“Bother!” said the captain, “you need not crow over me. Stand up, Will; there now, look at us two in the glass! Why, I look ten years younger than you do, in spite of all my troubles. I dress like a gentleman, as I am; I have money in my pocket; I put money in yours; without me you’d starve. Look you, you carried over a little fortune to Australia—you married—you farmed—you lived honestly, and yet that d—-d shilly-shally disposition of yours, ‘ticed into one speculation to-day, and scared out of another to-morrow, ruined you!”
“Jerry! Jerry!” cried William, writhing; “don’t—don’t.”
“But it’s all true, and I wants to cure you of preaching. And then, when you were nearly run out, instead of putting a bold face on it, and setting your shoulder to the wheel, you gives it up—you sells what you have—you bolts over, wife and all, to Boston, because some one tells you you can do better in America—you are out of the way when a search is made for you—years ago when you could have benefited yourself and your master’s family without any danger to you or me—nobody can find you; ‘cause why, you could not bear that your old friends in England, or in the colony either, should know that you were turned a slave-driver in Kentucky. You kick up a mutiny among the niggers by moaning over them, instead of keeping ‘em to it—you get kicked out yourself—your wife begs you to go back to Australia, where her relations will do something for you—you work your passage out, looking as ragged as a colt from grass—wife’s uncle don’t like ragged nephews-in-law—wife dies broken-hearted—and you might be breaking stones on the roads with the convicts, if I, myself a convict, had not taken compassion on you. Don’t cry, Will, it is all for your own good—I hates cant! Whereas I, my own master from eighteen, never stooped to serve any other—have dressed like a gentleman—kissed the pretty girls—drove my pheaton—been in all the papers as ‘the celebrated Dashing Jerry’—never wanted a guinea in my pocket, and even when lagged at last, had a pretty little sum in the colonial bank to lighten my misfortunes. I escape,—I bring you over—and here I am, supporting you, and in all probability, the one on whom depends the fate of one of the first families in the country. And you preaches at me, do you? Look you, Will;—in this world, honesty’s nothing without force of character! And so your health!”
Here the captain emptied the rest of the brandy into his glass, drained it at a draught, and, while poor William was wiping his eyes with a ragged blue pocket-handkerchief, rang the bell, and asked what coaches would pass that way to ——-, a seaport town at some distance. On hearing that there was one at six o’clock, the captain ordered the best dinner the larder would afford to be got ready as soon as possible; and, when they were again alone, thus accosted his brother:—
“Now you go back to town—here are four shiners for you. Keep quiet—don’t speak to a soul—don’t put your foot in it, that’s all I beg, and I’ll find out whatever there is to be found. It is damnably out of my way embarking at ——-, but I had best keep clear of Lunnon. And I tell you what, if these youngsters have hopped the twig, there’s another bird on the bough that may prove a goldfinch after all—Young Arthur Beaufort: I hear he is a wild, expensive chap, and one who can’t live without lots of money. Now, it’s easy to frighten a man of that sort, and I sha’n’t have the old lord at his elbow.”
“But I tell you, that I only care for my poor master’s children.”
“Yes; but if they are dead, and by saying they are alive, one can make old age comfortable, there’s no harm in it—eh?”
“I don’t know,” said William, irresolutely. “But certainly it is a hard thing to be so poor at my time of life; and so honest a man as I’ve been, too!”
Captain Smith went a little too far when he said that “honesty’s nothing without force of character.” Still, Honesty has no business to be helpless and draggle-tailed;—she must be active and brisk, and make use of her wits; or, though she keep clear or the prison, ‘tis no very great wonder if she fall on the parish.