress of it, or she to him.

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XLVII. VISITORS

It was not often that Mr. Thomas Swain honoured Gordon's Pride with his presence. He vowed that the sober Whig company his father brought there gave him the vapours. He snapped his fingers at the articles of the Patriots' Association, and still had his cocked hats and his Brussels lace and his spyglass, and his top boots when he rode abroad, like any other Tory buck. His intimates were all of the King's side,--of the worst of the King's side, I should say, for I would not be thought to cast any slur on the great number of conscientious men of that party. But, being the son of one of the main props of the Whigs, Mr. Tom went unpunished for his father's sake. He was not uncondemned.

Up to 1774, the times that Mr. Swain mentioned his son to me might be counted on the fingers of one hand. It took not a great deal of shrewdness to guess that he had paid out many a pretty sum to keep Tom's honour bright: as bright, at least, as such doubtful metal would polish. Tho' the barrister sought my ear in many matters, I never heard a whimper out of him on this score.

Master Tom had no ambition beyond that of being a macaroni; his easy-going nature led him to avoid alike trouble and responsibility. Hence he did not bother his head concerning my position. He appeared well content that I should make money out of the plantation for him to spend. His visits to Gordon's Pride were generally in the late autumn, and he brought his own company with him. I recall vividly his third or fourth appearance, in October of '73. Well I may! The family was preparing to go to town, and this year I was to follow them, and take from Mr. Swain's shoulders some of his private business, for he had been ailing a little of late from overwork.

The day of which I have spoken a storm had set in, the rain falling in sheets. I had been in the saddle since breakfast, seeing to an hundred repairs that had to be made before the cold weather. 'Twas near the middle of the afternoon when I pulled up before the weaving house. The looms were still, and Patty met me at the door with a grave look, which I knew portended something. But her first words were of my comfort.

"Richard, will you ever learn sense? You have been wet all day long, and have missed your dinner. Go at once and change your clothes, sir!" she commanded severely.

"I have first to look at the warehouse, where the roof is leaking," I expostulated.

"You shall do no such thing," replied she, "but dry yourself, and march into the dining room. We have had the ducks you shot yesterday, and some of your experimental hominy; but they are all gone."

I knew well she had laid aside for me some dainty, as was her habit. I dismounted. She gave me a quick, troubled glance, and said in a low voice:

"Tom is come. And oh, I dare not tell you whom he has with him now!"

"Courtenay?" I asked.

"Yes, of coarse. I hate the sight of the man. But your cousin, Philip Carvel, is here, Richard. Father will be very angry. And they are making a drinking-tavern of the house."

I gave Firefly a slap that sent her trotting stable-ward, and walked rapidly to the house. I found the three of them drinking in the hall, the punch spilled over the table, and staining the cards.

"Gad's life!" cries Tom, "here comes Puritan Richard, in his broad rim. How goes the crop, Richard? 'Twill have to go well, egad, for I lost an hundred at the South River Club last week!"

Next him sat Philip, whom I had not seen since before I was carried off. He was lately come home from King's College; and very mysteriously, his father giving out that his health was not all it should be. He had not gained Grafton's height, but he was broader, and his face had something in it of his father. He had his mother's under lip and complexion. Grafton was sallow; Philip was a peculiar pink,--not the ruddy pink of heartier natures, like my grandfather's, nor yet had he the peach-like skin of Mr. Dix. Philip's was a darker and more solid colour, and I have never seen man or woman with it and not mistrusted them. He wore a red velvet coat embroidered with gold, and as costly ruffles as I had ever seen in London. But for all this my cousin had a coarse look, and his polished blue flints of eyes were those of a coarse man.

He got to his feet as Tom spoke, looking anywhere but at me, and came forward slowly. He was loyal to no one, was Philip, not even to his father. When he was got within three paces he halted.

"How do you, cousin?" says he.

"A little wet, as you perceive, Philip," I replied.

I left him and stood before the fire, my rough wool steaming in the heat. He sat down again, a little awkwardly; and the situation began to please me better.

"How do you?" I asked presently.

"I have got a devilish cold," said he. "Faith, I'll warrant the doctor will be sworn I have been but indifferent company since we left the Hall. Eh, doctor?"

Courtenay, with his feet stretched out, bestowed an amiable but languid wink upon me, as much as to say that I knew what Mr. Philip's company was at best. When I came out after my dinner, they were still sitting there, Courtenay yawning, and Tom and Philip wrangling over last night's play.

"Come, my man of affairs, join us a hand!" says the doctor to me. "I have known the time when you would sit from noon until supper."

"I had money then," said I.

"And you have a little now, or I am cursed badly mistook. Oons! what do you fear?" he exclaimed, "you that have played with March and Fox?"

"I fear nothing, doctor," I answered, smiling. "But a man must have a sorry honour when he will win fifty pounds with but ten of capital."

"One of Dr. Franklin's maxims, I presume," says he, with sarcasm.

"And if it were, it could scarce be more pat," I retorted. "'Tis Poor Richard's maxim."

"O lud! O my soul!" cries Tom, with a hiccup and a snigger; "'tis time you made another grand tour, Courtenay. Here's the second Whig has got in on you within the week!"

"Thank God they have not got me down to osnabrig and bumbo yet," replies the doctor. Coming over to me by the fire, he tapped my sleeve and added in a low tone: "Forbearance with such a pair of asses is enough to make a man shed bitter tears. But a little of it is necessary to keep out of debt. You and I will play together, against both the lambs, Richard. One of them is not far from maudlin now."

"Thank you, doctor," I answered politely, "but I have a better way to make my living." In three years I had learned a little to control my temper.

He shrugged his thin shoulders. "Eh bien, mon bon," says he, "I dare swear you know your own game better than do I." And he cast a look up the stairs, of which I quite missed the meaning. Indeed, I was wholly indifferent. The doctor and his like had passed out of my life, and I believed they were soon to disappear from our Western Hemisphere. The report I had heard was now confirmed, that his fortune was dissipated, and that he lived entirely off these young rakes who aspired to be macaronies.

"Since your factor is become a damned Lutheran, Tom," said he, returning to the table and stripping a pack, "it will have to be picquet. You promised me we could count on a fourth, or I had never left Inman's."

It was Tom, as I had feared, who sat down unsteadily opposite. Philip lounged and watched them sulkily, snuffing and wheezing and dipping into the bowl, and cursing the house for a draughty barn. I took a pipe on the settle to see what would come of it. I was not surprised that Courtenay lost at first, and that Tom drank the most of the punch. Nor was it above half an hour before the stakes were raised and the tide began to turn in the doctor's favour.

"A plague of you, Courtenay!" cries Mr. Tom, at length, flinging down the cards. His voice was thick, while the Selwyn of Annapolis was never soberer in his life. Tom appealed first to Philip for the twenty pounds he owed him.

"You know how damned stingy my father is, curse you," whined my cousin, in return. "I told you I should not have it till the first of the month."

Tom swore back. He thrust his hands deep in his pockets and sank into that attitude of dejection common to drunkards. Suddenly he pulled himself up.

"'Shblood! Here's Richard t' draw from. Lemme have fifty pounds, Richard."

"Not a farthing," I said, unmoved.

"You say wha' shall be done with my father's money!" he cried. "I call tha' damned cool--Gad's life! I do. Eh, Courtenay?"

Courtenay had the sense not to interfere.

"I'll have you dishcharged, Gads death! so I will!" he shouted. "No damned airs wi' me, Mr. Carvel. I'll have you know you're not wha' you once were, but, only a cursht oversheer."

He struggled to his feet, forgot his wrath on the instant, and began to sing drunkenly the words of a ribald air. I took him by both shoulders and pushed him back into his chair.

"Be quiet," I said sternly; "while your mother and sister are here you shall not insult them with such a song." He ceased, astonished. "And as for you, gentlemen," I continued, "you should know better than to make a place of resort out of a gentleman's house."

Courtenay's voice broke the silence that followed.

"Of all the cursed impertinences I ever saw, egad!" he drawled. "Is this your manor, Mr. Carvel? Or have you a seat in Kent?"

I would not have it in black and white that I am an advocate of fighting. But a that moment I was in the mood when it does not matter much one way or the other. The drunken man carried us past the point.

"The damned in--intriguing rogue'sh worked himself into my father's grashes," he said, counting out his words. "He'sh no more Whig than me. I know'sh game, Courtenay--he wants t' marry Patty. Thish place'll be hers."

The effect upon me of these words, with all their hideous implication of gossip and scandal, was for an instant benumbing. The interpretation of the doctor's innuendo struck me then. I was starting forward, with a hand open to clap over Tom's mouth, when I saw the laugh die on Courtenay's face, and him come bowing to his legs. I turned with a start.

On the stairs stood Patty herself, pale as marble.

"Come with me, Tom," she said.

He had obeyed her from childhood. This time he tried, and failed miserably.

"Beg pardon, Patty," he stammered, "no offensh meant. Thish factor thinks h' ownsh Gordon's now. I say, not'll h' marries you. Good fellow, Richard, but infernal forward. Eh, Courtenay?"

Philip turned away, while the doctor pretended to examine the silver punch-ladle. As for me, I could only stare. It was Patty who kept her head, and made us a stately curtsey.

"Will you do me the kindness, gentlemen," said she, "to leave me with my brother?"

We walked silently into the parlour, and I closed the door.

"Slife!" cried Courtenay, "she's a vision. What say you, Philip? And I might see her in that guise again, egad, I would forgive Tom his five hundred crowns!"

"A buxom vision," agreed my cousin, "but I vow I like 'em so." He had forgotten his cold.

"This conversation is all of a piece with the rest of your conduct," said I, hotly.

The candles were burning brightly in the sconces. The doctor walked to the glass, took snuff, and burnished his waistcoat before he answered.

"Sure, a fortune lies under every virtue we assume," he recited. "But she is not for you, Richard," says he, tapping his box.

"Mr. Carvel, if you please," I replied. I felt the demon within me. But I had the sense to realize that a quarrel with Dr. Courtenay, under the circumstances, would be far from wise. He had no intention of quarrelling, however. He made me a grand bow.

"Mr. Carvel, your very obedient. Hereafter I shall know better than to forget myself with an overseer." And he gave me his back. "What say you to a game of billiards, Philip?"

Philip seemed glad to escape. And soon I heard their voices, mingling with the click of the balls. There followed for me one of the bitterest half hours I have had in my life. Then Patty opened the hall door.

"Will you come in for a moment, Richard?" she said, quite calmly.

I followed her, wondering at the masterful spirit she had shown. For there was Tom all askew in his chair, his feet one way and his hands another, totally subdued. What was most to the point, he made me an elaborate apology. How she had sobered his mind I know not. His body was as helpless as the day he was born.

Long before the guests thought of rising the next morning, Patty came to me as I was having the mare saddled. The sun was up, and the clouds were being chased, like miscreants who have played their prank, and were now running for it. The sharp air brought the red into her cheeks. And for the first time in her life with me she showed shyness. She glanced up into my face, and then down at the leaves running on the ground.

"I hope they will go to-day," said she, when I was ready to mount.

I began to tighten the girths, venting my feelings on Firefly until the animal swung around and made a vicious pass at my arm.

"Richard!"

"Yes."

"You will not worry over that senseless speech of Tom's?"

"I see it in a properer light now, Patty," I replied. "I usually do--in the morning."

She sighed.

"You are so--high-strung," she said, "I was afraid you would--"

"I would--?"

She did not answer until I had repeated.

"I was very silly," she said slowly, her colour mounting even higher," I was afraid that you would--leave us." Stroking the mare's neck, and with a little halt in her voice, "I do not know what we should do without you."

Indeed, I was beginning to think I would better leave, though where I should go was more than I could say. With a quick intuition she caught my hand as I put foot in the stirrup.

"You will not go away!" she cried. "Say you will not! What would poor father do? He is not so well as he used to be."

The wild appeal in her eyes frightened me. It was beyond resisting. In great agitation I put my foot to the ground again.

"Patty, I should be a graceless scamp in truth," I exclaimed. "I do not forget that your father gave me a home when mine was taken away, and has made me one of his family. I shall thank God if I can but lighten some of his burdens."

But they did not depart that day, nor the next; nor, indeed, for a week after. For Philip's cold brought on a high fever. He stuck to his bed, and Patty herself made broth and dainties for him, and prescribed him medicine out of the oak chest whence had come so much comfort. At first Philip thought he would die, and forswore wine and cards, and some other things the taste for which he had cultivated, and likewise worse vices that had come to him by nature.

I am greatly pleased to write that the stay profited the gallant Dr. Courtenay nothing. Patty's mature beauty and her manner of carrying off the episode in the hall had made a deep impression upon the Censor. I read the man's mind in his eye; here was a match to mend his fortunes, and do him credit besides. However, his wit and his languishing glances and double meanings fell on barren ground. No tire-woman on the plantation was busier than Patty during the first few days of his stay. After that he grew sulky and vented his spleen on poor Tom, winning more money from him at billiards and picquet. Since the doctor was too much the macaroni to ride to hounds and to shoot ducks, time began to hang exceeding heavy on his hands.

Patty and I had many a quiet laugh over his predicament. And, to add zest to the situation, I informed Singleton of what was going forward. He came over every night for supper, and to my delight the bluff Englishman was received in a fashion to make the doctor writhe and snort with mortification. Never in his life had he been so insignificant a person. And he, whose conversation was so sought after in the gay season in town, was thrown for companionship upon a scarce-grown boy whose talk was about as salted, and whose intellect as great, as those of the cockerouse in our fable. He stood it about a se'nnight, at the end of which space Philip was put on his horse, will-he-nill-he, and made to ride northward.

I sat with my cousin of an evening as he lay in bed. Not, I own, from any charity on my part, but from other motives which do me no credit. The first night he confessed his sins, and they edified me not a little. On the second he was well enough to sit up and swear, and to vow that Miss Swain was an angel; that he would marry her the very next week and his father Grafton were not such a stickler for family.

"Curse him," says his dutiful and loyal son, "he is so bally stingy with my stipend that I am in debt to half the province. And I say it myself, Richard, he has been a blackguard to you, tho' I allow him some little excuse. You were faring better now, my dear cousin, and you had not given him every reason to hate you. For I have heard him declare more than once 'pon my soul, I have--that he would rather you were his friend than his enemy."

My contempt for Philip kept me silent here. I might quarrel with Grafton, who had sense enough to feel pain at a well deserved thrust. Philip had not the intelligence to recognize insult from compliment. It was but natural he should mistake my attitude now. He leaned forward in his bed.

"Hark you, Richard," whispers he, with a glance at the door, "I might tell you some things and I chose, and--and it were worth my while."

"Worth your while?" I repeated vaguely.

He traced nervously the figures on the counterpane. Next came a rush of anger to redden his face.

"By Gad, I will tell you. Swear to Gad I will." Then, the little cunning inherited from his father asserting itself, he added, "Look you, Richard, I am the son of one of the richest men in the colony, and I get the pittance of a backwoods pastor. I tell you 'tis not to be borne with. And I am not of as much consideration at the Hall as Brady, the Irish convict, who has become overseer."

I little wondered at this. Philip sank back, and for some moments eyed me between narrowed lids. He continued presently with shortened breath:

"I have evidence--I have evidence to get you back a good share of the estate, which my father will never miss. And I will do it," he cries, suddenly bold, "I will do it for three thousand pounds down when you receive it."

This was why he had come with Tom to Talbot! I was so dumfounded that my speech was quite taken away. Then I got up and began pacing the room. Was it not fair to fight a scoundrel with his own weapons? Here at last was the witness Mr. Swain had been seeking so long, come of his own free will. Then--Heaven help me!--my mind flew on. As time had passed I had more than once regretted refusing the Kent plantation, which had put her from whom my thought never wandered within my reach again. Good Mr. Swain had erred for once. 'Twas foolish, indeed, not to accept a portion of what was rightfully mine, when no more could be got. And now, if what Philip said was true (and I doubted it not), here at last was the chance come again to win her without whom I should never be happy. I glanced at my cousin.

"Gad's life!" says he, "it is cheap enough. I might have asked you double."

"So you might, and have been refused," I cried hotly. For I believe that speech of his recalled me to my senses. It has ever been an instinct with me that no real prosperity comes out of double-dealing. And commerce with such a sneak sickened me. "Go back to your father, Philip, and threaten him, and he may make you rich. Such as he live by blackmail. And you may add, and you will, that the day of retribution is coming for him."

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XLVIII. MULTUM IN PARVO

I lost no time after getting to Annapolis in confiding to Mr. Swain the conversation I had had with my cousin Philip. And I noticed, as he sat listening to my account in the library in Gloucester Street, that the barrister looked very worn. He had never been a strong man, and the severe strain he had been under with the patriots' business was beginning to tell.

He was very thoughtful when I had finished, and then told me briefly that I had done well not to take the offer. "Tucker would have made but short work of such evidence, my lad," said he, "and I think Master Philip would have lied himself in and out a dozen times. I cannot think what witness he would have introduced save Mr. Allen. And there is scarcely a doubt that your uncle pays him for his silence, for I am told he is living in Frederick in a manner far above what he gets from the parish. However, Philip has given us something more to work on. It may be that he can put hands on the messenger."

