Captain Acton paused for a few moments at the foot of the companion ladder with a grave smile on his face.
"This is the first time you have been in this cabin, Lucy, I think," he said.
"Yes, sir."
"Well, and what do you think of the accommodation offered by theMinorca?"
"I hope Miss Acton thinks well of it," said Mr Lawrence. "I was trying this moment to tempt her to take a voyage to the West Indies by a poor description of some of the wonders which are to be met in the trip."
"Oh, if we should think of a journey to the West Indies we should not choose theMinorca," said Captain Acton. "I confess that I have sometimes myself had a fancy for looking into one or two of the old ports which I remember as a midshipman. TheAurorawould be the ship. She has a speed that would make me indifferent to pursuit. At thesame time there is always the risk of capture, and as I can no longer serve my country by taking my chance of a French prison, I believe I am discreetly advised by leaving well alone, that is until peace comes, if ever it comes. Is not this a very fine cabin, Lucy, considering the size of the ship?"
"I daresay it is, papa, but how should I know? This is the first cabin I ever was in, and theMinorcaand theAuroraare the only two vessels whose decks I have ever stepped upon."
"Then let me tell you there are countless Naval officers afloat who would reckon themselves in Paradise if they had such quarters as these to live in. Look at theSaucy! The well of a cod smack is more comfortable than her sleeping places. Take a corvette or gun-brig stationed on the West Coast of Africa, or kept cruising along the West Indian shores; the heat strikes through the plank and a man sleeps in a furnace; cockroaches in numbers thick as ropes blacken the beams, rats ferocious with thirst are found drowned in the hook pot of cold tea you want to drink. Everything simmers, the paint even below, if there is any paint to be found, bubbles, and you are fed on scalding pea soup and beef blue with brine, the very sight of which raises a craziness of thirst which you slake by rum, forthe cooling of which you might offer your year's pay for a piece of ice. Now, these are airy quarters. An admiral might well be content with such a living-room."
He looked into one or two of the cabins or sleeping berths, and examined a stand of arms affixed to a bulkhead just before the companion ladder.
"If, sir, you should be tempted whilst I have the honour of holding command in your service into taking a trip in one of your vessels to the West Indies," said Mr Lawrence, "I hope I shall be the one privileged to navigate you and Miss Acton there."
"Oh, we should be in very good hands—very good hands," answered Captain Acton, lightly regarding him; they had met by appointment not long before at Acton's offices, and there the gallant Captain had taken notice that Mr Lawrence was as sober as he himself was, whilst the care with which he had attired himself had promoted all that was excellent in his person to such a degree that Captain Acton had never thought him handsomer and on the whole a finer specimen of the young British Naval officer.
Indeed he had congratulated himself on behalf of his worthy old friend Sir William on having resolved to give his son this appointment, for it surely looked as thoughwith this gift of a berth, with this opportunity for honourably employing himself and so getting a little money and easing his father of the burden of his maintenance, the young fellow's reformation had begun, and naturally Captain Acton, who was an exceedingly kind-hearted man and a sound Christian in principle and behaviour, could not but be happy in the reflection that he might prove instrumental in rescuing a handsome young man, a gentleman, the son of an old friend, himself a Naval officer, a person whose character was enriched by many meritorious and some rare qualities, from the ruin physical and moral into which he was fast decaying through drink and an idleness which was a consequence of an aversion to his old calling, and the almost insuperable difficulty of obtaining anything to do whilst loitering in Old Harbour Town and passing most of his time at "The Swan" with Lieutenant Tupman.
"Mr Lawrence would represent the voyage to the West Indies as beautiful, wonderful, and indeed magical, as an Arabian Nights dream," said Lucy. "But you did not tell me of cockroaches, sir," she added with a smile, and with one of those looks which in her seemed a brooding or dwelling of the eye, though if judged of its effect by time the look was scarcely more than a glance; yet this wasthe consequence of the peculiar beauty of her heavy lids rendered yet more languid by the fringes through which the large dark brown orbs of vision directed their gaze. "And you said nothing about the beef blue with salt which creates thirst before it is tasted."
"We will undertake to keep you free from cockroaches, madam," said Mr Lawrence. "And the beef Captain Acton speaks of is shipped for the sailors. I believe, sir, it would not be difficult to send aft every day such a dinner and breakfast as would convince Miss Acton that at sea all that we eat is not bread-grubs and beef hard enough to carve snuff boxes out of."
"For my part," said Captain Acton, "I don't want to sit down to a better banquet than a piece of really good ship's pickled beef finely grained, and cutting delicately and well fatted, and a crisp ship's biscuit, and you may add a drop of real old Jamaica. I have dined more heartily off such a dish than at many a dinner ashore of ten or twelve courses."
"You were young, sir," said Lucy, "and you enjoyed all that you ate. There was a good deal that you ate when you were young that you would not eat now, and even now I doubt whether you would find the old relish in your prime piece of pickled beef."
Captain Acton smiled, and looked fondlyat his daughter, and said pleasantly: "And pray, my dear, what are Mr Lawrence's temptations to a voyage to the West Indies?"
"I think you spoke of sunsets," she said.
Captain Acton broke in: "We have finer sunsets in England than any you get in the tropics."
"Birds of exquisite plumage, and beyond all forms of known grace in flight."
"Ay, but they don't sing," said Captain Acton. "Give me the song of the thrush or the blackbird before all the finest feathers in the world."
"Wonderfully dyed fish——" said Lucy.
"Oh, madam," said Mr Lawrence, with a little blush in his face, "I did not intend my poor representation of the fascinations of a voyage to the West Indies for the ear of so experienced a sailor, and so keen an observer as Captain Acton."
"Well, we may go with you some day, sir," said Captain Acton good-humouredly, "but peace must be declared before I embark. We are keeping Miss Acton waiting."
He led the way up the companion ladder.
Amongst those who just then were standing upon the quay-side gazing with more or less of interest at theMinorcaand the other vessels moored to the walls, was old Mr Greyquill, whose figure was immediatelyconspicuous by reason of his long white hair and heavily white thatched eyebrows. And this day he wore a round velvet cap such as might have been suggested to him by a portrait by some old Flemish artist, and a velvet coat. He stood on the wharf a few paces behind some people who formed a little group, and peered at theMinorcawith the sharp of his hand pressed against his brow seeking to determine the faces he saw on board. He was too far off to recognise the Admiral and Captain Acton, who now appeared, but the moment Mr Lawrence's head was visible above the bulwark-rail he knew him, and seemed to try to catch his eye, but Lawrence, who instantly perceived him, averted his gaze or turned his back, and after steadily staring for some moments under the shelter of his hand the old fellow shuffled off.
"Have you secured a berth, Miss?" asked the Admiral, with a hearty, jolly smile.
"Mr Lawrence paints the voyage to the West Indies in very tempting colours," answered Lucy.
