“I come into a heritage of friends and of enemies,” said Barebone, gaily—“all ready made. That seems to me more important.”
“Gad! you are right,” exclaimed Colville. “I said you would do the moment I saw you step ashore at Farlingford. You have gone right to the heart of the question at the first bound. It is your friends and your enemies that will give you trouble.”
“More especially my friends,” suggested Loo, with a light laugh.
“Right again,” answered Colville, glancing at him sideways beneath the brim of his hat. And there was a little pause before he spoke again.
“You have probably learnt how to deal with your enemies at sea,” he said thoughtfully at length. “Have you ever noticed how an English ship comes into a foreign harbour and takes her berth at her moorings? There is nothing more characteristic of the nation. And one captain is like another. No doubt you have seen Clubbe do it a hundred times. He comes in, all sail set, and steers straight for the berth he has chosen. And there are always half a dozen men in half a dozen small boats who go out to meet him. They stand up and wave their arms, and point this way and that. They ask a hundred questions, and with their hands round their faces, shout their advice. And in answer to one and the other the Captain looks over the side and says, ‘You be damned.’ That will be the way to deal with some of your friends and all your enemies alike, Barebone, if you mean to get on in France. You will have to look over the side at the people in small boats who are shouting and say, ‘You be damned.’”
They were at the gate of a house now, set down in a clearing amid the pine-trees.
“This is my cousin’s house,” said Dormer Colville. “It is to be your home for the present. And you need not scruple, as she will tell you, to consider it so. It is not a time to think of obligations, you understand, or to consider that you are running into any one’s debt. You may remember that afterward, perhaps, but that is as may be. For the present there is no question of obligations. We are all in the same boat—all playing the same game.”
And he laughed below his breath as he closed the gate with caution; for it was late and the house seemed to hold none but sleepers.
“As for my cousin herself,” he continued, as they went toward the door, “you will find her easy to get on with—a clever woman, and a good-looking one. Du reste—it is not in that direction that your difficulties will lie. You will find it easy enough to get on with the women of the party, I fancy—from what I have observed.”
And again he seemed to be amused.