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Before she could answer, her father came into the room. He bustled over to the fire, rubbing his hands and blowing out his cheeks, and saying ‘Ah! Phew . . . ah!’: in fine, doing all those things by which your man of sedentary habits advertises that he has been taking exercise. Dr Humphrey had ridden that day to Upchurch and back, visiting his old friend Captain Matters, a retired naval man under whose command he had sailed twenty years back as ship’s doctor. The ride, he felt, had done him good; his muscles were agreeably fatigued; his blood flowed more freely than its wont; and he felt extremely virtuous. With Captain Matters he had taken a bottle or two of good wine, besides eating heartily of a saddle of mutton, a couple of boiled fowls, a pig’s face well roasted, and some apple tarts and damson cheese. He had enjoyed his ride, he had enjoyed his meal, and he had greatly enjoyed the talk, which had consisted, as so much good talk does, mainly of sentences beginning ‘Yes, and do you remember . . .’ By this incantation the two friends had conjured their vanished past into being, and lived in it for an hour or two from the depths of their easy chairs, sitting one each side of the purring fire and with a jar of tobacco between them. It gave a wonderful relish to this comfort to remember how mountainous and green the sea had looked that bleak March morning in ’28 (‘or was it ’27—how time flies, to be sure!’) when they had thought, with good reason, that their last hour was come; and there was pleasure, as well as a momentary sadness, in recalling poor Benjamin Creed, who thought himself a singer, and a politician, and a deep thinker, and a rake, and could not hear of any achievement without wishing it had been his own, and yet in spite of his nonsense was a good seaman and a good fellow, and died absurdly, like a hero, in trying to rescue the ship’s cat. This rich feast of reminiscence, following the more material feast, had warmed and stimulated Dr Humphrey, so that he was now, for the moment, a changed man, and within an ace of being boisterous.

‘Well, my children,’ he cried gaily, ‘here I am back again. And I hope you have borne my absence with fortitude. Eh, Jack, you rascal? Did the time lag heavily, my boy, with none but my daughter to entertain you? I trust not, i’ faith, for in a moment or two I must leave you again and pursue my studies.’ He winked at his prospective son-in-law, standing with his back to the hearth and enjoying the sensation of warming calves. Marden smiled not very happily, but the older man took this to be a sign of lover’s shyness and was the merrier for it. ‘Ah yes, Jack, and I’ve been hearing a sad tale about you from my old friend Matters. Seems you had a thieving trollop in your custody and failed to get her hanged.’

Marden gaped. The allusion, whatever it imported, was untimely. ‘Indeed, sir, you are merry with me. I’m no hangman, nor judge either.’

‘Well, that’s as may be, my boy. But what of this Robinson woman, as she calls herself? Who is she that she claims acquaintance with you?’

‘Robinson?’ The young man changed colour, for he felt his mistress’s eyes upon him, ‘Does she claim so? I wonder at her impudence.’

‘You need not wonder long,’ said Dr Humphrey, ‘for her impudence is shortly to be dealt with at the Assizes. It seems she was brought before Matters on a charge of horse-stealing. Twas my young Lord Halford’s horse that had been snatched from his stables a se’nnight or more since, and he himself caught her riding it; and though the young scamp has been bedded with the wench, if all tales be true, he takes it very ill that she should prove a thief. And now what does she do but declare, on oath, that she had the horse from a fellow that was killed last month on Dyking Common, which is in Squire Marden’s Fee, she says; and Squire Marden, says she, was a very kind handsome gentleman and would speak for her. So there’s your character, Jack. And let’s hope you can give the wench herself as good a one. Ha ha ha!’

‘Indeed,’ said Marden gravely, ‘but I must say what I can for the unhappy wretch. She is indifferent honest where virtue is in question, but I believe she is not a thief. I must ride over to see your friend Captain Matters, sir, and tell him what I can in her favour. I will go tomorrow.’ He turned to Celia and with a bow added: ‘With your kind leave, my dear Celia?’

She acknowledged his attention with icy politeness. ‘Is it wise to delay so long, since your friend, it seems, is in danger of hanging?’

‘Come, my dear, what’s this?’ cried her father. ‘Tomorrow’s time enough, and the lad don’t want to turn out for a cold ride at this time of day.’

‘We do not know what he wants, father. In his eagerness to save his friend from the gallows he will hardly stay to consider his comfort, let alone ours. It is not to be expected of any man.’