"What might be her age, now?"
"She will be eighteen next so-and-so," said I, giving him the month.
He suddenly jumped up, and I could not imagine what he meant to do, till pulling open a drawer, he took out a large box of cigars which he placed upon the table.
"Pray, light up, Mr. Barclay," said he, looking to see if the window of his port-hole was open. "They are genuine Havannah cigars." He lighted one himself and proceeded. "What necessity was there for this elopement?"
"Miss Bellassys is an orphan," I answered, still so much astonished that I found myself almost mechanically answering him as though I were in a witness-box, and he was Mr. Justice Parsons in a wig instead of an old, bow-legged, pimple-nosed, merchant skipper. "Her father was Colonel Bellassys, who died some years ago in India. On her mother's death she was taken charge of by her aunt, Lady Amelia Roscoe. Lady Amelia's husband was a gentleman named Withycombe Roscoe, whose estate in Kent adjoined my father's, Sir Herbert Barclay, the engineer."
"D'ye mean the gentleman who built the L—— docks?"
"Yes."
"Oh, indeed!" cried he, looking somewhat impressed. "And how is your father, Mr. Barclay?"
"He died about two years and a half ago," I replied. "But you have asked me for the truth of this elopement, Captain Parsons. There were constant quarrels between my father and Mr. Withycombe Roscoe over a hedge, or wall, or ditch—some matter contemptibly insignificant, but if the value of the few rods or perches of ground had been represented by the National Debt, there could not have been hotter blood, more ill-feeling between them. Litigation was incessant, and I am sorry to say that it still continues, though I should be glad to end it."
"Sort of entailed lawsuit, I suppose?" said the captain, smoking with enjoyment, and listening with interest and respect.