“You then think the younger most entitled to our belief?”
“Why not; since you, also, think he is a gentleman?”
“I know not that his superior situation in life entitles him to greater credit. Men often obtain such advantages only to abuse them.—I am afraid, sir,” continued Mrs Wyllys, turning to the expecting Wilder, “that unless you see fit to be more frank, we shall be compelled to refuse you our faith, and still persevere in our intention to profit, by the opportunity of the ‘Royal Caroline,’ to get to the Carolinas.”
“From the bottom of my heart, Madam, do I regret the determination.”
“It may still be in your power to change it, by being explicit.”
Wilder appeared to muse, and once or twice his lips moved, as if he were about to speak. Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude awaited his intentions with intense interest; but, after a long and seemingly hesitating pause, he disappointed both, by saying,—
“I am sorry that I have not the ability to make myself better understood. It can only be the fault of my dullness; for I again affirm that the danger is as apparent to my eyes as the sun at noon day.”
“Then we must continue blind, sir,” returned Mrs Wyllys, with a cold salute. “I thank you for your good and kind intentions, but you cannot blame us for not consenting to follow advice which is buried in so much obscurity. Although in our own grounds, we shall be pardoned the rudeness of leaving you. The hour appointed for our departure has now arrived.”
Wilder returned the grave bow of Mrs Wyllys with one quite as formal as her own; though he bent with greater grace, and with more cordiality, to the deep but hurried curtesy of Gertrude Grayson. He remained in the precise spot, however, in which they left him, until he saw them enter the villa; and he even fancied he could catch the anxious expression of another timid glance which the latter threw in his direction, as her light form appeared to float from before his sight. Placing one hand on the wall, the young sailor then leaped into the highway. As his feet struck the ground, the slight shock seemed to awake him from his abstraction, and he became conscious that he stood within six feet of the old mariner, who had now twice stepped so rudely between him and the object he had so much at heart, The latter did not allow him time to give utterance to his disappointment; for he was the first himself to speak.
“Come, brother,” he said, in friendly, confidential tones, and shaking his head, like one who wished to show to his companion that he was aware of the deception he had attempted to practise; “come, brother, you have stood far enough on this tack, and it is time to try another. Ay, I’ve been young myself in my time, and I know what a hard matter it is to give the devil a wide birth, when there is fun to be found in sailing in his company: But old age brings us to our reckonings; and, when the life is getting on short allowance with a poor fellow, he begins to think of being sparing of his tricks, just as water is saved in a ship, when the calms set in, after it has been spilt about decks like rain, for weeks and months on end. Thought comes with gray hairs, and no one is the worse for providing a little of it among his other small stores.”