What could Lady Ellinor have heard of Roland and his son? Was it possible that the lost lived still? Asking myself these questions, I arrived at our lodgings, and saw the Captain himself before me, busied with the inspection of sundry specimens of the rude necessaries an Australian adventurer requires. There stood the old soldier, by the window, examining narrowly into the temper of hand-saw and tenor-saw, broad axe and drawing-knife; and as I came up to him, he looked at me from under his black brows, with gruff compassion, and said peevishly—
"Fine weapons these for the son of a gentleman!—one bit of steel in the shape of a sword were worth them all."
"Any weapon that conquers fate is noble in the hands of a brave man, uncle!"
"The boy has an answer for everything," quoth the Captain, smiling, as he took out his purse and paid the shopman.
When we were alone, I said to him—"Uncle, you must go and see Lady Ellinor; she desires me to tell you so."
"Pshaw!"
"You will not?"
"No!"
"Uncle, I think that she has something to say to you with regard to—to—pardon me!—to my cousin."
"To Blanche?"