orders are that you come to us from Saturday till Monday. I shall send

a boat--or at least I mean a buggy--to fetch you, as soon as you are off

duty, and return you the same way on Monday. Come, girls, 'twill be dark

before we are home; and since the patrols were withdrawn, I hear there's

a highwayman down this road again. That is one of the blessings

of peace, Scudamore; even as Latin and Greek are. 'Apertis otia

portis'--Open the gates for laziness. Ah, I should have done well at old

Winton, they tell me, if I had not happened to run away to sea."

CHAPTER IX

THE MAROON

If yet there remained upon our southern coast a home for the rarer

virtues, such as gratitude, content, liberality (not of other people's

goods alone), faith in a gracious Providence, and strict abstinence from

rash labor, that home and stronghold was Springhaven. To most men good

success brings neither comfort, nor tranquillity, nor so much as a stool

to sit upon, but comes as a tread-mill which must be trodden without any

getting to the top of it. Not so did these wise men take their luck. If

ever they came from the fickle wave-bosom to the firm breast of land on

a Saturday, with a fine catch of fish, and sold it well--and such was

their sagacity that sooner would they keep it for cannibal temptation

than sell it badly--did they rush into the waves again, before they had

dried their breeches? Not they; nor did their wives, who were nearly

all good women, stir them up to be off again. Especially at this time of

year, with the days pulling out, and the season quickening, and the fish

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