Hoare and the headless Captains

Chapter IV

The Chaise's driver found the steep scarp leading down into Weymouth town a hard stretch to manage. At last, he had Hoare and Thoday disembark.

"I won't have you gentlemen's blood on my hands if she oversets," he said. At the foot of the scarp, however, he let them back aboard, so they were able to enter Weymouth in dignity instead of dust.

The depressing piles of neglected construction materials that Hoare had noted in the streets last summer had merely grown more grass. It was questionable if the King in Kew, sane again now but still bewildered, would soon return to his favorite watering place. But Hoare knew where he was now, so he could direct the driver to the Dish of Sprats. There Hoare dismissed him, telling him to return early Monday.

Joseph Parker, proprietor of the Dish, recognized Hoare and seemed pleased to see him again. Parker evidently viewed him and Titus Thoday as men of equal standing, for Thoday's appearance greatly belied his station.

Nonetheless, Hoare surprised his host by calling for two rooms instead of sharing one with his companion. Hoare was ready to travel with Thoday and dine at the same table with him but drew the line at sleeping with an enlisted man when he need not.

Before leaving the Dish of Sprats, Hoare suggested to Thoday that he see what the folk in the town hall might have to contribute about the Nine Stones Circle affair. Hoare himself planned to call on Mrs. Eleanor Graves, then board the cutter Walpole for a glass of Captain Israel Popham's burgundy and some information.

At his own assignment, Thoday demurred. "I think, sir, that we would be well advised to leave the world of clerks and countinghouses to Mr. Rabbett when he arrives. After all, that is the world of his calling, just as this district is more or less his geographic world. I have lines of my own that I might be better employed in following."

Thoday did not choose to be more specific, but Hoare must agree with his observation about Rabbett, so he changed his order to Thoday accordingly. Moreover, Hoare knew that word of his return to Weymouth would reach Sir Thomas Frobisher's ears within minutes, if it had not already done so. The Knight-Baronet would have instructed every one of the town's functionaries to cast every possible impediment in Hoare's way. So he withdrew to prepare himself, by sluicing his head and combing his coarse hair, for his next piece of business: paying a call upon the woman who held his heart.

Eleanor Graves still wore the dull black of mourning for her murdered husband, Simon. It did not suit her sallow complexion, but then, Hoare admitted to himself, he had yet to see her becomingly clad. She received him in the drawing room of the house she had shared with her late husband, sitting on her customary round, resilient tuffet. As usual, she looked rather round and resilient herself Once again, Hoare was amazed at how dearly he had come to love her.

She was accompanied by a family of three ill-assorted cats. A strange rumble filled the room, as if the tumbrels of the Terror were passing in the cobbled street outside. The kitten, a glossy, tidy little black beast, was attacking the tuft at the end of its mother's tail. It resembled its mother not at all; the latter was large, awkward, and flustered and bore random growths of whitish fluff on her body and limbs. An enormous gray animal crouched beside Mrs. Graves, watching his family and giving off a benign thunderous purr. This, then, was the source of the tumbrel sound.

Hoare reached down a hand as he passed the gray beast. It stretched up its head to meet the hand; the tumbrels seemed to draw nigh as they bore pinioned royalty to a ghostly guillotine.

Mrs. Graves pointed at the kitten after allowing her hand to be kissed. "Order," she said. "Out of Chaos." She pointed at the mother. "By Jove," she said, indicating the monster.

"Jupiter tonans, as I can hear," Hoare whispered.

"What happened to the rest of the litter?" he inquired.

"I cannot say," she said. "The dam, Chaos, would have no faintest idea. You might inquire of Order.

"But I must ask you how you do, Mr. Hoare, or, I should have said, Captain Hoare," she added. "And what brings you to Weymouth?"

"I do well enough, thank you," he said. "Once again, it is a crime that brings me."

"Leaving your little yacht behind?"

"I came by land this time and left Alecto behind."

"Now you have named the poor inoffensive thing after a Fury," she said. "Why, pray?"

