"The Squire shook with terror; but endeavouring to assume an air of authority, stammered out—'No—no—fellow; I—I know no such person. Begone, sir. Be—begone, I say.'
"'Smash me if I do!' added Jenkins. 'And belike you don't know Polly Danvers, either? Well, perhaps this piece of old junk may sharpen your memory!'
"Wates called upon his servants for assistance.
"'Hands off, ye beggarly swabs! or kiss the boatswain's sister!' continued the sailor, laying lustily around him, and causing the domestics to shrink back. 'Vast there!' he continued, laying hold of the squire, who attempted to escape; 'not so fast—I an't quite done with you yet. Now, you see, I'm an old friend and shipmate of Bill Stanley's; and the day that he was pressed, and you were the cause of it, Bill says to me—'Jack,' says he, 'when I am away, see that no land-shark comes alongside my Polly.' 'Fear nothing, Bill,' says I, 'hang me if I don't—there's my hand on't.' Now, I've been at sea ever since, until the other day, and my old woman tells me that you, you cream-faced scoundrel, not only had the impudence to pull alongside Polly Danvers, but had the audacity to propose——shiver me if I can name it—but take that!'
"And so saying, he began to lay the rope fiercely round the shoulders of his victim; and, as the servants again closed upon the sailor to rescue their master, he dashed them to the ground, to the right and to the left, and finally rushed out of the house, crying—'Who shall say that Jack is the lad that would break his promise?'
"I told you it was a part of the plot of Wates, that his confederate Villars, was to cast old Danvers into prison, on account of the pretended debt. The old landlord was sitting in the parlour of the Old Ship, trembling at the horrors of a jail, and fearing every moment the entrance of a sheriff's officer to arrest him, while his wife and daughter endeavoured to comfort him, and he said mournfully—'Wife, after being married thirty years as we have been, I did not expect that we should have been parted in this way. I did not think that, after toiling in the Old Ship here for twenty years, to save a matter of money for our daughter, I should lose all, and my hair grow white in a prison. But it is of no use mourning about it; for I question if those for whom we wished the money would have thanked us. I know I would not have seen a father or mother of mine dragged to jail like a common thief, if I by any means could have prevented it.' And, as he spoke, he cast a look of sorrow and upbraiding upon Mary, who wept on her mother's shoulder.
"'Don't be cruel, husband,' said his wife; 'how can you distress our daughter? I am sure she can't help the state we are reduced to, any more than I can. But I always said what all your jobbing and trafficking in company with the bankrupt Villars, would end in. I know thou'rt suffering enough, and we are all suffering; but don't be reflecting upon our dear Mary, for a better child never parents had.'
"'I an't making reflections,' replied he, peevishly; 'only I'm saying, I would not have stood so by my father. It is no reflection to say that Mary might have been a lady, and then I am sure I should not have been dragged from the parlour—where I have sat for twenty years—to a dungeon in a jail.'
"'Father!' said Mary, 'what would you have me do? Would you have me become an object for the virtuous to shun, for your enemies to triumph over and despise, and for the abandoned to insult? Would you have me to sell my purity, my peace of mind, my present and eternal happiness, to a miscreant who carries sanctity on his brow, and morality between his teeth, while his heart is a putrid sepulchre? Would you have me do this to save you from a prison?—and to which you have been brought by your own simplicity. To assist you, I will become the servant of servants—I would brush the dust from the shoes of strangers, in this house where I was born. But, while the tear blanches my cheeks for your misfortunes, cause them not to burn with shame.'
"'Why, daughter,' replied he, angrily, 'I don't understand thy high words at all. But though I don't know so much of my dictionary as thou dost, I know those books you read have turned thy head with foolish and high notions. I know you wont have Mr. Wates, because he is a thought oldish, and belike doesn't make love like one of the romance sparks you read about. But, I say, I'm neither blind nor deaf, and, for all that you have said, I know as how it is marriage, and nought else, that Mr. Wates intends. But, rich as he is, you won't have him, but will see your poor old father dragged through the streets, like a thief to a prison. O Mary! it is a sore thing to have an ungrateful child!'