“Ned,” says Mr Martin, looking me straight in the face, “you have been in trouble, and that other than the Inquisition’s. What is’t, lad? Is it wine, or women, or dice? for ’tis these three are the common curses of our young gentlemen here as in England.”
“Sir,” says I, “you have hit it, and yet not altogether, for ’tis a woman that hath brought me to this pass, and yet not as you imagine it, for I pretended to her hand in an honourable manner, and she used me better than I deserved. ’Twas my situation and hers made my pretensions dishonourable.”
“Tush!” says he; “dishonourable honour, what is this? Or do you prefer your doings to be named honourable dishonour? Riddle me no riddles, Ned. Many stumble at a straw and leap over a blocke, and I fear lest your honour have brought you perilous near to dishonour. But tell me your tale, and let me hear of your hairbreadth ’scapes and most disastrous chances, and I’ll help you in so far as my conscience will suffer me. Who is the female you speak of, and how hath she brought you into trouble?”
But this seeming to me to reflect somewhat upon Madam Heliodora, whose name and reputation I must ever hold sacred, I made haste to tell Mr Martin with some heat all my history, which he had picked up wrong from my first words, and he listened with prodigious attention, nodding and wagging his head at times, but saying little.
“Ah, Ned, Ned!” quoth he at last, “I would we had never sent you to Goa, and yet, as the proverb saith, Bought wit is best. Perhaps ’tis these very trials that are to make a man of you in time.”
“Nay, sir, when am I to be a man if not now?” asked I.
“Now? when you are still slighting your solemn engagement with your cousin, and all for the sake of a presumptuous passion that sprung up in a week?” said he. “When you are treasuring all manner of spite against this French lady and her friends for their share in your undoing, and even against that nobleman to whom she is betrothed, that never injured you, save unwittingly by the fact of his living at all? No, lad, I shan’t account you a man until you show yourself one. When you award blame to yourself instead of to these other persons, and are ready to atone, so far as may be, for your fault, then I shall esteem you a man, and worthy to win a woman’s love.”
I was silent from very shame, for Mr Martin had read my thoughts better than I myself, and they looked black enough when he uttered them aloud. He laid his hand upon my shoulder kindly—
“I spake lightly at my first seeing you, Ned, calling you a man grown. This you an’t yet, but I hope to see you one. There is much for you to learn yet, and it may be to suffer, but He runneth far, that never turneth againe.”
Thus did this good man gently admonish me, with all imaginable kindness, at a time when (God knows), I needed both counsel and admonition only too much. For, when working hours was over, and Mr Martin would fain have carried me to his own lodging, there to tarry until my own former chamber could be prepared for me, there come one from his honour the President (to whom Mr Martin had sent intelligence of my return), desiring me to consider myself as suspended from the Company’s service until such time as the Council might sit upon my case, and deliberate whether I was to be restored to my room or not. And this seemed to me but a piece of formality, though a strange one; but Mr Martin looked grave thereat, and showed himself more concerned than I had looked for. Howbeit, he found me a lodging in one of the guest-chambers for that night, and did also send back to me my old servant Loll Duss, whom he had kept all this while in his own service for his faithfulness to me. And at supper I had the honour to make the acquaintance of divers of the gentlemen that were arrived in the factory since I had left Surat, and likewise to present myself afresh to the knowledge of those that I had seen before. The President I did but salute in passing him, and likewise Mr Secretary, that sat at his honour’s table, and possessed his ear. One or two persons among those present (and notably Mr Spender), showed themselves somewhat cold towards me, but the greater part, following the lead of Mr Martin, did discourse with me very agreeably, and were mighty desirous to hear of my adventures.