The Pirate Story Megapack. R.M. Ballantyne

see me; so I bade him in a high voice bid Mr. Simon step up, and setting myself before my table of paper, engage in writing a letter (already half writ), while Dawson slips out into the next room.

      “Take a seat, Mr. Steward,” says I, when Simon entered, cap in hand, and casting a very prying, curious look around. “I must keep you a minute or two”; and so I feign to be mighty busy, and give him scope for observation.

      “Well, sir,” says I, finishing my letter with a flourish, and setting it aside. “How do you fare?”

      He raised his hands, and dropped them like so much lead on his knees, casting up his eyes and giving a doleful shake of his head for a reply.

      “Nothing is amiss at the Court, I pray—your lady Mistress Godwin is well?”

      “I know not, friend,” says he. “She hath taken my keys, denied me entrance to her house, and left me no privilege of my office save the use of the lodge house. Thus am I treated like a faithless servant, after toiling night and day all these years, and for her advantage, rather than mine own.”

      “That has to be proved, Mr. Steward,” says I, severely; “for you must admit that up to this present she has had no reason to love you, seeing that, had her fate been left in your hands, she would now be in Barbary, and like to end her days there. How, then, can she think but that you had some selfish, wicked end in denying her the service we, who are strangers, have rendered her?”

      “Thee speakest truth, friend, and yet thee knowest that I observed only the righteous prudence of an honest servant.”

      “We will say no more on that head, but you may rest assured on my promise—knowing as I do the noble, generous nature of your mistress—that if she has done you wrong in suspecting you of base purpose, she will be the first to admit her fault and offer you reparation.”

      “I seek no reparation, no reward, nothing in the world but the right to cherish this estate,” cries he, in passion; and, upon my looking at him very curiously, as not understanding the motive of such devotion, he continues: “Thee canst not believe me, and yet truly I am neither a liar nor a madman. What do others toil for? A wife—children—friends—the gratification of ambition or lust! I have no kith or kin, no ambition, no lust; but this estate is wife, child, everything, to me. ’Tis like some work of vanity—a carved image that a man may give his whole life to making, and yet die content if he achieves but some approach to the creation of his soul. I have made this estate out of nothing; it hath grown larger and larger, richer and more rich, in answer to my skill; why should I not love it, and put my whole heart in the accomplishment of my design, with the same devotion that you admire in the maker of graven images?”

      Despite his natural infirmities, Simon delivered this astonishing rhapsody with a certain sort of vehemence that made it eloquent; and indeed, strange as his passion was, I could not deny that it was as reasonable in its way as any nobler act of self-sacrifice.

      “I begin to understand you, Mr. Steward,” says I.

      “Then, good friend, as thee wouldst help the man in peril of being torn from his child, render me this estate to govern; save it from the hands of usurers and lawyers, men of no conscience, to whom this Spanish Don would deliver it for the speedy satisfaction of his greed.”

      “Nay, my claim’s as great as his,” says I, “and my affairs more pressing” (with a glance at my papers), “I am undone, my credit lost, my occupation gone.”

      “Thee shalt be paid to the last farthing. Examine my books, enquire into the value of my securities, and thee wilt find full assurance.”

      “Well, one of these days mayhap,” says I, as if to put him off.

      “Nay, come at once, I implore thee; for until I am justified to my mistress, I stand like one betwixt life and death.”

      “For one thing,” says I, still shuffling, “I can do nothing, nor you either, to the payment of our just claim, before the inheritance is safely settled upon Mistress Godwin.”

      “That shall be done forthwith. I understand the intricacies of the law, and know my way” (tapping his head and then his pocket), “to get a seal, with ten times the despatch of any attorney. I promise by Saturday thee shalt have assurance to thy utmost requirement. Say, good friend, thee wilt be at my lodge house on that day.”

      “I’ll promise nothing,” says I. “Our poor Captain Evans is still a prisoner in his room.”

      “Aye,” says Dawson, coming in from the next room, in his nightgown, seeming very feeble and weak despite his blustering voice, “and I’m like to be no better till I can get a ship of my own and be to sea again. Have you brought my money, Mr. Quaker?”

      “Thee shalt have it truly; wait but a little while, good friend, a little while.”

      “Wait a little while and founder altogether, eh? I know you land sharks, and would I’d been born with a smack of your cunning; then had I never gone of this venture, and lost my ship and twoscore men, that money’ll ne’er replace. Look at me, a sheer hulk and no more, and all through lending ear to one prayer and another. I doubt you’re minded to turn your back on poor old Bob Evans, as t’others have, Mr. Hopkins—and why not? The poor old man’s worth nothing, and cannot help himself.” With this he fell a-snivelling like any girl.

      “I vow I’ll not quit you, Evans, till you’re hale again.”

      “Bring him with thee o’ Saturday,” urged Simon. “Surely, my mistress can never have the heart to refuse you shelter at the Court, who owes her life to ye. Come and stay there till thy wage be paid, friend Evans.”

      “What! would ye make an honest sailor play bum-bailiff, and stick in a house, willy nilly, till money’s found? Plague of your dry land! Give me a pitching ship and a rolling sea, and a gale whistling in my shrouds. Oh, my reins, my reins! give me a paper of tobacco, Mr. Hopkins, and a pipe to soothe this agony, or I shall grow desperate!”

      I left the room as if to satisfy this desire, and Simon followed, imploring me still to come on Saturday to Chislehurst; and I at length got rid of him by promising to come as soon as Evans could be left or induced to accompany me.

      I persuaded Dawson, very much against his gree, to delay our going until Monday, the better to hoodwink old Simon; and on that day we set out for Chislehurst, both clad according to our condition—he in rough frieze, and I in a very proper, seemly sort of cloth—and with more guineas in our pockets than ever before we had possessed shillings. And a very merry journey this was; for Dawson, finding himself once more at liberty, and hearty as a lark after his long confinement and under no constraint, was like a boy let loose from school. Carolling at the top of his voice, playing mad pranks with all who passed us on the road, and staying at every inn to drink twopenny ale, so that I feared he would certainly fall ill of drinking, as he had before of eating; but the exercise of riding, the fresh, wholesome air, and half an hour’s doze in a spinney, did settle his liquor, and so he reached Hurst Court quite sober, thanks be to Heaven, though very gay. And there we had need of all our self-command, to conceal our joy in finding those gates open to us, which we had looked through so fondly when we were last here, and to spy Moll, in a stately gown, on the fine terrace before this noble house, carrying herself as if she had lived here all her life, and Don Sanchez walking very deferential by her side. Especially Dawson could scarce bring himself to speak to her in an uncouth, surly manner, as befitted his character, and no sooner were we entered the house but he whips Moll behind a door, and falls a-hugging and kissing her like any sly young lover.

      Whilst he was giving way to these extravagances, which Moll had not the heart to rebuff—for in her full, warm heart she was as overjoyed to see him there as he her—Don Sanchez and I paced up and down the spacious hall, I all of a twitter lest one or other of the servants might discover the familiarity of these two (which must have been a fine matter for curious gossip in the household and elsewhere), and the Don mighty sombre and grave (as foreseeing an evil outcome of this business), so that he would make no answer to my civilities save by dumb gestures, showing he was highly displeased. But truly ’twas enough to set