She will be here; and here will I stay out my appointed time.'
'Oh, Frederick,' said Margaret, 'tell us more about her.
I never thought of this; but I am so glad.
You will have some one to love and care for you out there.
Tell us all about it.'
'In the first place, she is a Roman Catholic.
That's the only objection I anticipated.
But my father's change of opinion—nay, Margaret, don't sigh.'
Margaret had reason to sigh a little more before the conversation ended.
Frederick himself was Roman Catholic in fact, though not in profession as yet.
This was, then, the reason why his sympathy in her extreme distress at her father's leaving the Church had been so faintly expressed in his letters.
She had thought it was the carelessness of a sailor; but the truth was, that even then he was himself inclined to give up the form of religion into which he had been baptised, only that his opinions were tending in exactly the opposite direction to those of his father.
How much love had to do with this change not even Frederick himself could have told.
Margaret gave up talking about this branch of the subject at last; and, returning to the fact of the engagement, she began to consider it in some fresh light:
'But for her sake, Fred, you surely will try and clear yourself of the exaggerated charges brought against you, even if the charge of mutiny itself be true.
If there were to be a court-martial, and you could find your witnesses, you might, at any rate, show how your disobedience to authority was because that authority was unworthily exercised.'
Mr. Hale roused himself up to listen to his son's answer.
'In the first place, Margaret, who is to hunt up my witnesses?
All of them are sailors, drafted off to other ships, except those whose evidence would go for very little, as they took part, or sympathised in the affair.
In the next place, allow me to tell you, you don't know what a court-martial is, and consider it as an assembly where justice is administered, instead of what it really is—a court where authority weighs nine-tenths in the balance, and evidence forms only the other tenth.
In such cases, evidence itself can hardly escape being influenced by the prestige of authority.'
'But is it not worth trying, to see how much evidence might be discovered and arrayed on your behalf?
At present, all those who knew you formerly, believe you guilty without any shadow of excuse.
You have never tried to justify yourself, and we have never known where to seek for proofs of your justification.
Now, for Miss Barbour's sake, make your conduct as clear as you can in the eye of the world.
She may not care for it; she has, I am sure, that trust in you that we all have; but you ought not to let her ally herself to one under such a serious charge, without showing the world exactly how it is you stand.
You disobeyed authority—that was bad; but to have stood by, without word or act, while the authority was brutally used, would have been infinitely worse.
People know what you did; but not the motives that elevate it out of a crime into an heroic protection of the weak.
For Dolores' sake, they ought to know.'
'But how must I make them know?
I am not sufficiently sure of the purity and justice of those who would be my judges, to give myself up to a court-martial, even if I could bring a whole array of truth-speaking witnesses. I can't send a bellman about, to cry aloud and proclaim in the streets what you are pleased to call my heroism.
No one would read a pamphlet of self-justification so long after the deed, even if I put one out.'
'Will you consult a lawyer as to your chances of exculpation?' asked Margaret, looking up, and turning very red.
'I must first catch my lawyer, and have a look at him, and see how I like him, before I make him into my confidant.
Many a briefless barrister might twist his conscience into thinking, that he could earn a hundred pounds very easily by doing a good action—in giving me, a criminal, up to justice.'
'Nonsense, Frederick!—because I know a lawyer on whose honour I can rely; of whose cleverness in his profession people speak very highly; and who would, I think, take a good deal of trouble for any of—of Aunt Shaw's relations Mr. Henry Lennox, papa.'
'I think it is a good idea,' said Mr. Hale.
'But don't propose anything which will detain Frederick in England.
Don't, for your mother's sake.'
'You could go to London to-morrow evening by a night-train,' continued Margaret, warming up into her plan.
'He must go to-morrow, I'm afraid, papa,' said she, tenderly; 'we fixed that, because of Mr. Bell, and Dixon's disagreeable acquaintance.'
'Yes; I must go to-morrow,' said Frederick decidedly.
Mr. Hale groaned.
'I can't bear to part with you, and yet I am miserable with anxiety as long as you stop here.'
'Well then,' said Margaret, 'listen to my plan.
He gets to London on Friday morning.
I will—you might—no! it would be better for me to give him a note to Mr. Lennox.
You will find him at his chambers in the Temple.'
'I will write down a list of all the names I can remember on board the Orion.
I could leave it with him to ferret them out.