"you need not go into a desert and fast, a crowd is often more lonely than a wilderness and small things harder to do than great."
the ship had run between belle isle and the low curving shores of quiberon. the land was in sight all along by st. nazaire, where they could see the gray-green of winter fields, and the dotted fruit trees about the farmhouses, and bits of bushy woodland. out of the waste of waters the swift way-wise little ranger came heading safely in at the mouth of the loire. she ran among all the shoals and sand banks by paimboeuf, and past the shipyards of the river shores, until she came to harbor and let her anchor go.
there was something homelike about being in a river. at first sight the loire wore a look of recent settlement, rather than of the approach to a city already famous in old roman times; the shifting sand dunes and the empty flats, the poor scattered handfuls of houses and the works of shipbuilding, all wore a temporary look. these shiftless, primitive contrivances of men sparsely strewed a not too solid-looking shore, and the newcomers could see little of the inland country behind it. it was a strange contrast to their own river below portsmouth, where gray ledges ribbed the earth and bolted it down into an unchangeable permanence of outline. the heights and hollows of the seaward points of newcastle and the kittery shore stood plain before his mind's eye as wallingford came on deck, and these strange banks of the loire seemed only to mask reality and confuse his vision. farther up the stream they could see the gray walls of nantes itself, high over the water, with the huge towered cathedral, and the lesser bulk of the castle topping all the roofs. it was a mild day, with little air moving.
dickson came along the deck, looking much displeased. that morning he had received the attention of being kicked down the companion way by the captain, and nothing could soften such an event, not even the suggestion from his conscience that he had well deserved the insult. it seemed more and more, to those who were nearest him, as if dickson were at heart the general enemy of mankind,—jealous and bitter toward those who stood above him, and scornful of his inferiors. he loved to defeat the hopes of other people, to throw discredit upon sincerity; like some swift-creeping thing that brings needless discomfort everywhere, and dismay, and an impartial sting. he was not clever enough to be a maker of large schemes, but rather destructive, crafty, and evil-minded,—a disturber of the plans of others. all this was in his face; a fixed habit of smiling only added to his mean appearance. what was worst of all, being a great maker of promises, he was not without influence, and had his following.
the fresh air from the land, the frosty smell of the fields, made wallingford feel the more despondent. the certainty had now come to his mind that paul jones would never have consented to his gaining the commission of lieutenant, would never have brought him, so untried and untrained, to sea, but for jealousy, and to hinder his being at mary hamilton's side. this was the keenest hurt to his pride; the thought had stabbed him like a knife. again he made a desperate plunge into the sea of his disasters, and was unconscious even of the man who was near by, watching him. he was for the moment blind and deaf to all reality, as he stood looking along the water toward the breton town.
"all ready to go ashore, sir?" asked dickson, behind him, in an ingratiating tone; but wallingford gave an impatient shrug of his shoulders.
"'t is not so wintry here as the shore must look at home," continued dickson. "damn that coxcomb on the quarter-deck! he 's more than the devil himself could stand for company!"
wallingford, instead of agreeing in his present disaffection, turned about, and stood fronting the speaker. he looked dickson straight in the eye, as if daring him to speak again, whereat dickson remained silent. the lieutenant stood like a prince.
"i see that i intrude," said the other, rallying his self-consequence. "you have even less obligation to captain paul jones than you may think," he continued, dropping his voice and playing his last trump. "i overheard, by accident, some talk of his on the terrace with a certain young lady whom your high loftiness might not allow me to mention. he called you a cursed young spy and a tory, and she implored him to protect you. she said you was her old playmate, and that she wanted you got out o' the way o' trouble. he had his arm round her, and he said he might be ruined by you; he cursed you up hill and down, while she was a-pleadin'. 'twas all for her sake, and your mother's bein' brought into distress"—
dickson spoke rapidly, and edged a step or two away; but his shoulder was clutched as if a panther's teeth had it instead of a man's hand.
"i'll kill you if you give me another word!" said roger wallingford. "if i knew you told the whole truth, i should be just as ready to drop you overboard."
"i have told the truth," said dickson.
"i know you are n't above eavesdropping," answered wallingford, with contempt. "if you desire to know what i think of your sneaking on the outside of a man's house where you have been denied entrance, i am willing to tell you. i heard you were there that night."
"you were outside yourself, to keep me company, and i'm as good a gentleman as jack hamilton," protested dickson. "he went the rounds of the farms with a shoemaker's kit, in the start of his high fortunes."
"mr. hamilton would mend a shoe as honestly in his young poverty as he would sit in council now. so he has come to be a rich merchant and a trusted man." there was something in wallingford's calm manner that had power to fire even dickson's cold and sluggish blood.
"i take no insults from you, mr. lieutenant!" he exclaimed, in a black rage, and passed along the deck to escape further conversation.
there had been men of the crew within hearing. dickson had said what he wished to say, and a moment later he was thinking no less highly of himself than ever. he would yet compass the downfall of the two men whom he hated. he had already set them well on their way to compass the downfall of each other. it made a man chuckle with savage joy to think of looking on at the game.
wallingford went below again, and set himself to some work in his own cabin. character and the habit of self-possession could carry a man through many trying instances, but life now seemed in a worse confusion than before. this was impossible to bear; he brushed his papers to the floor with a sweep of his arm. his heart was as heavy as lead within him. alas, he had seen the ring! "perhaps—perhaps"—he said next moment to himself—"she might do even that, if she loved a man; she could think of nothing then but that i must be got away to sea!"
"poor little girl! o god, how i love her!" and he bent his head sorrowfully, while an agony of grief and dismay mastered him. he had never yet been put to such awful misery of mind.
"'t is my great trial that has come upon me," he said humbly. "i'll stick to my duty,—'tis all that i can do,—and heaven help me to bear the rest. thank god, i have my duty to the ship!"