I rose to go.

"We shall bring them to earth yet, Richard, and I live," he added. "And I have always meant to ask you whether you ever regretted your decision in taking Gordon's Pride."

"And you live, sir!" I exclaimed, not heeding the question.

He smiled somewhat sadly.

"Of one thing I am sure, my lad," he continued, "which is that I have had no regrets about taking you. Mr. Bordley has just been here, and tells me you are the ablest young man in the province. You see that more eyes than mine are upon you. You have proved yourself a man, Richard, and there are very few macaronies would have done as you did. I am resolved to add another little mite to your salary."

The "little mite" was of such a substantial nature that I protested strongly against it. I thought of Tom's demands upon him.

"I could afford to give you double for what you have made off the place," he interrupted. "But I do not believe in young men having too much." He sighed, and turned to his work.

I hesitated. "You have spent time and labour upon my case, sir, and have asked no fee."

"I shall speak of the fee when I win it," he said dryly, "and not before. How would you like to be clerk this winter to the Committee of Correspondence?"

I suppose my pleasure was expressed in my face.

"Well," said he, "I have got you the appointment without much difficulty. There are many ways in which you can be useful to the party when not helping me with my affairs."

This conversation gave me food for reflection during a week. I was troubled about Mr. Swain, and what he had said as to not living kept running in my head as I wrote or figured. For I had enough to hold me busy.

In the meantime, the clouds fast gathering on both sides of the Atlantic grew blacker, and blacker still. I saw a great change in Annapolis. Men of affairs went about with grave faces, while gay and sober alike were touched by the spell. The Tory gentry, to be sure, rattled about in their gilded mahogany coaches, in spite of jeers and sour looks. My Aunt Caroline wore jewelled stomachers to the assemblies,--now become dry and shrivelled entertainments. She kept her hairdresser, had three men in livery to her chair, and a little negro in Turk's costume to wait on her. I often met her in the streets, and took a fierce joy in staring her, in the eye. And Grafton! By a sort of fate I was continually running against him. He was a very busy man, was my uncle, and had a kind of dignified run, which he used between Marlboro' Street and the Council Chamber in the Stadt House, or the Governor's mansion. He never did me the honour to glance at me. The Rev. Mr. Allen, too, came a-visiting from Frederick, where he had grown stout as an alderman upon the living and its perquisites and Grafton's additional bounty. The gossips were busy with his doings, for he had his travelling-coach and servant now. He went to the Tory balls with my aunt. Once I all but encountered him on the Circle, but he ran into Northeast Street to avoid me.

Yes, that was the winter when the wise foresaw the inevitable, and the first sharp split occurred between men who had been brothers. The old order of things had plainly passed, and I was truly thankful that my grandfather had not lived to witness those scenes. The greater part of our gentry stood firm for America's rights, and they had behind them the best lawyers in America. After the lawyers came the small planters and most of the mechanics. The shopkeepers formed the backbone of King George's adherents; the Tory gentry, the clergy, and those holding office under the proprietor made the rest.

And it was all about tea, a word which, since '67, had been steadily becoming the most vexed in the language. The East India Company had put forth a complaint. They had Heaven knows how many tons getting stale in London warehouses, all by reason of our stubbornness, and so it was enacted that all tea paying the small American tax should have a rebate of the English duties. That was truly a master-stroke, for Parliament to give it us cheaper than it could be had at home! To cause his Majesty's government to lose revenues for the sake of being able to say they had caught and taxed us at last! The happy result is now history, my dears. And this is not a history, tho' I wish it were. What occurred at Boston, at Philadelphia, and Charleston, has since caused Englishmen, as well as Americans, to feel proud. The chief incident in Annapolis I shall mention in another chapter.

When it became known with us that several cargoes were on their way to the colonies, excitement and indignation gained a pitch not reached since the Stamp Act. Business came to a standstill, plantations lay idle, and gentry and farmers flocked to Annapolis, and held meetings and made resolutions anew. On my way of a morning from Mr. Swain's house to his chambers in the Circle I would meet as many as a dozen knots of people. Mr. Claude was one of the few patriots who reaped reward out of the disturbance, for his inn was crowded. The Assembly met, appointed committees to correspond with the other colonies, and was prorogued once and again. Many a night I sat up until the small hours copying out letters to the committees of Virginia, and Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts. The gentlemen were wont to dine at the Coffee House, and I would sit near the foot of the table, taking notes of their plans. 'Twas so I met many men of distinction from the other colonies. Colonel Washington came once. He was grown a greater man than ever, and I thought him graver than when I had last seen him. I believe a trait of this gentleman was never to forget a face.

"How do you, Richard?" said he. How I reddened when he called me so before all the committee. "I have heard your story, and it does you vast credit. And the gentlemen tell me you are earning laurels, sir."

That first winter of the tea troubles was cold and wet with us, and the sun, as if in sympathy with the times, rarely showed his face. Early in February our apprehensions concerning Mr. Swain's health were realized. One day, without a word to any one, he went to his bed, where Patty found him. And I ran all the way to Dr. Leiden's. The doctor looked at him, felt his pulse and his chest, and said nothing. But he did not rest that night, nor did Patty or I.

Thus I came to have to do with the good barrister's private affairs. I knew that he was a rich man, as riches went in our province, but I had never tried to guess at his estate. I confess the sums he had paid out in Tom's behalf frightened me. With the advice of Mr. Bordley and Mr. Lloyd I managed his money as best I could, but by reason of the non-importation resolutions there was little chance for good investments, --no cargoes coming and few going. I saw, indeed, that buying the Talbot estate had been a fortunate step, since the quantities of wheat we grew there might be disposed of in America.

When Dr. Leiden was still coming twice a day to Gloucester Street, Mr. Tom must needs get into a scrape with one of the ladies of the theatre, and come to me in the Circle chambers for one hundred pounds. I told him, in despair, that I had no authority to pay out his father's money. "And so you have become master, sure enough!" he cried, in a passion. For he was desperate. "You have worked your way in vastly well, egad, with your Whig committee meetings and speeches. And now he is on his back, and you have possession, you choose to cut me off. 'Slife, I know what will be coming next!"

I pulled him into Mr. Swain's private room, where we would be free of the clerks. "Yes, I am master here," I replied, sadly enough, as he stood sullenly before me. "I should think you would be ashamed to own it. When I came to your father I was content to be overseer in Talbot, and thankful for his bounty. 'Tis no fault of mine, but your disgrace, that his son is not managing his business, and supporting him in the rights of his country. I am not very old, Tom. A year older than you, I believe. But I have seen enough of life to prophesy your end and you do not reform."

"We are turned preacher," he says, with a sneer.

"God forbid! But I have been in a sponging-house, and tasted the lowest dregs. And if this country becomes free, as I think it will some day, such as you will be driven to England, and die in the Fleet."

"Not while my father lives," retorts he, and throws aside the oiled silk cape with a London name upon it. The day was rainy. I groaned. My responsibility lay heavy upon me. And this was not my first scene with him. He continued doggedly:--"You have no right to deny me what is not yours. 'Twill be mine one day."

"You have no right to accuse me of thoughts that do not occur to men of honour," I replied. "I am slower to anger than I once was, but I give you warning now. Do you know that you will ruin your father in another year and you continue?"

He gave me no answer. I reached for the ledger, and turning the pages, called off to him the sums he had spent.

"Oh, have done, d--n it!" he cried, when I was not a third through. "Are you or are you not to give me the money?"

"And you are to spend it upon an actress?" I should have called her by a worse name.

"Actress!" he shouted. "Have you seen her in The Orphan? My soul, she is a divinity!" Then he shifted suddenly to whining and cringing. "I am ruined outright, Richard, if I do not get it."

Abjectly he confessed the situation, which had in it enough material for a scandal to set the town wagging for a month. And the weight of it would fall; as I well knew, upon those who deserved it least.

"I will lend you the money, or, rather, will pay it for you," I said, at last. For I was not so foolish as to put it into his hands. "You shall have the sum under certain conditions."

He agreed to them before they were out of my mouth, and swore in a dozen ways that he would repay me every farthing. He was heartily tired of the creature, and, true to his nature, afraid of her. That night when the play was over I went to her lodging, and after a scene too distressing to dwell upon, bought her off.

I sat with Mr. Swain many an hour that spring, with Patty sewing at the window open to the garden. Often, as we talked, unnoticed by her father she would drop her work and the tears glisten in her eyes. For the barrister's voice was not as strong as it once was, and the cold would not seem to lift from his chest. So this able man, who might have sat in the seats of Maryland's high reward, was stricken when he was needed most.

He was permitted two visitors a day: now 'twas Mr. Carroll and Colonel Lloyd, again Colonel Tilghman and Captain Clapsaddle, or Mr. Yaca and Mr. Bordley. The gentlemen took turns, and never was their business so pressing that they missed their hour. Mr. Swain read all the prints, and in his easier days would dictate to me his views for the committee, or a letter signed Brutes for Mr. Green to put in the Gazette. So I became his mouthpiece at the meetings, and learned to formulate my thoughts and to speak clearly.

For fear of confusing this narrative, my dears, I have referred but little to her who was in my thoughts night and day, and whose locket I wore, throughout all those years, next my heart. I used to sit out under the stars at Gordon's Pride, with the river lapping at my feet, and picture her the shining centre of all the brilliant scenes I had left, and wonder if she still thought of me.

Nor have I mentioned that faithful correspondent, and more faithful friend, Lord Comyn. As soon as ever I had obtained from Captain Daniel my mother's little inheritance, I sent off the debt I owed his Lordship. 'Twas a year before I got him to receive it; he despatched the money back once, saying that I had more need of it than he. I smiled at this, for my Lord was never within his income, and I made no doubt he had signed a note to cover my indebtedness.

Every letter Comyn writ me was nine parts Dolly, and the rest of his sheet usually taken up with Mr. Fox and his calamities: these had fallen upon him very thick of late. Lord Holland had been forced to pay out a hundred thousand pounds for Charles, and even this enormous sum did not entirely free Mr. Fox from the discounters and the hounds. The reason for this sudden onslaught was the birth of a boy to his brother Stephen, who was heir to the title. "When they told Charles of it," Comyn wrote, "said he, coolly: 'My brother Ste's son is a second Messiah, born for the destruction of the Jews.'"

I saw no definite signs, as yet, of the conversion of this prodigy, which I so earnestly hoped for. He had quarrelled with North, lost his place on the Admiralty, and presently the King had made him a Lord of the Treasury, tho' more out of fear than love. Once in a while, when he saw Comyn at Almack's, he would desire to be remembered to me, and he always spoke of me with affection. But he could be got to write to no one, said my Lord, with kind exaggeration; nor will he receive letters, for fear he may get a dun.

Alas, I got no message from Dorothy! Nor had she ever mentioned my name to Comyn. He had not seen her for eight months after I left England, as she had been taken to the Continent for her health. She came back to London more ravishing than before, and (I use his Lordship's somewhat extravagant language) her suffering had stamped upon her face even more of character and power. She had lost much of her levity, likewise. In short, my Lord declared, she was more of the queen than ever, and the mystery which hung over the Vauxhall duel had served only to add to her fame.

Dorothy having become cognizant of Mr. Marmaduke's trickery, Chartersea seemed to have dropped out of the race. He now spent his time very evenly between Spa and Derresley and Paris. Hence I had so much to be thankful for,--that with all my blunders, I had saved her from his Grace. My Lord the Marquis of Wells was now most conspicuous amongst her suitors. Comyn had nothing particular against this nobleman, saying that he was a good fellow, with a pretty fortune. And here is a letter, my dears, in which he figures, that I brought to Cordon's Pride that spring:

"10 SOUTH PARADE, BATH, "March 12, 1774.

"DEAR RICHARD:--Miss Manners has come to Bath, with a train behind her longer than that which followed good Queen Anne hither, when she made this Gehenna the fashion. Her triumphal entry last Wednesday was announced by such a peal of the abbey bells as must have cracked the metal (for they have not rung since) and started Beau Nash a-cursing where he lies under the floor. Next came her serenade by the band. Mr. Marmaduke swore they would never have done, and squirmed and grinned like Punch when he thought of the fee, for he had hoped to get off with a crown, I warrant you. You should have seen his face when they would accept no fee at all for the beauty! Some wag has writ a verse about it, which was printed, and has set the whole pump-room laughing this morning.

"She was led out by Wells in the Seasons last night. As Spring she is too bewildering for my pen,--all primrose and white, with the flowers in her blue-black hair. Had Sir Joshua seen her, he would never rest content till he should have another portrait. The Duc de Lauzun, who contrived to get two dances, might give you a description in a more suitable language than English. And there was a prodigious deal of jealousy among the fair ones on the benches, you may be sure, and much jaundiced comment.

"Some half dozen of us adorers have a mess at the Bear, and have offered up a prize for the most appropriate toast on the beauty. This is in competition with Mrs. Miller. Have you not heard of her among your tobacco-hills? Horry calls her Mrs. 'Calliope' Miller. At her place near here, Bath Easton Villa, she has set up a Roman vase bedecked with myrtle, and into this we drop our bouts-rimes. Mrs. Calliope has a ball every Thursday, when the victors are crowned. T'other day the theme was 'A Buttered Muffin,' and her Grace of Northumberland was graciously awarded the prize. In faith, that theme taxed our wits at the Bear,--how to weave Miss Dolly's charms into a verse on a buttered muffin. I shall not tire you with mine. Storer's deserved to win, and we whisper that Mrs. Calliope ruled it out through spite. 'When Phyllis eats,' so it began, and I vow 'twas devilish ingenious.

"We do nothing but play lasquenet and tennis, and go to the assembly, and follow Miss Dolly into Gill's, the pastry-cook's, where she goes every morning to take a jelly. The ubiquitous Wells does not give us much chance. He writes 'vers de societe' with the rest, is high in Mr. Marmaduke's favour, which alone is enough to damn his progress. I think she is ill of the sight of him.

"Albeit she does not mourn herself into a tree, I'll take oath your Phyllis is true to you, Richard, and would live with you gladly in a thatched hut and you asked her. Write me more news of yourself.

"Your ever affectionate "COMYN

"P.S. I have had news of you through Mr. Worthington, of your colony, who is just arrived here. He tells me that you have gained a vast reputation for your plantation, and likewise that you are thought much of by the Whig wiseacres, and that you hold many seditious offices. He does not call them so. Since your modesty will not permit you to write me any of these things, I have been imagining you driving slaves with a rawhide, and seeding runaway convicts to the mines. Mr. W. is even now paying his respects to Miss Manners, and I doubt not trumpeting your praises there, for he seems to like you. So I have asked him to join the Bear mess. One more unfortunate!

"P.S. I was near forgetting the news about Charles Fox. He sends you his love, and tells me to let you know that he has been turned out of North's house for good and all. He is sure you will be cursed happy over it, and says that you predicted he would go over to the Whigs. I can scarce believe that he will. North took a whole week to screw up His courage, h-s M-j-sty pricking him every day. And then he wrote this:

"'Sir, his Majesty has thought proper to order a new Commission of the Treasury to be made out, in which I do not see your name.' Poor Charles! He is now without money or place, but as usual appears to worry least of all of us, and still reads his damned Tasso for amusement. "C."

Perchance he was to be the Saint Paul of English politics, after all.

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XLIX. LIBERTY LOSES A FRIEND

Mr. Bordley's sloop took Mr. Swain to Gordon's Pride in May, and placed him in the big room overlooking the widening river. There he would lie all day long, staring through the leaves at the water, or listening to the sweet music of his daughter's voice as she read from the pompous prints of the time. Gentlemen continued to come to the plantation, for the barrister's wisdom was sorely missed at the councils. One day, as I rode in from the field, I found Colonel Lloyd just arrived from Philadelphia, sipping sangaree on the lawn and mopping himself with his handkerchief. His jolly face was troubled. He waved his hand at me.

"Well, Richard," says he, "we children are to have our first whipping. At least one of us. And the rest are resolved to defy our parent."

"Boston, Mr. Lloyd?" I asked.

"Yes, Boston," he replied; "her port is closed, and we are forbid any intercourse with her until she comes to her senses. And her citizens must receive his gracious Majesty's troopers into their houses. And if a man kill one of them by any chance, he is to go to England to be tried. And there is more quite as bad."

"'Tis bad enough!" I cried, flinging myself down. And Patty gave me a glass in silence.

"Ay, but you must hear all," said he; "our masters are of a mind to do the thing thoroughly. Canada is given some score of privileges. Her French Roman Catholics, whom we fought not long since, are thrown a sop, and those vast territories between the lakes and the Ohio and Mississippi are given to Quebec as a price for her fidelity. And so, if the worst comes to worst, George's regiments will have a place to land against us."

Such was the news, and though we were some hundreds of miles from Massachusetts, we felt their cause as our own. There was no need of the appeal which came by smoking horses from Philadelphia, for the indignation of our people was roused to the highest pitch. Now Mr. Swain had to take to his bed from the excitement.

