I was greatly surprised, being on duty aboard in the forenoon, to see Lord Fylingdale on our quay, which adjoins the Common Stath, in company with Captain Crowle.

In truth, the nobleman looked out of his element—a fish on dry land—in a place of trade. His dress was by no means suitable to the collection of bales and casks and crates with which the quay was piled, nor did his look resemble that of the merchant, who may be full of dignity, as he is full of responsibility, but is never cold and haughty. His secret purpose, as I afterwards understood, was to ascertain the true nature of Molly's fortune, which he could not believe to be so great as had been represented to him. His professed purpose was to see what Captain Crowle was anxious to show him. The good old man, in fact, played the very game which this virtuous gentleman desired; he threw the girl—money, and lands, and ships, and all—at the feet of the very man who wanted the fortune, and for the sake of it would not scruple to bring misery upon the girl.

"I have heard," his lordship was saying, as he looked around and marked the crowd of porters, lightermen, and clerks running about, "of ships and shipping. There is a place near London, I believe, where they have ships. But I have never seen that part of town. My own friends own farms, not ships."

"Ships may be better than farms," the old sailor replied, stoutly. "You have frosts in May; hail in August; drought in spring—where are your farms then?"

Lord Fylingdale laughed pleasantly.

"Nay, captain, but there is another side to your picture also. Storms arise; the waves become billows; there are hidden rocks—where are your ships then?"

"The underwriters pay for all. There may be better money, I say, in ships than in land."

"Then the merchants should be richer than the landowners."

"Not always, by your leave, my lord. For there are too many merchants; and of landowners, such as your lordship, there are never more than a few. But some merchants are richer than some landowners. Of these my ward is one."

"I should like to know, captain, what you mean by rich. Your ward owns ships, and brings home their cargoes—turpentine and tar—a fragrant trade."

"The farmer's muck heap smells no sweeter, and pig-styes, my lord, are no ladies' bowers."

"Show me one of your ships, captain. If you have one in port, take me on board. Make me understand what this trade means. I doubt not that before long we shall all turn our ploughs into rudders, our maypoles into masts, and our oaks into ships, and so go a trading up and down the seas, and get rich like the merchants of Lynn Regis."

I do not know how far he spoke truthfully; I am, on the whole, inclined to believe that he was actually ignorant of trade and shipping of any kind. He and his class build up a wall between themselves and those who carry on the trade which pours wealth into the country and push out their fleets into far distant seas; and he and his class imagine that they are a superior race to whom Providence hath delivered the work of administering the kingdom, with all the offices, prizes, places, and honours belonging to that work. They will not admit the merchants to any share; they fill the House of Commons—which should be an assembly containing the merchants, and who make the country rich—with placemen (their servants), and their own cousins, sons, and brothers. They command our armies and our navies; they are our judges and our magistrates; for them the poet writes, the player acts, the artist paints. They do not condescend to penetrate into the ports where the ships lie moored and the quays contain the treasures brought home and the treasures sent out. They grow continually poorer instead of richer; their gambling, their troops of servants, their drinking, their pleasant vices impoverish them; they sell their woods and pawn their revenues. All this time the merchants are growing richer; they live in places where they never see anything of the fashionable world—in villages outside London; in towns like Bristol, Lynn, Southampton, Newcastle, where there are no noble lords; they do not concern themselves about the government if only the seas are kept open.

Again, if these noblemen meet the merchants on any occasion their carriage is cold and proud. Perhaps they show an open scorn of trade; in any case, they treat them with scanty consideration, as people who have no rank. Even when they desire to conciliate these inferiors their manner is haughty, and they speak from a height.

One man is not better than another because he makes his living out of fields while this other makes his out of ships. And I do not find that one man makes a better sailor than another because he is the son of a gentleman while the other is the son of a boat builder or a rope maker.

However, I am talking likely enough as a fool. It is not for me to question the order of the world. If the merchants go on getting rich they may, some time or other, look down upon the House of Lords as much as the House of Lords, with their ladies, their sons, their daughters, their nephews, and their cousins, now look down upon merchants and all who earn their livelihood by honest work, and by enterprises which demand courage and resolution, knowledge, patience, and skill.

Presently I saw them both get into a dingey, which the captain rowed out into the river, making for The Lady of Lynn. He made fast the painter to the companion and climbed up the rope ladder, followed by his lordship, who, with some difficulty, landed on the deck, looking at his tarred hands with curiosity rather than disgust. I must say that he made no complaint, even though his dress, which was not adapted for rope ladders, showed also signs of the tar.

"My lord," said the captain, "this is one of my ward's ships, and there is the mate of the ship, Mr. Pentecrosse, at your service."

"At your service, sir," said my lord, from his superior height, and with that cold condescension which I should try in vain to imitate and cannot attempt to set down in words. It is not the voice of authority—every skipper knows what that is and every sailor. It is a manner which is never found except among people of rank. However, I pulled off my hat and bowed low. His lordship took no further notice of me for awhile, but looked about him curiously.

"A strange place," he said. "I have never before been on a ship. Tell me more about this ship, captain."