"If Lucy and I should take the trip we should go in theAurora," said Captain Acton.
"You! At your time of life, brother, going a voyage to the West Indies with every probability of the French making a prisoner of you and Lucy!" cried Miss Acton in thehigh key in which she saluted the ear when she was alarmed.
"My dear sister, we are going to do nothing of the sort. Not that a voyage to the West Indies in such a vessel as theAurorawould be a fearful adventure or a terrible ordeal. Indeed I never look at that little ship," said he, turning his eyes in the direction of the schooner, "without a longing to be on her deck when she is fully clothed, when the liberal breeze of the sea blows steadily, and when bending under her white heights she springs like the flying fish from one sparkling sea to another, cradled always by the rocking hand of the swell."
"You should add papa's description to your list of the charms of a West Indian voyage," said Lucy, with a slight glance at Mr Lawrence, for, when a girl has been proposed to by a man and has refused him, and when she is perfectly well aware that his passion remains as great for her as ever it was, she will be coy, shy, cautious, something unintelligible perhaps, in his presence.
"Upon my word, Acton," said the Admiral, "you have just put into words the fancies I have had whilst I have been conversing with Miss Acton. The old spirit will speak in a man, the old love will grow eloquent once again at the suggestion that quickens it intobright memory: and whilst I have been talking to you, I have in imagination paced the starboard side of the quarterdeck, which we will call the weather side; this harbour, these wharves, the Old Town have disappeared, and I am surrounded by a wide ocean in the heart of which this little ship is rushing, streaming her wake like a comet's tail, bursting the surge in rainbow-like arches for her progress, filling the air with the music of shroud and back-stay, and lightening the heart with a sense of freedom which the sea alone can give, and which used to visit me like a sense of gratitude or rejoicing as though something had been given to me that was gracious, beautiful, and rare."
Mr Lawrence viewed his father with astonishment, Miss Lucy with a smile whose beauty was radiant with applause, Miss Acton with an expression of awe, whilst Captain Acton burst out: "Upon my word, Admiral, forgive me for saying so, but I never could have believed such thinking so expressed was in your line of mind. I believe St Vincent would be very pleased did he possess your powers of delivery."
"Oh come, come!" cried the Admiral, "don't make me feel more ashamed of myself than I am. But, Miss Lucy, is not the sea a subject about which you cannot think without beinginspired with thoughts high above those which visit you from other topics?"
"When such a man as Nelson is in your mind."
"Yes, Nelson is the great sea-poem of the age," said Captain Acton, "and I find more melody in the thunder of his guns than in the prettiest turns of the poetic measure. Are you going home, sister?"
"Yes, we have done all we came out to do. Where is Mr Eagle? Mr Lawrence, you will not forget to give him the sulphur for his poor feet?"
"I will not, madam, and I trust that the application of it may make him a little better humoured."
"One might notice a man's ill-temper," said the Admiral, "if he were over you; but when he is under you—there used to be a saying in my day—it's in the power of an officer to ride down any man under him."
"I believe Mr Eagle is a very respectable man, though illiterate like most of them in the lower walks of the Merchant Service," said Captain Acton. "This sort of people come on board through the hawse pipe, but at a pinch their knowledge which is uncommonly practical, is sometimes vastly useful. They are acquainted with manœuvres which would often put their betters to their trumps.They know all about rigging, its straining point, have little tricks above the average seamanship for heavy weather, are learned in the pumps and their gear, and indeed know ships not only with the familiarity of a master-rigger, but of a master builder. One of these men I believe is Eagle, and I think, sir, you will find him all that I tell you he is, though like most of his class he is of a somewhat sour and sullen nature, and quick to grumble. I'll go home with you, sister. Admiral, can we give you a lift?"
"No, I thank you, sir. I am to dine to-day with Mr Perry. I have long promised to eat a cut of cold meat with him. His cider is the best I know. His cider alone makes him worth dining with."
"Give Perry my kind regards," said Captain Acton.
"And thank him," twittered Miss Acton, "for the beautiful sermon he gave us last Sunday, and tell him I am looking forward to such another next Sunday."
This said, they all went over the side, the Admiral taking great care of Miss Acton as she crossed the planks. Mr Lawrence remained in the gangway. When on the wharf his father called to him.
"Where do you dine, Walter?"
"At 'The Swan,' sir."
"I have a few words to say to my son," said the Admiral. "I will bid you good-bye here," and with the ceremonious courtesy of that age, he took leave of Captain Acton and the ladies, who proceeded to their carriage, where they were cordially welcomed by the passionate barking of the pug and the terrier.
Mr Lawrence's eye reposed upon Lucy's figure whilst his father was bidding the party farewell, whilst she walked away on Captain Acton's right, Aunt Caroline strutting and leaning with some affectation on her crutch-cane on his left, the three much saluted by the people who lingered on the wharf, as they went. The young fellow's eyes still reposed upon the girl even as the Admiral came stumping across the planks pounding them with his staff as he walked.
"Well," said he, "I suppose you kept your appointment this morning with Captain Acton."
"Oh, certainly, and his reception was all that I could have expected at his hands."
"Are the terms pretty satisfactory?"
"Twelve pounds a month, and ten per cent. commission on the freight."
"On the freight?"
"On the money earned by the carriage of cargo, sir."
"I understand," said the Admiral. "Thisshould prove a very good offer—very good terms. What will this ship carry?"
Mr Lawrence reflected as though mentally gauging depth of hold and breadth of beam, and answered, "I think when flush she should hold six hundred tons."
"Six hundred tons out and six hundred home. That is twelve hundred. I don't know what freights are, but they must rule high, and, kindly creature as he is, Acton is the man to know to what market to drive his pigs. I think you have done very well; besides obtaining occupation which may conduct you to something higher or at least better, you stand to clear about a hundred pounds by this voyage——"
"The value of its wages, sir, will depend upon its length," interrupted Mr Lawrence.
"I know that," cried the Admiral. "But whatever the sum, it is good money and honestly earned, made not as you could make it in this place, and better a hundred pounds gained by toil which a man's conscience approves and applauds, than one hundred thousand fetched from the pockets of others by the crime of gambling."
He looked steadily at his son whose eyes were fixed upon the carriage which the Actons were at that moment entering.
"Did you observe Mr Greyquill," continuedthe Admiral, "on the wharf behind a little crowd of people viewing the ship under his lifted hand? He was there when you came on deck."
"I saw him."
"What brings that old man here peering and mopping and mowing? Has he heard of your appointment? I wish he may not be hatching some scheme, planning some design to end this, your fortunate command, by arresting you unless you pay him up in full."
"I don't know what his intentions are," said Mr Lawrence with some blood colouring his face. "I saw the old rascal plain enough, but avoided his eye as I feared he might have the insolence to step aboard and address me in the presence of Captain Acton and the ladies, and yourself, sir. But if he has heard of my appointment I cannot conceive that he meditates my arrest as an alternative to my paying him in full, which he knows I cannot do. I should tell him that by waiting he will receive payment by instalments. This I can manage now that I have money coming to me. Will he stop his sole chance of receiving back his loan by clapping me into gaol?"
