ed the way for his son; but the
peculiarities of thought and manner which might be allowed to pass in
a foreigner would be less easily forgiven in Loo, who had Farlingford
blood in his veins. For his mother had been a Clubbe, own cousin, and,
as gossips whispered, once the sweetheart of Captain Clubbe himself and
daughter of Seth Clubbe of Maiden's Grave, one of the largest farmers on
the Marsh.

"It cannot be for no particular purpose that the boy has been created so
different from any about him," Captain Clubbe muttered, reflectively, as
he thought of Dormer Colville's words. For he had that simple faith
in an Almighty Purpose, without which no wise man will be found to do
business on blue water.

"It is strange how a man may be allowed to inherit from a grandfather he
has never seen a trick of manner, or a face which are not the manner
or face of his father," observed Colville, adapting himself, as was his
habit, to the humour of his companion. "There must, as you suggest, be
some purpose in it. God writes straight on crooked lines, Captain."

Thus Dormer Colville found two points of sympathy with this skipper of a
slow coaster, who had never made a mistake at sea nor done an injustice
to any one serving under him: a simple faith in the Almighty Purpose
and a very honest respect for money. This was the beginning of a sort of
alliance between four persons of very different character which was to
influence the whole lives of many.

They sat on the tarred seat set against the weather-beaten wall of "The
Black Sailor" until darkness came stealing in from the sea with the
quiet that broods over flat lands, and an unpeopled shore. Colville
had many questions to ask and many more which he withheld till a fitter
occasion. But he learnt that Frenchman had himself stated his name to
be Barebone when he landed, a forlorn and frightened little boy, on this
barren shore, and had never departed from that asseveration when he came
to learn the English language and marry an English wife. Captain Clubbe
told also how Frenchman, for so he continued to be called long after his
real name had been written twice in the parish register, had soon after
his marriage destroyed the papers carefully preserved by the woman whom
he never called mother, though she herself claimed that title.

She had supported herself, it appeared, by her needle, and never seemed
to want money, which led the villagers to conclude that she had some
secret stor