Having proved to the pilot that he was quite safe here, unless it should come on to blow from southeast, of which there was no symptom, and leaving him under the care of Sandy, who at my expense stood treat to him, I made off for Candleston, not even stopping for a chat with Roger Berkrolles. The Colonel, of course, as well as his sister Lady Bluett, and Rodney, wore delighted with what I had to tell them, while the maid herself listened with her face concealed to the tale of her own misfortune. Once or twice she whispered to herself, “Oh my poor poor father!” and when I had ended she rose from the sofa where Lady Bluett’s arm was around her, and went to the Colonel and said, “How soon will you take me to my father!”
“My darling Bertha,” said the Colonel, embracing her, as if she had been his daughter, “we will start tomorrow, if Llewellyn thinks the weather quite settled, and the boat quite safe. He knows so much about boats, you see. It would take us a week to go round by land. But we won’t start at all, if you cry, my dear!”
I did not altogether like the tone of the Colonel’s allusion to me; still less was I pleased when he interrupted Lady Bluett’s congratulations, thanks, and fervent praises of my skill, perseverance, and trustiness in discovering all this villany.
“Humph!” said the Colonel; “I am not quite sure that this villany would have succeeded so long, unless a certain small boat had proved so adapted for fishing purposes.”
“Why, Henry!” cried his sister; “how very unlike you! What an unworthy insinuation! After all Mr. Llewellyn has done; it is positively ungrateful. And he spoke of that boat in this very room, as I can perfectly well remember, not—oh not—I am sure any more than a very few years ago, my dear.”
“Exactly,” said the Colonel; “too few years ago. If he had spoken of that at the time, as distinctly as he did afterwards, when the heat of inquiry was over, and when Sir Philip himself had abandoned it, I do not see how all this confusion, between the loss of a foreign ship and the casting away of a British boat, could have arisen, or at any rate could have failed to be cleared away. Llewellyn, you know that I do not judge hastily. Sir, I condemn your conduct.”
“Oh, Colonel, how dreadful of you! Mr. Llewellyn, go and look at the weather, while I prove to the Colonel his great mistake. You did speak of the boat at the very inquest, in the most noble and positive manner; and nobody would believe you, as you your very self told me. What more could any man do? We are none of us safe, if we do our very best, and have it turned against us.”
My conscience all this time was beating, so that I could hear it. This is a gift very good men have, and I have made a point of never failing to cultivate it. In this trying moment, with even a man so kind and blameless suddenly possessed, no doubt, by an evil spirit against me, stanch as rock my conscience stood, and to my support it rose, creditably for both of us.
“Colonel Lougher,” my answer was, “you will regret this attack on the honour of a British officer. One, moreover, whose great-grandfather harped in your Honour’s family. Captain Bluett understands the build of a boat as well as I do. He shall look at that boat tomorrow morning, and if he declares her to be English-built, you may set me down, with all my stripes and medals, for a rogue, sir. But if he confirms my surety of her being a foreigner, nothing but difference of rank will excuse you, Colonel Lougher, from being responsible to me.”
My spirit was up, as you may see; and the honour of the British Navy forced me to speak strongly: although my affection for the man was such that sooner than offend him, I would have my other arm shot away.
“Llewellyn,” said the Colonel, with his fine old smile spreading very pleasantly upon his noble countenance; “you are of the peppery order which your old Welsh blood produces. Think no more of my words for the present. And if my nephew agrees with you in pronouncing the boat a foreigner, I will give you full satisfaction by asking your pardon, Llewellyn. It was enough to mislead any man.”
Not to dwell upon this mistake committed by so good a man, but which got abroad somehow—though my old friend Crumpy, I am sure, could never have been listening at the door—be it enough in this hurry to say, that on the next morning I was enabled to certify the weather. A smartish breeze from the north-north-west, with the sea rather dancing than running, took poor Bardie to her native coast, from which the hot tide had borne her. Before we set sail, I had been to Sker in Colonel Lougher’s two-wheeled gig, and obtained from good Moxy the child’s jemmyset from the old oak chest it was stored in.
And now