"Why, perhaps not," answered the Admiral. "He would be a fool as well as a villain for so doing. Take an opportunity of puttingthe matter to him as you put it to me. I do not want to see your chance obstructed nor Captain Acton's kindness embarrassed by any action on the part of old Greyquill. And I beg, sir," continued the old officer speaking slowly and solemnly, "that during the rest of your time ashore you will behave with that discretion which can alone secure you the continuance of Captain Acton's goodwill. You are going to dine at 'The Swan'? I am sure you will understand what must signify a report that you were not master of yourself, for," continued the old Admiral with emphasis, "it is idle to believe that the best natured man in the world will confide his property and the care of valuable lives to the custody of a man who is not fit to take charge of himself."
"You may trust me," said Mr Lawrence, making Sir William so low a bow that it might have been thought that they were strangers, and had met on an affair of ceremony.
The young man watched his father roll away towards the steps which conducted him on to the bridge. His face was sunk in thought, a peculiar gloom was in the expression of it. His beauty even in repose always had something of sternness in it: now as he watched his father's diminishing figure his mouth gradually put on an air of bitterhardness, and a frown gave severity and even the light of anger to his eyes.
He was lingering on board until the hour when the ordinary at "The Swan" was served, and whilst he stood looking over the rail near the gangway, so profoundly self-abstracted that his eyes, turning idly, seemed without speculation, Mr Eagle came across the planks. He limped a little, and the expression of his face was uncommonly acid with pain and the nature of the man.
"Oh," said Mr Lawrence, waking up, "here is a packet left by Miss Acton for you for your feet." He handed him the sulphur.
"I am much obliged I am sure," said Eagle. He put it to his nose. "I have tried it again and again," he said, "and it ain't of no more use than if you was to rub in snuff. But she's a kindly lady to remember me," said he, putting the packet into his pocket. "And I hope, sir, as when you meet her you'll present her with my humble acknowledgments."
Mr Lawrence gave him a nod and then turned his head away, not desirous of further converse with a man he regarded as inferior to a boatswain's mate or master-at-arms upon a man-of-war.
Eagle was on board to see to the arrival of cargo which came into Old Harbour very leisurely in waggon-loads at a time. TheMinorcawas now receiving commodities for the passage out, but she did not sail till the 3rd of May, and was not yet more than half full up.
Mr Lawrence looked at the clock which was affixed to the house at the end of the wharf in which Captain Acton had his offices, and was about to leave the ship to make his way to "The Swan," when a man who had been standing a few moments on the quay side at the foot of the gangway boards, stepped across and saluted him.
Mr Lawrence exclaimed: "Oh, it's you! What do you want?"
The man was almost a caricature owing to malformation and other deformities. His red hair flamed; he was hunched, his arms were as long as a baboon's and seemed designed for climbing. His legs were arched and at the same time crooked at the knees, so that he appeared to be stooping whether he walked or stood, and to complete the suggestion of his origin he had a trick of scratching himself like a monkey. He was about twenty-five years of age. Whose son he was he could not have told. He preeminently belonged to the parish.
Lawrence had got to know of his existence by one day sauntering into the justice's court. Among the prisoners charged with variousmisdemeanours was this man, who had no other name than Paul. He was accused of having taken a vegetable, a cabbage or a turnip, from a field which lay invitingly open, and the punishment inflicted was a fine or a term of imprisonment. Mr Lawrence, struck by the extraordinary appearance of the man, or witnessing a very great hardship in a pauper having to pay for so mean a thing as a turnip by a considerable term of incarceration, put his hand in his pocket with a sailor's liberality, and finding the money that was wanted, handed the amount to an official of the court, and the man went free.
The man waited outside for Mr Lawrence. When he appeared he seized his hand, and fell upon his crooked knees and kissed and slobbered his hand, and blubbered, with tears trickling down his face, "that so help him his good God, come what might he would do anything, no matter what, to serve his honour, he would die for his honour; let his honour command him to jump into the river then and there and drown himself, he'd do it if only to please him." His gestures whilst on his knees, his extraordinary grimaces, the strange, wild terms in which he expressed his pathetic gratitude for this condescension of a gentleman in taking notice of, and rescuing from gaol a poor, pitiful vagabond, a child of the parish,a no man's son, nor woman's either, a creature who lived he could not tell how, sometimes by stealing a raw vegetable, sometimes by running an errand, sometimes by the bounty of a tradesman who might fling him a crust, or of some drunken fisherman who might toss him a shilling to sing him a song and dance as he sang, a performance so hideously uncouth that Hogarth would have immortalised it could he have witnessed it; his gratitude, in short, was so diverting, at the same time moving in its appeal to pity, that Mr Lawrence could scarcely forbear a laugh, and indeed did laugh when he got rid of the fellow and walked away.
"I understand that your honour's got command of this ship," answered Paul.
"Well!" exclaimed Mr Lawrence, eyeing him with that sort of regard with which one views some hairy, human-like importation of the likeness of a man, and perhaps better looking than some men, from an Indian or South American forest.
"If your honour hasn't shipped a steward, sir, I should be mighty glad if you'd take me. I could sail round the world with you, sir. I'd love to be your shadder. Wherever your honour goes, I'd like to be there."
The strange face of the fellow with its red eyebrows and red eyelashes, and red fluff upon his upper lip, and compressed nose,ape-like or sheep-like, so that the nostrils seemed to be squeezed out of position, and to gape from either side, quivered with feeling, with intensity, and passion of desire.
Mr Lawrence, with a ridiculing smile, said: "What do you know about waiting on people in the cabins of ships?"
"What I did should be to your honour's satisfaction. I could lay a cloth and set a dish, and I'd learn in as many hours as much as it would take others days."
"But you were never at sea. You'll be sick in your hammock, and I shall be wanting some one to wait upon me."
"Oh yes, your honour, I've been to sea," answered Paul with prodigious earnestness. "I've been in smacks. I've knocked about all my life in boats belonging to this Harbour. Sick! No fear, your honour. I'll sarve you for nothing."
Mr Lawrence looked at the red-headed, monkey-faced, pleading creature, not, in that look designing, it was manifest, to give him the berth; but all on a sudden his face slightly changed, an idea seemed to flash up in him and work in his countenance, just as a light kindled suddenly within a mask made of something transparent might, by the intention of the artist, change its look.
"What's your name again?" he said.
"Paul, your honour," answered the fellow, brightening instinctively with the face Mr Lawrence now viewed him with.
"No other name?—no matter; Paul will do very well for the books."
He mused a little with his eyes fastened upon the ship's decks. For a space he was deeply sunk in thought. Presently his eyes rose to the figure before him, and he examined him as curiously as though he had never before seen him.
