ons of his fears,
when, upon telling the young gentleman that the rest of the company were
desirous of departing for Antwerp, he answered, they were at liberty to
consult their own inclinations; but, for his own part, he was resolved
to stay in Brussels a few days longer. By this declaration the governor
was confirmed in the opinion of his having some intrigue upon the anvil.
In the bitterness of his vexation, he took the liberty of signifying his
suspicion, and reminding him of the dangerous dilemmas to which he had
been reduced by his former precipitation.

Peregrine took his caution in good part, and promised to behave
with such circumspection as would screen him from any troublesome
consequences for the future: but, nevertheless, behaved that same
evening in such a manner as plainly showed that his prudence was nothing
else than vain speculation. He had made an appointment to spend the
night, as usual, with Mrs. Hornbeck; and about nine o'clock hastened to
her lodgings, when he was accosted in the street by his old discarded
friend Thomas Pipes, who, without any other preamble, told him, that for
all he had turned him adrift, he did not choose to see him run full
sail into his enemy's harbour, without giving him timely notice of the
danger. "I'll tell you what," said he; "mayhap you think I want to curry
favour, that I may be taken in tow again; if you do, you have made a
mistake in your reckoning. I am old enough to be laid up, and have to
keep my planks from the weather. But this here is the affair: I have
known you since you were no higher than a marlinspike, and shouldn't
care to see you deprived of your rigging at these years; whereby I
am informed by Hornbeck's man, whom I this afternoon fell in with by
chance, as how his master has got intelligence of your boarding his
wife, and has steered privately into this port with a large complement
of hands, in order, d'ye see, to secure you while you are under the
hatches. Now, if so be as how you have a mind to give him a salt eel for
his supper, here am I, without hope of fee or reward, ready to stand
by you as long as my timbers will stick together: and if I expect any
recompense, may I be bound to eat oakum and drink bilge-water for life."

Startled at this information, Peregrine examined him upon the
particulars of his discourse with the lacquey; and when he understood
that Hornbeck's intelligence flowed from the canal of his Flemish
footman, he believed every c