o' crime while
the old gentleman's nigh on his back?"

"Plotting?" I said, catching at the word.

"Ay, plotting," repeated Harvey, casting his cloth away; "murder and all
the crimes in the calendar, I take it. I hear him and Mr. Grafton among
the stalls this morning, and when they sees me they look like Knipe,
here, caught with a fowl."

"And what were they saying?" I demanded.

"Saying! God only knows their wickedness. I got the words 'Upper
Marlboro' and 'South River' and 'next voyage,' and that profligate
rector wanted to know as to how 'Griggs was reliable.'"

I thought no more of it at the time, believing it to be some of the
small rascalities they were forever at. But that name of Griggs (why,
the powers only know) stuck in my mind to turn up again.

CHAPTER X. THE RED IN THE CARVEL BLOOD

After that, when we went back to Annapolis for the winter, there was no
longer any disguise between my tutor and myself. I was not of a mind to
feign a situation that did not exist, nor to permit him to do so. I gave
him to understand that tho' I went to him for instruction, 'twas through
no fault of mine. That I would learn what I pleased and do what pleased
me. And the rector, a curse upon him, seemed well content with that; nor
could I come at his devil's reason far wanting me, save for the money,
as he had declared. There were days when he and I never touched a hook,
both being out of humour for study, when he told me yarns of Frederick
of Prussia and his giant guard, of Florence and of Venice, and of the
court of his Holiness of Rome. For he had drifted about the earth like a
log-end in the Atlantic, before his Lordship gave him his present berth.
We passed, too, whole mornings at picquet, I learning enough of Horace
to quote at the routs we both attended, but a deal more of kings and
deuces. And as I may add, that he got no more of my money than did I of
his.

The wonder of it was that we never became friends. He was two men, this
rector of St. Anne's, half of him as lovable as any I ever encountered.
But trust him I never would, always meeting him on the middle ground;
and there were times, after his talks with Grafton, when his eyes were
like a cat's, and I was conscious of a sinister note in his dealing
which put me on my guard.

You will say, my dears, that some change had come over me, that I was no
longer the same lad I have been telling you of.

Those days were not these, yet I make no show of hid