“I shall put an end to this mystery,” said the captain, starting up and going to the door. “Marguerite,” he said, lifting the screen, “send Rozzel Garnet here.”
“He has gone,” replied the voice of the woman. “He went away the moment you entered the room.”
“Sold!” cried Pet, jumping up, and whirling round like a top in her delight. “He has taken you all in—made April-fools of every mother’s son of you! Carried off me, Pet Lawless, for Erminie Germaine! He knew he would be discovered, and now he has fled; and when you see last night’s wind again, you will see him. Oh! I declare if it’s not the best joke I have heard this month of Sundays!”
And overcome by the (to her) irresistibly ludicrous discovery, of how the smugglers had been “sold” by one of themselves, Pet fell back, laughing uproariously.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
HOME FROM SEA.
“The dark-blue jacket that enfolds the sailor’s manly breast Bears more of real honor than the star and ermine vest; The tithe of folly in his head may wake the landsman’s mirth, But Nature proudly owns him as her child of sterling worth.” —Eliza Cook.
“Clear the track! off we go! whip up old lazybones there, and don’t let him crawl on at that snail’s pace! That’s more like; now for it, at five knots an hour! It’s pleasant to see the old familiar faces again, after knocking about in strange ports for half a dozen years—don’t you think so, messmate?” and the speaker, a dashing, handsome, good-humored-looking young fellow, with the unmistakable air of a sailor about him, gave his fellow-passenger, an elderly, cross-looking old gentleman, who sat beside him on the roof of the stage-coach, a confidential dig with his elbow, that nearly pushed him, head-first, out of his seat.
“Lord bless my soul! young man, there’s no necessity for breaking a man’s ribs about it—is there?” said the old gentleman, snappishly. “I dare say, it’s all very nice, but you needn’t dislocate your neighbor’s bones about it. Do you belong to this place?” asked the old man, after a short pause, during which his companion had politely apologized for the unnecessary force of the blow in the ribs.
“Yes, sir,” said the young man, with emphasis, “that I do! and in all my rambles round the world, I never saw a place I liked better! No place like home, you know. Hurrah! for good old Judestown!”