“Ay, sir, but that was in Noll’s days, and we may not call him a _king_ of England, though of a certainty he was her wise and valiant ruler. And for his present majesty, God bless him! that Opdam business was when he was the Duke of York; and he has forgotten all his glory, I think, now that he has become king, and lets the Frenchman and the Don do as they please with our colonists and traders, and the Dutchman, too, for that matter.” The old man paused, and shook his head gravely for a moment, but then resumed with a smile, “So, so, my young friend, you are one of those bold spirits who claim to judge for yourselves, and make peace or war, as you think well, without waiting the slow action of senates or kings, who hold that hemispheres, not treaties, are the measure of hostility or amity.” “Not so, exactly, noble sir. But where we find peace or war, there we take them; and if the Dons wont be quiet on the other side the Line, and our good king wont keep them quiet, why we must either take them as we find them, or give up the great field to them altogether.” “Which you hold to be unEnglish and unmanly?” “Even so, sir.” “Well, I, for one, will not gainsay you. But do not you fear, sometimes that while you are thus stretching a commission—that is the term, I believe, among you liberal gentlemen—you may chance to get your own neck stretched some sultry morning in the Floridas or in Darien.” “One of the very risks I spoke of but now, Sir Miles,” replied the young man, laughing. “My life were not worth five minutes’ purchase if the Governor of St. Augustine, or of Panama either, for that matter, could once lay hold on me.” “I marvel,” said the old cavalier, again shaking his head solemnly, “I marvel much—” and then interrupting himself suddenly in the middle of his sentence, he lapsed into a fit of meditative silence. “At what, if I may be so bold—at what do you so much marvel?” “That William Allan should consent,” replied the cavalier, “that son of his should embark in so wild and stormy a career, in a career which, I should have judged, with his strict principles and somewhat puritanical feeling, he would deem the reverse of gracious or godfearing.” “He knows not what career I follow,” answered the young man, bluntly. “But you are in error altogether, sir. I am no son of William Allan.” “No son of William Allan! Ha! now that I think of it, your features are not his, nor your voice either.” “Nor my body, nor my soul!” replied the other, hastily and hotly, “no more than the free falcon’s are those of the caged linnet! Sometimes I even marvel how it can be that any drop of mutual or common blood should run in our veins; and yet it is so—and I—I—yet no—I do _not_ repent it!” “And wherefore should you? there is no worthier or better man, I do believe, than William Allan living; and, in his younger days at least, I know there was no braver.” “No braver?—indeed! indeed!” exclaimed the young man, eagerly—“was he, indeed, brave?”