“An undeniable position, and a feeling conclusion!  I admit the demand to be made in all form, and I suppose these two gentlemen are to be considered as witnesses of its legality.”

“We have come to aid a wronged and distressed relative and guardian, in searching for his misguided ward,” Ludlow answered.

The free-trader turned his eyes on the Patroon, who signified his assent by a silent bow.

“’Tis well, gentlemen; I also admit the testimony.  But though in common believed so worthy a subject for justice, I have hitherto had but little direct communication with the blind deity.  Do the authorities usually give credit to these charges, without some evidence of their truth?”

“Is it denied?”

“You are still in possession of your senses, Captain Ludlow and may freely use them.  But this is an artifice to divert pursuit.  There are other vessels beside the brigantine, and a capricious fair may have sought a protector, even under a pennant of Queen Anne!”

“This is a truth that has been but too obvious to my mind, Mr. Van Beverout,” observed the sententious Patroon.  “It would have been well to have ascertained whether she we seek has not taken some less exceptionable course than this, before we hastily believe that your niece would so easily become the wife of a stranger.”

“Has Mr. Van Staats any hidden meaning in his words, that he speaks ambiguously?” demanded Ludlow.

“A man, conscious of his good intentions, has little occasion to speak equivocally.  I believe, with this reputed smuggler, that la belle Barberie would be more likely to fly with one she has long known, and whom I fear she has but too well esteemed, than with an utter stranger, over whose life there is cast a shade of so dark mystery.”

“If the impression that the lady could yield her esteem with too little discretion, be any excuse for suspicions, then may I advise a search in the manor of Kinderhook!”

“Consent and joy!  The girl need not have stolen to church to become the bride of Oloff Van Staats!” interrupted the Alderman.  “She should have had my benediction on the match, and a fat gift to give it unction.”

“These suspicions are but natural, between men bent on the same object,” resumed the free-trader.  “The officer of the Queen thinks a glance of the eye, from a wilful fair, means admiration of broad lands and rich meadows; and the lord of the manor distrusts the romance of warlike service, and the power of an imagination which roams the sea.  Still may I ask, what is there here, to tempt a proud and courted beauty to forget station, sex, and friends?”

“Caprice and vanity!  There is no answering for a woman’s mind!  Here we bring articles, at great risk and heavy charges, from the farther Indies, to please their fancies, and they change their modes easier than the beaver casts his coat.  Their conceits sadly unsettle trade, and I know not why they may not cause a wilful girl to do any other act of folly.”