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.”