, as to how your dear
mother will get over it. She has never been strong since the bad news
came about you. And somebody else has to be considered. But that must
stand over till to-morrow."

CHAPTER LVI

THE SILVER VOICE

Many shrewd writers have observed that Britannia has a special
luck--which the more devout call Providence--in holding her own, against
not only her true and lawful enemies, but even those of her own bosom
who labour most to ruin her. And truly she had need of all her fortune
now, to save her from the skulking traitor, as well as the raging
adversary.

"Now I will have my revenge," said Carne, "on all who have outraged and
plundered me. Crows--carrion-crows--I will turn them into owls without
a nest. Prowling owls, to come blinking even now at the last of my poor
relics! Charron, what did that fellow say to old Jerry, the day I tied
the dogs up?"

"He said, my dear friend, that he missed from the paintings which he had
taken to his house the most precious of them all--the picture of your
dear grandmother, by a man whose name it is hard to pronounce, but a
Captain in the British Army, very much fond of beloving and painting
all the most beautiful ladies; and since he had painted the mother of
Vash--Vash--the man that conquered England in America--all his work was
gone up to a wonderful price, and old Sheray should have one guinea if
he would exhibit to him where to find it. Meedle or Beedle--he had set
his heart on getting it. He declared by the good God that he would have
it, and that you had got it under a tombstone."

"A sample of their persecutions! You know that I have never seen it,
nor even heard of the Captain Middleton who went on his rovings from
Springhaven. And, again, about my own front-door, or rather the door of
my family for some four centuries, because it was carved as they cannot
carve now, it was put into that vile Indenture. I care very little for
my ancestors--benighted Britons of the county type--but these things are
personal insults to me. I seldom talk about them, and I will not do so
now."

"My Captain, you should talk much about it. That would be the good
relief to your extensive mind. Revenge is not of the bright French
nature; but the sky of this island procreates it. My faith! how I would
rage at England, if it were not for the people, and their daughters! We
shall see; in a few days more we shall astonish the fat John Bull; and
then his little kittens--what