"True, child, you speak the truth, yet my heart tells me that we cannot
trust to friendship now, seeing that this quarrel has grown so bitter."
He was sorry to say this, for he felt that every word he uttered was
like a dagger at the heart of Morgianna. After a painful silence, the
old, white-haired seaman added, "Forgive me, Morgianna; but I am an old
man, and I may not look at things as you do. I love my country and her
flag. I have seen our poor sailors too often enslaved to be a friend to
any Englishman while the war lasts."
"What do you mean, father?"
"You love him, Morgianna. I felt it, I knew it all along, but I couldn't
help it. I knew I ought to do something, but, child, I didn't know what
to do. If you had had a mother she could have advised you, but
I didn't."
"Father, you talk so strangely; what do you mean?"
"I knew all along, my child, that you loved him; but Lieutenant Matson
is a bad one, even if he is the son of my old friend. I could see the
devil glinting in his eyes, and the mock of his smile, when he met the
young Ohioan here five years ago. He's a bad man accompanied with foul
weather wherever he goes, and I know it just so long as I know the
cat's paw, the white creeping mist, like a dirty thing which makes me
cry out to my crew, 'All hands to reef! Quick! All hands to reef!'" The
old man was silent for a moment, smoking his pipe, while his eyes were
on the floor.
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