This is not a history, my dears, as I have said. And time is growing short. I shall pass over that dreary summer of '74. It required no very keen eye to see the breakers ahead, and Mr. Bordley's advice to provide against seven years of famine did not go unheeded. War was the last thing we desired. We should have been satisfied with so little, we colonies! And would have voted the duties ten times over had our rights been respected. Should any of you doubt this, you have but to read the "Address to the King" of our Congress, then sitting in Philadelphia. The quarrel was so petty, and so easy of mending, that you of this generation may wonder why it was allowed to run. I have tried to tell you that the head of a stubborn, selfish, and wilful monarch blocked the way to reconciliation. King George the Third is alone to blame for that hatred of race against race which already hath done so much evil. And I pray God that a great historian may arise whose pen will reveal the truth, and reconcile at length those who are, and should be, brothers.

By October, that most beautiful month of all the year in Maryland, we were again in Annapolis: One balmy day 'twas a Friday, I believe, and a gold and blue haze hung over the Severn--Mr. Chase called in Gloucester Street to give the barrister news of the Congress, which he had lately left. As he came down the stairs he paused for a word with me in the library, and remarked sadly upon Mr. Swain's condition. "He looks like a dying man, Richard," said he, "and we can ill afford to lose him."

Even as we sat talking in subdued tones, the noise of a distant commotion arose. We had scarce started to our feet, Mr. Chase and I, when the brass knocker resounded, and Mr. Hammond was let in. His wig was awry, and his face was flushed.

"I thought to find you here," he said to Mr. Chase. "The Anne Arundel Committee is to meet at once, and we desire to have you with us." Perceiving our blank faces, he added: "The 'Peggy Stewart' is in this morning with over a ton of tea aboard, consigned to the Williams's."

The two jumped into a chaise, and I followed afoot, stopped at every corner by some excited acquaintance; so that I had the whole story, and more, ere I reached Church Street. The way was blocked before the committee rooms, and 'twas said that the merchants, Messrs. Williams, and Captain Jackson of the brig, were within, pleading their cause.

Presently the news leaked abroad that Mr. Anthony Stewart, the brig's owner, had himself paid the duty on the detested plant. Some hundreds of people were elbowing each other in the street, for the most part quiet and anxious, until Mr. Hammond appeared and whispered to a man at the door. In all my life before I had never heard the hum of an angry crowd. The sound had something ominous in it, like the first meanings of a wind that is to break off great trees at their trunks. Then some one shouted: "To Hanover Street! To Hanover Street! We'll have him tarred and feathered before the sun is down!" The voice sounded strangely like Weld's. They charged at this cry like a herd of mad buffalo, the weaker ones trampled under foot or thrust against the wall. The windows of Mr. Aikman's shop were shattered. I ran with the leaders, my stature and strength standing me in good stead more than once, and as we twisted into Northwest Street I took a glance at the mob behind me, and great was my anxiety at not being able to descry one responsible person.

Mr. Stewart's house stood, and stands to-day, amid trim gardens, in plain sight of the Severn. Arriving there, the crowd massed in front of it, some of the boldest pressing in at the gate and spreading over the circle of lawn enclosed by the driveway. They began to shout hoarsely, with what voices they had left, for Mr. Stewart to come out, calling him names not to be spoken, and swearing they would show him how traitors were to be served. I understood then the terror of numbers, and shuddered. A chandler, a bold and violent man, whose leather was covered with grease, already had his foot on the steps, when the frightened servants slammed the door in his face, and closed the lower windows. In vain I strained my eyes for some one who might have authority with them. They began to pick up stones, though none were thrown.

Suddenly a figure appeared at an upper window,--a thin and wasted woman dressed in white, with sad, sweet features. It was Mrs. Stewart. Without flinching she looked down upon the upturned faces; but a mob of that kind has no pity. Their leaders were the worst class in our province, being mostly convicts who had served their terms of indenture. They continued to call sullenly for "the traitor." Then the house door opened, and the master himself appeared. He was pale and nervous, and no wonder; and his voice shook as he strove to make himself heard. His words were drowned immediately by shouts of "Seize him! Seize the d--d traitor!" "A pot and a coat of hot tar!"

Those who were nearest started forward, and I with them. With me 'twas the decision of an instant. I beat the chandler up the steps, and took stand in front of the merchant, and I called out to them to fall back.

To my astonishment they halted. The skirts of the crowd were now come to the foot of the little porch. I faced them with my hand on Mr. Stewart's arm, without a thought of what to do next, and expecting violence. There was a second's hush. Then some one cried out:

"Three cheers for Richard Carvel!"

They gave them with a will that dumfounded me.

"My friends," said I, when I had got my wits, "this is neither the justice nor the moderation for which our province is noted. You have elected your committee of your free wills, and they have claims before you."

"Ay, ay, the committee!" they shouted. "Mr. Carvel is right. Take him to the Committee!"

Mr. Stewart raised his hand.

"My friends," he began, as I had done, "when you have learned the truth, you will not be so hasty to blame me for an offence of which I am innocent. The tea was not for me. The brig was in a leaky and dangerous state and had fifty souls aboard her. I paid the duty out of humanity--"

He had come so far, when they stopped him.

"Oh, a vile Tory!" they shouted. "He is conniving with the Council. 'Twas put up between them." And they followed this with another volley of hard names, until I feared that his chance was gone.

"You would best go before the Committee, Mr. Stewart," I said.

"I will go with Mr. Carvel, my friends," he cried at once. And he invited me into the house whilst he ordered his coach. I preferred to remain outside.

I asked them if they would trust me with Mr. Stewart to Church Street.

"Yes, yes, Mr. Carvel, we know you," said several. "He has good cause to hate Tories," called another, with a laugh. I knew the voice.

"For shame, Weld," I cried. And I saw McNeir, who was a stanch friend of mine, give him a cuff to send him spinning.

To my vast satisfaction they melted away, save only a few of the idlest spirits, who hung about the gate, and cheered as we drove off. Mr. Stewart was very nervous, and profuse in his gratitude. I replied that I had acted only as would have any other responsible citizen. On the way he told me enough of his case to convince me that there was much to be said on his side, but I thought it the better part of wisdom not to commit myself. The street in front of the committee rooms was empty, and I was informed that a town meeting had been called immediately at the theatre in West Street. And I advised Mr. Stewart to attend. But through anxiety or anger, or both, he was determined not to go, and drove back to his house without me.

I had got as far as St. Anne's, halfway to the theatre, when it suddenly struck me that Mr. Swain must be waiting for news. With a twinge I remembered what Mr. Chase had said about the barrister's condition, and I hurried back to Gloucester Street, much to the surprise of those I met on their way to the meeting. I was greatly relieved, when I arrived, to find Patty on the porch. I knew she had never been there were her father worse. After a word with her and her mother, I went up the stairs.

It was the hour for the barrister's nap. But he was awake, lying back on the pillows, with his eyes half closed. He was looking out into the garden, which was part orchard, now beginning to shrivel and to brown with the first touch of frosts.

"That is you, Richard?" he inquired, without moving. "What is going forward to-day?"

I toned down the news, so as not to excite him, and left out the occurrence in Hanover Street. He listened with his accustomed interest, but when I had done he asked no questions, and lay for a long time silent. Then he begged me to bring my chair nearer.

"Richard,--my son," said he, with an evident effort, "I have never thanked you for your devotion to me and mine through the best years of your life. It shall not go unrewarded, my lad."

It seemed as if my heart stood still with the presage of what was to come.

"May God reward you, sir!" I said.

"I have wished to speak to you," he continued, "and I may not have another chance. I have arranged with Mr. Carroll, the barrister, to take your cause against your uncle, so that you will lose nothing when I am gone. And you will see, in my table in the library, that I have left my property in your hands, with every confidence in your integrity, and ability to care for my family, even as I should have done."

I could not speak at once. A lump rose in my throat, for I had come to look upon him as a father. His honest dealings, his charity, of which the world knew nothing, and his plain and unassuming ways had inspired in me a kind of worship. I answered, as steadily as I might:

"I believe I am too inexperienced for such a responsibility, Mr. Swain. Would it not be better that Mr. Bordley or Mr. Lloyd should act?"

"No, no," he said; "I am not a man to do things unadvisedly, or to let affection get the better of my judgment, where others dear to me are concerned. I know you, Richard Carvel. Scarce an action of yours has escaped my eye, though I have said nothing. You have been through the fire, and are of the kind which comes out untouched. You will have Judge Bordley's advice, and Mr. Carroll's. And they are too busy with the affairs of the province to be burdened as my executors. But," he added a little more strongly, "if what I fear is coming, Mr. Bordley will take the trust in your absence. If we have war, Richard, you will not be content to remain at home, nor would I wish it."

I did not reply.

"You will do what I ask?" he said.

"I would refuse you nothing, Mr. Swain," I answered. "But I have heavy misgivings."

He sighed. "And now, if it were not for Tom, I might die content," he said.

If it were not for Tom! The full burden of the trust began to dawn upon me then. Presently I heard him speaking, but in so low a voice that I hardly caught the words.

"In our youth, Richard," he was saying, "the wrath of the Almighty is but so many words to most of us. When I was little more than a lad, I committed a sin of which I tremble now to think. And I was the fool to imagine, when I amended my life, that God had forgotten. His punishment is no heavier than I deserve. But He alone knows what He has made me suffer."

I felt that I had no right to be there.

"That is why I have paid Tom's debts," he continued; "I cannot cast off my son. I have reasoned, implored, and appealed in vain. He is like Reuben,--his resolutions melt in an hour. And I have pondered day and night what is to be done for him."

"Is he to have his portion?" I asked. Indeed, the thought of the responsibility of Tom Swain overwhelmed me.

"Yes, he is to have it," cried Mr. Swain, with a violence to bring on a fit of coughing. "Were I to leave it in trust for a time, he would have it mortgaged within a year. He is to have his portion, but not a penny additional."

He lay for a long time breathing deeply, I watching him. Then, as he reached out and took my hand, I knew by some instinct what was to come. I summoned all my self-command to meet his eye. I knew that the malicious and unthinking gossip of the town had reached him, and that he had received it in the simple faith of his hopes.

"One thing more, my lad," he said, "the dearest wish of all--that you will marry Patty. She is a good girl, Richard. And I have thought," he added with hesitation, "I have thought that she loves you, though her lips have never opened on that subject."

So the blow fell. I turned away, for to save my life the words would not come. He missed the reason of my silence.

"I understand and honour your scruples," he went on. His kindness was like a knife.

"No, I have had none, Mr. Swain," I exclaimed. For I would not be thought a hypocrite.

There I stopped. A light step sounded in the hall, and Patty came in upon us. Her colour at once betrayed her understanding. To my infinite relief her father dropped my fingers, and asked cheerily if there was any news from the town meeting.

On the following Wednesday, with her flag flying and her sails set, the Peggy Stewart was run ashore on Windmill Point. She rose, a sacrifice to Liberty, in smoke to heaven, before the assembled patriots of our city.

That very night a dear friend to Liberty passed away. He failed so suddenly that Patty had no time to call for aid, and when the mother had been carried in, his spirit was flown. We laid him high on the hill above the creek, in the new lot he had bought and fenced around. The stone remains:

HERE LIETH

HENRY SWAIN, BARRISTER. BORN MAY 13, 1730 (O.S.); DIED OCTOBER 19, 1774. Fidus Amicis atque Patrice.

The simple inscription, which speaks volumes to those who knew him, was cut after the Revolution. He was buried with the honours of a statesman, which he would have been had God spared him to serve the New Country which was born so soon after his death.

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RICHARD CARVEL

By Winston Churchill

Volume 8.

L. Farewell to Gordon's LI. How an Idle Prophecy came to pass LII. How the Gardener's Son fought the Serapis LIII. In which I make Some Discoveries LIV. More Discoveries. LV. The Love of a Maid for a Man LVI. How Good came out of Evil LVII. I come to my Own again

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L. FAREWELL TO GORDON'S

I cannot bear to recall my misery of mind after Mr. Swain's death. One hope had lightened all the years of my servitude. For, when I examined my soul, I knew that it was for Dorothy I had laboured. And every letter that came from Comyn telling me she was still free gave me new heart for my work. By some mystic communion--I know not what--I felt that she loved me yet, and despite distance and degree. I would wake of a morning with the knowledge of it, and be silent for half the day with some particle of a dream in my head, lingering like the burden of a song with its train of memories.

So, in the days that followed, I scarce knew myself. For a while (I shame to write it) I avoided that sweet woman who had made my comfort her care, whose father had taken me when I was homeless. The good in me cried out, but the flesh rebelled.

Poor Patty! Her grief for her father was pathetic to see. Weeks passed in which she scarcely spoke a word. And I remember her as she sat in church Sundays, the whiteness of her face enhanced by the crape she wore, and a piteous appeal in her gray eyes. My own agony was nigh beyond endurance, my will swinging like a pendulum from right to wrong, and back again. Argue as I might that I had made the barrister no promise, conscience allowed no difference. I was in despair at the trick fate had played me; at the decree that of all women I must love her whose sphere was now so far removed from mine. For Patty had character and beauty, and every gift which goes to make man's happiness and to kindle his affections.

Her sorrow left her more womanly than ever. And after the first sharp sting of it was deadened, I noticed a marked reserve in her intercourse with me. I knew then that she must have strong suspicions of her father's request. Speak I could not soon after the sad event, but I strove hard that she should see no change in my conduct.

Before Christmas we went to the Eastern Shore. In Annapolis fife and drum had taken the place of fiddle and clarion; militia companies were drilling in the empty streets; despatches were arriving daily from the North; and grave gentlemen were hurrying to meetings. But if the war was to come, I must settle what was to be done at Gordon's Pride with all possible speed. It was only a few days after our going there, that I rode into Oxford with a black cockade in my hat Patty had made me, and the army sword Captain Jack had given Captain Daniel at my side. For I had been elected a lieutenant in the Oxford company, of which Percy Singleton was captain.

So passed that winter, the darkest of my life. One soft spring day, when the birds were twittering amid new-born leaves, and the hyacinths and tulips in Patty's garden were coming to their glory, Master Tom rode leisurely down the drive at Gordon's Pride. That was a Saturday, the 29th of April, 1775. The news which had flown southward, night and day alike, was in no hurry to run off his tongue; he had been lolling on the porch for half an hour before he told us of the bloodshed between the minute-men of Massachusetts and the British regulars, of the rout of Percy's panting redcoats from Concord to Boston. Tom added, with the brutal nonchalance which characterized his dealings with his mother and sister, that he was on his way to Philadelphia to join a company.

The poor invalid was carried up the stairs in a faint by Banks and Romney. Patty, with pale face and lips compressed, ran to fetch the hartshorn. But Master Tom remained undisturbed.

"I suppose you are going, Richard," he remarked affably. For he treated me with more consideration than his family. "We shall ride together," said he.

"We ride different ways, and to different destinations," I replied dryly. "I go to serve my country, and you to fight against it."

"I think the King is right," he answered sullenly.

"Oh, I beg your pardon," I remarked, and rose. "Then you have studied the question since last I saw you."

"No, by G-d!" he cried, "and I never will. I do not want to know your d--d principles--or grievances, or whatever they are. We were living an easy life, in the plenty of money, and nothing to complain of. You take it all away, with your cursed cant--"

I left him railing and swearing. And that was the last I saw of Tom Swain. When I returned from a final survey of the plantation; and a talk with Percy Singleton, he had ridden North again.

I found Patty alone in the parlour. Her work (one of my own stockings she was darning) lay idle in her lap, and in her eyes were the unshed tears which are the greatest suffering of women. I sat down beside her and called her name. She did not seem to hear me.

"Patty!"

She started. And my courage ebbed.

"Are you going to the war--to leave us, Richard?" she faltered.

"I fear there is no choice, Patty," I answered, striving hard to keep my own voice steady. "But you will be well looked after. Ivie Rawlinson is to be trusted, and Mr. Bordley has promised to keep an eye upon you."

She took up the darning mechanically.

"I shall not speak a word to keep you, Richard. He would have wished it," she said softly. "And every strong arm in the colonies will be needed. We shall think of you, and pray for you daily."

I cast about for a cheerful reply.

"I think when they discover how determined we are, they will revoke their measures in a hurry. Before you know it, Patty, I shall be back again making the rounds in my broad rim, and reading to you out of Captain Cook."

It was a pitiful attempt. She shook her head sadly. The tears were come now, and she was smiling through them. The sorrow of that smile!

"I have something to say to you before I go, Patty," I said. The words stuck. I knew that there must be no pretence in that speech. It must be true as my life after, the consequence of it. "I have something to ask you, and I do not speak without your father's consent. Patty, if I return, will you be my wife?"

The stocking slipped unheeded to the floor. For a moment she sat transfixed, save for the tumultuous swelling of her breast. Then she turned and gazed earnestly into my face, and the honesty of her eyes smote me. For the first time I could not meet them honestly with my own.

"Richard, do you love me?" she asked.

