"Ah, here is some of my own Maryland tobacco and a pipe the Germans call meerschaum; and one word more: you have infinitely obliged me and my wife. God bless you! Good-by! Bon voyage! Your boat is ready, and Captain Biddle is impatient to be gone."
In a few minutes the Marie, wing-and-wing, was flying down the Delaware with the first of the ebb, the skim of ice crackling at her bow and a fair wind after her. They were like enough to carry the ebb-tide with them to the capes or even to outsail it.
De Courval stood on the quarter-deck, in the clear, sharp wintry air, while the sun rose over Jersey and deepened the prevalent reds which had so struck his mother when in May, nine months before, they first saw the city. Now he recalled his sad memories of France, their unhappy poverty in England until their old notary in Paris contrived to send them the few thousand livres with which they had come to Pennsylvania with the hopes which so often deceived the emigrant, and then God had found for them friends. He saw as he thought of them, the German, who held to him some relation of affectionate nearness which was more than friendship and seemed like such as comes, though rarely, when the ties of blood are drawn closer by respect, service, and love. He had ceased to think of the mystery which puzzled many and of which Hamilton and Mr. Justice Wilson were believed to know more than any others. Being of the religion, he had said to Schmidt in a quiet, natural way that their coming together was providential, and the German had said: "Why not? It was provided." Then he saw Gainor Wynne, so sturdy and full of insistent kindness; the strong, decisive nephew; the Quaker homes; all these amazing people; and, somehow with a distinctness no other figure had, the Pearl in the sunlight of an August evening.
The name Margaret fits well—ah—yes. To sing to her the old French verse—there in the garden above the river—well, that would be pleasant—and to hear how it would sound he must try it, being in a happy mood.
The captain turned to listen, for first he whistled the air and then sang:
LE BLASON DE LA MARGUERITE
En Avril où naquit amour,
J'entrai dans son jardin un jour,
Où la beauté d'une fleurette
Me plut sur celles que j'y vis.
Ce ne fut pas la pâquerette,
L'oeillet, la rose, ni le lys:
Ce fut la belle Marguerite,
Qu'au cœur j'aurai toujours écrite.
He laughed. That would hardly do—"au coeur écrite"; but then, it is only a song.
"Well sung," said the captain, not ignorant of French. "Do you sing that to the lady who is written in your heart?"