“Your grandpap, the second earl,” prompted Polly.
“Oh, yes—well, he 'lowed he'd emigrate back to England, but while he was studying how he could do this, along come the war. He said he couldn't afford to fight agin his king, so he pulled out and crossed the mountings to avoid being drug into the army. He said he couldn't let it get around that the Earls of Lambeth was shootin' English soldiers.”
“Of course he couldn't,” agreed Yancy.
“It's been my dream to take Polly and the children and go back to England and see the king about my title. I 'low he'd be some surprised to see us. I'd like to tell him, too, what the Earls of Lambeth done fo' him—that they was always loyal, and thought a heap better of him than their neighbors done, and mebby some better than he deserved. Don't you reckon that not hearin' from us, he's got the notion the Cavendishes has petered out?”
Mr. Yancy considered this likely, and said so.
“You might send him writin' in a letter,” he suggested.
The furious shrieking of a steam-packet's whistle broke in upon them.
“It's another of them hawgs, wantin' all the river!” said Mr. Cavendish, and fled in haste to the steering oar.
During all the long days that followed, Mr. Yancy was forced to own that these titled friends of his were, despite their social position, uncommon white in their treatment of him. The Earl of Lambeth consorted with him in that fine spirit that recognizes the essential brotherhood of man, while his Lady Countess was, as Yancy observed, on the whole, a person of simple and uncorrupted tastes. She habitually went barefoot, both as a matter of comfort and economy, and she smoked her cob-pipe as did those other ladies of Lincoln County who had married into far less exalted stations than her own. He put these simple survivals down to her native goodness of heart, which would not allow of her succumbing to mere pride and vainglory, for he no more doubted their narrative than they, doubted it themselves, which was not at all.