I bowed my head. I could not answer that. And for a while there was no sound save that of the singing of the frogs in the distant marsh.

Presently I knew that she was standing at my side. I felt her hand laid upon my shoulder.

"Is--is it Dorothy?" she said gently.

Still I could not answer. Truly, the bitterness of life, as the joy of it, is distilled in strong drops.

"I knew," she continued, "I have known ever since that autumn morning when I went to you as you saddled--when I dreaded that you would leave us. Father asked you to marry me, the day you took Mr. Stewart from the mob. How could you so have misunderstood me, Richard?"

I looked up in wonder. The sweet cadence in her tone sprang from a purity not of this earth. They alone who have consecrated their days to others may utter it. And the light upon her face was of the same source. It was no will of mine brought me to my feet. But I was not worthy to touch her.

"I shall make another prayer, beside that for your safety, Richard," she said.

In the morning she waved me a brave farewell from the block where she had stood so often as I rode afield, when the dawn was in the sky. The invalid mother sat in her chair within the door; the servants were gathered on the lawn, and Ivie Rawlinson and Banks lingered where they had held my stirrup. That picture is washed with my own tears.

The earth was praising God that Sunday as I rode to Mr. Bordley's. And as it is sorrow which lifts us nearest to heaven, I felt as if I were in church.

I arrived at Wye Island in season to dine with the good judge and his family, and there I made over to his charge the property of Patty and her mother. The afternoon we spent in sober talk, Mr. Bordley giving me much sound advice, and writing me several letters of recommendation to gentlemen in Congress. His conduct was distinguished by even more of kindness and consideration than he had been wont to show me.

In the evening I walked out alone, skirting the acres of Carvel Hall, each familiar landmark touching the quick of some memory of other days. Childhood habit drew me into the path to Wilmot House. I came upon it just as the sunlight was stretching level across the Chesapeake, and burning its windows molten red. I had been sitting long on the stone steps, when the gaunt figure of McAndrews strode toward me out of the dusk.

"God be gude to us, it is Mr. Richard!" he cried. "I hae na seen ye're bonny face these muckle years, sir, sync ye cam' back frae ae sight o' the young mistress." (I had met him in Annapolis then.) "An' will ye be aff to the wars?"

I told him yes. That I had come for a last look at the old place before I left.

He sighed. "Ye're vera welcome, sir." Then he added: "Mr. Bordley's gi'en me a fair notion o' yere management at Gordon's. The judge is thinking there'll be nane ither lad t' hand a candle to ye."

"And what news do you hear from London?" I asked, cutting him short.

"Ill uncos, sir," he answered, shaking his head with violence. He had indeed but a sorry tale for my ear, and one to make my heart heavier than it was. McAndrews opened his mind to me, and seemed the better for it. How Mr. Marmaduke was living with the establishment they wrote of was more than the honest Scotchman could imagine. There was a country place in Sussex now, said he, that was the latest. And drafts were coming in before the wheat was in the ear; and the plantations of tobacco on the Western Shore had been idle since the non-exportation, and were mortgaged to their limit to Mr. Willard. Money was even loaned on the Wilmot House estate. McAndrews had a shrewd suspicion that neither Mrs. Manners nor Miss Dorothy knew aught of this state of affairs.

"Mr. Richard," he said earnestly, as he bade me good-by, "I kennt Mr. Manners's mind when he lea'd here. There was a laird in't, sir, an' a fortune. An' unless these come soon, I'm thinking I can spae th' en'."

In truth, a much greater fool than McAndrews might have predicted that end.

On Monday Judge Bordley accompanied me as far as Dingley's tavern, and showed much emotion at parting.

"You need have no fears for your friends at Gordon's Pride, Richard," said he. "And when the General comes back, I shall try to give him a good account of my stewardship."

The General! That title brought old Stanwix's cobwebbed prophecy into my head again. Here, surely, was the war which he had foretold, and I ready to embark in it.

Why not the sea, indeed?

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LI. HOW AN IDLE PROPHECY CAME TO PASS

Captain Clapsaddle not being at his lodgings, I rode on to the Coffee House to put up my horse. I was stopped by Mr. Claude.

"Why, Mr. Carvel," says he, "I thought you on the Eastern Shore. There is a gentleman within will be mightily tickled to see you, or else his protestations are lies, which they may very well be. His name? Now, 'Pon my faith, it was Jones--no more."

This thing of being called for at the Coffee House stirred up unpleasant associations.

"What appearance does the man make?" I demanded.

"Merciful gad!" mine host exclaimed; "once seen, never forgotten, and once heard, never forgotten. He quotes me Thomson, and he tells me of his estate in Virginia."

The answer was not of a sort to allay my suspicions.

"Then he appears to be a landowner?" said I.

"'Ods! Blest if I know what he is," says Mr. Claude. "He may be anything, an impostor or a high-mightiness. But he's something to strike the eye and hold it, for all his Quaker clothes. He is swarth and thickset, and some five feet eight inches--full six inches under your own height. And he comes asking for you as if you owned the town between you. 'Send a fellow to Marlboro' Street for Mr. Richard Carvel, my good host!' says he, with a snap of his fingers. And when I tell him the news of you, he is prodigiously affected, and cries--but here's my gentleman now!"

I jerked my head around. Coming down the steps I beheld my old friend and benefactor, Captain John Paul!

"Ahoy, ahoy!" cries he. "Now Heaven be praised, I have found you at last."

Out of the saddle I leaped, and straight into his arms.

"Hold, hold, Richard!" he gasped. "My ribs, man! Leave me some breath that I may tell you how glad I am to see you."

"Mr. Jones!" I said, holding him out, "now where the devil got you that?"

"Why, I am become a gentleman since I saw you," he answered, smiling. "My poor brother left me his estate in Virginia. And a gentleman must have three names at the least."

I dropped his shoulders and shook with laughter.

"But Jones!" I cried. "'Ad's heart! could you go no higher? Has your imagination left you, captain?"

"Republican simplicity, sir," says he, looking a trifle hurt. But I laughed the more.

"Well, you have contrived to mix oil and vinegar," said I. "A landed gentleman and republican simplicity. I'll warrant you wear silk-knit under that gray homespun, and have a cameo in your pocket."

He shook his head, looking up at me with affection.

"You might have guessed better," he answered. "All of quality I have about me are an enamelled repeater and a gold brooch."

This made me suddenly grave, for McAndrews's words had been ringing in my ears ever since he had spoken them. I hitched my arm into the captain's and pulled him toward the Coffee House door.

"Come," I said, "you have not dined, and neither have I. We shall be merry to-day, and you shall have some of the best Madeira in the colonies." I commanded a room, that we might have privacy. As he took his seat opposite me I marked that he had grown heavier and more browned. But his eye had the same unfathomable mystery in it as of yore. And first I upbraided him for not having writ me.

"I took you for one who glories in correspondence, captain," said I; "and I did not think you could be so unfaithful. I directed twice to you in Mr. Orchardson's care."

"Orchardson died before I had made one voyage," he replied, "and the Betsy changed owners. But I did not forget you, Richard, and was resolved but now not to leave Maryland until I had seen you. But I burn to hear of you," he added. "I have had an inkling of your story from the landlord. So your grandfather is dead, and that blastie, your uncle, of whom you told me on the John, is in possession."

He listened to my narrative keenly, but with many interruptions. And when I was done, he sighed.

"You are always finding friends, Richard," said he; "no matter what your misfortunes, they are ever double discounted. As for me; I am like Fulmer in Mr. Cumberland's 'West Indian': 'I have beat through every quarter of the compass; I have bellowed for freedom; I have offered to serve my country; I have'--I am engaging to betray it. No, Scotland is no longer my country, and so I cannot betray her. It is she who has betrayed me."

He fell into a short mood of dejection. And, indeed, I could not but reflect that much of the character fitted him like a jacket. Not the betrayal of his country. He never did that, no matter how roundly they accused him of it afterward.

To lift him, I cried:

"You were one of my first friends, Captain Paul" (I could not stomach the Jones); "but for you I should now be a West Indian, and a miserable one, the slave of some unmerciful hidalgo. Here's that I may live to repay you!"

"And while we are upon toasts," says he, bracing immediately, "I give you the immortal Miss Manners! Her beauty has dwelt unfaded in my memory since I last beheld her, aboard the Betsy." Remarking the pain in my face, he added, with a concern which may have been comical: "And she is not married?"

"Unless she is lately gone to Gretna, she is not," I replied, trying to speak lightly.

"Alack! I knew it," he exclaimed. "And if there's any prophecy in my bones, she'll be Mrs. Carvel one of these days."

"Well captain," I said abruptly, "the wheel has gone around since I saw you. Now it is you who are the gentleman, while I am a factor. Is it the bliss you pictured?"

I suspected that his acres were not as broad, nor his produce as salable, as those of Mount Vernon.

"To speak truth, I am heartily tired of that life," said he. "There is little glory in raising nicotia, and sipping bumbo, and cursing negroes. Ho for the sea!" he cried. "The salt sea, and the British prizes. Give me a tight frigate that leaves a singing wake. Mark me, Richard," he said, a restless gleam coning into his dark eyes, "stirring times are here, and a chance for all of us to make a name." For so it seemed ever to be with him.

"They are black times, I fear," I answered.

"Black!" he said. "No, glorious is your word. And we are to have an upheaval to throw many of us to the top."

"I would rather the quarrel were peacefully settled," said I, gravely. "For my part, I want no distinction that is to come out of strife and misery."

He regarded me quizzically.

"You are grown an hundred years old since I pulled you out of the sea," says he. "But we shall have to fight for our liberties. Here is a glass to the prospect!"

"And so you are now an American?" I said curiously.

"Ay, strake and keelson,--as good a one as though I had got my sap in the Maine forests. A plague of monarchs, say I. They are a blotch upon modern civilization. And I have here," he continued, tapping his pocket, "some letters writ to the Virginia printers, signed Demosthenes, which Mr. Randolph and Mr. Henry have commended. To speak truth, Richard, I am off to Congress with a portmanteau full of recommendations. And I was resolved to stop here even till I secured your company. We shall sweep the seas together, and so let George beware!"

I smiled. But my blood ran faster at the thought of sailing under such a captain. However, I made the remark that Congress had as yet no army, let alone a navy.

"And think you that gentlemen of such spirit and resources will lack either for long?" he demanded, his eye flashing.

"Then I know nothing of a ship save the little I learned on the John," I said.

"You were born for the sea, Richard," he exclaimed, raising his glass high. "And I would rather have one of your brains and strength and handiness than any merchant's mate I ever sailed with. The more gentlemen get commissions, the better will be our new service."

At that instant came a knock at the door, and one of the inn negroes to say that Captain Clapsaddle was below, and desired to see me. I persuaded John Paul to descend with me. We found Captain Daniel seated with Mr. Carroll, the barrister, and Mr. Chase.

"Captain," I said to my old friend, "I have a rare joy this day in making known to you Mr. John Paul Jones, of whom I have spoken to you a score of times. He it is whose bravery sank the Black Moll, whose charity took me to London, and who got no other reward for his faith than three weeks in a debtors' prison. For his honour, as I have told you, would allow him to accept none, nor his principles to take the commission in the Royal Navy which Mr. Fox offered him."

Captain Daniel rose, his honest face flushing with pleasure. "Faith, Mr. Jones," he cried, when John Paul had finished one of his elaborate bows, "this is well met, indeed. I have been longing these many years for a chance to press your hand, and in the names of those who are dead and gone to express my gratitude."

"I have my reward now, captain," replied John Paul; "a sight of you is to have Richard's whole life revealed. And what says Mr. Congreve?

"'For blessings ever wait on virtuous deeds, And tho' a late, a sure reward succeeds.'

"Tho' I would not have you believe that my deed was virtuous. And you, who know Richard, may form some notion of the pleasure I had out of his companionship."

I hastened to present my friend to the other gentlemen, who welcomed him with warmth, though they could not keep their amusement wholly out of their faces.

"Mr. Jones is now the possessor of an estate in Virginia, sirs," I explained.

"And do you find it more to your taste than seafaring, Mr. Jones?" inquired Mr. Chase.

This brought forth a most vehement protest, and another quotation.

"Why, sir," he cried, "to be

'Fixed like a plant on his peculiar spot, To draw nutrition, propagate, and rot,'

is an animal's existence. I have thrown it over, sir, with a right good will, and am now on my way to Philadelphia to obtain a commission in the navy soon to be born."

Mr. Chase smiled. John Paul little suspected that he was a member of the Congress.

"This is news indeed, Mr. Jones," he said. "I have yet to hear of the birth of this infant navy, for which we have not yet begun to make swaddling clothes."

"We are not yet an infant state, sir," Mr. Carroll put in, with a shade of rebuke. For Maryland was well content with the government she had enjoyed, and her best patriots long after shunned the length of secession. "I believe and pray that the King will come to his senses. And as for the navy, it is folly. How can we hope to compete with England on the sea?"

"All great things must have a beginning sir," replied John Paul, launching forth at once, nothing daunted by such cold conservatism. "What Israelite brickmaker of Pharaoh's dreamed of Solomon's temple? Nay, Moses himself had no conception of it. And God will send us our pillars of cloud and of fire. We must be reconciled to our great destiny, Mr. Carroll. No fight ever was won by man or nation content with half a victory. We have forests to build an hundred armadas, and I will command a fleet and it is given me."

The gentlemen listened in astonishment.

"I' faith, I believe you, sir," cried Captain Daniel, with admiration.

The others, too, were somehow fallen under the spell of this remarkable individuality. "What plan would you pursue, sir?" asked Mr. Chase, betraying more interest than he cared to show.

"What plan, sir!" said Captain John Paul, those wonderful eyes of his alight. "In the first place, we Americans build the fastest ships in the world,--yours of the Chesapeake are as fleet as any. Here, if I am not mistaken, one hundred and eighty-two were built in the year '71. They are idle now. To them I would issue letters of marque, to harry England's trade. From Carolina to Maine we have the wood and iron to build cruisers, in harbours that may not easily be got at. And skilled masters and seamen to elude the enemy."

"But a navy must be organized, sir. It must be an unit," objected Mr. Carroll. "And you would not for many years have force enough, or discipline enough, to meet England's navy."

"I would never meet it, sir," he replied instantly. "That would be the height of folly. I would divide our forces into small, swift-sailing squadrons, of strength sufficient to repel his cruisers. And I would carry the war straight into his unprotected ports of trade. I can name a score of such defenceless places, and I know every shoal of their harbours. For example, Whitehaven might be entered. That is a town of fifty thousand inhabitants. The fleet of merchantmen might with the greatest ease be destroyed, a contribution levied, and Ireland's coal cut off for a winter. The whole of the shipping might be swept out of the Clyde. Newcastle is another likely place, and in almost any of the Irish ports valuable vessels may be found. The Baltic and West Indian fleets are to be intercepted. I have reflected upon these matters for years, gentlemen. They are perfectly feasible. And I'll warrant you cannot conceive the havoc and consternation their fulfilment would spread in England."

If the divine power of genius ever made itself felt, 'twas on that May evening, at candle-light, in the Annapolis Coffee House. With my own eyes I witnessed two able and cautious statesmen of a cautious province thrilled to the pitch of enthusiasm by this strange young man of eight and twenty. As for good Captain Daniel, enthusiasm is but a poor word to express his feelings. A map was sent for and spread out upon the table. And it was a late hour when Mr. Chase and Mr. Carroll went home, profoundly impressed. Mr. Chase charged John Paul look him up in Congress.

The next morning I bade Captain Daniel a solemn good-by, and rode away with John Paul to Baltimore. Thence we took stage to New Castle on the Delaware, and were eventually landed by Mr. Tatlow's stage-boat at Crooked Billet wharf, Philadelphia.

A BRIEF SUMMARY, WHICH BRINGS THIS BIOGRAPHY TO THE FAMOUS FIGHT OF THE BON HOMME RICHARD AND THE SERAPIS

BY DANIEL CLAPSADDLE CARVEL

Mr. Richard Carvel refers here to the narrative of his experiences in the War of the Revolution, which he had written in the year 1805 or 1806. The insertion of that account would swell this book, already too long, out of all proportion. Hence I take it upon myself, with apologies, to compress it.

Not until October of that year, 1775, was the infant navy born. Mr. Carvel was occupied in the interval in the acquirement of practical seamanship and the theory of maritime warfare under the most competent of instructors, John Paul Jones. An interesting side light is thrown upon the character of that hero by the fact that, with all his supreme confidence in his ability, he applied to Congress only for a first lieutenancy. This was in deference to the older men before that body. "I hoped," said he, "in that rank to gain much useful knowledge from those of more experience than myself." His lack of assertion for once cost him dear. He sailed on the New Providence expedition under Commodore Hopkins as first lieutenant of the Alfred, thirty; and he soon discovered that, instead of gaining information, he was obliged to inform others. He trained the men so thoroughly in the use of the great guns "that they went through the motions of broadsides and rounds exactly as soldiers generally perform the manual exercise."

Captain Jones was not long in fixing the attention and earning the gratitude of the nation, and of its Commander-in-Chief, General Washington. While in command of the Providence, twelve four-pounders, his successful elusions of the 'Cerberus', which hounded him, and his escape from the 'Solebay', are too famous to be dwelt upon here. Obtaining the Alfred, he captured and brought into Boston ten thousand suits of uniform for Washington's shivering army. Then, by the bungling of Congress, thirteen officers were promoted over his head. The bitterness this act engendered in the soul of one whose thirst for distinction was as great as Captain Jones's may be imagined. To his everlasting credit be it recorded that he remained true to the country to which he had dedicated his life and his talents. And it was not until 1781 that he got the justice due him.

That the rough and bluff captains of the American service should have regarded a man of Paul Jones's type with suspicion is not surprising. They resented his polish and accomplishments, and could not understand his language. Perhaps it was for this reason, as well as a reward for his brilliant services, that he was always given a separate command. In the summer of 1777 he was singled out for the highest gift in the power of the United States, nothing less than that of the magnificent frigate 'Indien', then building at Amsterdam. And he was ordered to France in command of the 'Ranger', a new ship then fitting at Portsmouth. Captain Jones was the admiration of all the young officers in the navy, and was immediately flooded with requests to sail with him. One of his first acts, after receiving his command, was to apply to the Marine Committee for Mr. Carvel. The favour was granted.

My grandfather had earned much commendation from his superiors. He had sailed two cruises as master's mate of the Cabot, and was then serving as master of the Trumbull, Captain Saltonstall. This was shortly after that frigate had captured the two British transports off New York.

Captain Jones has been at pains to mention in his letters the services rendered him by Mr. Carvel in fitting out the Ranger. And my grandfather gives a striking picture of the captain. At that time the privateers, with the larger inducements of profit they offered, were getting all the best seamen. John Paul had but to take two turns with a man across the dock, and he would sign papers.

Captain Jones was the first to raise the new flag of the stars and stripes over a man-o'-war. They got away on November 14, 1777, with a fair crew and a poor lot of officers. Mr. Carvel had many a brush with the mutinous first lieutenant Simpson. Family influence deterred the captain from placing this man under arrest, and even Dr. Franklin found trouble, some years after, in bringing about his dismissal from the service. To add to the troubles, the Ranger proved crank and slow-sailing; and she had only one barrel of rum aboard, which made the men discontented.

Bringing the official news of Burgoyne's surrender, which was to cause King Louis to acknowledge the independence of the United States, the Ranger arrived at Nantes, December 2. Mr. Carvel accompanied Captain Jones to Paris, where a serious blow awaited him. The American Commissioners informed him that the Indien had been transferred to France to prevent her confiscation. That winter John Paul spent striving in vain for a better ship, and imbibing tactics from the French admirals. Incidentally, he obtained a salute for the American flag. The cruise of the Ranger in English waters the following spring was a striking fulfilment, with an absurdly poor and inadequate force, of the plan set forth by John Paul Jones in the Annapolis Coffee House. His descent upon Whitehaven spread terror and consternation broadcast through England, and he was branded as a pirate and a traitor. Mr. Carvel was fortunately not of the landing party on St. Mary's Isle, which place he had last beheld in John Paul's company, on the brigantine John, when entering Kirkcudbright. The object of that expedition, as is well known, was to obtain the person of the Earl of Selkirk, in order to bring about the rescue of the unfortunate Americans suffering in British prisons. After the celebrated capture of the sloop-of-war Drake, Paul Jones returned to France a hero.

If Captain Jones was ambitious of personal glory, he may never, at least, be accused of mercenary motives. The ragged crew of the Ranger was paid in part out of his own pocket, and for a whole month he supported the Drake's officers and men, no provision having been made for prisoners. He was at large expense in fitting out the Ranger, and he bought back at twice what it was worth the plate taken from St. Mary's Isle, getting but a tardy recognition from the Earl of Selkirk for such a noble and unheard-of action. And, I take pride in writing it, Mr. Carvel spent much of what he had earned at Gordon's Pride in a like honourable manner.

Mr. Carvel's description of the hero's reception at Versailles is graphic and very humorous. For all his republican principles John Paul never got over his love of courts, and no man was ever a more thorough courtier. He exchanged compliments with Queen Marie Antoinette, who was then in the bloom of her beauty, and declared that she was a "good girl, and deserved to be happy."

The unruly Simpson sailed for America in the Ranger in July, Captain Jones being retained in France "for a particular enterprise." And through the kindness of Dr. Franklin, Mr. Carvel remained with him. Then followed another period of heartrending disappointment. The fine ship the French government promised him was not forthcoming, though Captain Jones wrote a volume of beautiful letters to every one of importance, from her Royal Highness the Duchess of Chartres to his Most Christian Majesty, Louis, King of France and Navarre. At length, when he was sitting one day in unusual dejection and railing at the vanity of courts and kings, Mr. Carvel approached him with a book in his hand.

"What have you there, Richard?" the captain demanded.

"Dr. Franklin's Maxims," replied my grandfather. They were great favourites with him. The captain took the book and began mechanically to turn over the pages. Suddenly he closed it with a bang, jumped up, and put on his coat and hat. Mr. Carvel looked on in astonishment.

"Where are you going, sir?" says he.

"To Paris, sir," says the captain. "Dr. Franklin has taught me more wisdom in a second than I had in all my life before. 'If you wish to have any business faithfully and expeditiously performed, go and do it yourself; otherwise, send.'"

As a result of that trip he got the Duras, which he renamed the 'Bon homme Richard' in honour of Dr. Franklin. The Duras was an ancient Indiaman with a high poop, which made my grandfather exclaim, when he saw her, at the remarkable fulfilment of old Stanwix's prophecy. She was perfectly rotten, and in the constructor's opinion not worth refitting. Her lowest deck (too low for the purpose) was pierced aft with three ports on a side, and six worn-out eighteen-pounders mounted there. Some of them burst in the action, killing their people. The main battery, on the deck above, was composed of twenty-eight twelve-pounders. On the uncovered deck eight nine-pounders were mounted. Captain Jones again showed his desire to serve the cause by taking such a ship, and not waiting for something better.

In the meantime the American frigate 'Alliance' had brought Lafayette to France, and was added to the little squadron that was to sail with the 'Bon homme Richard'. One of the most fatal mistakes Congress ever made was to put Captain Pierre Landais in command of her, out of compliment to the French allies. He was a man whose temper and vagaries had failed to get him a command in his own navy. His insulting conduct and treachery to Captain Jones are strongly attested to in Mr. Carvel's manuscript: they were amply proved by the written statements of other officers.

The squadron sailed from L'Orient in June, but owing to a collision between the Bon homme Richard and the Alliance it was forced to put back into the Groix roads for repairs. Nails and rivets were with difficulty got to hold in the sides of the old Indianian. On August 14th John Paul Jones again set sail for English waters, with the following vessels: Alliance, thirty-six; Pallas, thirty; Cerf, eighteen; Vengeance, twelve; and two French privateers. Owing to the humiliating conditions imposed upon him by the French Minister of Marine, Commodore Jones did not have absolute command. In a gale on the 26th the two privateers and the Cerf parted company, never to return. After the most outrageous conduct off the coast of Ireland, Landais, in the 'Alliance', left the squadron on September 6th, and did not reappear until the 23d, the day of the battle.

Mr. Carvel was the third lieutenant of the 'Bon homme Richard', tho' he served as second in the action. Her first lieutenant (afterwards the celebrated Commodore Richard Dale) was a magnificent man, one worthy in every respect of the captain he served. When the hour of battle arrived, these two and the sailing master, and a number of raw midshipmen, were the only line-officers left, and two French officers of marines.

The rest had been lost in various ways. And the crew of the 'Bon homme Richard' was as sorry a lot as ever trod a deck. Less than three score of the seamen were American born; near four score were British, inclusive of sixteen Irish; one hundred and thirty-seven were French soldiers, who acted as marines; and the rest of the three hundred odd souls to fight her were from all over the earth,--Malays and Maltese and Portuguese. In the hold were more than one hundred and fifty English prisoners.

This was a vessel and a force, truly, with which to conquer a fifty-gun ship of the latest type, and with a picked crew.

Mr. Carvel's chapter opens with Landais's sudden reappearance on the morning of the day the battle was fought. He shows the resentment and anger against the Frenchman felt by all on board, from cabin-boy to commodore. But none went so far as to accuse the captain of the 'Alliance' of such supreme treachery as he was to show during the action. Cowardice may have been in part responsible for his holding aloof from the two duels in which the Richard and the Pallas engaged. But the fact that he poured broadsides into the Richard, and into her off side, makes it seem probable that his motive was to sink the commodore's ship, and so get the credit of saving the day, to the detriment of the hero who won it despite all disasters. To account for the cry that was raised when first she attacked the Richard, it must be borne in mind that the crew of the 'Alliance' was largely composed of Englishmen. It was thought that these had mutinied and taken her.

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

LII. HOW THE GARDENER'S SON FOUGHT THE "SERAPIS"

When I came on deck the next morning our yards were a-drip with a clammy fog, and under it the sea was roughed by a southwest breeze. We were standing to the northward before it. I remember reflecting as I paused in the gangway that the day was Thursday, September the 23d, and that we were near two months out of Groix with this tub of an Indiaman. In all that time we had not so much as got a whiff of an English frigate, though we had almost put a belt around the British Isles. Then straining my eyes through the mist, I made out two white blurs of sails on our starboard beam.

Honest Jack Pearce, one of the few good seamen we had aboard, was rubbing down one of the nines beside me.

"Why, Jack," said I, "what have we there? Another prize?" For that question had become a joke on board the 'Bon homme Richard' since the prisoners had reached an hundred and fifty, and half our crew was gone to man the ships.

"Bless your 'art, no, sir," said he. "'Tis that damned Frenchy Landais in th' Alliance. She turns up with the Pallas at six bells o' the middle watch."

"So he's back, is he?"

"Ay, he's back," he returned, with a grunt that was half a growl; "arter three weeks breakin' o' liberty. I tell 'ee what, sir, them Frenchies is treecherous devils, an' not to be trusted the len'th of a lead line. An' they beant seamen eno' to keep a full an' by with all their 'takteek'. Ez fer that Landais, I hearn him whinin' at the commodore in the round house when we was off Clear, an' sayin' as how he would tell Sartin on us when he gets back to Paree. An' jabberin to th'other Frenchmen as was there that this here butter-cask was er King's ship, an' that the commodore weren't no commodore nohow. They say as how Cap'n Jones be bound up in a hard knot by some articles of agreement, an' daresn't punish him. Be that so, Mr. Carvel?"

I said that it was.

"Shiver my bulkheads!" cried Jack, "I gave my oath to that same, sir. For I knowed the commodore was the lad t' string 'em to the yard-arm an' he had the say on it. Oh, the devil take the Frenchies," said Jack, rolling his quid to show his pleasure of the topic, "they sits on their bottoms in Brest and L'Oriong an' talks takteek wi' their han's and mouths, and daresn't as much as show the noses o' their three-deckers in th' Bay o' Biscay, while Cap'n Jones pokes his bowsprit into every port in England with a hulk the rats have left. I've had my bellyful o' Frenchies, Mr. Carvell save it be to fight 'em. An' I tell 'ee 'twould give me the greatest joy in life t' leave loose 'Scolding Sairy' at that there Landais. Th' gal ain't had a match on her this here cruise, an' t' my mind she couldn't be christened better, sir."

I left him patting the gun with a tender affection.

The scene on board was quiet and peaceful enough that morning. A knot of midshipmen on the forecastle were discussing Landais's conduct, and cursing the concordat which prevented our commodore from bringing him up short. Mr. Stacey, the sailing-master, had the deck, and the coasting pilot was conning; now and anon the boatswain's whistle piped for Garrett or Quito or Fogg to lay aft to the mast, where the first lieutenant stood talking to Colonel de Chamillard, of the French marines. The scavengers were sweeping down, and part of the after guard was bending a new bolt-rope on a storm staysail.

Then the--fore-topmast crosstrees reports a sail on the weather quarter, the Richard is brought around on the wind, and away we go after a brigantine, "flying like a snow laden with English bricks," as Midshipman Coram jokingly remarks. A chase is not such a novelty with us that we crane our necks to windward.

At noon, when I relieved Mr. Stacey of the deck, the sun had eaten up the fog, and the shores of England stood out boldly. Spurn Head was looming up across our bows, while that of Flamborough jutted into the sea behind us. I had the starboard watch piped to dinner, and reported twelve o'clock to the commodore. And had just got permission to "make it," according to a time-honoured custom at sea, when another "Sail, ho!" came down from aloft.

"Where away?" called back Mr. Linthwaite, who was midshipman of the forecastle.

"Starboard quarter, rounding Flamborough Head, sir. Looks like a full-rigged ship, sir."

I sent the messenger into the great cabin to report. He was barely out of sight before a second cry came from the masthead: "Another sail rounding Flamborough, sir!"

The officers on deck hurried to the taffrail. I had my glass, but not a dot was visible above the sea-line. The messenger was scarcely back again when there came a third hail: "Two more rounding the head, sir! Four in all, sir!"

Here was excitement indeed. Without waiting for instructions, I gave the command:

"Up royal yards! Royal yardmen in the tops!"

We were already swaying out of the chains, when Lieutenant Dale appeared and asked the coasting pilot what fleet it was. He answered that it was the Baltic fleet, under convoy of the Countess of Scarborough, twenty guns, and the Serapis, forty-four.

"Forty-four," repeated Mr. Dale, smiling; "that means fifty, as English frigates are rated. We shall have our hands full this day, my lads," said he. "You have done well to get the royals on her, Mr. Carvel."

While he was yet speaking, three more sail were reported from aloft. Then there was a hush on deck, and the commodore himself appeared. As he reached the poop we saluted him and informed him of what had happened.

"The Baltic fleet," said he, promptly. "Call away the pilotboat with Mr. Lunt to follow the brigantine, sir, and ease off before the wind. Signal 'General Chase' to the squadron, Mr. Mayrant."

The men had jumped to the weather braces before I gave the command, and all the while more sail were counting from the crosstrees, until their number had reached forty-one. The news spread over the ship; the starboard watch trooped up with their dinners half eaten. Then a faint booming of guns drifted down upon our ears.

"They've got sight of us, sir," shouted the lookout. "They be firing guns to windward, an' letting fly their topgallant sheets."

At that the commodore hurried forward, the men falling back to the bulwarks respectfully, and he mounted the fore-rigging as agile as any topman, followed by his aide with a glass. From the masthead he sung out to me to set our stu'nsails, and he remained aloft till near seven bells of the watch. At that hour the merchantmen had all scuttled to safety behind the head, and from the deck a great yellow King's frigate could be plainly seen standing south to meet us, followed by her smaller consort. Presently she hove to, and through our glasses we discerned a small boat making for her side, and then a man clambering up her sea-ladder.

"That be the bailiff of Scarborough, sir," said the coasting pilot, "come to tell her cap'n 'tis Paul Jones he has to fight."

At that moment the commodore lay down from aloft, and our hearts beat high as he walked swiftly aft to the quarterdeck, where he paused for a word with Mr. Dale. Meanwhile Mr. Mayrant hove out the signal for the squadron to form line of battle.

"Recall the pilot-boat, Mr. Carvel," said the commodore, quietly. "Then you may beat to quarters, and I will take the ship, sir."

"Ay, ay, sir." I raised my trumpet. "All hands clear ship for action!"

It makes me sigh now to think of the cheer which burst from that tatterdemalion crew. Who were they to fight the bone and sinew of the King's navy in a rotten ship of an age gone by? And who was he, that stood so straight upon the quarter-deck, to instil this scum with love and worship and fervour to blind them to such odds? But the bo'suns piped and sang out the command in fog-horn voices, the drums beat the long roll and the fifes whistled, and the decks became suddenly alive. Breechings were loosed and gun-tackles unlashed, rammer and sponge laid out, and pike and pistol and cutlass placed where they would be handy when the time came to rush the enemy's decks. The powder-monkeys tumbled over each other in their hurry to provide cartridges, and grape and canister and doubleheaded shot were hoisted up from below. The trimmers rigged the splinter nettings, got out spare spars and blocks and ropes against those that were sure to be shot away, and rolled up casks of water to put out the fires. Tubs were filled with sand, for blood is slippery upon the boards. The French marines, their scarlet and white very natty in contrast to most of our ragged wharf-rats at the guns, were mustered on poop and forecastle, and some were sent aloft to the tops to assist the tars there to sweep the British decks with handgrenade and musket. And, lastly, the surgeon and his mates went below to cockpit and steerage, to make ready for the grimmest work of all.

My own duties took me to the dark lower deck, a vile place indeed, and reeking with the smell of tar and stale victuals. There I had charge of the battery of old eighteens, while Mr. Dale commanded the twelves on the middle deck. We loaded our guns with two shots apiece, though I had my doubts about their standing such a charge, and then the men stripped until they stood naked to the waist, waiting for the fight to begin. For we could see nothing of what was going forward. I was pacing up and down, for it was a task to quiet the nerves in that dingy place with the gun-ports closed, when about three bells of the dog, Mr. Mease, the purser, appeared on the ladder.

