There was a quiet authority in the speaker's manner that reassured the failing hopes of the passengers, while it caused the attorney and his companion to look round in surprise, and perhaps a little in resentment. A dozen eager voices assured "the gentleman" there was no crime in the matter at all--there was even no just debt, but it was a villanous scheme to compel a wronged ward to release a fraudulent guardian from his liabilities. Though all this was not very clearly explained, it was affirmed with so much zeal and energy as to awaken suspicion, and to increase the interest of the more intelligent portion of the spectators. The attorney surveyed the travelling dress, the appearance of fashion, and the youth of his interrogator, whose years could not exceed five-and-twenty, and his answer was given with an air of superiority.
"Debt or crime, it can matter nothing in the eye of the law."
"It matters much in the view of an honest man," returned the youth with spirit. "One might hesitate about interfering in behalf of a rogue, however ready to exert himself in favour of one who is innocent, perhaps, of every thing but misfortune."
"This looks a little like an attempt at a rescue! I hope we are still in England, and under the protection of English laws?"
"No doubt at all of that, Mr. Seal," put in the captain, who having kept an eye on the officer from a distance, now thought it time to interfere, in order to protect the interests of his owners. "Yonder is England, and that is the Isle of Wight, and the Montauk has hold of an English bottom, and good anchorage it is; no one means to dispute your authority, Mr. Attorney, nor to call in question that of the king. Mr. Blunt merely throws out a suggestion, sir; or rather, a distinction between rogues and honest men; nothing more, depend on it, sir.--Mr. Seal, Mr. Blunt; Mr. Blunt, Mr. Seal. And a thousand pities it is, that a distinction is not more commonly made."
The young man bowed slightly, and with a face flushed, partly with feeling, and partly at finding himself unexpectedly conspicuous among so many strangers, he advanced a little from the quarter-deck group, like one who feels he is required to maintain the ground he has assumed.
"No one can be disposed to question the supremacy of the English laws in this roadstead," he said, "and least of all myself; but you will permit me to doubt the legality of arresting, or in any manner detaining, a wife in virtue of a process issued against the husband."
"A briefless barrister!" muttered Seal to Grab. "I dare say a timely guinea would have silenced the fellow. What is now to be done?"
"The lady must go ashore, and all these matters can be arranged before a magistrate."
"Ay, ay! let her sue out a habeas corpus if she please," added the ready attorney, whom a second survey caused to distrust his first inference. "Justice is blind in England as well as in other countries, and is liable to mistakes; but still she is just. If she does mistake sometimes, she is always ready to repair the wrong."