Between these two gentlemen was a middle-aged hard-featured man, attired
in the livery of King George, whose countenance emulated the scarlet of
his coat, and whose principal employment, at the moment, appeared to
consist in doing honor to the cheer of his entertainer.
Occasionally, a servant entered or left the room in silence, giving
admission, however, through the opened door, to the rushing sounds of
the gale, as the wind murmured amid the angles and high chimneys of the
edifice.
A man, in the dress of a rustic, was standing near the chair of Colonel
Howard, between whom and the master of the mansion a dialogue had been
maintained which closed as follows. The colonel was the first to speak,
after the curtain is drawn from between the eyes of the reader and the
scene:
"Said you, farmer, that the Scotchman beheld the vessels with his own
eyes?"
The answer was a simple negative.
"Well, well," continued the colonel, "you can withdraw."
The man made a rude attempt at a bow, which being returned by the old
soldier with formal grace, he left the room. The host turning to his
companions, resumed the subject.
"If those rash boys have really persuaded the silly dotard who commands
the frigate, to trust himself within the shoals on the eve of such a
gale as this, their case must have been hopeless indeed! Thus may
rebellion and disaffection ever meet with the just indignation of
Providence! It would not surprise me, gentleman, to hear that my native
land had been engulfed by earthquakes, or swallowed by the ocean, so
awful and inexcusable has been the weight of her transgressions! And yet
it was a proud and daring boy who held the second station in that ship!
I knew his father well, and a gallant gentleman he was, who, like my own
brother, the parent of Cecilia, preferred to serve his master on the
ocean rather than on the land.
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