"I would counsel you, my lady, to partake of a little more refreshment. I have spoken with the master outside who says that by no chance can we make Harwich ere nightfall. Your ladyship, excellent sailor as you are, must have a care to your health." "My health," she replied, "needs no care, either from myself or you. And when I am athirst I will drink, as when I am hungry I will eat. You had best offer your refreshments to our fellow-passengers." The man to whom she spake was but two or three years older than herself--and was her husband, Simeon Larpent, Viscount Fordingbridge. He, too, was well dressed in the travelling costume of the day, wearing a black frock with a gold button, a black waistcoat trimmed with gold, black velvet breeches, and a gold-laced three-cornered hat, while on the table lay a silver-hilted hanger that slid about with every motion of the vessel. In looks he was her equal, being, however, as dark as she was fair, but of well-cut, even features and of a clear complexion. He wore, too, his natural hair, cropped somewhat short as though a wig might in other circumstances be easily assumed, but the absence of this article of dress in no way detracted from his appearance. As her ladyship spoke he darted one swift glance at her from under his eyelids--a glance that seemed to embody in it a full return of all the coldness and contempt with which she had addressed him; and then, acting on her suggestion, he turned to the two other inhabitants of the cabin and said: "Come, Father Sholto, and you, Fane, come and take a sup of the liquor. 'Twill do you both good. Come and drink." "Ah, the drink, the drink," exclaimed the latter, "well, give me a sup. Maybe 'twill appease a qualm. Kitty, me child," turning to Lady Fordingbridge, "why do ye not do as your husband asks? 'Tis a good stomachic--by the powers! how the barky rolls." "I want nothing," her ladyship replied, lifting her eyes to him with almost as contemptuous a glance as when she had previously raised them to her husband, and then relapsing again into silence. "I, too," said the other man, who had been addressed as "Father Sholto," "will take a sup, she does roll badly. Yet, my lord," he said, as he poured some out into a mug that stood by the liquor, "let me persuade you to be more guarded in your expressions. To forget, indeed," he went on, while his cold grey eyes were fixed on the other, "that there is such a person as 'Father Sholto' in existence for the present; that such a well-known ecclesiastic is travelling in your Lordship's esteemed company. For," he continued, after swallowing the liquor at a gulp, "I do assure you--Fane, see that the door of the cabin is fast! and that none of the crew are about!--you could not make your entry into your own country, could not return to make your peace with King George, the Elector of Hanover--with a worse companion in your train than the man who is known as 'Father Sholto.' Therefore----"