"She has towed behind Royal Duke since I took command of the brig, dogging her trail as if she were one of the three dire sisters pursuing Orestes."

"An unkindness to both vessels, it would seem to me. My felicitations on your advancement, just the same. My friend Miss Austen apprised me of it, though you did not condescend to do so. But there… How does little Jenny do?" she asked.

"The landlord's Susan is caring for her well enough, teaching her her manners and watching her diet," Hoare said, "but I am not in the child's good books just now… for I must now sleep aboard my command, as is required of all Masters and Commanders in the Service, and may no longer lodge at the Swallowed Anchor. So I am rarely there to see her to her bed and give her her nightly blessing. She is not amused.

"Also, I have placed her in a dame school, for it seems she has never been taught her letters. She objected very strongly, until I promised her a kitten if she learned to write… her alphabet. So just now, I imagine, she is sitting at the inn kitchen table, her little tongue stuck out, struggling bravely. I am told that she has now reached K; it may be so."

"K stands for 'kitten,' I suppose. Hmmm," Mrs. Graves said. "I have sealed Order's fate, then."

"Which one of the Fates deals with kittens?" Hoare asked.

Eleanor Graves put her head on one side thoughtfully. "All three of them, I should say. But surely not Atropos in this matter, Mr. Hoare-"

"Bartholomew, please… Eleanor."

"Very well. Bartholomew, then. For Atropos decides the time of one's death. And I cannot be Clotho, who spins the thread. Clotho must be Chaos, the creature's dam. I must then, must I not, be Lachesis, who measures the kitten's life? Well, I shall assume the role. Order is yours, then, to take to Miss Jenny when you believe your fosterling is ready."

"I hope Order and her new mistress will come back to you soon afterward," Hoare said.

"Not yet, Bartholomew, not yet," she murmured.

"Er, no. I agree. First, Jenny must earn her kitten," Hoare whispered.

"That is not precisely what I meant, Bartholomew."

Eleanor Graves offered Hoare tea, which was brought by an old acquaintance, Eleanor's abigail, Agnes. The widow seemed pleased rather than otherwise to know he would be remaining in the area for some days but did not probe into the nature of the crime he had mentioned. She did not invite him to dine.

Perhaps, Hoare thought, as he proceeded on his next errand, he had made some progress in his campaign for Eleanor Graves's hand. She had not objected to his using her Christian name and had willingly adopted the use of his own. She had quietly accepted his offer to accompany her to church tomorrow, it being a Sunday. She could hardly know he was no churchgoer.

Captain Israel Popham of the revenue cutter Walpole, a lieutenant in the Customs Service-his "Captaincy," like Hoare's own, being the mere courtesy due his command- received him like the old friend he was. After toasting Hoare's new swab in his own fine contraband Bordeaux, he sat back to hear what his guest might have to say. At Hoare's mention of the Nine Stones Circle, he whistled softly and thoughtfully.

"That's a very interesting spot, sir, on several counts. You've been there, I take it?"

Hoare nodded.

"Then you know it has an unearthly air about it, as though the spirits of the old… but I wax poetic. It's an odd place, to be sure, and the folk thereabouts steer clear of it, especially of nights. Especially of a moonlight night. Ghosts walk there, they believe.

"Now, I know for certain that there are those of the Upright Men who make use of that superstition as a cover for their work. My predecessor in Walpole told me of catching a gang of 'em sorting out a cargo in the Circle itself.

"I'll tell you who would have more to tell you about the place. He's an acquaintance of yours, in fact."

Popham paused for a sip and watched his guest, evidently waiting for his curiosity to get the better of him.

"Very well, Mr. Popham, who?" Hoare whispered at last.

"Dunaway, that's who. Abel Dunaway," Popham said. "You may remember fishing him and a friend out of the Channels t'other day."

"I'll be damned," Hoare whispered.

"Yes. The old rascal and I are ancient adversaries. He wins some, I win some, and nobody's hurt-so far, at least. He's probably won more than I know of. As long as Sir Thomas Fat-Arse is the law hereabouts, Dunaway's safe enough in the courts. Just the same, a bad little bird chirped in my ear not so long ago, and my men took up a nice parcel of his brandy. Have a drop?"

