Charlotte laughed a little. From her position as the daughter of the Sheriff she knew a little more of the grim realities of crime than did the younger and romantic Adela, whose pretty head was stuffed with a good deal of nonsense. Sheriff Honeyman was very fond of his "little child," as he still called Charlotte, notwithstanding the fact that she had blossomed out into maidenhood of late years, and had left her childhood behind. She was always ready for a clamber along the cliffs with him, or a ride across the bare country on her sure-footed little pony. He talked to her with unusual freedom for those days of his own affairs, and was often amused by her shrewd comments and questions, as well as by her little airs of worldly wisdom and fragments of meditative speculation.
He noted in her with approval, too, an intrepid spirit, and a readiness of resource in moments of emergency, which she had inherited from him. He was sometimes caught in storms when his daughter was with him, both on land and on the sea, and he always admired her fearless spirit on these occasions, as well as her presence of mind and quickness to think and act.
Charlotte had no sister, and her brothers were all away either at school or college; but she was not lonely, for she had always plenty to occupy and amuse her, and for companionship there was ever Adela to be depended on; for Adela was an only child, and was devoted to Charlotte, who seemed to her to be like brother and sister in one.
Adela was the daughter of Mr. Fea, a wealthy gentleman (as wealth was accounted in those days and in those parts) of the island. He owned considerable tracts of land there, and he and Mr. Honeyman were intimate friends as well as near neighbours. In his youth he had been a poor man, but of late years things had greatly prospered with him, and he was accounted only second to Mr. Honeyman in importance in that district. As the two girls were walking up and down, and talking eagerly together over this matter, Mr. Fea himself appeared coming towards them.
Adela at once darted off, all eagerness to tell the news.
"Oh, papa, papa, what do you think! Charlotte says that there is a pirate vessel sheltering in one of the bays of our islands, and that we may all be murdered in our beds any day!"
Adela's face was quite glowing and beaming with excitement, and her father could not forbear a laugh, in which Charlotte joined.
"Well, my dear, that thought seems to give you wonderful pleasure! As the old proverb says, 'there is no accounting for taste!'" Then, turning to Charlotte, he asked: "But what is the sober sense of all this, my dear? What news has come to your father about pirates?"
"It is this, sir," answered Charlotte, turning to him quickly: "a poor seaman came early this morning and asked speech of my father, and when he was admitted he told a most terrible tale. Do you remember there living once in these parts a man of the name of Gow, who afterwards took to a seafaring life?"
"Gow? To be sure I remember him," answered Mr. Fea at once. "He and I were once at the same school—a hot-tempered, rather dangerous lad, of whom nobody spoke well. We were none of us sorry when he shipped himself off to sea. I have never heard of him since."