



Produced by David Widger





RICHARD CARVEL

By Winston Churchill


Volume 4.


XIX.   A Man of Destiny
XX.    A Sad Home-coming
XXI.   The Gardener's Cottage
XXII.  On the Road
XXIII. London Town
XXIV.  Castle Yard
XXV.   The Rescue



CHAPTER XIX

A MAN OF DESTINY

I was picked up and thrown into the brigantine's long-boat with a head
and stomach full of salt water, and a heart as light as spray with the
joy of it all. A big, red-bearded man lifted my heels to drain me.

"The mon's deid," said he.

"Dead!" cried I, from the bottom-board. "No more dead than you!"

I turned over so lustily that he dropped my feet, and I sat up, something
to his consternation. And they had scarce hooked the ship's side when I
sprang up the sea-ladder, to the great gaping of the boat's crew, and
stood with the water running off me in rivulets before the captain
himself. I shall never forget the look of his face as he regarded my
sorry figure.

"Now by Saint Andrew," exclaimed he, "are ye kelpie or pirate?"

"Neither, captain," I replied, smiling as the comical end of it came up
to me, "but a young gentleman in misfortune."

"Hoots!" says he, frowning at the grinning half-circle about us, "it's
daft ye are--"

But there he paused, and took of me a second sizing. How he got at my
birth behind my tangled mat of hair and wringing linsey-woolsey I know
not to this day. But he dropped his Scotch and merchant-captain's
manner, and was suddenly a French courtier, making me a bow that had done
credit to a Richelieu.

"Your servant, Mr.--"

"Richard Carvel, of Carvel Hall, in his Majesty's province of Maryland."

He seemed sufficiently impressed.

"Your very humble servant, Mr. Carvel. 'Tis in faith a privilege to be
able to serve a gentleman."

He bowed me toward his cabin, and then in sharp, quick tones he gave an
order to his mate to get under way, and I saw the men turning to the
braces with wonder in their eyes. My own astonishment was as great. And
so, with my clothes sucking to my body and a trail of water behind me
like that of a wet walrus, I accompanied the captain aft. His quarters
were indeed a contrast to those of Griggs, being so neat that I paused at
the door for fear of profaning them; but was so courteously bid to enter
that I came on again. He summoned a boy from the round house.

"William," said he, "a bottle of my French brandy. And my compliments to
Mr. MacMuir, and ask him for a suit of clothes. You are a larger man
than I, Mr. Carvel," he said to me, "or I would fit you out according to
your station."

I was too overwhelmed to speak. He poured out a liberal three fingers of
brandy, and pledged me as handsomely as I had been an admiral come
thither in mine own barge, instead of a ragged lad picked off a piratical
slaver, with nothing save my bare word and address. 'Twas then I had
space to note him more particularly. His skin was the rich colour of a
well-seasoned ship's bell, and he was of the middle height, owned a
slight, graceful figure, tapering down at the waist like a top, which had
set off a silk coat to perfection and soured the beaus with envy. His
movements, however, had all the decision of a man of action and of force.
But his eye it was took possession of me--an unfathomable, dark eye,
which bore more toward melancholy than sternness, and yet had something
of both. He wore a clean, ruffled shirt, an exceeding neat coat and
breeches of blue broadcloth, with plate burnished buttons, and white
cotton stockings. Truly, this was a person to make one look twice, and
think oftener. Then, as I went to pledge him, I, too, was caught for his
name.

"Paul," said he; "John Paul, of the brigantine John, of Kirkcudbright, in
the West India trade."

"Captain Paul--" I began. But my gratitude stuck fast in my throat and
flowed out of my eyes. For the thought of the horrors from which he had
saved me for the first time swept over me; his own kind treatment
overcame me, and I blubbered like a child. With that he turned his back.

"Hoots," says he, again, "dinna ye thank me. 'Tis naething to scuttle a
nest of vermin, but the duty of ilka man who sails the seas." By this,
having got the better of his emotion, he added: "And if it has been my
good fortune to save a gentleman, Mr. Carvel, I thank God for it, as you
must."