Hoare demurred.

"Speaking of birds," he said, "one of them told me that Dunaway's passenger-Jamie, he called himself-had an odd accent… As though he were French, perhaps, trying to talk cant. And the lugger bore a cargo of pigeons. I saw them escape."

"Oho!" Popham said. "Was Dunaway outward bound, d'you think, or homeward?"

"Homeward would be my guess, though I cannot be sure. I never thought to ask. He and his man, or his passenger, would still have been clean-shaven, wouldn't they, if they were fresh from home?"

"I'd imagine so. In that case, old Dunaway is getting into deeper waters than he should, wouldn't you say? Perhaps your waters rather than mine?"

"It might be," Hoare said.

"I wouldn't take it amiss if someone were to pass him a friendly warning, if so," Popham observed.

"I'll do so gladly, since I want to chat with him in this other matter. If you'll give me his whereabouts," Hoare said.

"Well, I hear he's been flitting up and down the coast between Plymouth and Dymchurch, looking for a vessel to replace his lost Fancy. When he settles, it's usually within hail of the White Hart along the shore there, under the castle. Weaver's woman there brews the finest ale in Dorset. It would be a kindness, Captain, for you to speak with him. After all, his regular trade is all in the day's work, so to speak. So long as he don't overreach himself, there's no one the loser. Except King George, of course."

"I said as much to the man's face," Hoare said.

The two King's officers laughed, touched glasses and tossed them off, and bade each other farewell. Hoare went ashore to find Dunaway's lair.

• • •

Weaver at the White Hart denied all knowledge of anyone named Dunaway until he learned that Hoare had been the man responsible for saving the latter's life and that of his passenger. He then revealed that while Jamie had long since gone, Dunaway might be only down the road a piece, over to Easton, where he had heard a suitable vessel might be found. He should return any moment now. Meanwhile, would the officer care for a spot of the needful?

Hoare's stomach rumbled, reminding him that he had had nothing to eat since breakfast in Dorchester.

"You brew your own ale, Mr. Weaver, I think."

"Indeed. My old woman's ale is what brings Mr. Dunaway to our doorstep, and many another besides, if I do say so."

"A mug of her ale, then, and a platter of eggs, if you please."

The proprietor and his potboy were a bit greasy for Hoare's taste, but the White Hart's ale was as rich as had been promised and vanished quickly. Just as the last scrap of Hoare's egg followed it, Dunaway appeared in the doorway. Shaven now and clad in a neat blue coat, he looked just as prosperous as if he had not lost his ship. Hoare rose to greet him.

"You'll 'a' come for the clothing you lent me," Dunaway said.

"Not so, Mr. Dunaway," Hoare whispered. "I have quite a different purpose in mind. Two purposes, in fact: a warning and a question. Ale first. You look dry."

"Drier than I were when last we met," Dunaway said.

"And prosperous as well, if I may say so, for a Captain who has just lost his ship," Hoare said.

"My only real loss, sir, was the boy Jethro Slee," said Dunaway, taking up his mug. "Your good health, Captain, and thankee once again.

"Jethro were my partner's only boy, and he took the loss mortal hard. 'Twere my fault, me most grievous fault. I were a fule not to 'a' taken another 'and aboard, if not two.

"No, for the rest of it, I were mortal sad to lose me little Fancy lugger, for she'd been mine these ten years past, and me da's before me. But for a truth she was old and tired, and I'd insured 'er well. For more than 'er worth, fact is."

"Insured? At Lloyd's, Mr. Dunaway?" Hoare asked incredulously. "Do the names at Lloyd's offer coverage to smugglers, then?… If so, how about highwaymen? Or pirates? Or slavers, or wreckers, eh?"

"Now, Captain, be easy," Dunaway said reprovingly. "That 'wrecker' bit be nothin' more than a tale put about. No one on these shores beguiles the ships ashore. They's enough of'em come ashore of a winter, without our help. Salvage, yes. Who's to say a poor man can't pick up what 'e may along the beach once 'e's wore out a-savin' of life, like you done for me, sir?"

