Richard Carvel Part 73

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 t.i.tle 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?

CHAPTER LI. HOW AN IDLE PROPHECY CAME TO Pa.s.s

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 Sh.o.r.e. 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 a.s.sociations.

"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. c.u.mberland's 'West Indian': 'I have beat through every quarter of the compa.s.s; 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 b.u.mbo, 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,"