"Be here," said he, "on Saturday next. It may be that I'll give you the berth. No more words. Off with you!"
The fellow made a dash with his hand at a red forelock, and in his crooked gait went through the gangway and walked away up to the wharf, just as Mr Eagle rose out of the main-hatch.
Mr Lawrence walked to "The Swan." The entrance was under a covered way into which the stage coach drove for baiting. Mr Lawrence walked into the bar and observed a letter fixed in a frame of red tape stretched across a board covered with green baize. As he was in the habit of receiving letters at this house he looked at this one and saw that it was addressed to him. He pulled it out of its mesh of tape, and addressing a middle-aged, comely woman who sat in the window inthe bar where she supplied lookers-in with pots of frothing beer, or directed them to such parts of the house as they desired to visit, he asked when that letter had been left, and was answered that the letter carrier had brought it in about two hours before.
He seemed to know the handwriting on the envelope, and there was a frown upon his face as he broke the big seal. He read it where he stood. It was a letter from a Captain Rousby informing him that he owed him the sum of one hundred guineas, that this money as a debt of honour had been payable immediately on proof of the loss of the wager, but that so far from having received it, Captain Rousby had been waiting for nine months without obtaining further satisfaction than the now wearisome and well-worn excuse that Mr Lawrence could not immediately pay, that he was expecting to obtain employment in the course of the month which would enable him to discharge this debt with interest if Captain Rousby thought proper. The Captain informed Mr Lawrence that last week Mrs Rousby had presented him with twins, a catastrophe which greatly increased his expenses at a time when he was without employment, and when money was never more urgently needed. Captain Rousby then went on to informMr Lawrence that if a portion of this debt, say twenty-five guineas, was not sent to him by the first of June, it would be his unpleasant duty to visit Old Harbour Town, call upon Sir William Lawrence and state the facts of the case to him as an officer and a gentleman. If he could obtain no satisfaction from the Admiral, it would be his painful duty—a duty that must be singularly distasteful to a man who had been a messmate and shipmate of Mr Lawrence—to take such steps as his lawyer might advise.
When Mr Lawrence had read this letter through, he was in the act of crushing it by one of those spasmodic motions of the hand which accompany a sudden violent gust of wrath, he met the eyes of the female in the bar fixed upon him; in her gloomy beer-flavoured recess, faintly luminous with hanging rows of highly-polished drinking pots, and a sideboard well within laden with metal vessels for drinking from and for holding drink, the landlady of "The Swan," for such was this decoration of the bar, had manifestly been studying his face whilst he read. She knew him very well, and she was also well acquainted with his habits. In a breath on meeting her eyes he changed his resolution, and folded up the letter into its original creases, giving her a smile which did not seem in the leastdegree forced, and saying to her in his pleasantest manner, "Is the ordinary on?" and receiving her answer after she had darted a look at an invisible clock in her room, "In another three minutes, sir," he passed on and went upstairs.
The ordinary was held in a long room next to the room in which the seafaring men congregated. As a meal it was renowned in the district. Coarse it might have been called, coarse and plentiful, but it was of that sort of coarseness which makes very good eating. Mr Short, the landlord, was a liberal caterer, and he excelled in choice of rounds of beef, in joints of venison, in legs of pork and mutton, in fine dishes of veal; and this ordinary was always graced with a precedent dish of fish, which was invariably fresh from the sea, and whether turbot, cod, bake, soles, and many flat fish which the smacks brought with them into Old Harbour, were delicious in freshness and flavour. Short's cheeses, too, were always very fine, dry, crumbly, flakey, nutty, and without being too strong they flavoured the bread or the biscuit with what the palate knew to be real cheese. His cellars held a very fine old port, but it was seldom asked for unless some person of distinction and importance occupied a seat at that teeming and appetising board. Short brewed hisown beer, and a delicate amber draught it was; there was no better beer brewed in England.
This ordinary was held every day, for there were always people passing through Old Harbour Town, and then Old Harbour Town itself was liberal with its own supply of guests, pilots, smack-owners and others who found it cheaper and much more convenient to get a cut at "The Swan," than to sit down to an ill-killed and ill-cooked joint, or a fried chop or steak in their own homes. The ordinary was frequently graced by the presence of distinguished people. A lord would occasionally take a chair; several neighbouring squires were regular frequenters when business brought them into those parts. Captain Acton had often made a meal at that table, and so had Sir William.
Mr Short occupied the head of the table, and the oldest frequenter who happened to be present the foot. Mr Short took his seat when Mr Lawrence sat down, and all the people who had come to eat were then assembled. In a picture they would figure as a homely old English lot: men in bottle-green coats, in red coats, in purple waistcoats, in plain pilot cloth, here and there a dandy built up in the latest style, here and there an old fogey who stuck to the fashion of the lastcentury and figured in a little tye wig, a frill very fit for the harbouring of snuff, a cut-away coat with immense pockets, such as Boswell might have been found drunk in, in Edinburgh, and shoes with buckles.
Mr Short said grace, and prayed for the King and Royal Family, and for the utter ruin and confusion of the French, Spanish, and all our enemies. In two or three places the walls were adorned by maps, with which no navigator of this age would dare to risk his life fifty miles out of sight of land. A spinet stood in a corner; it was sometimes customary when the ordinary was ended and the sentiments had been brought to a conclusion for any one who could perform, to sit down to this spinet and accompany any gentleman who was good enough to oblige. But it was always understood that the song must carry a chorus which everybody present knew so that everybody present might join in it, hence the same old melodies were very often heard in that long room with the low ceiling, and its clock whose voice was audible all over the house at night.
Mr Lawrence was a quality guest, and being a frequenter, had a place of his own, which was on the left hand of the landlord; thus he got the fish of his choice, the cut of meat he liked best, the best draught of ale the house couldsupply, and this ordinary was too useful to him to allow him to be in debt to it.
Short was a large fat man with a pink face, merry little drunken eyes almost buried out of sight in hairy eyebrows and eyelashes; his pear-shaped nose was so purple at the end that it might have been supposed he had just been fighting his way through a hedge full of nettles. He treated his patrons as guests, and of those he knew, would ask familiarly after their relations, and how their businesses went and the like.
Mr Lawrence sat very silent, yet ate with appetite because what was put before him he relished, but it was observed that he limited himself to one tankard of beer. When the ordinary was ended, pipes were put upon the table, and jars of tobacco, and then Mr Short, without rising, exclaimed:
"Gentlemen! before I give you a sentiment I shall be pleased if you will allow me to propose a toast. It was only known to me this morning that my highly respectable friend on the left, Mr Lawrence, the son of that distinguished officer, Rear-Admiral Sir William Lawrence, has received, through his friend Captain Acton of His Majesty's Navy, the command of that beautiful barque, theMinorca. I am sure that there is ne'er a gent here who takes an interest in our Old Harbour, andwho has the honour of the acquaintance of Captain Acton and Mr Lawrence, but will feel proud and delighted that that beautiful ship, theMinorca, which we all claim now as belonging to our town, will be commanded by as fine an officer as ever walked His Majesty's quarterdeck. Gentlemen all, I give you the health of Captain Acton, Mr Lawrence, and theMinorca, and may prosperity attend the beautiful ship, and may she return home to gladden the eyes of all well-wishers of our grand old town by loading our store-houses with more foreign produce."
