“Henry,” said Mr. Friend, taking him kindly
by the hand, “we pity thee sincerely, as thou
knowest; but thy bitter, revengeful expressions are
unchristian, sinful. The authorities whom thou,
not for the first time, railest on so wildly, acted,
be sure of it, from a sense of duty; a mistaken one,
in my opinion, doubtless; still”—
“Say no more, sir,” interrupted Mason.
“We differ in opinion upon the subject.
And now, gentlemen, farewell. I wished to see
you, sir, before I left this country forever, to thank
you for your kind, though fruitless exertions.
Mr. Friend has promised to be steward for poor Willy
of all I can remit for his use. Farewell!
God bless you both!” He was gone!
War soon afterwards broke out with the United States
of America, and Mr. Friend discovered that one of
the most active and daring officers in the Republican
navy was Henry Mason, who had entered the American
service in the maiden name of his wife; and that the
large sums he had remitted from time to time for the
use of Willy, were the produce of his successful depredations
on British commerce. The instant Mr. Friend made
the discovery, he refused to pollute his hands with
moneys so obtained, and declined all further agency
in the matter. Mason, however, contrived to remit
through some other channel to the Davies’s, with
whom the boy had been placed; and a rapid improvement
in their circumstances was soon visible. These
remittances ceased about the middle of 1814; and a
twelvemonth after the peace with America, we ascertained
that Henry Mason had been killed in the battle on
Lake Champlain, where he had distinguished himself,
as everywhere else, by the reckless daring and furious
hate with which he fought against the country which,
in his unreasoning frenzy, he accused of the murder
of his wife. He was recognized by one of his
former messmates in the “Active;” who,
conveyed a prisoner on board the American commander
Macdonough’s ship, recognized him as he lay
stretched on the deck, in the uniform of an American
naval officer; his countenance, even in death, wearing
the same stormful defiant expression which it assumed
on the day that his beloved Esther perished on the
scaffold.
“It is really time that a properly-qualified
governess had charge of those girls,” observed
my wife, as Mary and Kate after a more than usually
boisterous romp with their papa, left the room for
bed. I may here remark, inter alia, that
I once surprised a dignified and highly-distinguished
judge at a game of blindman’s buff with his
children, and very heartily he appeared to enjoy it
too. “It is really time that a properly-qualified
governess had charge of those girls. Susan May
did very well as a nursery teacher, but they are now
far beyond her control. I cannot attend to
their education, and as for you”—The
sentence was concluded by a shrug of the shoulders
and a toss of the head, eloquently expressive of the
degree of estimation in which my governing
powers were held.