"Beg pardon, Mr. Dunaway," Hoare said, and meant it.

"Nor 'ave them fine London gentlemen at Lloyd's aught to do with affairs down 'ere. 'Tis Sir Thomas Frobisher insures us… fishermen. Aye, and makes a tidy shillin' from the business, mostly.

"I'll say this for 'im: when I showed up on his doorstep the very day you set us ashore, 'e took the news like a game chicken. 'E went straight to his strongbox and counted out the notes an' the guineas then and there, an' 'anded 'em over without so much as blinking them goggle eyes of his. So I'll be at sea again within the week, mark my word."

Hoare was of no mind to reveal his astonishment at this news.

"I hope so," he said, "and may your new craft be as long-lived as your Fancy lugger was." He sighed. He felt oddly reluctant to broach the matter of Jamie and the pigeons with Dunaway.

"Now for the warning, Mr, Dunaway," he said at last. "As I said the other day, sir, I have no wish to pry into the details of your trade. But I must tell you I saw a flock of birds leave your lugger

… just before I took you and your passenger aboard. Having seen… a similar flock elsewhere recently, I am quite certain that the birds were pigeons. Carrier pigeons, Mr. Dunaway, I would guess, being brought over from France.

"I have my doubts about your man Jamie and his bona fides. The jabber he talked to me was supposed to be London cant, but it was nothing but gibberish. I think he was no Englishman, Mr. Dunaway."

Hoare paused. Dunaway reddened and looked pensively out the window beside them. At length, he returned his gaze to Hoare.

"If 'twere not for the debt I owe you, sir, I'd as lief lie, to be square with you. But I'll not, for my life has been in your 'ands. An' the thing will never come to pass again, any gate.

"French 'e was, indeed, part of a package give me by a lass in Arromanches. Nay, I lie; she were no lass, but a comfortable armful. Besotted, I were, an' ready to do aught she asked of me. So, when she asked me to bring over that lad Jamie an' his coteful of pigeons, I thought nowt of it but took him aboard.

" 'Tweren't till we was well into mid-Channel that I found Master 'Jamie' was no more an Englishman than he was a blackamoor. Frenchman, more like, for all his London cant, or mebbe one of them Irish followers of Wolfe Tone. An' no sailor any gate, as me an' poor Jethro learned to his cost. So I resolved to 'ave nowt to do with him an' his pigeons, more'n land 'im wherever I could, as soon as I could.

"Well, sir, as it coom out, 'twas you as landed 'im an' not me. I never saw 'im again, nor wanted to.

"I'd not do it again, Mr. Hoare. I'm a loyal Englishman, I am, and I'll have no trook wi' treason. God save King George! Poor loony that he is. That's what I say. That's me word, and me word's me bond."

To put an end to the topic, Dunaway hailed the White Hart's greasy potboy and ordered another round. Thinking on the smuggler's straightforward tale, Hoare felt compelled to believe it. In his judgment, there were honest criminals and dishonest ones, and he had known his share of both. For certain, Abel Dunaway was one of the former.

"I'll drink to your decision, Mr. Dunaway," he whispered, and kept his word.

Refreshed, Dunaway cocked an inquiring eye at Hoare.

"And the question you had for me?" he asked.

"About the Nine Stones Circle, Mr. Dunaway. Captain Popham of the excise cutter Walpole…"

Dunaway chuckled.

"The ol' rascal'll 'a' told you we be friends for donkey's years, 'e and I. 'E's won some; I've won some. More than 'e might know of, I'll warrant."

Hoare burst into one of his rare fits of silent laughter. He had once overheard a Portsmouth popinjay remark about Hoare's laugh that it "sounded like one hand clapping." The concept, especially coming from such a source, had left Hoare bemused for some days.

"He used almost the same words about you, if you'd like to know," Hoare said. "In any case, Popham tells me you know the Nine Stones Circle better than most."