"Lunt has not come back with the pilot-boat, Carvel," said he. "I have volunteered for a battery, and am assigned to this. You are to report to the commodore."

I thanked him, and climbed quickly to the quarterdeck. The 'Bon homme Richard' was lumbering like a leaden ship before the wind, swaying ponderously, her topsails flapping and her heavy blocks whacking against the yards. And there was the commodore, erect, and with fire in his eye, giving sharp commands to the men at the wheel. I knew at once that no trifle had disturbed him. He wore a brand-new uniform; a blue coat with red lapels and yellow buttons, and slashed cuffs and stand-up collar, a red waistcoat with tawny lace, blue breeches, white silk stockings, and a cocked hat and a sword. Into his belt were stuck two brace of pistols.

It took some effort to realize, as I waited silently for his attention, that this was the man of whose innermost life I had had so intimate a view. Who had taken me to the humble cottage under Criffel, who had poured into my ear his ambitions and his wrongs when we had sat together in the dingy room of the Castle Yard sponging-house. Then some of those ludicrous scenes on the road to London came up to me, for which the sky-blue frock was responsible. And yet this commodore was not greatly removed from him I had first beheld on the brigantine John. His confidence in his future had not so much as wavered since that day. That future was now not so far distant as the horizon, and he was ready to meet it.

"You will take charge of the battery of nines on this deck, Mr. Carvel," said he, at length.

"Very good, sir," I replied, and was making my way down the poop ladder, when I heard him calling me, in a low voice, by the old name: "Richard!"

I turned and followed him aft to the taffrail, where we were clear of the French soldiers. The sun was hanging red over the Yorkshire Wolds, the Head of Flamborough was in the blue shadow, and the clouds were like rose leaves in the sky. The enemy had tacked and was standing west, with ensign and jack and pennant flying, the level light washing his sails to the whiteness of paper. 'Twas then I first remarked that the Alliance had left her place in line and was sailing swiftly ahead toward the Serapis. The commodore seemed to read my exclamation.

"Landais means to ruin me yet, by hook or crook," said he.

"But he can't intend to close with them," I replied. "He has not the courage."

"God knows what he intends," said the commodore, bitterly. "It is no good, at all events."

My heart bled for him. Some minutes passed that he did not speak, making shift to raise his glass now and again, and I knew that he was gripped by a strong emotion. "'Twas so he ever behaved when the stress was greatest. Presently he lays down the glass on the signal-chest, fumbles in his coat, and brings out the little gold brooch I had not set eyes on since Dolly and he and I had stood together on the Betsy's deck.

"When you see her, Richard, tell her that I have kept it as sacred as her memory," he said thickly. "She will recall what I spoke of you when she gave it me. You have been leal and true to me indeed, and many a black hour have you tided me over since this war' began. Do you know how she may be directed to?" he concluded, with abruptness.

I glanced at him, surprised at the question. He was staring at the English shore.

"Mr. Ripley, of Lincoln's Inn, used to be Mr. Manners's lawyer," I answered.

He took out a little note-book and wrote that down carefully. "And now," he continued, "God keep you, my friend. We must win, for we fight with a rope around our necks."

"But you, Captain Paul," I said, "is--is there no one?"

His face took on the look of melancholy it had worn so often of late, despite his triumphs. That look was the stamp of fate.

"Richard," replied he, with an ineffable sadness, "I am naught but a wanderer upon the face of the earth. I have no ties, no kindred,--no real friends, save you and Dale, and some of these honest fellows whom I lead to slaughter. My ambition is seamed with a flaw. And all my life I must be striving, striving, until I am laid in the grave. I know that now, and it is you yourself who have taught me. For I have violently broken forth from those bounds which God in His wisdom did set."

I pressed his hand, and with bowed head went back to my station, profoundly struck by the truth of what he had spoken. Though he fought under the flag of freedom, the curse of the expatriated was upon his head.

Shortly afterward he appeared at the poop rail, straight and alert, his eye piercing each man as it fell on him. He was the commodore once more.

The twilight deepened, until you scarce could see your hands. There was no sound save the cracking of the cabins and the tumbling of the blocks, and from time to time a muttered command. An age went by before the trimmers were sent to the lee braces, and the Richard rounded lazily to. And a great frigate loomed out of the night beside us, half a pistolshot away.

"What ship is that?" came the hail, intense out of the silence.

"I don't hear you," replied our commodore, for he had not yet got his distance.

Again came the hail: "What ship is that?"

John Paul Jones leaned forward over the rail.

"Pass the word below to the first lieutenant to begin the action, sir."

Hardly were the words out of my mouth before the deck gave a mighty leap, a hot wind that seemed half of flame blew across my face, and the roar started the pain throbbing in my ears. At the same instant the screech of shot sounded overhead, we heard the sharp crack-crack of wood rending and splitting,--as with a great broadaxe,--and a medley of blocks and ropes rattled to the deck with the 'thud of the falling bodies. Then, instead of stillness, moans and shrieks from above and below, oaths and prayers in English and French and Portuguese, and in the heathen gibberish of the East. As the men were sponging and ramming home in the first fury of hatred, the carpenter jumped out under the battle-lanthorn at the main hatch, crying in a wild voice that the old eighteens had burst, killing half their crews and blowing up the gundeck above them. At this many of our men broke and ran for the hatches.

"Back, back to your quarters! The first man to desert will be shot down!"

It was the same strange voice that had quelled the mutiny on the John, that had awed the men of Kirkcudbright. The tackles were seized and the guns run out once more, and fired, and served again in an agony of haste. In the darkness shot shrieked hither and thither about us like demons, striking everywhere, sometimes sending casks of salt water over the nettings. Incessantly the quartermaster walked to and fro scattering sand over the black pools that kept running, running together as the minutes were tolled out, and the red flashes from the guns revealed faces in a hideous contortion. One little fellow, with whom I had had many a lively word at mess, had his arm taken off at the shoulder as he went skipping past me with the charge under his coat, and I have but to listen now to hear the patter of the blood on the boards as they carried him away to the cockpit below. Out of the main hatch, from that charnel house, rose one continuous cry. It was an odd trick of the mind or soul that put a hymn on my lips in that dreadful hour of carnage and human misery, when men were calling the name of their Maker in vain. But as I ran from crew to crew, I sang over and over again a long-forgotten Christmas carol, and with it came a fleeting memory of my mother on the stairs at Carvel Hall, and of the negroes gathered on the lawn without.

Suddenly, glancing up at the dim cloud of sails above, I saw that we were aback and making sternway. We might have tossed a biscuit aboard the big Serapis as she glided ahead of us. The broadsides thundered, and great ragged scantlings brake from our bulwarks and flew as high as the mizzen-top; and the shrieks and groans redoubled. Involuntarily my eyes sought the poop, and I gave a sigh of relief at the sight of the commanding figure in the midst of the whirling smoke. We shotted our guns with double-headed, manned our lee braces, and gathered headway.

"Stand by to board!"

The boatswains' whistles trilled through the ship, pikes were seized, and pistol and cutlass buckled on. But even as we waited with set teeth, our bows ground into the enemy's weather quarter-gallery. For the Richard's rigging was much cut away, and she was crank at best. So we backed and filled once more, passing the Englishman close aboard, himself being aback at the time. Several of his shot crushed through the bulwarks in front of me, shattering a nine-pounder and killing half of its crew. And it is only a miracle that I stand alive to be able to tell the tale. Then I caught a glimpse of the quartermaster whirling the spokes of our wheel, and over went our helm to lay us athwart the forefoot of the 'Serapis', where we might rake and rush her decks. Our old Indiaman answered but doggedly; and the huge bowsprit of the Serapis, towering over our heads, snapped off our spanker gaff and fouled our mizzen rigging.

"A hawser, Mr. Stacey, a hawser!" I heard the commodore shout, and saw the sailing-master slide down the ladder and grope among the dead and wounded and mass of broken spars and tackles, and finally pick up a smeared rope's end, which I helped him drag to the poop. There we found the commodore himself taking skilful turns around the mizzen with the severed stays and shrouds dangling from the bowsprit, the French marines looking on.

"Don't swear, Mr. Stacey," said he, severely; "in another minute we may all be in eternity."

I rushed back to my guns, for the wind was rapidly swinging the stern of the Serapis to our own bow, now bringing her starboard batteries into play. Barely had we time to light our snatches and send our broadside into her at three fathoms before the huge vessels came crunching together, the disordered riggings locking, and both pointed northward to a leeward tide in a death embrace. The chance had not been given him to shift his crews or to fling open his starboard gun-ports.

Then ensued a moment's breathless hush, even the cries of those in agony lulling. The pall of smoke rolled a little, and a silver moonlight filtered through, revealing the weltering bodies twisted upon the boards. A stern call came from beyond the bulwarks.

"Have you struck, sir?"

The answer sounded clear, and bred hero-worship in our souls.

"Sir, I have not yet begun to fight."

Our men raised a hoarse yell, drowned all at once by the popping of musketry in the tops and the bursting of grenades here and there about the decks. A mighty muffled blast sent the Bon homme Richard rolling to larboard, and the smoke eddied from our hatches and lifted out of the space between the ships. The Englishman had blown off his gun-ports. And next some one shouted that our battery of twelves was fighting them muzzle to muzzle below, our rammers leaning into the Serapis to send their shot home. No chance then for the thoughts which had tortured us in moments of suspense. That was a fearful hour, when a shot had scarce to leap a cannon's length to find its commission; when the belches of the English guns burned the hair of our faces; when Death was sovereign, merciful or cruel at his pleasure. The red flashes disclosed many an act of coolness and of heroism. I saw a French lad whip off his coat when a gunner called for a wad, and another, who had been a scavenger, snatch the rammer from Pearce's hands when he staggered with a grape-shot through his chest. Poor Jack Pearce! He did not live to see the work 'Scolding Sairy' was to do that night. I had but dragged him beyond reach of the recoil when he was gone.

Then a cry came floating down from aloft. Thrice did I hear it, like one waking out of a sleep, ere I grasped its import. "The Alliance! The Alliance!" But hardly had the name resounded with joy throughout the ship, when a hail of grape and canister tore through our sails from aft forward. "She rakes us! She rakes us!" And the French soldiers tumbled headlong down from the poop with a wail of "Les Anglais font prise!" "Her Englishmen have taken her, and turned her guns against us!" Our captain was left standing alone beside the staff where the stars and stripes waved black in the moonlight.

"The Alliance is hauling off, sir!" called the midshipman of the mizzen-top. "She is making for the Pallas and the Countess of Scarborough."

"Very good, sir," was all the commodore said.

To us hearkening for his answer his voice betrayed no sign of dismay. Seven times, I say, was that battle lost, and seven times regained again. What was it kept the crews at their quarters and the officers at their posts through that hell of flame and shot, when a madman could scarce have hoped for victory? What but the knowledge that somewhere in the swirl above us was still that unswerving and indomitable man who swept all obstacles from before him, and into whose mind the thought of defeat could not enter. His spirit held us to our task, for flesh and blood might not have endured alone.

We had now but one of our starboard nine-pounders on its carriage, and word came from below that our battery of twelves was all but knocked to scrap iron, and their ports blown into one yawning gap. Indeed, we did not have to be told that sides and stanchions had been carried away, for the deck trembled and teetered under us as we dragged 'Scolding Sairy' from her stand in the larboard waist, clearing a lane for her between the bodies. Our feet slipped and slipped as we hove, and burning bits of sails and splinters dropping from aloft fell unheeded on our heads and shoulders. With the energy of desperation I was bending to the pull, when the Malay in front of me sank dead across the tackle. But, ere I could touch him, he was tenderly lifted aside, and a familiar figure seized the rope where the dead man's hands had warmed it. Truly, the commodore was everywhere that night.

"Down to the surgeon with you, Richard!" he cried. "I will look to the battery."

Dazed, I put my hand to my hair to find it warm and wringing wet. When I had been hit, I knew not. But I shook my head, for the very notion of that cockpit turned my stomach. The blood was streaming from a gash in his own temple, to which he gave no heed, and stood encouraging that panting line until at last the gun was got across and hooked to the ring-bolts of its companion that lay shattered there. "Serve her with double-headed, my lads," he shouted, "and every shot into the Englishman's mainmast!"

"Ay, ay, sir," came the answer from every man of that little remnant.

The Serapis, too, was now beginning to blaze aloft, and choking wood-smoke eddied out of the Richard's hold and mingled with the powder fumes. Then the enemy's fire abreast us seemed to lull, and Mr. Stacey mounted the bulwarks, and cried out: "You have cleared their decks, my hearties!" Aloft, a man was seen to clamber from our mainyard into the very top of the Englishman, where he threw a hand-grenade, as I thought, down her main hatch. An instant after an explosion came like a, clap of thunder in our faces, and a great quadrant of light flashed as high as the 'Serapis's' trucks, and through a breach in her bulwarks I saw men running with only the collars of their shirts upon their naked bodies.

'Twas at this critical moment, when that fearful battle once more was won, another storm of grape brought the spars about our heads, and that name which we dreaded most of all was spread again. As we halted in consternation, a dozen round shot ripped through our unengaged side, and a babel of voices hailed the treacherous Landais with oaths and imprecations. We made out the Alliance with a full head of canvas, black and sharp, between us and the moon. Smoke hung above her rail. Getting over against the signal fires blazing on Flamborough Head, she wore ship and stood across our bows, the midshipman on the forecastle singing out to her, by the commodore's orders, to lay the enemy by the board. There was no response.

"Do you hear us?" yelled Mr. Linthwaite.

"Ay, ay," came the reply; and with it the smoke broke from her and the grape and canister swept our forecastle. Then the Alliance sailed away, leaving brave Mr. Caswell among the many Landais had murdered.

The ominous clank of the chain pumps beat a sort of prelude to what happened next. The gunner burst out of the hatch with blood running down his face, shouting that the Richard was sinking, and yelling for quarter as he made for the ensign-staff on the poop, for the flag was shot away. Him the commodore felled with a pistol-butt. At the gunner's heels were the hundred and fifty prisoners we had taken, released by the master at arms. They swarmed out of the bowels of the ship like a horde of Tartars, unkempt and wild and desperate with fear, until I thought that the added weight on the scarce-supported deck would land us all in the bilges. Words fail me when I come to describe the frightful panic of these creatures, frenzied by the instinct of self-preservation. They surged hither and thither as angry seas driven into a pocket of a storm-swept coast. They trampled rough-shod over the moaning heaps of wounded and dying, and crowded the crews at the guns, who were powerless before their numbers. Some fought like maniacs, and others flung themselves into the sea.

Those of us who had clung to hope lost it then. Standing with my back to the mast, beating them off with a pike, visions of an English prison-ship, of an English gallows, came before me. I counted the seconds until the enemy's seamen would be pouring through our ragged ports. The seventh and last time, and we were beaten, for we had not men enough left on our two decks to force them down again. Yes,--I shame to confess it--the heart went clean out of me, and with that the pain pulsed and leaped in my head like a devil unbound. At a turn of the hand I should have sunk to the boards, had not a voice risen strong and clear above that turmoil, compelling every man to halt trembling in his steps.

"Cast off, cast off! 'The Serapis' is sinking. To the pumps, ye fools, if you would save your lives!"

That unerring genius of the gardener's son had struck the only chord!

They were like sheep before us as we beat them back into the reeking hatches, and soon the pumps were heard bumping with a renewed and a desperate vigour. Then, all at once, the towering mainmast of the enemy cracked and tottered and swung this way and that on its loosened shrouds. The first intense silence of the battle followed, in the midst of which came a cry from our top:

"Their captain is hauling down, sir!"

The sound which broke from our men could scarce be called a cheer. That which they felt as they sank exhausted on the blood of their comrades may not have been elation. My own feeling was of unmixed wonder as I gazed at a calm profile above me, sharp-cut against the moon.

I was moved as out of a revery by the sight of Dale swinging across to the Serapis by the main brace pennant. Calling on some of my boarders, I scaled our bulwarks and leaped fairly into the middle of the gangway of the Serapis.

Such is nearly all of my remembrance of that momentous occasion. I had caught the one glimpse of our first lieutenant in converse with their captain and another officer, when a naked seaman came charging at me. He had raised a pike above his shoulder ere I knew what he was about, and my senses left me.

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LIII. IN WHICH I MAKE SOME DISCOVERIES

The room had a prodigious sense of change about it. That came over me with something of a shock, since the moment before I had it settled that I was in Marlboro' Street. The bare branches swaying in the wind outside should belong to the trees in Freshwater Lane. But beyond the branches were houses, the like of which I had no remembrance of in Annapolis. And then my grandfather should be sitting in that window. Surely, he was there! He moved! He was coming toward me to say: "Richard, you are forgiven," and to brush his eyes with his ruffles.