Mr Lawrence looked startled when this toast was begun; but he composed his face as Short proceeded, and when everybody was extending his glass to him and wishing him all the good-luck that Short desired, he was receiving the general salutation with a composed smile and an air of courteous appreciation.
One sat at the table who peered at him hard when Mr Short began. This was a middle-aged man in a brown wig. He was one of the two clerks kept by Mr Greyquill, and regularly dined at "The Swan's" ordinary, a repast which had never once been decorated by the presence of Mr Greyquill, who, living in rooms over his offices, chose to eat for his breakfast a little fish which he bought froma man with a barrow with whom he haggled, and for his dinner a cutlet or a piece of steak, just enough for one, with vegetables, and for supper whatever might have been left from breakfast or dinner, and if nothing was left, then a piece of "hearty bread and cheese," as he would term it, and a glass of beer.
The man with the brown wig peered with his head on one side at Mr Lawrence, as though Mr Short's toast conveyed a piece of news to him.
When the landlord had made an end, and the healths named had been pledged, Mr Short, filling a pipe and inviting those of his friends who were smokers to follow his example, asked old Mr Sturgeon, a well-known smack owner, for a sentiment, who in a feeble voice, and eyes from which the light of being had almost been extinguished by time, broke out in a sort of hiccough: "As we ascend the hill of life may we never meet a friend."
This was enough for Mr Lawrence, who perfectly understood that all the sentiments which were likely to be delivered at that table he had heard over and over again. He rose, made a bow to the landlord and the company, and walked from the room to the adjacent room, which was made a reading-room of by the pilots, smacksmen, and others, and sitting down at the long table, took a sheet of somepaper which was there for the accommodation of the frequenters, and after thinking deeply, undisturbed by the sound of singing which started next door, he began to write in pencil, obviously making a draft of a communication he proposed to copy there, or more probably elsewhere.
Certainly what he wrote about did not refer to the letter he had received on his arrival at "The Swan." This may be assumed, as he never referred to that letter which lay in his pocket. He wrote leisurely and with absorption, never heeding the noise next door, and when he was done he carefully read through what he had written, and with his handsome face stern with the quality of resolution and the temper which enters into great or violent undertakings as their impulse or seminal principle, he pocketed the letter, and left the room by another door.
Mr Greyquill's office was in High Street. He used two rooms for his professional affairs, and the rest of the house, which was a small one, he lived in. He was an attorney, and a flourishing one: so mean that his name had passed into a proverb, but honourable in his dishonourable doings, so that though every man agreed that Greyquill was a scoundrel, all held that he kept well within the lines of his villainy, and that he was unimpeachable outside the prescribed and understood rules of his roguery.
Two mornings following the day on which Mr Short had proposed Mr Lawrence's health, old Mr Greyquill rose from his chair at his office table, and said to his clerk in the brown wig, who sat within eyeshot at another table in the adjacent room, that he was going to collect his rents at Greyquill's Buildings, and that he would not be back before half-pasttwelve. He never looked so white as he did this morning. His white hair seemed to rest like a cloud upon his head and shoulders. His eyebrows bore so strong a resemblance to white mice that no one could have overlooked the similitude, particularly as each eyebrow flourished over the bridge of the nose a few little dark hairs which resembled tails. His waistcoat was white, not having come from the wash above three days, and his stockings were white.
He left his house and walked down the road which led to the bridge, but instead of crossing the bridge he descended a short flight of steps abreast of the flight that led to the wharves. These steps conducted the passenger to the river-side walk that went up the banks of the stream, and a very sweet walk it was this morning. The bright river trembled in prisms and gems under the pleasant breathing of the wind, which was aromatic with the odours it culled in its flight over the country, the birds sang gaily with here and there a deep flute-like note. It was a morning lovely and delightful with the virginal spirit of spring, when all creation seems new, when no note in the trees, no sweetness in the air, no bloom or flash of white on the bough, no timid wayside flower that seems to have sprung into being sinceyester eve and glances at you coyly from its little wayside bower, but delights the senses as a beautiful surprise, as a something remembered but never so fresh, so appealing.
A bend of the river's path shut out the view of Old Harbour Town and the Harbour, and just when Mr Greyquill reached this turn, he saw Mr Lawrence coming along the road, having manifestly gained it by a little bridge, some distance beyond which was another way, but rather roundabout, of getting to Old Harbour from Sir William Lawrence's cottage.
Mr Lawrence looked very well; his colour was fresh, his eyes carried the light which nature intended them to take, but which his hand was perpetually seeking to extinguish by draughts of strong liquors. He had been extremely temperate for three days, and his resolution was producing its fruits in his general appearance. It is indeed surprising how short is the period asked for by Nature even from men who live harder and drink harder than Mr Lawrence, to restore to them as much of their healthy old good looks as in some cases makes them almost irrecognisable.
"Good morning, Mr Lawrence," said Mr Greyquill, making the gentleman a low bow. "I may take it that you're going to the shipwhich I am pleased to hear Captain Acton has given you the command of."
"You are very kind, sir, to take an interest in my affairs," answered Mr Lawrence with slight sarcasm.
"I think I have some reason, Mr Lawrence," answered Mr Greyquill, drooping his head to one side, and looking at the other with a confidential and familiar expression which was scarcely a smile, but which teased the hot blood of Mr Lawrence as though the look masked an insult. Mr Lawrence viewed him in silence.
"I may trust, at all events," continued the money-lender, "now that you are in receipt of money—and if the terms have been correctly named to me they speak very highly in favour of Captain Acton's generosity—that you will give my debt your immediate attention, and that if you cannot pay all, you will pay as much as I have a right to expect from the amount you receive."
"You shall be paid, sir," said Mr Lawrence.
"It would be convenient to me if you would fix a day for the first payment if you cannot pay the whole," said Mr Greyquill.
"I shall not be able to pay you anything this side my first command of theMinorca. If I hand you the sum of twenty-five guineas after my return, that is, when I am paid offby Captain Acton, I believe you will not have much reason to complain, sir."
Mr Greyquill shrugged his shoulders.
"Twenty-five guineas is a very small proportion of three hundred pounds," he exclaimed.
"It is not three hundred pounds, sir," answered Mr Lawrence, with the countenance of a man who is resolved in his intention, but desires to speak with prudence and good humour.
