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Mechanically, I went the way we had intended to go, and found myself at last on the heights that overlook London from the north. Then I pulled up. The towers of the Abbey stood out nobly against the steel-blue sky. Within their shadow was Master Freake's house where, by now, Tiverton would not have pleaded his love in vain.
Jonadab Kilroot had found his way across the Atlantic into Boston Harbour much more easily than I was finding mine across London to Master Freake's house in Queen Anne's Gate. It was after nine at night, at which late hour, of course, I did not intend to arouse the inmates, but I meant to find the place so that I could stand outside and imagine Margaret within, perchance dreaming of me.
I did become a Parliament man, as Master Faneuil had said I should, and am a strong supporter of Mr. Pitt. We spend part of each year in London, where the Marquess is our great friend. He married the nabobess after all, and she loved him well enough to make it her business to reform him. He vows she is the finest woman in England, with a head on her shoulders as good as Mr. Freake's.
Stap me, if he a'nt asleep! I must circumambulate and have a quiz at him." He walked gaily in his play-acting way round Master Freake's chair on to the hearth and then turned and took a peep at him. As soon as he had done so he gave a great shout, and then, recovering himself, burst into a roar of laughter. He clapped his hands on his knees and fairly swayed with merriment.
For years I feared lest his severe wound should have left some permanent source of weakness, but happily my fears were ill-founded. Jack, having had enough of soldiering, took to business at Master Freake's suggestion. He has developed all his father's shrewdness while retaining all his own boyish charm. He is now Master Freake's right hand, in the great London house of Freake & Dobson.
We had only a few yards to go, but my mistress apprised me in sweet whisperings that Master Freake's explanation was that Sultan had been innocently obtained from the real thief, that I was his servant, and, not knowing of the horse deal, had loyally kept silent lest I should make mischief a happy and reasonably truthful rendering of the real facts.
As wealth went then, the Marquess of Tiverton was, by his own fault and foolishness, a poorish man, but he was lost in love of her, and he was only one of the many exquisites who were for ever in and out of Master Freake's fine mansion. It did not become a Wheatman of the Hanyards to cringe or be abashed in any company, and with the best of them I kept on terms of ease and intimacy.
Last of all I remember myself, with my heart thrumming good-morrow to Margaret. "Come now, Houndsditch, or Turndish, or whatever it is," said his lordship. "Precisely what have you to say?" The poor devil had nothing to say. He was aflame to be off and out of Master Freake's eyesight. He choked up something about mistakes, and zeal, and forgiveness. "That's enough!
Inskip brought me a rare dish of venison-pie and various other good things, and laid out the table for me. I left Master Freake's side to eat my supper and listen to their talk. They made various false starts, followed by dead silences. It was clean useless for Sir James to talk about his baby.
Master Freake kept a rigid silence over the contents of that famous document "about lands," and I had no wish to know. It was worth a thousand acres and near ten thousand guineas to the Earl. I was satisfied if he was. I put my guineas in a bank of Master Freake's choosing. What a dowry I could have given Kate if My Lord Brocton was in town.
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