"I'd warrant 'e's right, Captain. It makes for a good place to break up cargo, bein' out in the open as it is, where a man's not easy crept up on. Though it's been known.

" 'Appen Popham will 'a' told you 'ow 'e and his men nabbed me and mine, full fair."

"He told me he had done so, but not how."

"Well, 'twere this way. Look 'ere. These crumbs be the stones, see?"

With crumbs, forks, and a saltcellar, Dunaway took Hoare through the moonlit encounter, showing him where the excisemen had lain in wait; how, all unsuspecting, he had led a caravan of laden ponies into the Circle; how the other, smaller caravans he was to meet had arrived; and how, as the work was in full swing, Popham, who had hidden his excisemen in a fold of the down, had sprung the trap on him.

" 'E gathered in most of the goods that time, an' a good half of me boys to boot. 'E be a smart one all right, Popham be, an' he showed it that night. But he never would ha' twigged to us but for a dirty little man what got greedy an' blew the gaff."

Hoare was not certain he wanted to hear what happened to the greedy little man.

"Mislaid his bollocks, 'e did." Dunaway fixed Hoare with a meaningful eye. " 'Is dollymop, what led him astray in the first place, found 'em on 'er doorstep one mornin', stuck in his mouth.

"She weren't 'alf-surprised," he said in conclusion. "Picked up and run off to London, I 'ear."

The greasy potboy made to wipe the Nine Stones Circle away with a grubby cloth, but Hoare forestalled him. "Will you sketch that out for me?" he asked.

When Dunaway assented, Hoare had the boy bring paper and writing materials. Dunaway laboriously copied his work, his tongue writhing about as he drew, as if he were the child Jenny struggling with forming her letters.

"Tell me," Hoare asked, "do you know where I might conceal a party of my men on the way to the Circle-a dozen of them, say?"

Dunaway thought, but not for long.

"Why, yes," he said. "I've a barn-a smallish one an' poor, for I farm very little these days-t'other side of my land at Langton Herring. Yer welcome to shelter yer men there, so long as ye'll give me yer word they'll not be used against me or my lads."

"You have my word once again, Mr. Dunaway," Hoare replied. "I still care less than nothing for your men's doings, so long as they do not aid the King's enemies."

Hoare had Dunaway draw another map.

"When will ye be wantin' the place?"

"There's a difficulty there, sir, for I cannot now say. I may have no word of any doings in the Stone Circle before it's too late to pass you the word…"

Hoare took breath.

"… What then? What if your lads and mine were to find each other there the same night?"

Dunaway chuckled. "That would make a fair do, wouldn't it, now?"

Again he ruminated, long enough, this time, to empty his tankard.

"Tell ye what. We've a signal. Since yer a master of odd noises, no offense meant, sir-"

"And none taken. So I am, I trust."

"Well, here 'tis." Pursing his lips, Dunaway made a rattling sound rather like the call of a corncrake. He made it again, in a higher register. Hoare noticed that the publican's ears seemed to prick up.

"Try it yerself."

On Hoare's third try, Dunaway deemed him proficient enough.

"Mind you," he said, "we change our signal every month or so, lest it leak out to the wrong folk. So ye'll need to pass this way at least that often, as long as yer likely to need it."

"It will be my pleasure," said Bartholomew Hoare.

At last, he let the potboy bring a stirrup cup and give rein to his unwonted sense of order by erasing the Circle of crumbs. The stirrup cup drained, the two dissimilar seamen parted with a firm seamanly handshake and what Hoare felt to be a mutual esteem.

Hoare and Thoday dined together, in almost complete companionable silence, at and on the Dish of Sprats. Thoday was unique in Hoare's experience. He was obviously well educated as well as arrogant. Hoare thought him most likely a Papist, which, of course, debarred him from commissioned rank in His Majesty's service. Why had he chosen to enlist? For it was most unlikely that a man of his education, and one of Sir John Fielding's men at that, would have been pressed. Family troubles, perhaps? In any case, Thoday's manner was not one that encouraged intimacy, and besides, it was none of Hoare's business.