"But from my point of view it is three hundred pounds," cried Mr Greyquill. "What is the good of money without interest? I enter in my books the interest on my money as a part of my money, and if you tell me I am not to speak of my interest when I speak of what is due to me, what is my situation? How am I to live? The profit the butcher makes by the sale of his carcasses is the interest upon his outlay; deprive him of that and he will not sell you meat, because he could not afford to do so."
"The butcher does not charge at your rate, Mr Greyquill," said Mr Lawrence with a faint smile.
"I will not declare what the butcher charges!" cried Mr Greyquill, a little warmly for so sleek a man. "But take my word, the British tradesman, whether tinker, tailor,butcher, baker, and we'll throw in grocer as we do not value rhymes, charges at rates which if reduced from profit to interest and called by that aggressive term discount, would represent every shopkeeper in the nation as big a scoundrel as the most voracious of your money-lenders, sir."
He bowed as though to the applause of an audience, and looked the better pleased with Mr Lawrence for having heard him.
"Well, Mr Greyquill, twenty-five guineas when I'm paid off on my return home. I can say no more, and can promise no more."
"You speak like a gentleman to me in this matter, which you do not often do when I refer to it, nor your father neither——"
"Sir William Lawrence has nothing to do with my affairs."
"Still, he might recognise my claim and your debt, and treat me perhaps with the commiseration with which he would pity himself if he lost three hundred pounds."
"You have not lost it, Mr Greyquill."
"No, sir, and from my conversation with you this morning I am satisfied I shall receive every penny. I wish you a truly prosperous voyage and a safe return home, and that the Frenchman won't be the means of dishing more hopes than your own."
He made another of his bows, and MrLawrence saluting him with a slight smile and a lifted hat, passed on.
Just at the bend of the road not ten paces from where they had been standing, Mr Lawrence drew forth his pocket-handkerchief to blow his nose, and with it there came out of his pocket and fell upon the road unobserved by him, a large sheet of paper folded into four. Mr Lawrence blew his nose and went round the corner, and the paper would have been out of sight had he looked behind.
Old Greyquill, trudging on busy in thought with Mr Lawrence's debt, was moved by some idea of the man to look behind him. Mr Lawrence had disappeared. Quite discernible from where Greyquill stood was the sheet of paper Lawrence had let fall. Old Greyquill stopped, peered, reflected that it might be a letter that he himself had unconsciously been toying with and had dropped, or that in some other way had let fall from his pocket. He retraced the few steps that lay between and picked it up, and proceeded with it in one hand, whilst with the other he fumbled for his spectacle-case.
He immediately saw that it was a sheet of paper about the size of foolscap, but somewhat squarer, of a bluish tint; it was provided free of cost to the frequenters of the sailors'reading-room at "The Swan." He well knew the paper, for many a letter written upon it had he received. It was of a convenient size for those who used it, as first of all it was ruled on one side, which enabled a man to steer a straight course with his pen. The page was likewise so large as to enable a man to write big, and few who used it could write small. It also supplied plenty of space for erasures, whether of expression or spelling, and this was useful. When folded into four and sealed or wafered, the sheet became a letter which needed but the address to qualify it for the post.
In the case of the sheet Mr Greyquill held, it had been folded to resemble a letter, but it had not been made one; it bore no address, and the communication started at once without the prefatorial "Dear sir," or the like, and it closed without signature or initials. But Mr Greyquill immediately saw that the handwriting in pencil was Mr Lawrence's, and that the document must have fallen from that gentleman's pocket just now when they parted.
We have seen that the frame which bounded Mr Greyquill's portrait of honour was large. Most men recognising the handwriting would have denied themselves the right of reading this letter, because they had found it lying ina public roadway, for two reasons: the handwriting was known to them, and the recent presence of the writer where that letter was found would have identified it as its owner's business in no wise to be intruded on by a man of honour.
But this sort of argument did not fall within the frame of Mr Greyquill's picture of integrity. It was a letter lying ready for anybody's hand in a public way; next, it was not addressed; third, it was not signed; and fourth, though the contents were apparently in Mr Lawrence's handwriting, yet some people did write, as Greyquill knew, so wonderfully alike that there was no reason to conclude without strong internal evidence that the letter Mr Greyquill held was written by Mr Lawrence. Whatever else it was, it was certainly a draft roughly pencilled of a letter that had been copied in ink and no doubt despatched. Here and there was an erasure in ink, which proved that it had been copied in ink and corrected in certain places by the pen that was transcribing it. He had not proceeded far when his eyebrows, which, as we have heard, inimitably expressed the aspect of two white mice, arched their backs to an extraordinary degree as though in imitation of a cat when enraged; his mouth took on the posture of a whistle; with his eyes rooted tothe sheet he stopped and scratched his head until he nearly tumbled his hat into the road.
Just then certain large white-bosomed April clouds which had been leisurely sailing up from over the sea began to discharge some rain, and one shower was so smart that Greyquill took refuge in a small wayside barn, where, until the rain ceased he had the opportunity of reading the letter several times.
His astonishment was unaffected and amazing; with the habit of senility he kept on muttering to himself aloud whilst he perused and re-perused the letter.
"Is it possible! Is this the officer and the gentleman! Could an egg so full of criminal matter find any black fowl willing to hatch it in so pleasing a nest! And I am called an old scamp because I part with my honestly earned money for a consideration which is trifling in comparison with the benefit I confer, the help that I am to the man in need. This will require thought. I shall need to think pretty considerably before I decide. Meanwhile, Mr Lawrence, I wish you a prosperous voyage, and I wonder what you will do when you find out that you have mislaid this letter, a copy of which to somebody or other, as pretty a scoundrel as yourself no doubt, you have unquestionably by this time posted?"
Meanwhile, Mr Lawrence walked towards his ship. He should have been on the whole well satisfied with his meeting with Mr Greyquill. Perhaps the profound indifference which in reality possessed him as to the old scrivener's willingness to accept twenty-five guineas, or, in short, anything as an instalment, was because he had long felt that the old man never durst take extreme action. Greyquill knew that Mr Lawrence was very popular in his own particular way in Old Harbour Town and the neighbourhood. He drank and treated, and in a high degree possessed the liberality of the sailor. The townspeople were proud of him, not only because he was a handsome and finely built man, but because he had shone in many deeds of gallantry whilst in the Navy, and everybody was agreed that when Mr Lawrence was court-martialled the Service lost as fine and plucky a seaman as was ever afloat, and one to be recalled to his duties with apologies and without delay.
Admiral Sir William Lawrence was also highly respected, and people spoke with pride of his living in their neighbourhood. It was likewise well known that Mr Lawrence was a friend of the Actons, and in a small town of small gossips the idea if not the circumstance of Mr Lawrence having offered for the hand of the beautiful Miss Acton was not likely to beneglected or overlooked, and to do the gossips justice, they imputed the rejection of the handsome and dashing young Naval officer to his loose habits.