Then there was the bed-canopy, the pleatings of which were gone, and it was turned white instead of the old blue. And the chimney-place! That was unaccountably smaller, and glowed with a sea-coal fire. And the mantel was now but a bit of a shelf, and held many things that seemed scarce at home on the rough and painted wood,--gold filigree; and China and Japan, and a French clock that ought not to have been just there. Ah, the teacups! Here at last was something to touch a fibre of my brain, but a pain came with the effort of memory. So my eyes went back to my grandfather in the window. His face was now become black as Scipio's, and he wore a red turban and a striped cotton gown that was too large for him. And he was sewing. This was monstrous!

I hurried over to the tea-cups, such a twinge did that discovery give me. But they troubled me near as much, and the sea-coal fire held strange images. The fascination in the window was not to be denied, for it stood in line with the houses and the trees. Suddenly there rose up before me a gate. Yes, I knew that gate, and the girlish figure leaning over it. They were in Prince George Street. Behind them was a mass of golden-rose bushes, and out of these came forth a black face under a turban, saying, "Yes, mistis, I'se comin'."

"Mammy--Mammy Lucy!"

The figure in the window stirred, and the sewing fell its ample lap.

"Now Lawd'a mercy!"

I trembled--with a violence unspeakable. Was this but one more of those thousand voices, harsh and gentle, rough and tender, to which I had listened in vain this age past? The black face was hovering over me now, and in an agony of apprehension I reached up and felt its honest roughness. Then I could have wept for joy.

"Mammy Lucy!"

"Yes, Marse Dick?"

"Where--where is Miss Dolly?"

"Now, Marse Dick, doctah done say you not t' talk, suh."

"Where is Miss Dolly?" I cried, seizing her arm.

"Hush, Marse Dick. Miss Dolly'll come terectly, suh. She's lyin' down, suh."

The door creaked, and in my eagerness I tried to lift myself. 'Twas Aunt Lucy's hand that restrained me, and the next face I saw was that of Dorothy's mother. But why did it appear so old and sorrow-lined? And why was the hair now of a whiteness with the lace of the cap? She took my fingers in her own, and asked me anxiously if I felt any pain.

"Where am I, Mrs. Manners?"

"You are in London, Richard."

"In Arlington Street?"

She shook her head sadly. "No, my dear, not in Arlington Street. But you are not to talk."

"And Dorothy? May I not see Dorothy? Aunt Lucy tells me she is here."

Mrs. Manners gave the old mammy a glance of reproof, a signal that alarmed me vastly.

"Oh, tell me, Mrs. Manners! You will speak the truth. Tell me if she is gone away?"

"My dear boy, she is here, and under this very roof. And you shall see her as soon as Dr. Barry will permit. Which will not be soon," she added with a smile, "if you persist in this conduct."

The threat had the desired effect. And Mrs. Manners quietly left the room, and after a while as quietly came back again and sat down by the fire, whispering to Aunt Lucy.

Fate, in some inexplicable way, had carried me into the enemy's country and made me the guest of Mr. Marmaduke Manners. As I lay staring upward, odd little bits of the past came floating to the top of my mind, presently to be pieced together. The injuries Mr. Marmaduke had done me were the first to collect, since I was searching for the cause of my resentment against him. The incidents arrived haphazard as magic lanthorn views, but very vivid. His denial of me before Mr. Dix, and his treachery at Vauxhall, when he had sent me to be murdered. Next I felt myself clutching the skin over his ribs in Arlington Street, when I had flung him across the room in his yellow night-gown. That brought me to the most painful scene of my life, when I had parted with Dorothy at the top of the stairs. Afterward followed scraps of the years at Gordon's Pride, and on top of them the talk with McAndrews. Here was the secret I sought. The crash had come. And they were no longer in Mayfair, but must have taken a house in some poorer part of London. This thought cast me down tremendously.

And Dorothy! Had time changed her? 'Twas with that query on my lips I fell asleep, to dream of the sun shining down on Carvel Hall and Wilmot House; of Aunt Hester and Aunt Lucy, and a lass and a lad romping through pleasant fields and gardens.

When I awoke it was broad day once more. A gentleman sat on the edge of my bed. He had a queer, short face, ruddy as the harvest moon, and he smiled good-humouredly when I opened my eyes.

"I bid you good morning, Mr. Carvel, for the first time since I have made your acquaintance," said he. "And how do you feel, sir?"

"I have never felt better in my life," I replied, which was the whole truth.

"Well, vastly well," says he, laughing, "prodigious well for a young man who has as many holes in him as have you. Do you hear him, Mrs. Manners?"

At that last word, I popped up to look about the room, and the doctor caught hold of me with ludicrous haste. A pain shot through my body.

"Avast, avast, my hearty," cries he. "'Tis a miracle you can speak, let alone carry your bed and walk for a while yet." And he turned to Dorothy's mother, whom I beheld smiling at me. "You will give him the physic, ma'am, at the hours I have chosen. Egad, I begin to think we shall come through.

"But pray remember, ma'am, if he talks, you are to put a wad in his mouth."

"He shall have no opportunity to talk, Dr. Barry," said Mrs. Manners.

"Save for a favour I have to ask you, doctor," I cried.

"'Od's bodkins! Already, sir? And what may that be?"

"That you will allow me to see Miss Manners."

He shook with laughter, and then winked at me very roguishly.

"Oh!" says he, "and faith, I should be worse than cruel. First she comes imploring me to see you, and so prettily that a man of oak could not refuse her. And now it is you begging to see her. Had your eyes been opened, sir, you might have had many a glimpse of Miss Dolly these three weeks past."

"What! She has been watching with me?" I asked, in a rapture not to be expressed.

"'Od's, but those are secrets. And the medical profession is close-mouthed, Mr. Carvel. So you want to see her? No," cries he, "'tis not needful to swear it on the Evangels. And I let her come in, will you give me your honour as a gentleman not to speak more than two words to her?"

"I promise anything, and you will not deny me looking at her," said I.

He shook again, all over. "You rascal! You sad dog, sir! No, sir, faith, you must shut your eyes. Eh, madam, must he not shut his eyes?"

"They were playmates, doctor," answers Mrs. Manners. She was laughing a little, too.

"Well, she shall come in. But remember that I shall have my ear to the keyhole, and you go beyond your promise, out she's whisked. So I caution you not to spend rashly those two words, sir."

And he followed Mrs. Manners out of the room, frowning and shaking his fist at me in mock fierceness. I would have died for the man. For a space--a prodigious long space--I lay very still, my heart bumping like a gun-carriage broke loose, and my eyes riveted on the crack of the door. Then I caught the sound of a light footstep, the knob turned, and joy poured into my soul with the sweep of a Fundy tide.

"Dorothy!" I cried. "Dorothy!"

She put her finger to her lips.

"There, sir," said she, "now you have spoken them both at once!"

She closed the door softly behind her, and stood looking down upon me with such a wondrous love-light in her eyes as no man may describe. My fancy had not lifted me within its compass, my dreams even had not imagined it. And the fire from which it sprang does not burn in humbler souls. So she stood gazing, those lips which once had been the seat of pride now parted in a smile of infinite tenderness. But her head she still held high, and her body straight. Down the front of her dress fell a tucked apron of the whitest linen, and in her hand was a cup of steaming broth.

"You are to take this, Richard," she commanded. And added, with a touch of her old mischief, "Mind, sir, if I hear a sound out of you, I am to disappear like the fairy godmother."

I knew full well she meant it, and the terror of losing her kept me silent. She put down the cup, placed another pillow behind my head with a marvellous deftness, and then began feeding me in dainty spoonfuls something which was surely nectar. And mine eyes, too, had their feast. Never before had I seen my lady in this gentle guise, this task of nursing the sick, which her doing raised to a queenly art.

Her face had changed some. Years of trial unknown to me had left an ennobling mark upon her features, increasing their power an hundred fold. And the levity of girlish years was gone. How I burned to question her! But her lips were now tight closed, her glance now and anon seeking mine, and then falling with an exquisite droop to the coverlet. For the old archness, at least, would never be eradicated. Presently, after she had taken the cup and smoothed my pillow, I reached out for her hand. It was a boldness of which I had not believed myself capable; but she did not resist, and even, as I thought, pressed my fingers with her own slender ones, the red of our Maryland holly blushing in her cheeks. And what need of words, indeed! Our thoughts, too, flew coursing hand in hand through primrose paths, and the angels themselves were not to be envied.

A master might picture my happiness, waking and sleeping, through the short winter days that came and went like flashes of gray light. The memory of them is that of a figure tall and lithe, a little more rounded than of yore, and a chiselled face softened by a power that is one of the world's mysteries. Dorothy had looked the lady in rags, and housewife's cap and apron became her as well as silks or brocades. When for any reason she was absent from my side, I moped, to the quiet amusement of Mrs. Manners and the more boisterous delight of Aunt Lucy, who took her turn sewing in the window. I was near to forgetting the use of words, until at length, one rare morning when the sun poured in, the jolly doctor dressed my wounds with more despatch than common, and vouchsafed that I might talk awhile that day.

"Oh!" cries he, putting me as ever to confusion, "but I have a guess whom my gentleman will be wishing to talk with. But I'll warrant, sir, you have said a deal more than I have any notion of without opening your lips."

And he went away, intolerably pleased with his joke.

Alas for the perversity of maiden natures! It was not my dear nurse who brought my broth that morning, but Mrs. Manners herself. She smiled at my fallen face, and took a chair at my bedside.

"Now, my dear boy," she said, "you may ask what questions you choose, and I will tell you very briefly how you have come here."

"I have been thinking, Mrs. Manners," I replied, "that if it were known that you harboured one of John Paul Jones's officers in London, very serious trouble might follow for you."

I thought her brow clouded a little.

"No one knows of it, Richard, or is likely to. Dr. Barry, like so many in England, is a good Whig and friend to America. And you are in a part of London far removed from Mayfair." She hesitated, and then continued in a voice that strove to be lighter: "This little house is in Charlotte Street, Mary-le-Bone, for the war has made all of us suffer some. And we are more fortunate than many, for we are very comfortable here, and though I say it, happier than in Arlington Street. And the best of our friends are still faithful. Mr. Fox, with all his greatness, has never deserted us, nor my Lord Comyn. Indeed, we owe them much more than I can tell you of now," she said, and sighed. "They are here every day of the world to inquire for you, and it was his Lordship brought you out of Holland."

And so I had reason once more to bless this stanch friend!

"Out of Holland?" I cried.

"Yes. One morning as we sat down to breakfast, Mr. Ripley's clerk brought in a letter for Dorothy. But I must say first that Mr. Dulany, who is in London, told us that you were with John Paul Jones. You can have no conception, Richard, of the fear and hatred that name has aroused in England. Insurance rates have gone up past belief, and the King's ships are cruising in every direction after the traitor and pirate, as they call him. We have prayed daily for your safety, and Dorothy--well, here is the letter she received. It had been opened by the inspector, and allowed to pass. And it is to be kept as a curiosity." She drew it from the pocket of her apron and began to read.

"THE TEXEL, October 3, 1779

"MY DEAR Miss DOROTHY: I would not be thought to flutter y'r Gentle Bosom with Needless Alarms, nor do I believe I have misjudged y'r Warm & Generous Nature when I write you that One who is held very High in y'r Esteem lies Exceeding Ill at this Place, who might by Tender Nursing regain his Health. I seize this Opportunity to say, my dear Lady, that I have ever held my too Brief Acquaintance with you in London as one of the Sacred Associations of my Life. From the Little I saw of you then I feel Sure that this Appeal will not pass in Vain. I remain y'r most Humble and Devoted Admirer,

"JAMES ORCHARDSON."

"And she knew it was from Commodore Jones?" I asked, in astonishment.

"My dear," replied Mrs. Manners, with a quiet smile, "we women have a keener instinct than men--though I believe your commodore has a woman's intuition. Yes, Dorothy knew. And I shall never forget the fright she gave me as she rose from the table and handed me the sheet to read, crying but the one word. She sent off to Brook Street for Lord Comyn, who came at once, and, in half an hour the dear fellow was set out for Dover. He waited for nothing, since war with Holland was looked for at any day. And his Lordship himself will tell you about that rescue. Within the week he had brought you to us. Your skull had been trepanned, you had this great hole in your thigh, and your heart was beating but slowly. By Mr. Fox's advice we sent for Dr. Barry, who is a skilled surgeon, and a discreet man despite his manner. And you have been here for better than three weeks, Richard, hanging between life and death."

"And I owe my life to you and to Dorothy," I said.

"To Lord Comyn and Dr. Barry, rather," she replied quickly. "We have done little but keep the life they saved. And I thank God it was given me to do it for the son of your mother and father."

Something of the debt I owed them was forced upon me.

They were poor, doubtless driven to make ends meet, and yet they had taken me in, called upon near the undivided services of an able surgeon, and worn themselves out with nursing me. Nor did I forget the risk they ran with such a guest. For the first time in many years my heart relented toward Mr. Marmaduke. For their sakes I forgave him over and over what I had suffered, and my treatment of him lay like a weight upon me. And how was I to repay them? They needed the money I had cost them, of that I was sure. After the sums I had expended to aid the commodore with the 'Ranger' and the 'Bon homme Richard', I had scarce a farthing to my name. With such leaden reflections was I occupied when I heard Mrs. Manners speaking to me.

"Richard, I have some news for you which the doctor thinks you can bear to-day. Mr. Dulany, who is exiled like the rest of us, brought them. It is a great happiness to be able to tell you, my dear, that you are now the master of Carvel Hall, and like to stay so."

The tears stole into her eyes as she spoke. And the enormity of those tidings, coming as they did on the top of my dejection, benumbed me. All they meant was yet far away from my grasp, but the one supreme result that was first up to me brought me near to fainting in my weakness.

"I would not raise your hopes unduly, Richard," the good lady was saying, "but the best informed here seem to think that England cannot push the war much farther. If the Colonies win, you are secure in your title."

"But how is it come about, Mrs. Manners?" I demanded, with my first breath.

"You doubtless have heard that before the Declaration was signed at Philadelphia your Uncle Grafton went to the committee at Annapolis and contributed to the patriot cause, and took very promptly the oath of the Associated Freemen of Maryland, thus forsaking the loyalist party--"

"Yes, yes," I interrupted, "I heard of it when I was on the Cabot. He thought his property in danger."

"Just so," said Mrs. Manners, laughing; "he became the best and most exemplary of patriots, even as he had been the best of Tories. He sent wheat and money to the army, and went about bemoaning that his only son fought under the English flag. But very little fighting has Philip done, my dear. Well, when the big British fleet sailed up the bay in '77, your precious uncle made the first false step in his long career of rascality. He began to correspond with the British at Philadelphia, and one of his letters was captured near the Head of Elk. A squad was sent to the Kent estate, where he had been living, to arrest him, but he made his escape to New York. And his lands were at once confiscated by the state."

"'Then they belong to the state," I said, with misgiving.

"Not so fast, Richard. At the last session of the Maryland Legislature a bill was introduced, through the influence of Mr. Bordley and others, to restore them to you, their rightful owner. And insomuch as you were even then serving the country faithfully and bravely, and had a clean and honourable record of service, the whole of the lands were given to you. And now, my dear, you have had excitement enough for one day."

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LIV. MORE DISCOVERIES

All that morning I pondered over the devious lane of my life, which had led up to so fair a garden. And one thing above all kept turning and turning in my head, until I thought I should die of waiting for its fulfilment. Now was I free to ask Dorothy to marry me, to promise her the ease and comfort that had once been hers, should God bring us safe back to Maryland. The change in her was little less than a marvel to me, when I remembered the wilful miss who had come to London bent upon pleasure alone. Truly, she was of that rare metal which refines, and then outshines all others. And there was much I could not understand. A miracle had saved her from the Duke of Chartersea, but why she had refused so many great men and good was beyond my comprehension. Not a glimpse of her did I get that day, though my eyes wandered little from the knob of the door. And even from Aunt Lucy no satisfaction was to be had as to the cause of her absence.

"'Clare to goodness, Marse Dick," said she, with great solemnity, "'clare to goodness, I'se nursed Miss Dolly since she was dat high, and neber one minnit obher life is I knowed what de Chile gwine t' do de next. She ain't neber yit done what I calcelated on."

The next morning, after the doctor had dressed my wounds and bantered me to his heart's content, enters Mr. Marmaduke Manners. I was prodigiously struck by the change in him, and pitied him then near as much as I had once despised him. He was arrayed in finery, as of old. But the finery was some thing shabby; the lace was frayed at the edges, there was a neat but obvious patch in his small-clothes, and two more in his coat. His air was what distressed me most of all, being that of a man who spends his days seeking favours and getting none. I had seen too many of the type not to know the sign of it.

He ran forward and gave me his hand, which I grasped as heartily as my weakness would permit.

"They would not let me see you until to-day, my dear Richard," he exclaimed. "I bid you welcome to what is left of our home. 'Tis not Arlington Street, my lad."

"But more of a home than was that grander house, Mr. Manners."

He sighed heavily.

"Alas!" said he, "poverty is a bitter draught, and we have drunk deep of it since last we beheld you. My great friends know me no more, and will not take my note for a shilling. They do not remember the dinners and suppers I gave them. Faith, this war has brought nothing but misery, and how we are to get through it, God knows!"