Save for a slackness inside the leg and in the hips, Macbluir's clothes
fitted me well enough, and presently I reappeared in the captain's cabin
rigged out in the mate's shore suit of purplish drab, and brass-buckled
shoes that came high over the instep, with my hair combed clear and tied
with a ribbon behind. I felt at last that I might lay some claim to
respectability. And what was my surprise to find Captain Paul buried to
his middle in a great chest, and the place strewn about with laced and
broidered coats and waistcoats, frocks and Newmarkets, like any tailor's
shop in Church Street. So strange they looked in those tropical seas
that he was near to catching me in a laugh as he straightened up. 'Twas
then I noted that he was a younger man than I had taken him for.

"You gentlemen from the southern colonies are too well nourished, by
far," says he; "you are apt to be large of chest and limb. 'Odds bods,
Mr. Carvel, it grieves me to see you apparelled like a barber surgeon.
If the good Lord had but made you smaller, now," and he sighed, "how well
this skyblue frock had set you off."

"Indeed, I am content, and more, captain," I replied with a smile,
"and thankful to be safe amongst friends. Never, I assure you,
have I had less desire for finery."

"Ay," said he, "you may well say that, you who have worn silk all your
life, and will the rest of it, and we get safe to port. But believe me,
sir, the pleasure of seeing one of your face and figure in such a coat as
that would not be a small one."

And disregarding my blushes and protests, he held up the watchet blue
frock against me, and it was near fitting me but for my breadth,--the
skirts being prodigiously long. I wondered mightily what tailor had
thrust this garment upon him; its fashion was of the old king's time,
the cuffs slashed like a sea-officer's uniform, and the shoulders made
carefully round. But other thoughts were running within me then.

"Captain," I cut in, "you are sailing eastward."

"Yes, yes," he answered absently, fingering some Point d'Espagne.

"There is no chance of touching in the colonies?" I persisted.

"Colonies! No," said he, in the same abstraction; "I am making for the
Solway, being long overdue. But what think you of this, Mr. Carvel?"

And he held up a wondrous vellum-hole waistcoat of a gone-by vintage,
and I saw how futile it were to attempt to lead him, while in that state
of absorption, to topics which touched my affair. Of a sudden the
significance of what he had said crept over me, the word Solway repeating
itself in my mind. That firth bordered England itself, and Dorothy was
in London! I became reconciled. I had no particle of objection to the
Solway save the uneasiness my grandfather would come through, which was
beyond helping. Fate had ordered things well.

Then I fell to applauding, while the captain tried on (for he was not
content with holding up) another frock of white drab, which, cuffs and
pockets, I'll take my oath mounted no less than twenty-four: another
plain one of pink cut-velvet; tail-coats of silk, heavily broidered with
flowers, and satin waistcoats with narrow lace. He took an inconceivable
enjoyment out of this parade, discoursing the while, like a nobleman with
nothing but dress in his head, or, perhaps, like a mastercutter, about
the turn of this or that lapel, the length from armpit to fold, and the
number of button-holes that was proper. And finally he exhibited with
evident pride a pair of doeskins that buttoned over the calf to be worn
with high shoes, which I make sure he would have tried on likewise had he
been offered the slightest encouragement. So he exploited the whole of
his wardrobe, such an unlucky assortment of finery as I never wish to see
again; all of which, however, became him marvellously, though I think he
had looked well in anything. I hope I may be forgiven the perjury I did
that day. I wondered greatly that such a foible should crop out in a man
of otherwise sound sense and plain ability.

At length, when the last chest was shut again and locked, and I had
exhausted my ingenuity at commendation, and my patience also, he turned
to me as a man come out of a trance.

"Od's fish, Mr. Carvel," he cried, "you will be starved. I had forgot
your state."

I owned that hunger had nigh overcome me, whereupon he became very
solicitous, bade the boy bring in supper at once, and in a short time we
sat down together to the best meal I had seen for a month. It seemed
like a year. Porridge, and bacon nicely done, and duff and ale, with the
sea rushing past the cabin windows as we ate, touched into colour by the
setting sun. Captain Paul did not mess with his mates, not