"She is called The Lady of Lynn. She is three hundred and eighty tons burden, and she is in the Lisbon trade."

"In the Lisbon trade? Captain, neither the amount of her tons nor the nature of her occupation enlightens me in the least."

"She sails from here to Lisbon and back again. She takes out for the Portuguese things that they want—iron, lead, instruments of all kinds, wool, and a great many other things—and she brings back what we want—the wine of the country. She comes laden with port wine, Sack, Malmsey, Canary, Teneriffe, Lisbon, Bacellas, Mountain—in a word, all the wines of Spain and Portugal. My ward is an export and import merchant as well as a shipowner; she fills her ships with wine. The country round Lynn is a thirsty country; the gentlemen of Norfolk, Lincoln, and the Fen countries, not to speak of the University of Cambridge, all drink the wines of Spain and Portugal, and a great deal of it. We send our wine in barges up the river and in waggons across the country; we send our wine to Newcastle and Hull by ships. The trade of Lynn Regis in Spanish and Portuguese wine is very considerable, and most of it is in the hands of my ward."

"This is the Lisbon trade. I begin to understand. And what may such a ship as this be worth?"

"To build her, to rig her, to fit her for sea, to provision her, would cost a matter of £1,500 or £2,000."

"And I suppose she earns something by her voyages?"

The captain smiled.

"She makes two voyages every year; sometimes five in two years. She must first pay her captain and the ship's company; then she must pay for repairs—a woman and a ship, they say, are always wanting repairs—then she must pay for provisions for the crew; there are customs dues and harbour dues at both ends. When all is paid the ship will bring to her owners a profit of £500 or £600. It is a bad year when she does not bring in £600."

His lordship's eyebrows lifted. "How many ships did you say are owned by this fortunate young lady?"

"She has eight. They are not all in the Lisbon trade. Some sail to Norway; some to the Baltic—that is, to Revel and Dantzig—and bring home what you saw on the quay, the turpentine, deal, skins, fur, and so forth."

"Eight ships and a bad year when every single ship does not bring in a profit of £600. Then, Captain Crowle, we may take it that your ward has an income of £4,800 a year."

The captain smiled again. "If it were only that I should not be so anxious about her future. But consider, my lord. For eighteen years she has lived with me—she and her mother—we live in a plain and homely way, according to our station. We are respectable, but not gentle-folk. We live on about £150 a year. The rest is money saved. Some of it is laid out in land. My ward has a good bit of land, here and there, chiefly in marshland, which is fat and fertile; some of it is laid out in houses—a good part of Lynn belongs to her—some of it is lent on mortgage. Since your lordship hath kindly promised to give me your advice on the matter, it is proper to tell you the truth. The girl, therefore, will have an income of over £12,000 a year."

A strange and sudden flush rose to his lordship's cheek; for a few moments he did not reply. Then in a harsh and constrained voice he said: "It is a very large income, captain. Many members of the Upper House have much less. You must be very careful. At six per cent. it is actually £200,000 or thereabouts. You must be very careful."

"I have been, and shall be, very careful. With such a fortune, my lord, may not my girl look high?"

"She may look very high. There are some families which would not admit, even for so great a fortune, a mÉsalliance, but they are few. There are the jewels, too, of which she wore so many last night. What may they be worth?"

"I do not know. They have been lying in a chest for fifty years and more. They were brought from India by Molly's grandfather, who sailed there, and made the acquaintance of an Indian prince, to whom he rendered some service. They were too grand for him and his wife; and they were too grand for Molly's mother, who is but a homely body. Therefore they have been locked up all this time. Nobody has ever worn them until Molly put them on last night."

"I am a poor judge of such things, but, captain, I believe that what the lady wore last night must be worth a very large sum—a very large sum indeed."

"It may be so. It may be so," said the captain. "There are as many in the box as we took out of it. Well, my lord, will her diamonds add to her attractions?"

"Captain Crowle, no one knows or can understand the extraordinary beauty of a woman who is worth £200,000 and has, besides, diamonds and pearls fit for a duchess. You must, indeed, be very careful."

I who stood beside him humbly, hat in hand, wondered within myself as to what his lordship would say if the captain should suddenly or inadvertently reveal his secret ambitions. Indeed, he looked so commanding and so noble that these ambitions appeared to me ridiculous. I felt happier in thinking that they were ridiculous.

How, indeed, should our girl, who must appear homely to one who knew courts and the charms and splendour of great ladies, attract this cold and fastidious nobleman?

He turned suddenly upon me. "This," he said, "is one of your crew?"

I was dressed in my workaday frieze and shag, and looked, I dare say, to unpractised eyes, more like a fo'k'sle hand than the chief officer.

"It is our mate. I told your lordship before. He is second in command."

"Oh! sir," he said, bowing, a gesture which politeness demanded and difference of rank allowed to be a slight inclination only, "I beg your pardon. The strangeness of this place made me forget. Stay, is not this the—the gentleman who attempted a minuet last night with the fair Miss Molly?"

The question threw me into confusion. The captain answered for me.

"Gad! He did it rarely."

