Yet when a day or two passed without bringing news of the “little Girl,” he grew uneasy, especially in view of the chance of having to quit the country without a farewell message from her.
“Our vessel is not yet ready,” [he told Robert] “but I expect her every minute, when I shall proceed to France, where I long to be.... I am engaged in a manner very agreeable to myself. I shall have an Opportunity now of exerting myself in my Country’s Cause, which is the height of my Ambition.... If I don’t get a letter from Bell this evening I shall sit down in the morning and write her a Discharge.”
But the coveted letter, delayed, probably, by secret-service Philistines, arrived in the nick of time to prevent so desperate a measure:
“Dear Mother,” [wrote its recipient to Mrs. Jump], “I received your kind Letter Thursday night ... and on Friday Night one from that little Rogue Belle. I have been reading them ever since.... I have wrote a long Letter to Bell, which I hope she will pay some attention to, as I should not write in the manner I have done if she were indifferent to me. Tell her to be a good Girl.... The reason of my stiling you Mother, is, Bob says you have adopted Bell your Daughter, and if she is a good Girl I must call her Sister—or something else.”
At last, after many vexatious delays, the vessel was secured and Hynson set sail for France, the haven of his ambition. But his final thought was for Isabella:
“I have enclosed a letter to my little Girl,” [he wrote to a friend,] “which I shall desire your care of. You will take care it goes to Mrs. Jump.”
And the first mail coming from Havre after Hynson’s arrival there brought under the eye of the English agent a packet for “Miss Isabella Cleghorn”—a long letter full of good-humored chatter about men, women, and fashions, but ending very seriously with this significant passage:
“My Dear Girl: ... I don’t doubt but if I have success my present situation will be very advantageous ... when I shall be able to receive you with open arms. Till then I shall only wish to hear from you. I shall lose no opportunity of writing to you.... Believe me to be at all times, yours affectionately,
JOS. HYNSON.”
So, very simply, moved this obscure love-affair of long ago. Yet the thought that its consequences might involve the destinies of nations may often have passed through its hero’s mind—a mind essentially intriguing and filled with keen ambition untrammelled by doubt. Nor was the man’s assurance without its legitimate base. Trusted, on the one hand with an important mission in his country’s service, promised the care of affairs of yet greater weight, and cognizant of a multitude of secrets of state, Hynson wielded no inconsiderable power. And when, on the other hand, the chief ministers of the throne completed the circle of his influence by making him an object of flattering solicitations, he felt that his hour was indeed come, and wrote, in frank exultation: