"Full-rigged, sir; many of 'em, and drawing eight feet at least."
"Eh bien! And the old Inn, madame, it dates, your son tells me, from 1693?"
"We think so, sir, though I have no positive knowledge of its existence before 1750. My husband purchased the place in '94, and it had then been a hostelry for some years, certainly from the middle of the century. But we have made many additions. Danny dear, perhaps it will interest the Marquis if you should take him over the house. We are proud of our old inn, sir."
"And with reason, madame. If monsieur will, I shall be charmed."
"I will leave you then with my son. Give me your arm, Dan, to the parlour. Unfortunately, Monsieur le Marquis, affliction has crippled me and I spend the day in my chair in the blue parlour. I shall be so pleased, if you will come and chat with me. Tommy, you will be staying to dinner with us?"
"Thank you, Mrs. Frost, but I must get to the Port for the day. Mother and Father are leaving by the afternoon stage, if it gets through. They are going to spend the winter in Coventry. But I shall be back to-night as I have promised Dan to spend that time with him."
"We shall be glad to have you, as you know."
Soon after Mrs. Frost had left the breakfast-room and Tom had started forth with horse and sleigh, Dan returned. The Marquis promptly reminded him of the suggestion that he should be taken over the Inn. It seemed to Dan an uninteresting way to entertain his guest and the morning was a busy one. However, he promised to be ready at eleven o'clock to show the Marquis all there was in the old house.
As Dan went about the offices and stables, performing himself much of the work that in prosperous times fell to grooms and hostlers, he found himself thinking about his new guest. Dan knew enough of French history to be aware there were frequent occasions in France when partisans of the various factions, royalist, imperialist, or republican, found it best to expatriate themselves. He knew that in times past many of the most distinguished exiles had found asylum in America. But at the present, he understood, King Louis Philippe, was reigning quietly at the Tuileries and, moreover, the Marquis de Boisdhyver, mysterious as he was, did not suggest the political adventurer of whom Dan as a boy had heard his parents tell such extraordinary tales. In the few years immediately after the final fall of the great Bonaparte there had been an influx of imperialistic supporters in America, some of whom had even found their way to Monday Port and Deal. One of these, Dan remembered, had stayed for some months in '14 or '15 at the Inn at the Red Oak, and it was he whom Tom had recalled the night before as having told them stories of his adventurous exploits in the wars of the Little Corporal. But it was too long after Napoleon's fall to connect his present guest with the imperial exiles. He could imagine no ulterior reason for the Marquis's coming and was inclined to put it down as the caprice of an old restless gentleman who had a genuine mania for solitude. Of solitude, certainly, he was apt to get his fill at the Inn at the Red Oak.
At eleven o'clock he returned to keep his appointment. He found the Marquis established at a small table in the bar by an east window, from which was obtained a view of the Cove, of the sand-dunes along the Neck, and of the open sea beyond. A writing-desk was on the table, ink and quills had been provided, a number of books and papers were strewn about, and Monsieur de Boisdhyver was apparently busy with his correspondence.