“Let him wait: there is no necessity for haste. He has probably communicated some of the objects of this extraordinary call on my time, Carnaby; and you can break them, in the intervening moments.”
“I am sorry to say, my lord, that the fellow is as obstinate as a mule. I felt the impropriety of introducing him, personally, to your lordship; but as he insisted he had affairs that would deeply interest you, my lord, I could not take upon me to say, what would be agreeable to your lordship, or what not; and so I was bold enough to write the note.”
“And a very properly expressed note it was, Master Carnaby. I have not received a better worded communication, since my arrival in this colony.”
“I am sure the approbation of your lordship might justly make any man proud! It is the ambition of my life, my lord, to do the duties of my station in a proper manner, and to treat all above me with a suitable respect, my lord, and all below me as in reason bound. If I might presume to think in such a matter, my lord, I should say, that these colonists are no great judges of propriety, in their correspondence, or indeed in any thing else.”
The noble visiter shrugged his shoulder, and threw an expression into his look, that encouraged the retailer to proceed.
“It is just what I think myself, my lord,” he continued, simpering; “but then,” he added, with a condoling and patronizing air, “how should they know any better? England is but an island, after all; and the whole world cannot be born and educated on the same bit of earth.”
“’Twould be inconvenient, Carnaby, if it led to no other unpleasant consequence.”
“Almost, word for word, what I said to Mrs. Carnaby myself, no later than yesterday, my lord, only vastly better expressed. ’Twould be inconvenient, said I, Mrs. Carnaby, to take in the other lodger, for every body cannot live in the same house; which covers, as it were, the ground taken in your lordship’s sentiment. I ought to add, in behalf of the poor woman, that she expressed, on the same occasion, strong regrets that it is reported your lordship will be likely to quit us soon, on your return to old England.”
“That is really a subject on which there is more cause to rejoice than to weep. This imprisoning, or placing within limits, so near a relative of the crown, is an affair that must have unpleasant consequences, and which offends sadly against all propriety.”
“It is awful, my lord! If it be not sacrilege by the law, the greater the shame of the opposition in Parliament, who defeat so many other wholesome regulations, intended for the good of the subject.”
“Faith, I am not sure I may not be driven to join them myself, bad as they are, Carnaby; for this neglect of ministers, not to call it by a worse name, might goad a man to even a more heinous measure.”
“I am sure nobody could blame your lordship, were your lordship to join any body, or any thing, but the French! I have often told Mrs. Carnaby as much as that, in our frequent conversations concerning the unpleasant situation in which your lordship is just now placed.”
“I had not thought the awkward transaction attracted so much notice,” observed the other, evidently wincing under the allusion.
“It attracts it only in a proper and respectful way, my lord. Neither Mrs. Carnaby, nor myself, ever indulges in any of these remarks, but in the most proper and truly English manner.”
“The reservation might palliate a greater error. That word proper is a prudent term, and expresses all one could wish. I had not thought you so intelligent and shrewd a man, Master Carnaby: clever in the way of business, I always knew you to be; but so apt in reason, and so matured in principle, is what I will confess I had not expected. Can you form no conjecture of the business of this man?”
“Not in the least, my lord. I pressed the impropriety of a personal interview; for, though he alluded to some business or other, I scarcely know what, with which he appeared to think your lordship had some connexion, I did not understand him, and we had like to have parted without an explanation.”
“I will not see the fellow.”
“Just as your lordship pleases–I am sure that, after so many little affairs have passed through my hands, I might be safely trusted with this; and I said as much,–but as he positively refused to make me an agent, and he insisted that it was so much to your lordship’s interests–why, I thought, my lord, that perhaps–just now–”
“Show him in.”
Carnaby bowed low and submissively, and after busying himself in placing the chairs aside, and adjusting the table more conveniently for the elbow of his guest, he left the room.
“Where is the man I bid you keep in the shop?” demanded the retailer, in a coarse, authoritative voice, when without; addressing a meek and humble-looking lad, who did the duty of clerk. “I warrant me, he is left in the kitchen, and you have been idling about on the walk! A more heedless and inattentive lad than yourself is not to be found in America, and the sun never rises but I repent having signed your indentures. You shall pay for this, you–”
The appearance of the person he sought, cut short the denunciations of the obsequious grocer and the domestic tyrant. He opened the door, and, having again closed it, left his two visiters together.
Though the degenerate descendant of the great Clarendon had not hesitated to lend his office to cloak the irregular and unlawful trade that was then so prevalent in the American seas, he had paid the sickly but customary deference to virtue, of refusing, on all occasions, to treat personally with its agents. Sheltered behind his official and personal rank, he had soothed his feelings, by tacitly believing that cupidity is less venal when its avenues are hidden, and that in protecting his station from an immediate contact with its ministers, he had discharged an important, and, for one in his situation, an imperative, duty. Unequal to the exercise of virtue itself, he thought he had done enough in preserving some of its seemliness. Though far from paying even this slight homage to decency, in his more ordinary habits, his pride of rank had, on the subject of so coarse a failing, induced him to maintain an appearance which his pride of character would not have suggested. Carnaby was much the most degraded and the lowest of those with whom he ever condescended to communicate directly; and even with him there might have been some scruple, had not his necessities caused him to stoop so far as to accept pecuniary assistance from one he both despised and detested.
When the door opened, therefore, the lord Cornbury rose, and, determined to bring the interview to a speedy issue, he turned to face the individual who entered, with a mien, into which he threw all the distance and hauteur that he thought necessary for such an object. But he encountered, in the mariner of the India-shawl, a very different man from the flattering and obsequious grocer who had just quitted him. Eye met eye; his gaze of authority receiving a look as steady, if not as curious, as his own. It was evident, by the composure of the fine manly frame he saw, that its owner rested his claims on the aristocracy of nature. The noble forgot his acting under the influence of surprise, and his voice expressed as much of admiration as command when he said–
“This, then, is the Skimmer of the Seas!”
“Men call me thus: if a life passed on oceans gives a claim to the title, it has been fairly earned.”
“Your character–I may say that some portions of your history, are not unknown to me. Poor Carnaby, who is a worthy and an industrious man, with a growing family dependent on his exertions, has entreated me to receive you, or there might be less apology for this step than I could wish. Men of a certain rank, Master Skimmer, owe so much to their station, that I rely on your discretion.”
“I have stood in nobler presences, my lord, and found so little change by the honor, that I am not apt to boast of what I see. Some of princely rank have found their profit in my acquaintance.”
“I do not deny your usefulness, Sir; it is only the necessity of prudence, I would urge. There has been, I believe, some sort of implied contract between us–at least, so Carnaby explains the transaction, for I rarely enter into these details, myself–by which you may perhaps feel some right to include me in the list of your customers. Men in high places must respect the laws, and yet it is not always convenient, or even useful, that they should deny themselves every indulgence, which policy would prohibit to the mass. One who has seen as much of life as yourself, needs no explanations on this head; and I cannot doubt, but our present interview will have a satisfactory termination.”