Arrived at Brunswick Stairs, he sent back his boat, giving orders for the coxswain to return in two hours, "For," said he, "I need no accompaniment to-day. What I have to do I can do very well by myself." After which he set out from the river inland towards Stepney, threading, as he did so, some quaint old streets and lanes in which each floor of the houses overlapped the one below it, so that, at last, the top floors almost touched each other. As he progressed he noticed, as often enough he had observed before, with what disfavour he was regarded by all the idlers in the place, including slatternly-looking women leaning against doorposts; rough-looking men who shrunk away, however, directly his eye lighted on them (they, perhaps, thinking that he was appraising their value as "food for the Frenchmen"); and miserable, cadaverous-looking young fellows, some of whom had no hesitation in instantly disappearing into the passages of houses, they being generally those in which they did not happen to live. For all knew that this stalwart young captain, who wore the undress of the new uniform of the Royal Navy (new now for some ten years); whose sword-handle had a gold knot to it, and whose three-cornered hat had in it a gold cockade, was he who, aided by his myrmidons, tore them away from their wives and mothers to roam the seas as well as to fight, and, probably, be killed by some of Conflans' Frenchmen. They knew him well enough for the captain of the "_Migniong_," as they called his craft, and they hated and feared him in consequence. "May he be blasted!" said one hideous, blear-eyed old woman as he passed by, she taking no trouble to lower her voice; "he's got my Jenny's man in his cussed fock'sle even now. And she married to George but two months! He've got a young wife of his own--I seen her ashore with him but yesterday--a sweet young thing too. How'd she like it if som-un ravished 'im away from her!" "Curse him!" said a man, who regarded Geoffrey from behind a blind, he being afraid to show himself, knowing well enough that the captain of the _Mignonne_ would be as like as not to make a mental note of the house if he saw him. "Curse him and his King, too, and all the Lords and Commons. Why should we fight and die for them? They wouldn't do it for us." And he heard much of their mutterings, knew how he was regarded, and regretted that such should be so. But, he told himself, it was duty. It must be done. CHAPTER XI. THE COLONISTS.