The boy started; and, as consciousness shot into his glance, it fell upon the soft and speaking countenance of Gertrude.
“Though her beauty be so rare,” he answered with vehemence, “let her not prize it too highly. Woman cannot tame his temper!”
“Is he then so hard of heart? Think you that a question from this fair one would be denied?”
“Hear me, Lady,” he said, with an earnestness that was no less remarkable than the plaintive softness of the tones in which he spoke; “I have seen more, in the last two crowded years of my life, than many youths would witness between childhood and the age of man. This is no place for innocence and beauty. Oh! quit the ship, if you leave it as you came, without a deck to lay your head under!”
“It may be too late to follow such advice,” Mrs Wyllys gravely replied, glancing her eye at the silent Gertrude as she spoke. “But tell me more of this extraordinary vessel. Roderick, you were not born to fill the station in which I find you?”
The boy shook his head, but remained with downcast eyes, apparently not disposed to answer further on such a subject.
“How is it that I find the ‘Dolphin’ bearing different hues to-day from what she did yesterday? and why is it that neither then, nor now, does she resemble in her paint, the slaver of Newport harbour?”
“And why is it,” returned the boy, with a smile in which melancholy struggled powerfully with bitterness “that none can look into the secret heart of him who makes those changes at will? If all remained the same, but the paint of the ship, one might still be happy in her!”
“Then, Roderick, you are not happy: Shall I intercede with Captain Heidegger for your discharge?”
“I could never wish to serve another.”