Their two rooms at the top of the inn adjoined. Through the thin wall, just as he was composing himself for sleep, Hoare heard the plaintive sound of a violin, expertly and tenderly played. Listening, he drifted off. Tomorrow was Sunday; he would be in Eleanor Graves's company once again.

As Hoare descended the stairs the next morning, Titus Thoday was finishing his breakfast in the inn's common room. Hoare helped himself from the sideboard and joined his colleague.

"Was I dreaming last night, Thoday, or did I hear the sound of a violin coming from your room?"

To Hoare's astonishment, the man blushed, albeit faintly.

"You did, sir. I am sorry if my improvisations disturbed you.

"Not at all. They were something of a lullaby, in fact. But where did you…"

Thoday smiled, reached into his coattails, and extracted a kit fiddle and its half-sized bow, the sort that dancing masters carried. Tucking the tiny instrument under his chin, he tuned it quickly and, tapping his foot, launched into a hornpipe. At the conclusion, Hoare heard clapping hands from across the room.

"Bravo!" cried a merchantlike man at a table on the far side of the room. His portly wife smiled at her husband.

"Makes you want to caper a bit, does it not, Sam?" she asked.

"Reminds me of happy days," her husband replied.

"I shall be attending morning prayer at St. Ninian's," Hoare told Thoday. "If you'd care…"

"Thank you, sir, but no," the gunner replied, as Hoare had known he would. "I fear I do not subscribe to all the Thirty-nine Articles."

"Nor do I. But after all, the proprieties must be observed by someone. And if not by His Majesty's officers, then by whom?" With that, Hoare donned his hat, examined himself in the mirror that stood just inside the inn door, and-satisfied that he looked as seemly as he could, given the features the Almighty had given him-walked through the brisk air up the gentle cobbled slope to the Graves residence.

Eleanor Graves awaited her escort, Agnes at her side.

"You put yourself to unnecessary trouble, Bartholomew," Eleanor said when Hoare hove into sight. "I could well have walked to church without your protection. After all, Mr. Moreau's gang is long since dispersed, and I stand in no danger."

She forbore to say, Hoare noticed, that it was the activities of her late husband that had put her in danger when they first met, that those activities had ceased with Dr. Simon Graves's death, and that the danger had therefore disappeared. Hoare forbore to remind her. As far as he was concerned, the less reason she had to remember her dead husband and the manner of his going, the better.

"And how does Order behave herself this morning?" he asked as they walked back down the slope, followed by Agnes.

"As well as can be expected," she replied, "considering that Order is male. And, to answer your next question, his dam, Chaos, is also in good spirits, though as I felt her, she was unable to decide whether to attack my knitting or rest. And Jove was nodding. And I am quite well, as are Agnes-are you not, Agnes? — and my servant Tom. And the cook."

"But you seem somewhat out of sorts this morning," Hoare said.

"I am, Bartholomew, and you are indirectly the cause."

"Please?"

"After you left my house yesterday evening," she said, "Sir Thomas Frobisher was kind enough to call, despite the lateness of the hour. He had the effrontery to accuse me of misjudgment, if not worse, for having received you in my house so soon after Simon's death, if at all. He had heard the neighbors speaking of it. He spoke, of course, he said, as one who must view himself as being in loco parentis.

" 'In loco parentis,' indeed! He knows perfectly well that both my parents are perfectly well, considering their age. He's nearer their age than mine. Furthermore, he maintained that I was imperiling my soul."

She tossed her glossy brown head.

"My soul, for pity's sake! I have no more soul than the cat, Chaos! If I do, then where in my body it is located, pray tell me!"

Hoare remembered Dr. Graves's having confided to him that his wife doubted the existence of such things as souls.

"Furthermore," she said severely, "Sir Thomas reminded me that you are a married man."

"Married? I am no such thing! Like you, I am widowed, but long since. I had thought you knew."

"How should I have known, Bartholomew? You never saw fit to tell me. Shall you tell me now, as we walk?"

