“Ay, sir, and there at any rate I shall feel comfortable in the thought that the wine has paid duty, which, I give you my word, is what I have not felt in any other house in the neighborhood, public or private, since I arrived here.”
But at these words a sudden and singular alteration had occurred in the parson’s features. He seemed to remember the office of the person to whom he was speaking, and to become more reserved.
“Ay, sir, certainly,” was all he said.
The lieutenant went on, with a return to the bitterness he had shown while discussing the subject of smugglers with Miss Joan.
“And as the squire is a justice of the peace, whose duty it is to punish evil-doers, I may at last hope, under his roof, to meet with some sympathy with the objects of justice, such as one expects from all right-thinking people.”
“Why, sir, certainly,” said Parson Langney again, somewhat more dryly than before. And then, turning to his daughter, he added briskly, “Come, Joan, we must be returning. The lad below will do very well now, sir, with quiet, and the physic I have left for him. And I’ll pay him another visit in a day or two.”
As he addressed these last words to the lieutenant, the parson was already preparing to lower himself into the boat which had brought him. He seemed in haste to be gone.
Lieutenant Tregenna then helped the young lady down into the boat, giving her as he did so a somewhat piqued and resentful glance, which, however, she demurely refused to meet with a return look from her own black eyes until she was safely in the little boat beside her father.
Then, as the small craft was tossing amidst the spray from the larger one, she did look up, with the struggling moonlight full upon her face, at the handsome young commander, on whom a touch of youthful arrogance sat not unbecomingly.
And Lieutenant Tregenna, as he saluted and watched the little boat, and in particular its fair occupant, was irritated and incensed beyond measure by what he took for an expression of merry defiance in her bright eyes.