“So a' might,” Master Anerley replied; “but without a voice from the belly of a fish, I wunna' believe that He sent Bob Lyth.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
FAREWELL, WIFE AND CHILDREN DEAR
Now Robin Lyth held himself in good esteem; as every honest man is bound to do, or surely the rogues will devour him. Modesty kept him silent as to his merits very often; but the exercise of self-examination made them manifest to himself. As the Yorkshireman said to his minister, when pressed to make daily introspection, “I dare na do it, sir; it sets me up so, and leaveth no chance for my neighbors;” so the great free-trader, in charity for others, forbore to examine himself too much. But without doing that, he was conscious of being as good as Master Anerley; and intended, with equal mind and manner, to state his claim to the daughter's hand.
It was not, therefore, as the farmer thought, any deep sense of illegality which kept him from coming forward now, as a gallant sailor always does; but rather the pressure of sterner business, and the hard necessity of running goods, according to honorable contract. After his narrow escape from outrage upon personal privilege—for the habeas corpus of the Constitution should at least protect a man while making love—it was clear that the field of his duties as a citizen was padlocked against him, until next time. Accordingly he sought the wider bosom of the ever-liberal sea; and leaving the noble Carroway to mourn—or in stricter truth, alas! to swear—away he sailed, at the quartering of the moon, for the land of the genial Dutchman.
Now this was the time when the forces of the realm were mightily gathered together against him. Hitherto there had been much fine feeling on the part of his Majesty's revenue, and a delicate sense of etiquette. All the commanders of the cutters on the coast, of whom and of which there now were three, had met at Carroway's festive board; and, looking at his family, had one and all agreed to let him have the first chance of the good prize-money. It was All-saints' Day of the year gone by when they met and thus enjoyed themselves; and they bade their host appoint his time; and he said he should not want three months. At this they laughed, and gave him twelve; and now the twelve had slipped away.
“I would much rather never have him caught at all,” said Carroway, to his wife, when his year of precaption had expired, “than for any of those fellows to nab him; especially that prig last sent down.”
“So would I, dear; so would I, of course,” replied Mrs. Carroway, who had been all gratitude for their noble self-denial when they made the promise; “what airs they would give themselves! And what could they do with the money? Drink it out! I am sure that the condition of our best tumblers, after they come, is something. People who don't know anything about it always fancy that glass will clean. Glass won't clean, after such men as those; and as for the table—don't talk of it.”
“Two out of the three are gone”—the lieutenant's conscience was not void of offense concerning tables—“gone upon promotion. Everybody gets promotion, if he only does his very best never to deserve it. They ought to have caught Lyth long and long ago. What are such dummies fit for?”