"Sit down, my dear friends," said Colonel Lougher, as soon as the ladies had left the room. "My good nephew's tactics have been rather blunt, and of the Aboukir order. However, he may be quite right if this matter requires at once to be spread abroad. At any rate, my dear boy, I owe you an apology. Rodney, I beg your pardon for the very harsh terms I used to you."
With these words he stood up, and bowed to his nephew; who did the same to him in silence, and then they shook hands warmly. After which the young Captain told his story, to which they all listened intently—five being justices of the shire, and one the lord-lieutenant—all accustomed to examine evidence.
"It seems very likely," said Colonel Lougher, as they waited for his opinion. "That David Llewellyn is a most shrewd fellow. But he ought to have said more about the boat. There is one thing, however, to be done at once—to collect confirmative evidence."
"There is another thing to be done at once," cried Rodney Bluett, warmly—"to pull Chowne's nose. And despite his cloth, I will do it roundly."
"My young friend," said the Lord-Lieutenant; "prove it first. And then, I think, there are some people who would pardon you."
[CHAPTER LXIII.]
POLLY AT HOME.
Lest any one should be surprised that Sir Philip Bampfylde could have paid two visits to this delightful neighbourhood, without calling on our leading gentleman, and his own fellow-officer, Colonel Lougher—in which case the questions concerning Delushy would have been sifted long ago—I had better say at once what it was that stopped him. When the General thought it just worth while, though his hopes were faint about it, to inquire into the twisted story of the wreck on our coast, as given by the celebrated Felix Farley; the first authority he applied to was Coroner Bowles, who had held the inquest. Coroner Bowles told him all he knew (half of which was wrong, of course, by means of Hezekiah) and gave him a letter to Anthony Stew, as the most active and penetrating magistrate of the neighbourhood. Nothing could have been more unlucky. Not only did Stew baffle my desire to be more candid than the day itself, by his official brow-beating, and the antipathy between us—not only did Stew, like an over-sharp fellow, trust one of the biggest rogues unhung—in his unregenerate dissenting days, and before we gave him six dozen, which certainly proved his salvation—(I am sorry to say such things of my present good neighbour, 'Kiah; but here he is now, and subscribes to it) Hezekiah Perkins, whose view of the shipwreck, and learned disquisition on sand, misled the poor Coroner and all of the Jury, except myself, so blindly, that we drowned the five young men, and smothered the baby—not only did Stew, I say, get thus far in bewilderment of the subject, but he utterly ruined all chance of clearing it, by keeping Sir Philip from Candleston Court!
If you ask me how, I can only say, in common fairness to Anthony Stew (who is lately gone, poor fellow, to be cross-examined by somebody sharper even than himself—one to whom I would never afford material for unpleasant questions, by speaking amiss of a man in his power—especially when so needless), in a word, to treat Stew as I hope myself to be treated by survivors, I admit that he may not have wished to keep Sir Philip away from the Colonel. But the former having once accepted Stew's keen hospitality, and tried to eat fish (which I might have bettered, had I known of his being there), felt, with his usual delicacy, that he ought not to visit a man at feud with the host whose salt—and very little else—he was then enjoying. For Mrs Stew was more bitter of course than even her husband against Colonel Lougher, and roundly abused him the very first evening of Sir Philip's stay with them. So that the worthy General passed the gates of the excellent Colonel, half-a-dozen times perhaps, without once passing through them.