“Adieu, honourable gentlemen,” said his companion making a reverence
nearly to the earth, as the other slightly touched his hat in passing.
“Adieu, sir Hector,” returned the stranger in green, with an affable
smile and a gracious wave of the hand. He then walked slowly up the
wharf, and disappeared behind the mansion of the Homespuns; leaving the
head of that ancient family, like many a predecessor and many a
successor, so rapt in the admiration of his own good fortune, and so
blinded by his folly, that, while physically he saw to the right and to
the left as well as ever, his mental vision was completely obscured in
the clouds of ambition.
Chapter III.
Alonzo. “Good boatswain, have care.”
_Tempest._
The instant the stranger had separated from the credulous tailor, he
lost his assumed air in one far more natural and sedate. Still it would
seem that thought was an unwonted, or an unwelcome tenant of his mind;
for, switching his boot with his little riding whip, he entered the
principal street of the place with a light step and a wandering eye.
Though his look was unsettled, few of the individuals, whom he passed,
escaped his quick glances; and it was quite apparent, from the hurried
manner in which he began to regard objects, that his mind was not less
active than his body. A stranger thus accoutred, and one bearing about
his person so many evidences of his recent acquaintance with the road,
did not fail to attract the attention of the provident publicans we
have had occasion to mention in our opening chapter. Declining the
civilities of the most favoured of the inn-keepers, he suffered his
steps to be, oddly enough, arrested by the one whose house was the
usual haunt of the hangers-on of the port.
On entering the bar-room of this tavern, as it was called, but which in
the mother country would probably have aspired to be termed no more
than a pot-house he found the hospitable apartment thronged with its
customary revellers. A slight interruption was produced by the
appearance of a guest who was altogether superior, in mien and attire,
to the ordinary customers of the house, but it ceased the moment the
stranger had thrown himself on a bench, and intimated to the host the
nature of his wants. As the latter furnished the required draught, he
made a sort of apology, which was intended for the ears of all his
customers nigh the stranger, for the manner in which an individual, in
the further end of the long narrow room, not only monopolized the
discourse, but appeared to extort the attention of all within hearing
to some portentous legend he was recounting.
“It is the boatswain of the slaver in the outer harbour, squire,” the
worthy disciple of Bacchus concluded; “a man who has followed the water
many a day, and who has seen sights and prodigies enough to fill a
smart volume. Old Bor’us the people call him, though his lawful name is
Jack Nightingale. Is the toddy to the squire’s relish?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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