Mr Lawrence well judged that if Greyquill locked him up for debt Old Harbour Town would rise against him. His windows would certainly be broken, his person might go in danger, for there was more than one who had suffered at the hands of Greyquill who would be grateful for any sort of excuse to administer a sound cudgelling to the old man, and take his chance of the law, fortified by the conviction that if it came to a fine the amount would be subscribed several times over.
Mr Lawrence's business on board theMinorcadid not keep him long. He was primarily there to see to the arrangements of his own cabin, and also of another cabin aft which it was his design to convert into a sick-bay. This end was chiefly accomplished in this cabin by the rough construction of a couple of bunks.
Just before he left the ship, the young fellow Paul, whom he had told to come down on Saturday, stepped from the fore part of the ship where he had been watching two or three men caulking, and gave Mr Lawrence his usual salute of a pluck at a forelock and a scrape of a hinder foot.
"Yes," said Mr Lawrence, running his eyes over him, "the articles are opened at Mr Acton's offices. Go and tell the manager—but here——" He pulled out a card upon whose face was some printed address, and with a pencil struck out the address, and wrote to the effect that the bearer called Paul had been engaged by Mr Lawrence as his cabin servant. These lines he initialed, and giving the card to the youth, bade him present it at the offices before one o'clock, or he would find them closed.
"Have you no better clothes than what you wear?" he said.
"No, sir."
"You may give an order for a suit of decent apparel fit to wait at table with, for I want you to understand that your duties may bring you to wait upon ladies and gentlemen, though you know nothing about that. Do you hear?"
"Ay, your honour," answered the fellow with a grin decidedly above a clown's intelligence.
"You can pay for the clothes on your return, or by drawing an advance which Mr Acton's manager will let you have. Do you know Miss Acton?"
"The lady that lives at Old Harbour House along with Capt'n Acton?" answered Paul.
"I mean Captain Acton's daughter."
"I should think I do, sir," answered Paul, grinning.
"You know her well enough, for example," said Mr Lawrence, critically surveying him as though he took counsel within himself whilst he talked, "that if I gave you a letter for her and for none other"—he frowned, and with some passion emphasisednone other—"you are not likely to mistake, you are not likely to give it to another."
"I couldn't mistake, your honour. I know the lady as I know you, and if so be as I did mistake, then I hope your honour would blow my brains out, for I shouldn't leave your side till your honour did."
Mr Lawrence, with a nod and an expression of face that was scarcely a smile, quitted the ship, and on the wharf found Mr Eagle, who had as a matter of fact for a minute or two been watching him.
"That young fellow came aboard not long ago," said the mate, "and I asked him his business. He replied that he was to be cabin servant by your choosing. I was nigh telling him he was a liar, for I couldn't suppose that the likes of him and his rags would suit a gent as has sarved the King, and been waited upon, as I understand they do in the Sarvice, by Marines."
Lawrence smiled, and answered: "TheMarines may not be all you think them, Mr Eagle, though they are a noble fighting corps. I took a pity upon that young fellow. I once helped him out of a difficulty, and his gratitude rose to the height of a dog's, which, as you know, is very superior to man's. His ugliness interests me as the sort of beauty you find in the toad or the snake or other things which make ladies scream. He can bring dishes aft as well as another, and will look a very pretty young man in a new suit of clothes. I may not be down to the ship again till Monday. Good morning, sir."
He walked away, leaving Mr Eagle staring apace, and as he was going over the side, Paul, who was coming down, received a very acid, watchman-like look from the mate.
Mr Lawrence pursued the same road home by which he had gained Old Harbour. In all probability had Mr Greyquill not looked back, the young gentleman would have found his letter where he had unconsciously dropped it. That side of the bridge—the up-river water path—was much unfrequented, save on a Sunday, when lovers walked along it, and now and again a little family dressed in their best. It was many chances to one that the two or three who had passed along that path since Mr Lawrence and Mr Greyquill had stood in conversation upon it, would havepicked up the letter or even taken notice of it, so very remote from their ideas of things worth stopping for and examining on the highway was a folded sheet of paper.
Mr Lawrence walked on. He thought of old Greyquill when he passed the place where he had stopped to talk. He crossed the quaint old bridge duplicated in the river, which streamed with becalmed surface up here and mirrored with the precision of a looking-glass the hues and shapes of every bird that swept the glassy surface for an insect, and gaining a rich lane formed by seven or eight hundred years of growth, for a monastery had stood here and a knight had had his manor where now the land was without relic of stone or brick; but the vegetation left by these people flourished, and though not above half a mile in length that lane formed one of the most glorious, soothing, enfolding, impulse-creating walks in all that country-side which abounded in little paradisaical reaches of a like kind; I say Mr Lawrence crossed the bridge, and emerging from the lane struck the high-road, and presently gained his father's cottage.
Even in three days the weather had worked a miracle in the increase of the beauty of the orchards in which the Admiral sat pipe in mouth, tankard at elbow, embowered; a sort of figure who when at his window would have greatlypuzzled the Knight of Spenser'sFaerie Queene; for what should such a shape secretly ambushed in a spot fit only for the dancing tread of the fairy, or the gaping stare of the ogre who tries to see how the land lies by peering through two apple boughs, what should such a shape signify, briefly arresting the clouds of smoke which rose from his lips by vain efforts to extinguish by copious draughts from his tankard the magical fires that blazed in its interior? Whether the Knight would have tilted at the figure or pricked his horse into headlong flight is a conjecture that must be left to those who have read the poem and know the man.
The Admiral just now happened to be at dinner. A shoulder of mutton and onion sauce with potatoes roasted with the shoulder and such other vegetables as the season yielded was a dish fit to set before a king, and the monarch who turned up his nose at such a dainty should be made to banquet on nothing but the fare they give kings upon the stage. Indeed, Sir William would tell his friends he knew for a fact that a shoulder of mutton was the favourite dish of His Royal Highness Prince William. If it was objected that the joint yielded more bone than meat he had his answer:
"Sir, I once said to a sailor who had obtained a berth ashore on sixteen shillingsa week, 'How do you manage to rear your family? How many are there of you?' 'Why,' he answered, 'there's me and the old woman and four youngsters and grandfather!' 'You never see meat, of course,' said I. 'Oh yes, we do,' he answered. 'Meat!' I cried, 'on sixteen shillings a week and seven people to support, four of them hungry youngsters!' 'Well,' he answered, 'I doos it in this way. On Saturday I goes to the butcher and buys a shoulder o' mutton; on Sunday we 'as it 'ot; on Monday we 'as it cold; on Toosday we 'ave what's left of the cold; on Wednesday what's left of the cold we 'ave made into ishee-ashee; on Thursday we makes what's left of the ishee-ashee into ashee-ishee; on Friday we does without; and on Saturday I goes to the butcher and I buys another shoulder of mutton.' Now," the Admiral would say with his face warm with triumph, "name me any joint but a shoulder of mutton that will supply what kept this family in meat, or the like of meat, from Sunday to Thursday?"
