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He had lived there since the death of his brother, two years earlier that grim Clubbe of Maiden's Grave, whose methods of life and agriculture are still quoted on market days from Colchester to Beccles. The evenings were shorter now, for July was drawing to a close, and the summer is brief on these coasts. The moon was not up yet, but would soon rise.
"He may be skilful in anything he undertakes," suggested Colville, in explanation. "It is Captain Clubbe who will tell us that. For Captain Clubbe has known him since his birth, and was the friend of his father." They sat in silence watching the shadowy figure on the dyke, outlined dimly against the hazy horizon.
And they watched, in a sudden silence, the sail pass down the river toward the quay. The tide was ebbing still when Barebone loosed his boat, one night, from the grimy steps leading from the garden of Maiden's Grave farm down to the creek. It was at the farm-house that Captain Clubbe now lived when on shore.
"Then there is money in it?" inquired Clubbe, guardedly. "Money," laughed the other. "Yes there is money for all concerned, and to spare." Captain Clubbe had been born and bred among a people possessing little wealth and leading a hard life, only to come to want in old age. It was natural that this consideration should carry weight.
"I should have thought," he said, tentatively, after a while, "that it would have been wise to accept. A bird in the hand, you know a damned big bird! And then afterwards you could see what turned up." "You mean I could break my word later on," inquired Barebone, with that odd downrightness which at times surprised Colville and made him think of Captain Clubbe.
To pull an arrow out of the body; to exercise and strike with a clubbe, a buckler to theire feete, and take it if neede requireth, and defende himselfe, if neede requirs, from the ennemy; being in sentery to heark the ennemy that comes neere, and to heare the better lay him downe on the side. These postures are playd while the drums beate.
Captain Clubbe was a Farlingford man. "The Last Hope" was a Farlingford built ship, and Seth Clubbe was not the captain to go past his own port for the sake of saving a few pounds. "Farlingford's his nation," they said of him down at the quay. "Born and bred here, man and boy. He's not likely to put her into a Thames dry-dock while the slip-way's standing empty."
"You understand," he went on to explain, as if urged thereto by the fixed glance of the clear blue eye "you understand, it is none of my business. I am only here as the Marquis de Gemosac's friend. Know him in his own country, where I live most of the time." Clubbe nodded.
It being a Wednesday, Clubbe must have known all that there was to know, and more, of Monsieur de Gemosac and Dormer Colville; for Mrs. Clacy, it will be remembered, obliged Mrs. Clubbe on Tuesdays. Nothing, however, in the mask-like face, large and square, of the ship-captain indicated that he knew aught of his new acquaintances, or desired to know more.
"And no one can ever prove anything contrary to that. No one except myself knows of of this doubt which you have stumbled upon. De Gemosac, Parson Marvin, Clubbe all of them are convinced that your father was the Dauphin." "And Miss Liston?" "Miriam Liston she also, of course. And I believe she knew it long before I told her." Barebone turned and looked at him squarely in the eyes.
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