CAPTAIN MARMADUKE'S PLAN
Seated in the back parlour, with his chair tilted slightly back, Captain
Marmaduke Amber set forth his scheme to us--perhaps I should say to me,
for my mother had heard it all, or most of it, already, and paid, I
fancy, but little heed to its repetition. For all the attention I paid,
I gained, I fear me, but a very vague idea of Captain Marmaduke's
purpose. I was far too excited to think of anything clearly beyond the
fact that I was actually going a-travelling, and that the jovial
gentleman with the ruddy face and the china-blue eyes was my good angel.
Still, I gathered that Captain Amber would be a colonist--a
gentleman-adventurer; after a new fashion, and not for his own ends.
It was, indeed, a kind of Utopia which Captain Amber dreamt of founding
in a far corner of the world, beneath the Southern Cross. The Captain
had taken it into his gallant head that the old world was growing too
small and its ways too evil for its people, and that much might be done
in the way of the regeneration of human society under softer
surroundings and beneath purer skies. His hope, his belief, was that if
a colony of earnest human beings were to be founded, established upon
true principles of justice and of virtue, it might set an example which
would spread and spread until at last it should regenerate the earth.
It was a noble scheme indeed, prompted by a kindly and honourable
nature, and I must say that it sounded very well as the periods swelled
from Captain Amber's lips. For Captain Amber was a scholar and a
gentleman as well as a man of action, and he spoke and wrote with a
certain florid grace that suited him well, and that impressed me at the
time very profoundly. It seemed to me that Captain Amber was not merely
one of the noblest of men--which indeed he was, as I was to learn often
and often afterwards--but also one of the wisest, and that his scheme of
colonisation was the scheme of a statesman and a philosopher.
How precisely the thing was to be done, and why Captain Marmaduke seemed
so confident of finding a new Garden of Eden or Earthly Paradise at the
other end of the world, I did not rightly comprehend then; nor, indeed,
have I striven much to comprehend since. But I gathered this much--that
Captain Marmaduke had retired from the service to carry out his fancy;
that he had bought land of the Dutch in the Indies; that he had plenty
of money at his command; and that the enterprise was all at his charges.
One thing was quite certain--Captain Marmaduke had got a ship, and a
good one too, now riding at anchor in Sendennis harbour; and in
Sendennis Captain Marmaduke only meant to stay long enough to get
together a few more folk to complete his company and his colony. I was
to come along, not as a colonist, unless I chose, but as a kind of
companion to Lancelot, to learn all the tricks of the sailor's trade,
and to return when Captain Marmaduke, having fairly established his
colony, set out on his return voyage.
For it seemed that if I had forgotten, or seemed to have forgotten,
Lancelot, he had not forgotten me, but had carried me in his thoughts
through all the months that had grown to years since last we met. Thus,
when Captain Amber first began to carry out his dream of a colony,
Lancelot begged him to give me a share in the adventure. For Lancelot
remembered well my hunger and thirst for travel, and had sworn to help
me to my heart's desire. And it seemed to him that in this enterprise
of his uncle's lurked my chance of seeing a little of the world.
Captain Amber, who loved Lancelot better than any being in the world
save one, promised that if I were willing, and seemed a lad of spirit, I
should go along with Lancelot and himself to help build the colony at
the butt end of the world. As the ship was to sail from Sendennis--that
being Captain Amber's native place--he promised Lancelot that he would
seek me out, and see if I pleased him, and if the plan pleased me. And
I, on fire with the thought of getting away from Sendennis and feeling
the width of the world--all I wanted to know was how soon we might be
starting.
'A fortnight is our longest delay,' the Captain said; 'we sail sooner if
we can. Report yourself to me to-morrow morning between eleven and noon.
You will find me at the Noble Rose. You know where that is, I suppose?'
Now, as the Noble Rose was the first inn in Sendennis, and one that the
town was proud of, I naturally knew of its whereabouts, though I was not
so well acquainted with it as with a certain other and more ill-favoured
hostelry that shall be nameless. The Noble Rose was in favour with the
country gentry and the gentlemen of the Chisholm Hunt, and it would
scarcely have welcomed a tradesman's son within its walls as readily as
the rapscallion Skull and Spectacles did. But I felt that I should be
welcomed anywhere as the friend of Captain Marmaduke Amber, for as a
friend I already began to regard him. So I assured him that I would duly
present myself to him at the Noble Rose on the morrow, between eleven of
the clock and noon.
'That's right, lad,' he said; and then, turning to my mother, he took
her worn hand in his strong one, and, to my surprise and pleasure,
kissed it with a reverential courtesy, as if she had been a Court lady.
As Captain Marmaduke turned to go I caught at his hand.
'Where is Lancelot?' I asked; 'is he here in Sendennis?' For in the
midst of all the joy and wonder of this sea business my heart was on
fire to see that face again.
Captain Marmaduke laughed.
'If he were in Sendennis at this hour he would be here, I make no doubt.
He is in London, looking after one or two matters which methought he
could manage better than I could. But he will be here in good time, and
it is time for me to be off. Remember, my lad, to-morrow,' and with a
bow for my mother and a bear's grip for me he passed outside the shop,
leaving my mother and me staring at each other in great amazement. But
for all my amazement the main thought in my mind was of a certain
picture of a girl's face that lay, shrined in a cedar-wood box, hidden
away in my room upstairs. And so it happened that though my lips were
busy with the name of Lancelot my brain was busy with the name of
Marjorie.