The Admiral made his son welcome with unusual warmth.
"I never tasted a finer flavoured piece of mutton. This jelly, too, lifts it to the dignity of a haunch. Those spring cabbages are very tender. We do not eat nearly enough vegetables in this country. What purifies theblood like a well-cooked spring cabbage that melts in the mouth? I am in hopes that we shall get a very good show of potatoes. Are you fresh from the ship?"
He asked this question with much importance. Indeed, during the last two days he had manifested great interest in all that concerned the Merchant Service; had found out, for instance, and avowed the fact to Captain Acton, that our Colonial Empire was founded by British Merchant seamen who, in the employ of merchant adventurers, sailed into all parts of the globe and established settlements, and often fought for the preservation if not for the conquest of principalities over which the King's flag now waved. He also pointed to the Honourable East India Company, and asked if our own or any Navy were superior in their capacity and splendour to those ships, and whether our Navy treated their officers with so much consideration, liberality, and prudent foresight for each man's well-being.
"Yes, I have come straight from theMinorca."
"Will you complete your lading by the date announced for your sailing?"
"I think so—I hope so. I am very well disposed towards that scheme I have put into being—the construction of a sick-bay.Every ship should have a sick-bay. You must agree with me, sir."
"Wherever room can be found a sick-bay is most important," answered the Admiral.
"A man falls sick of small-pox. What are you to do with him? You can't cure him, and you can't heave him overboard. But because one falls ill it surely does not follow that the others should go sick. Besides, we carry no surgeon, which was an additional incentive to my suggesting a sick-bay to Captain Acton."
"Oh, you have done well. Acton will value your foresight. A sick-bay is a valuable detail in a ship's catalogue."
They talked of this and of other matters connected with theMinorca, and then the Admiral went to the window to fill his pipe, and Mr Lawrence to his bedroom.
Some thought whilst eating with his father had occurred to him, and he felt in his pocket for the copy of the letter which he had drawn out with his pocket-handkerchief and which Mr Greyquill had got possession of. The handkerchief was there, but the letter was not. When he had drawn out his handkerchief and felt and found the lining of his pocket bare, when, in short, he completely understood that the letter was not where it ought to be and where he knew it should be, he turned as pale as the muslin curtain that partly veiled hiswindow, started with an abrupt swagger of motion as though he had been struck violently behind, then with the energy of madness felt in all his pockets, pulling out everything, meanwhile gazing around the room with eyes which seemed on fire with their vigour of scrutiny and passion of fear.
He endeavoured to recollect himself that, by calming his terrors his memory might better serve him. Urgent alarms often induce vain hopes which we should laugh at in the cool mood. He believed he might have put that letter down in his bedroom, and perfectly well knowing that he had not done so, and yet coaxed by a will-o'-the-wisp hope, he ransacked the room as though he knew that in it was to be found a gold piece of value whose discovery demanded a careful search only. What was certain in his mind was that that letter was in his pocket when he walked that morning to visit theMinorca. He remembered withdrawing it from his pocket, but in what part of the walk he knew not, and re-perusing a portion of it to refresh his memory. He tried to find comfort in the recollection that the letter bore no address and no signature. But a thundercloud of horror came down on this feeble streak of sunshine when he recalled the damning, incriminating contents of that sheetwhich he had scrawled in pencil at "The Swan Inn." Whoever found it would know that Mr Lawrence, and Mr Lawrence alone, had written it, and this, too, irrespective of the handwriting.
But here he found another little hope; some squalls of wet, one very heavy, had set the kennels running shortly after he had met Mr Greyquill, and if that letter had lain exposed to those three or four deluges, it not only stood to be changed into a mere rag to the eye which none would dream of even glancing at, but the writing must have been washed out to a degree to render the sense of the letter unintelligible. He considered that it was not above two or three hours when that letter was in his pocket, and that it must have fallen somewhere betwixt his father's house and theMinorcain that time, for he had taken the same road to and fro. He reflected that that road was but little used compared with the lane that led to the bridge where the Actons' carriage had stopped. Understanding as a sailor the preciousness of time, and conceiving that if the letter had by some strange mischance fallen during his walk unobserved by him it might still rest in the spot where it had dropped, insomuch that chance—for the fellow was a gambler at heart—might concede him yet an hour, even two hours, in which to find it, he put on his hat and marched out ofthe house, just saying to his father in the window that he had an appointment and should miss it if he didn't hasten, and then stepped out, casting as he went to right and left of his path eyes as piercingly scrutinising as those which the madman darts when he seeks for the philosopher's stone.
It is needless, of course, to say that this searching walk was in vain. Whatever lay white in his road he rushed at, and in his gizzard he cursed the vast number of pieces of white paper which did somehow, as though distributed by innumerable malicious Greyquills, attract his eye and retard his progress whilst he turned them over.
On his way this side the bridge he met an old man with a stick who stopped in his lame walk to turn about any little heap his eye met. This old man was attended by a dog, who smelt at what the man touched.
"Have you seen a letter," cried Mr Lawrence, "a broad piece of paper folded into four lying in the road?"
"Seen a what, your Anner?"
"Where are you from?"
"From Oozles."
Mr Lawrence repeated his first question.
"I don't know what you mean," said the old man.
Mr Lawrence easily perceived that he didn't,and went on his way always hunting with his eyes. Past the bridge he met another old man, a peasant with silver hair, fit, dressed as he was, to walk upon any stage, and immediately take part in any performance that included a peasant, a foster-child, and a baron. This white hair gave him a reverend look, and his legs were strangely bandaged round about, and his smock was a gown in which he could have preached a sermon without exciting much suspicion as to the propriety of his dress.
"Have you seen a letter folded in four lying in the road?" shouted Mr Lawrence.
"I'm a little 'ard of 'earing," was the answer, and the picturesque old man put his hand to his ear shellwise.
Mr Lawrence went close to him and shouted.
"Gard bless your worship," said the old man in a sweet voice and a face beautiful with the touches of the pencil of time upon a countenance originally open, gracious, and good, "I ha'nt received a letter since her last from my poor old woife, and that 'ull be twenty year ago, as I know by the laying of the foundation stone——" Mr Lawrence broke away, and asked no more questions during the rest of his walk.
He saw no letter—nothing like it. He went on board theMinorca, and seeing themate at the main-hatch, asked in an off-hand way if a copy of a letter had been found in the cabin, or any other part of the ship that morning.
"No, sir."
And there was an end. With wrath in his heart, and cursing himself again and again as a barnyard idiot fit for spread eagling only to carry such a missive as that about with him when its miscarriage might prove his destruction, might even now be working it, he stepped on to the wharf and came across Paul.
"Here!" said he.
The youth approached.