I went straight to Mr. Swain’s chambers in the Circle, where I found the good barrister and Captain Daniel in their shirt-sleeves, seated between the windows in the back room.  Mr. Swain was grave enough when he heard of my talk with Grafton, but the captain swore I was my father’s son (for the fiftieth time since I had come back), and that a man could no more help flying at Grafton’s face than Knipe could resist his legs; or Cynthia his back, if he went into her stall.  I had scarce finished my recital, when Mr. Renwick, the barrister’s clerk, announced Mr. Tucker, which caused Mr. Swain to let out a whistle of surprise.

“So the wind blows from that quarter, Daniel,” said he.  “I thought so.”

Mr. Tucker proved to be the pettifogger into whose hands Grafton had put his affairs, taking them from Mr. Dulany at Mr. Carvel’s death.  The man was all in a sweat, and had hardly got in the door before he began to talk.  He had no less astonishing a proposition to make than this, which he enunciated with much mouthing of the honour and sense of duty of Mr. Grafton Carvel.  His client offered to Mr. Richard Carvel the estate lying in Kent County, embracing thirty-three hundred acres more or less of arable land and woodland, with a fine new house, together with the indented servants and negroes and other chattels thereon.  Mr. Richard Carvel would observe that in making this generous offer for the welfare of his nephew, Mr. Tucker’s client was far beyond the letter of his obligations; wherefore Mr. Grafton Carvel made it contingent upon the acceptance of the estate that his nephew should sign a paper renouncing forever any claims upon the properties of the late Mr. Lionel Carvel.  This condition was so deftly rolled up in law-Latin that I did not understand a word of it until Mr. Swain stated it very briefly in English.  His quiet laugh prodigiously disconcerted the pettifogger, who had before been sufficiently ill at ease in the presence of the great lawyer.  Mr. Tucker blew his nose loudly to hide his confusion.

“And what say you, Richard?” said Mr. Swain, without a shade of accent in his voice.

I bowed my head.  I knew that the honest barrister had read my heart when he spoke of noblesse oblige.  That senseless pride of cast, so deep-rooted in those born in our province, had made itself felt.  To be a factor (so I thought, for I was young) was to renounce my birth.  Until that moment of travail the doctrine of equality had seemed very pretty to me.  Your fine gentleman may talk as nobly as he pleases over his Madeira, and yet would patronize Monsieur Rousseau if he met him; and he takes never a thought of those who knuckle to him every day, and clean his boots and collect his rents.  But when he is tried in the fire, and told suddenly to collect some one else’s rents and curse another’s negroes, he is fainthearted for the experiment.  So it was with me when I had to meet the issue.  I might take Grafton’s offer, and the chance to marry Dorothy was come again.  For by industry the owner of the Kent lands would become rich.