“It is strange how a man may be allowed to inherit from a grandfather he has never seen a trick of manner, or a face which are not the manner or face of his father,” observed Colville, adapting himself, as was his habit, to the humour of his companion. “There must, as you suggest, be some purpose in it. God writes straight on crooked lines, Captain.” Thus Dormer Colville found two points of sympathy with this skipper of a slow coaster, who had never made a mistake at sea nor done an injustice to any one serving under him: a simple faith in the Almighty Purpose and a very honest respect for money. This was the beginning of a sort of alliance between four persons of very different character which was to influence the whole lives of many. They sat on the tarred seat set against the weather-beaten wall of “The Black Sailor” until darkness came stealing in from the sea with the quiet that broods over flat lands, and an unpeopled shore. Colville had many questions to ask and many more which he withheld till a fitter occasion. But he learnt that Frenchman had himself stated his name to be Barebone when he landed, a forlorn and frightened little boy, on this barren shore, and had never departed from that asseveration when he came to learn the English language and marry an English wife. Captain Clubbe told also how Frenchman, for so he continued to be called long after his real name had been written twice in the parish register, had soon after his marriage destroyed the papers carefully preserved by the woman whom he never called mother, though she herself claimed that title. She had supported herself, it appeared, by her needle, and never seemed to want money, which led the villagers to conclude that she had some secret store upon which to draw when in need. She had received letters from France, which were carefully treasured by her until her death, and for long afterward by Frenchman, who finally burnt all at his marriage, saying that he was now an Englishman and wanted to retain no ties with France. At this time, Clubbe remembered, Louis XVIII. was firmly established on the throne of France, the Restoration--known as the Second--having been brought about by the Allied Powers with a high hand after the Hundred Days and the final downfall of Napoleon. Frenchman may well have known that it might be worth his while to return to France and seek fortune there; but he never spoke of this knowledge nor made reference to the recollections of his childhood, which cast a cold reserve over his soul and steeped it with such a deadly hatred of France and all things French, that he desired to sever all memories that might link him with his native country or awake in the hearts of any children he should beget the desire to return thither. A year after his marriage his wife died, and thus her son, left to the care of a lonely and misanthropic father, was brought up a Frenchman after all, and lisped his first words in that tongue.