“Well, the question now is, what became of Simon Dawson? We know that he left his family and sailed for the West Indies in—ah!—in seventeen—”
“Eighteen hundred and ten,” said the old man, with surprising quickness. “Yes. He got into trouble when he was a lad of sixteen. He took up with bad men older than himself, and became involved in a very terrible affair. It had to do with gaming, and a man was killed. Not in a duel—in those days that would not have been considered disgraceful—though violence is always displeasing to the Lord—but the man was foully murdered and Simon Dawson and his friends fled from justice. Simon fell in with the press-gang and was carried off to sea. He served fifteen years and was then taken by a French privateer. Later on he escaped and—to cut a long story short—got away to Trinidad under another name. Some English people there were kind to him and gave him work on their sugar plantation. He did well there and eventually became owner of a small plantation of his own.”
“What was the name he went by?”
“Harkaway. I suppose he was afraid that they would get hold of him as a deserter from the Navy if he went by his own name. No doubt he should have reported his escape. Anyway, he liked plantation life and was quite satisfied to stay where he was. I don’t suppose he would have cared to go home, even to claim his inheritance. And then, there was always the matter of the murder, you know—though I dare say they would not have brought that trouble up against him, seeing he was so young when it happened and it was not his hand that did the awful deed.”
“His inheritance? Was he the eldest son, then?”
“No. Barnabas was the eldest, but he was killed at Waterloo and left no family. Then there was a second son, Roger, but he died of smallpox as a child. Simon was the third son.”
“Then it was the fourth son who took the estate?”
“Yes, Frederick. He was Henry’s Dawson’s father. They tried, of course, to find out what became of Simon, but in those days it was very difficult, you understand, to get information from foreign places, and Simon had quite disappeared. So they had to pass him over.”
“And what happened to Simon’s children?” asked Parker. “Did he have any?”
The clergyman nodded, and a deep, dusky flush showed under his dark skin.