“So I am; but that isn’t saying that I’m infallible, is it? If we get whipped, maybe we’ll wish we hadn’t been quite so peart in stirring up old England—Hallo! there’s a boat coming in. It’s your father, Miss Rhoda, and Uncle Tom, and a stranger.”
The small vessel containing the new arrivals now gracefully approached the landing, and in a moment Rhoda was welcoming her father, Joe was rapidly putting questions, while before Lettice, who was standing shyly apart, was bowing the young gentleman of her dreams. “Fair Miss Lettice, this is a very happy meeting,” said young Mr. Robert Clinton. “I am fortunate to have arrived in time for a jubilee. What is the occasion? a birthday?”
“No special occasion; it is but one of the frolics we often have. Mr. Sam Osborne has built a new barn, and the young people in the neighborhood are going to have a dance there this evening. We have just been having a crab supper.”
“Am I too late for scraps?”
“No, there is an abundance left. I will order Bounce to get you all something.”
“Don’t run away.”
“I will come back. I must see if my father sent me a message.” She approached her Uncle Tom, having stopped to bid Bounce serve the gentlemen with the best that was left of the feast.
“Free trade and sailor’s rights! that is the cry,” her uncle was saying, and on the other side, Mr. Kendall replied, “As our great Josiah Quincy says, sir, ‘we’re not going to be kicked into a war.’ Sailor’s rights, indeed! Where is your navy?”
“There,” Mr. Hopkins waved his hand toward the blue Chesapeake dotted with the white sails of her schooners and clippers.
Mr. Kendall smiled sarcastically. “And your marines?”