"Rarely, indeed. Well, sir, you are lucky. You dance with the lady; you are in the service of the lady; by faithful service you help to make her rich. What greater marks of favour can Providence bestow upon you?"

I made no answer, because, indeed, I knew not what to reply.

"And now, sir, if you will show me your ship, I shall be obliged to you. Teach me the economy of a merchant man."

I obeyed. We left the captain on deck, and I took him over the whole of the ship. He wanted to see everything; he inspected the two carronades on the quarter-deck and the stand of small arms. I showed him the binnacle and explained how we steered and kept her in her course. I took him below and showed him the lower deck, and let him peer into the hole. He saw the galley and the fo'k'sle, and everything.

I observed that he was extremely curious about all he saw. He wanted to know the value of things; the wages; the cost of provisioning the ship; the purchase and the sale of the cargo. It was wonderful to find a man of his rank so curious as to every point.

"I suppose," he said, "that the old man states the mere facts as to these ships—and the lands—and—and the rest of it."

"No man knows better than the captain," I replied. "He has worked for nearly twenty years for his ward."

"And for himself, as well, I doubt not."

"No, my lord, not for himself. All for his ward. He has taken nothing for himself, though he might have done so. It has been all for his ward."

"A virtuous guardian, truly. Young man, he should be an example to you. Would that there were many guardians so prudent and so careful!"

Then I invited him into the cabin, and showed him how the log is kept, and the ship's course set down day by day. There was nothing which he did not wish to understand.

"I never knew before," he said, "that ships could mean money. Pray, Captain Crowle, could a ship, such as this, be sold and converted into ready money like a forest of oak or a plantation of cedars, or an estate of land?"

"Assuredly, my lord. If I put up The Lady of Lynn for sale to-morrow there would be a score of bids for her here in this town. If I sold her in London she would command a higher price."

"Your ward could, therefore, sell her whole fleet if she chose."

"Her fleet and her business as a merchant, and her lands and her houses and her jewels—she could sell them all."

It seems trifling to set down this conversation, but you will understand in due course the meaning of these questions, and what was in the mind—the corrupt and evil mind—of this deceiver.

"But," he went on, "the ship may be cast away."

"Ay! She may be cast away. Then this lad and the whole of the ship's crew would be drowned. That happens to many tall ships. We sailors take our chance."

"The crew might be drowned. I was thinking, however, of the cargo and the ship."

"Oh! as to them, the underwriters would pay. Underwriters, my lord, are a class of people who, between them, take the risk of ships for a percentage."

"Then under no circumstances, not even that of ship-wreck, or of fire, or of pirates, can the owner lose."

"The underwriters would pay. But look you, my lord, there are risks in every kind of business. There is the cargo. The owner of this ship is also a merchant. She loads a cargo of wine on her own ship; unloads it on her own quay, and sends it about the country to the inn-keepers and the merchants of the towns. They may not want her wine—but they always do. They may not be willing to pay so much as usual, but they generally do. These are our risks. But it is a safe business on the whole—eh, Jack?"

"We have never lost much yet, to my knowledge, captain."

Lord Fylingdale sat down carelessly on the cabin table dangling his leg.

"I have had a most instructive visit, captain. I do not mind the tar on my hands or that on my small clothes, which are ruined. I have learned a great deal. Captain," he added solemnly, "Miss Molly has, beside the charms of her person and her conversation—out of so fine a mouth pearls only—pearls as fine as those around her neck would drop—twelve thousand charms a year. I do not know her equal in London at this moment. The daughter of a retired tallow chandler was spoken of, some time ago—said to have fifty thousand pounds—with a squint. No, sir, Miss Molly in London would take the town by storm."

He paused and fell into a short meditation.

"Jack," said the captain, "there is, I am sure, a bottle in the locker. His lordship must not leave the ship without tasting some of the cargo."

I produced a bottle and glasses.

"Your very best, Jack?"

"The king himself has no better," I replied stoutly, "because no better wine is made."

"I give you a toast, captain," said his lordship. "The fair Miss Molly!"

We drank it with enthusiasm.

"I have this morning learned a great deal. For one who, like myself, proposes to serve his country, all kinds of knowledge are useful—even the smallest details may be important. I have a good memory, and I shall not readily forget the things which you have taught me. We of the Upper House, perhaps, keep too much aloof from the trading interests of the country."

"Your lordship," said the captain, "should present an example of the better way."

"I shall endeavour to do so." He put on his hat and stood up. "Before leaving the ship, Mr. Pentecrosse—you seem to have an honest face—I would exhort you to persevere in faithful service and to deserve the confidence of your employer. I wish you, sir, a successful voyage and many of them." He took a step towards the cabin door, but stopped and turned again to me. "Mr. Pentecrosse, let me add another word of advice. Do not again attempt to enact the part of a fine gentleman. Believe me, sir, the part requires practice and study, unless one is born and brought up a gentleman. Stick to your quarter-deck, friend, and to your ship's log, and leave, for the future, minuets, heiresses, and polite assemblies to your betters."

So saying he walked out of the cabin and climbed down the ladder, followed by the captain. As for me, I stood gaping at the open door, looking, as they say, like a stuck pig, being both ashamed and angry.