“You dog, Richard!  You sly rogue!” And he called to Mr. Claude for another bottle on the strength of that, and we pledged the Association.  He peppered me with questions concerning Junius, and Mr. Wilkes, and Mr. Franklin of Philadelphia.  Had I seen him in London?  “I would not doubt a Carvel’s word,” says the captain, “(always excepting Grafton and his line, as usual), but you may duck me on the stool and I comprehend why Mr. Fox and his friends took up with such a young rebel rapscallion as you—­and after the speech you made ’em.”

I astonished him vastly by pointing out that Mr. Fox and his friends cared a deal for place, and not a fig for principle; that my frankness had entertained rather than offended them; and that, having a taste for a bit of wild life and the money to gratify it, and being of a tolerant, easy nature withal, I had contrived to make many friends in that set, without aiming at influence.  Whereat he gave me another lick between the shoulders.

“It was so with Jack,” he cried; “thou art a replica.  He would have made friends with the devil himself.  In the French war, when all the rest of us Royal Americans were squabbling with his Majesty’s officers out of England, and cursing them at mess, they could never be got to fight with Jack, tho’ he gave them ample provocation.  There was Tetherington, of the 22d foot,—­who jeered us for damned provincials, and swaggered through three duels in a week,—­would enter no quarrel with him.  I can hear him say:  ’Damn you, Carvel, you may slap my face and you will, or walk in ahead of me at the general’s dinner and you will, but I like you too well to draw at you.  I would not miss your company at table for all the world.’  And when he was killed,” Captain Daniel continued, lowering his voice, “some of them cried like women, Tetherington among ’em,—­and swore they would rather have lost their commissions at high play.”

We sat talking until the summer’s dusk grew on apace, and one thing this devoted lover of my family told me, which lightened my spirits of the greatest burden that had rested upon them since my calamity befell me.  I had dwelt at length upon my Lord Comyn, and upon the weight of his services to me, and touched upon the sum which I stood in his debt.  The captain interrupted me.

“One day, before your mother died, she sent for me,” said he, “and I came to Carvel Hall.  You were too young to remember.  It was in September, and she was sitting on the seat under the oak she loved so well,—­by Dr. Hilliard’s study.

“The lace shawl your father had given her was around her shoulders, and upon her face was the smile that gave me a pang to see.  For it had something of heaven in it, Richard.  She called me ‘Daniel’ then for the second time in her life.  She bade me be seated beside her.  ‘Daniel,’ she said, ’when I am gone, and father is gone, it is you who will take care of Richard.  I sometimes believe all may not be well then, and that he will need you.’  I knew she was thinking of Grafton,” said the captain. “’I have a little money of my own, Daniel, which I have saved lately with this in view.  I give it into your charge, and if trouble comes to him, my old friend, you will use it as you see fit.’