I watched Grafton narrowly.  Such as he never turn pale, but he set down his tea so hastily as to spill the most of it on the dresser.

“Why, you astound me, my dear father!” he faltered; “Mr. Allen a lying hypocrite?  What can he have done?”

“Done!” cried my grandfather, sputtering and red as a cherry with indignation.  “He is as rotten within as a pricked pear, I tell you, sir!  For the sake of retaining the lad in his tuition he came to me and lied, sir, just after I had escaped death, and said that by his influence Richard had become loyal, and set dependence upon Richard’s fear of the shock ’twould give me if he confessed—­Richard, who never told me a falsehood in his life!  And instead of teaching him, he has gamed with the lad at the rectory.  I dare make oath he has treated your son to a like instruction.  ’Slife, sir, and he had his deserts, he would hang from a gibbet at the Town Gate.”

I raised up in bed to see the effect of this on my uncle.  But however the wind veered, Grafton could steer a course.  He got up and began pacing the room, and his agitation my grandfather took for indignation such as his own.

“The dog!” he cried fiercely.  “The villain!  Philip shall leave him to-morrow.  And to think that it was I who moved you to put Richard to him!”

His distress seemed so real that Mr. Carvel replied: 

“No, Grafton, ’twas not your fault.  You were deceived as much as I. You have put your own son to him.  But if I live another twelve hours I shall write his Lordship to remove him.  What!  You shake your head, sir!”

“It will not do,” said my uncle.  “Lord Baltimore has had his reasons for sending such a scoundrel—­he knew what he was, you may be sure, father.  His Lordship, sir, is the most abandoned rake in London, and that unmentionable crime of his but lately in the magazines—­”

“Yes, yes,” my grandfather interrupted; “I have seen it.  But I will publish him in Annapolis.”

My uncle’s answer startled me, so like was it to the argument Colonel Washington himself had used.

“What would you publish, sir?  Mr. Allen will reply that what he did was for the lad’s good, and your own.  He may swear that since Richard mentioned politics no more he had taken his conversion for granted.”

My grandfather groaned, and did not speak, and I saw the futility of attempting to bring Grafton to earth for a while yet.

My uncle had recovered his confidence.  He had hoped, so he said, that I had become a good loyalist:  perchance as I grew older I would see the folly of those who called themselves Patriots.  But my grandfather cried out to him not to bother me then.  And when at last he was gone, of my own volition I proposed to promise Mr. Carvel that, while he lived, I would take no active part in any troubles that might come.  He stopped me with some vehemence.

“I pray God there may be no troubles, lad,” he answered; “but you need give me no promise.  I would rather see you in the Whig ranks than a trimmer, for the Carvels have ever been partisans.”