CHAPTER XX.
The sun had risen high, the day was bright and beautiful; the green sea was just curled by a light breeze, and the schooner (of which by the way, Captain Longly was undoubtedly a principal owner) skimmed quickly but easily over the waters. Having no nautical knowledge, we shall leave all the particulars of the sailing of the ship to the imagination of our readers, which, in all probability, will do much more for it than anything that we could do, and confine our attention solely to the persons in whose fate we have already endeavoured to interest the world.
Charles Tyrrell and Lucy had been received by the master of the schooner with every sort of bluff attention and respect. A high price had been agreed upon for their passage--a strong recommendation had come from the much reverenced Captain Longly, and Lucy and her lover now sat together near the side of the vessel, while the maid down stairs, with a predetermination of being sick, was indulging her fancy in that respect, and good John Hailes walked up and down the deck as a passenger, and for the first time in his life, perhaps, turned his eyes to the receding shores of his native land with grief, regret, and hopelessness.
When they had thus gone on some way, and their escape seemed perfectly certain, Charles Tyrrell beckoned Hailes toward him, and spoke to him for a moment in a low voice. The man replied aloud:--
"Oh! yes, yes, sir, certainly. God bless you, sir, we are too grateful to you a great deal, for having hidden the matter for such a time, at the risk of your own life, to wish you to hide it any longer. Both I and Captain Longly told Master Morrison to say, you might do just as you pleased, but I'm sure my young lady here ought to know. I wonder you did not tell her before."
"I had taken the resolution," replied Charles Tyrrell, "not to tell anybody one word till either I was out of England, or you and Longly were. But, however, I may tell her now without any breach of confidence."
He then resumed his seat by Lucy Effingham, and told her for the first time the history of his adventures on that day, when, after a violent dispute with his father, he left Sir Francis in the library and hurried away into the park, as we have before shown.
The tale is not very long, but it required various other little incidents to be mingled with it, and we shall not relate it therefore exactly in Charles Tyrrell's own words, but endeavour to abbreviate it as much as possible.
While lying ill at the cottage of Hailes, the fisherman, Charles Tyrrell had been as kindly tended by Hannah Longly, as by any other of the inhabitants of the fisherman's abode, and as he recovered, he heard from Hailes himself a considerable part of her history, which he instantly connected in his own mind with what the officer of the revenue-cutter had told him concerning Lieutenant Hargrave's attempt to carry her off. He found that she was, now an exile from the house of her father, whose indignation at her having listened for a moment to a spy, and an informer, as he termed young Hargrave, was so great, that he vowed she should never enter his doors again. Nothing was said respecting Everard Morrison; and Charles Tyrrell, believing that although Hannah might possibly have acted rather imprudently, she was not near so much to blame as to call upon her head so severe a punishment, determined to do what he could to reconcile Longly to his daughter, by telling him what he had heard of her conduct from the officer of the revenue-cutter.
As soon as he was well enough to ride out, he visited Longly's house several times, but found his undertaking much more difficult to accomplish than he had anticipated. Sometimes Longly could not be found, and at another time there was somebody else present; and even when Charles, at length, had an opportunity of speaking with him in private, he met with a far greater degree of stern and dogged resistance in the old sailor than he had expected.