So Hoare told his companion how, when Beetle was on the North American station in the weary closing years of the American war, he and Antoinette LaPlace had fallen desperately in love and married, over the powerful objections of her devout family. How he had left her in Halifax early in '83, great with child, only to discover on his return after the peace that she had died in childbed. Her parents had swept up the babe, a daughter, and returned to disappear in the uplands of Quebec.

"So I have never even seen my daughter," he concluded, "but I dream of Antoinette very often."

"Of course, you do." Eleanor Graves pressed the arm she was holding. "And perhaps that explains your feelings for the child Jenny, of whom you speak so fondly."

"Fondly? Do I? Why, perhaps I do. Well… well, here we are, on our way to St. Ninian's," he said, "presumably for the betterment of our souls at Mr. Witherspoon's feet."

"My soul, if any, is a poor neglected thing in sad need of betterment. However, Bartholomew, I accepted your offer to escort me to church because of the damned- excuse me-damned neighbors. I wish to show them where I stand. Busybodies all, and Sir Thomas the busiest body of them all. He should be busying his body about those poor dead Captains you told me of. I can well take care of my own reputation and my own entirely hypothetical soul." She tossed her head again and snorted.

To himself, Hoare had long compared Eleanor Graves to a partridge, albeit a dauntless one. Now, with her snort, she resembled a moor pony, one like the beast he had seen her astride when, between them, they had put Edouard Moreau to death.

"Do you wish me to take Sir Thomas aside and reprove him?" he asked. He rather looked forward to the idea.

She stopped in midstreet and looked up at him. "You shall do no such thing, Bartholomew. I am a tub that stands on its own bottom, as well you know. He and you are sufficiently at odds already. It would do you no good were you to spring to my defense and would put poor pompous Sir Thomas into harm's way. No. We shall attend matins in peace, as we planned, and all the world may stare."

She tucked her arm in his; his heart leaped.

All the world stared, indeed, as the little party marched into St. Ninian's. The congregation's whispering made Hoare feel quite at home. Eleanor Graves was no person to hide herself. Chin high, her black-gloved hand resting lightly on the arm of her blue-and-gold escort, her progress followed by the staring faces of all Weymouth's best, she paraded up the aisle as if going up to dance.

The service having concluded and the Reverend Mr. Witherspoon duly congratulated on his endless sermon, the two left the porch of St. Ninian's only to come face-to-face with Sir Thomas Frobisher. No words passed between them, only stiff nods, though Hoare thought to hear the other breathe the word bats. Sir Thomas's footman opened the emblazoned door of his berlin, and he entered. As Hoare knew, he had all of four hundred yards' journey ahead of him.

Foursquare, high of cheekbones, with slanted eyes and a shock of unconventional coarse black hair, the knight's coachman had an oddly familiar look. Where had Hoare seen his like?

It came to him at last. During his station in Halifax, when he had courted his dear Antoinette, married her, and lost her, he had run across a family of wandering Esquimaux walrus hunters from the upper Labrador. Someone had told him that the first Sir Martin Frobisher, the famous one, had brought a family or two back with him to England, where they had become as much a nine days' wonder as would have been one of Dean Swift's Struldbrugs. Could this merry-looking manservant be one of their descendants?

Eleanor Graves's murmur returned Hoare to the autumn Sunday.

"The frog and the crane," she said.

"Sir Thomas and myself?" Hoare asked.

"Or you and myself," she said with a smile, and Hoare's heart leaped once again.

"You are no frog, my dear," he whispered.

They walked on in companionable silence for a while, arm in arm, trailed at a discreet distance by the girl Agnes. Then Eleanor looked up at him.

"That was pleasant, Bartholomew. To make the congregation stare so! Oh! I must dress only in this horrid black, which I know does not become me. I must remain at home for years, receive only my relatives and Simon's- or the widowed Sir Thomas Frobisher, who is hopping about, turning up every stone within fifty miles in his search for a new wife to cover. Yet I know what my beloved Simon would have wished for me."

"What would he have wished?"

"That as soon as possible I would commence to live the life of a normal woman. I want children, Bartholomew, and the time grows late."