Now I understood it was not the war, but Mr. Marmaduke himself, which had carried his family to this pass. And some of my old resentment rekindled.

"I know that I have brought you great additional anxiety and expense, Mr. Manners," I answered somewhat testily. "The care I have been to Mrs. Manners and Dorothy I may never repay. But it gives me pleasure to feel, sir, that I am in a position to reimburse you, and likewise to loan you something until your lands begin to pay again."

"There the Carvel speaks," he cried, "and the true son of our generous province. You can have no conception of the misfortunes come to me out of this quarrel. The mortgages on my Western Shore tobacco lands are foreclosed, and Wilmot House itself is all but gone. You well know, of course, that I would do the same by you, Richard."

I smiled, but more in sadness than amusement. Hardship had only degraded Mr. Marmaduke the more, and even in trouble his memory was convenient as is that of most people in prosperity. I was of no mind to jog his recollection. But I wanted badly to ask about his Grace. Where had my fine nobleman been at the critical point of his friend's misfortunes? For I had had many a wakeful night over that same query since my talk with McAndrews.

"So you have come to your own again, Richard, my lad," said Mr. Marmaduke, breaking in upon my train. "I have felt for you deeply, and talked many a night with Margaret and Dorothy over the wrong done you. Between you and me," he whispered, "that uncle of yours is an arrant knave, whom the patriots have served with justice. To speak truth, sir, I begin myself to have a little leaning to that cause which you have so bravely espoused."

This time I was close to laughing outright. But he was far too serious to remark my mirth. He commenced once more, with an ahem, which gave me a better inkling than frankness of what bothered him.

"You will have an agent here, Richard, I take it," said he. "Your grandfather had one. Ahem! Doubtless this agent will advance you all you shall have need of, when you are well enough to see him. Fact is, he might come here."

"You forget, Mr. Manners, that I am a pirate and an outlaw, and that you are the shielder of such."

That thought shook the pinch of Holland he held all over him. But he recovered.

"My dear Richard, men of business are of no faction and of no nation. Their motto is discretion. And to obtain the factorship in London of a like estate to yours one of them would wear a plaster over his mouth, I'll warrant you. You have but to summon one of the rascals, promise him a bit of war interest, and he will leave you as much as you desire, and nothing spoken."

"To talk plainly, Mr. Manners," I replied, "I think 'twould be the height of folly to resort to such means. When I am better, we shall see what can be done."

His face plainly showed his disappointment.

"To be sure," he said, in a whining tone, "I had forgotten your friends, Lord Comyn and Mr. Fox. They may do something for you, now you own your estate. My dear sir, I dislike to say aught against any man. Mrs. Manners will tell you of their kindness to us, but I vow I have not been able to see it. With all the money at their command they will not loan me a penny in my pressing need. And I shame to say it, my own daughter prevents me from obtaining the money to keep us out of the Fleet. I know she has spoken to Dulany. Think of it, Richard, my own daughter, upon whom I lavished all when I had it, who might have made a score of grand matches when I gave her the opportunity, and now we had all been rolling in wealth. I'll be sworn I don't comprehend her, nor her mother either, who abets her. For they prefer to cook Maryland dainties for a living, to put in the hands of the footmen of the ladies whose houses they once visited. And how much of that money do you suppose I get, sir? Will you believe it that I--" (he was shrieking now), "that I, the man of the family, am allowed only my simple meals, a farthing for snuff, and not a groat for chaise-hire? At my age I am obliged to walk to and from their lordships' side entrances in patched clothes, egad, when a new suit might obtain us a handsome year's income!"

I turned my face to the wall, completely overcome, and the tears scalding in my eyes, at the thought of Dorothy and her mother bending over the stove cooking delicacies for their livelihood, and watching at my bedside night and day despite their weariness of body. And not a word out of these noble women of their sacrifice, nor of the shame and trouble and labour of their lives, who always had been used to every luxury! Nothing but cheer had they brought to the sickroom, and not a sign of their poverty and hardship, for they knew that their broths and biscuit and jellies must have choked me. No. It remained for this contemptible cur of a husband and father to open my eyes.

He had risen when I had brought myself to look at him. And as I hope for heaven he took my emotion for pity of himself.

"I have worried you enough for one day with my troubles, my lad," said he. "But they are very hard to bear, and once in a while it does me good to speak of them."

I did not trust myself to reply.

It was Aunt Lucy who spent the morning with me, and Mrs. Manners brought my dinner. I observed a questioning glance as she entered, which I took for an attempt to read whether Mr. Marmaduke had spoke more than he ought. But I would have bitten off my tongue rather than tell her of my discoveries, though perhaps my voice may have betrayed an added concern. She stayed to talk on the progress of the war, relating the gallant storming of Stony Point by Mad Anthony in July, and the latest Tory insurrection on our own Eastern Shore. She passed from these matters to a discussion of General Washington's new policy of the defensive, for Mrs. Manners had always been at heart a patriot. And whilst I lay listening with a deep interest, in comes my lady herself. So was it ever, when you least expected her, even as Mammy had said. She curtseyed very prettily, with her chin tilted back and her cheeks red, and asked me how I did.

"And where have you been these days gone, Miss Will-o'the-Wisp, since the doctor has given me back my tongue?" I cried.

"I like you better when you are asleep," says she. "For then you are sometimes witty, though I doubt not the wit is other people's."

So I saw that she had tricked me, and taken her watch at night. For I slept like a trooper after a day's forage. As to what I might have said in my dreams--that thought made me red as an apple.

"Dorothy, Dorothy," says her mother, smiling, "you would provoke a saint."

"Which would be better fun than teasing a sinner," replies the minx, with a little face at me. "Mr. Carvel, a gentleman craves the honour of an audience from your Excellency."

"A gentleman!"

"Even so. He presents a warrant from your Excellency's physician."

With that she disappeared, Mrs. Manners going after her. And who should come bursting in at the door but my Lord Comyn? He made one rush at me, and despite my weakness bestowed upon me a bear's hug.

"Oh, Richard," cried he, when he had released me, "I give you my oath that I never hoped to see you rise from that bed when we laid you there. But they say that love works wondrous cures, and, egad, I believe that now. 'Tis love is curing you, my lad."

He held me off at arm's length, the old-time affection beaming from his handsome face.

"What am I to say to you, Jack?" I answered. And my voice was all but gone, for the sight of him revived the memory of every separate debt of the legion I owed him. "How am I to piece words enough together to thank you for this supreme act of charity?"

"'Od's, you may thank your own devilish thick head," said my Lord Comyn. "I should never have bothered my own about you were it not for her. Had it not been for her happiness do you imagine I would have picked you out of that crew of half-dead pirates in the Texel fort?"

I must needs brush my cheek, then, with the sleeve of my night-rail.

"And will you give me some account of this last prodigious turn you have done her?" I said.

He laughed, and pinched me playfully.

"Now are you coming to your senses," said he. "There was cursed little to the enterprise, Richard, and that's the truth. I got down to Dover, and persuaded the master of a schooner to carry me to Rotterdam. That was not so difficult, since your Terror of the Seas was locked up safe enough in the Texel. In Rotterdam I had a travelling-chaise stripped, and set off at the devil's pace for the Texel. You must know that the whole Dutch nation was in an uproar--as much of an uproar as those boors ever reach--over the arrival of your infamous squadron. The Court Party and our ambassador were for having you kicked out, and the Republicans for making you at home. I heard that their High Mightinesses had given Paul Jones the use of the Texel fort for his wounded and his prisoners, and thither I ran. And I was even cursing the French sentry at the drawbridge in his own tongue, when up comes your commodore himself. You may quarter me if wasn't knocked off my feet when I recognized the identical peacock of a sea-captain we had pulled out of Castle Yard along with you, and offered a commission in the Royal Navy."

"Dolly hadn't told you?"

"Dolly tell me!" exclaimed his Lordship, scornfully. "She was in a state to tell me nothing the morning I left, save only to bring you to England alive, and repeat it over and over. But to return to your captain,--he, too, was taken all aback. But presently he whipt out my name, and I his, without the Jones. And when I told him my errand, he wept on my neck, and said he had obtained unlimited leave of absence for you from the Paris commissioners. He took me up into a private room in the fort, where you were; and the surgeon, who was there at the time, said that your chances were as slim as any man's he had ever seen. Faith, you looked it, my lad. At sight of your face I took one big gulp, for I had no notion of getting you back to her. And rather than come without you, and look into her eyes, I would have drowned myself in the Straits of Dover.

"Despite the host of troubles he had on his hands, your commodore himself came with us to Rotterdam. Now I protest I love that man, who has more humanity in him than most of the virtuous people in England who call him hard names. If you could have seen him leaning over you, and speaking to you, and feeling every minute for your heart-beats, egad, you would have cried. And when I took you off to the schooner, he gave me an hundred directions how to care for you, and then his sorrow bowled him all in a heap."

"And is the commodore still at the Texel?" I asked, after a space.

"Ay, that he is, with our English cruisers thick as gulls outside' waiting for a dead fish. But he has spurned the French commission they have offered him, saying that of the Congress is good enough for him. And he declares openly that when he gets ready he will sail out in the Alliance under the Stars and Stripes. And for this I honour him," added he, "and Charles honours him, and so must all Englishmen honour him when they come to their senses. And by Gads life, I believe he will get clear, for he is a marvel at seamanship."

"I pray with all my heart that he may," said I, fervently.

"God help him if they catch him!" my Lord exclaimed. "You should see the bloody piratical portraits they are scattering over London."

"Has the risk you ran getting me into England ever occurred to you, Jack?" I asked, with some curiosity.

"Faith, not until the day after we got back, Richard," says he, "when I met Mr. Attorney General on the street. 'Sdeath, I turned and ran the other way like the devil was after me. For Charles Fox vows that conscience makes cowards of the best of us."

"So that is some of Charles's wisdom!" I cried, and laughed until I was forced to stop from pain.

"Come, my hearty," says Jack, "you owe me nothing for fishing you out of Holland--that is her debt. But I declare that you must one day pay me for saving her for you. What! have I not always sworn that she loved you? Did I not pull you into the coffee-room of the Star and Garter years ago, and tell you that same?"

My face warmed, though I said nothing.

"Oh, you sly dog! I'll warrant there has been many a tender talk just where I'm sitting."

"Not one," said I.

"'Slife, then, what have you been doing," he cries, "seeing her every day and not asking her to marry you, my master of Carvel Hall?"

"Since I am permitted to use my tongue, she has not come near me, save when I slept," I answered ruefully.

"Nor will she, I'll be sworn," says he, shaken with laughter.

"'Ods, have you no invention? Egad, you must feign sleep, and seize her unawares."

I did not inform his Lordship how excellent this plan seemed to me.

"And I possessed the love of such a woman, Richard," he said, in another tone, "I think I should die of happiness. She will never tell you how these weeks past she has scarce left your side. The threats combined of her mother and the doctor, and Charles and me, would not induce her to take any sleep. And time and time have I walked from here to Brook Street without recognizing a step of the way, lifted clear out of myself by the sight of her devotion."

What was my life, indeed, that such a blessing should come into it!

"When the crash came," he continued, "'twas she took command, and 'tis God's pity she had not done so long before. Mr. Marmaduke was pushed to the bottom of the family, where he belongs, and was given only snuff-money. She would give him no opportunity to contract another debt, and even charged Charles and me to loan him nothing. Nor would she receive aught from us, but" (he glanced at me uneasily)--"but she and Mrs. Manners must take to cooking delicacies--"

"Yes, yes, I know," I faltered.

"What! has the puppy told you?" cried he.

I nodded. "He was in here this morning, with his woes."

"And did he speak of the bargain he tried to make with our old friend, his Grace of Chartersea?"

"He tried to sell her again?" I cried, my breath catching. "I have feared as much since I heard of their misfortunes."

"Yes," replied Comyn, "that was the first of it. 'Twas while they were still in Arlington Street, and before Mrs. Manners and Dorothy knew. Mr. Marmaduke goes posting off to Nottinghamshire, and comes back inside the duke's own carriage. And his Grace goes to dine in Arlington Street for the first time in years. Dorothy had wind of the trouble then, Charles having warned her. And not a word would she speak to Chartersea the whole of the dinner, nor look to the right or left of her plate. And when the servants are gone, up gets my lady with a sweep and confronts him.

"'Will your Grace spare me a minute in the drawing-room?' says she.

"He blinked at her in vast astonishment, and pushed back his chair. When she was come to the door, she turns with another sweep on Mr. Marmaduke, who was trotting after.

"'You will please to remain here, father,' she said; 'what I am to say is for his Grace's ear alone.'

"Of what she spoke to the duke I can form only an estimate, Richard," my Lord concluded, "but I'll lay a fortune 'twas greatly to the point. For in a little while Chartersea comes stumbling down the steps. And he has never darkened the door since. And the cream of it is," said Comyn, "that her father gave me this himself, with a face a foot long, for me to sympathize. The little beast has strange bursts of confidence."

"And stranger confidants," I ejaculated, thinking of the morning, and of Courtenay's letter, long ago.

But the story had made my blood leap again with pride of her. The picture in my mind had followed his every sentence, and even the very words she must have used were ringing in my ears.

Then, as we sat talking in low tones, the door opened, and a hearty voice cried out:

"Now where is this rebel, this traitor? They tell me one lies hid in this house. 'Slife, I must have at him!"

"Mr. Fox!" I exclaimed.

He took my hands in his, and stood regarding me.

"For the convenience of my friends, I was christened Charles," said he.

I stared at him in amazement. He was grown a deal stouter, but my eye was caught and held by the blue coat and buff waistcoat he wore. They were frayed and stained and shabby, yet they seemed all of a piece with some new grandeur come upon the man.

"Is all the world turning virtuous? Is the millennium arrived?" I cried.

He smiled, with his old boyish smile.

"You think me changed some since that morning we drove together to Holland House--do you remember it after the night at St. Stephen's?"

"Remember it!" I repeated, with emphasis, "I'll warrant I can give you every bit of our talk."

"I have seen many men since, but never have I met your equal for a most damnable frankness, Richard Carvel. Even Jack, here, is not half so blunt and uncompromising. But you took my fancy--God knows why!--that first night I clapped eyes on you in Arlington Street, and I loved you when your simplicity made us that speech at Brooks's Club. So you have not forgotten that morning under the trees, when the dew was on the grass. Faith, I am glad of it. What children we were!" he said, and sighed.

"And yet you were a Junior Lord," I said.

"Which is more than I am now," he answered. "Somehow--you may laugh --somehow I have never been able to shake off the influence of your words, Richard. Your cursed earnestness scared me."

"Scared you?" I cried, in astonishment.

"Just that," said Charles. "Jack will bear witness that I have said so to Dolly a score of times. For I had never imagined such a single character as yours. You know we were all of us rakes at fifteen, to whom everything good in the universe was a joke. And do you recall the teamster we met by the Park, and how he arrested his salute when he saw who it was? At another time I should have laughed over that, but it cut me to have it happen when you were along."

"And I'll lay an hundred guineas to a farthing the fellow would put his head on the block for Charles now," cut in his Lordship, with his hand on Mr. Fox's shoulder. "Behold, O Prophet," he cried, "one who is become the champion of the People he reviled! Behold the friend of Rebellion and 'Lese Majeste', the viper in Britannia's bosom!"

"Oh, have done, Jack," said Mr. Fox, impatiently, "you have no more music in your soul than a cow. Damned little virtue attaches to it, Richard," he went on. "North threw me out, and the king would have nothing to do with me, so I had to pick up with you rebels and traitors."

"You will not believe him, Richard," cried my Lord; "you have only to look at him to see that he lies. Take note of the ragged uniform of the rebel army he carries, and then think of him 'en petite maitre', with his cabriolet and his chestnuts. Egad, he might be as rich as Rigby were it not for those principles which he chooses to deride. And I have seen him reduced to a crown for them. I tell you, Richard," said my Lord, "by espousing your cause Charles is become greater than the King. For he has the hearts of the English people, which George has not, and the allegiance of you Americans, which George will never have. And if you once heard him, in Parliament, you should hear him now, and see the Speaker wagging his wig like a man bewitched, and hear friends and enemies calling out for him to go on whenever he gives the sign of a pause."

This speech of his Lordship's may seem cold in the writing, my dears, and you who did not know him may wonder at it. It had its birth in an admiration few men receive, and which in Charles Fox's devoted coterie was dangerously near to idolatry. During the recital of it Charles walked to the window, and there stood looking out upon the gray prospect, seemingly paying but little attention. But when Comyn had finished, he wheeled on us with a smile.

"Egad, he will be telling you next that I have renounced the devil and all his works, Richard," said he.

"'Oohs, that I will not," his Lordship made haste to declare. "For they were born in him, and will die with him."

"And you, Jack," I asked, "how is it that you are not in arms for the King, and commanding one of his frigates?"

"Why, it is Charles's fault," said my Lord, smiling. "Were it not for him I should be helping Sir George Collier lay waste to your coast towns."

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