less proceedings
of the American Buccaneers: "Be vigilant, or la demoiselle Barberie will
give another cross to the purity of the stagnant pool!"

The bows that were exchanged were strictly in character. The Alderman was
unmoved, rigid, and formal, while his companion could not forget his ease
of manner, even at a moment of so much vexation. Foiled in an effort, that
nothing but his desperate condition, and nearly desperate character, could
have induced him to attempt, the degenerate descendant of the virtuous
Clarendon walked towards his place of confinement, with the step of one
who assumed a superiority over his fellows, and yet with a mind so
indurated by habitual depravity, as to have left it scarcely the trace of
a dignified or virtuous quality.

Chapter II.

"His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles;
His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate;--"

Two Gentlemen of Verona.

The philosophy of Alderman Van Beverout was not easily disturbed. Still
there was a play of the nether muscles of the face, which might be
construed into self-complacency at his victory, while a certain
contraction of those which controlled the expression of the forehead
seemed to betray a full consciousness of the imminent risk he had run. The
left hand was thrust into a pocket, where it diligently fingered the
provision of Spanish coin without which the merchant never left his abode;
while the other struck the cane it held on the pavement, with the force of
a resolute and decided man. In this manner he proceeded in his walk, for
several minutes longer, shortly quitting the lower streets, to enter one
that ran along the ridge, which crowned the land, in that quarter of the
island. Here he soon stopped before the door of a house which, in that
provincial town, had altogether the air of a patrician dwelling.

Two false gables, each of which was surmounted by an iron weathercock,
intersected the roof of this building, and the high and narrow stoop was
built of the red free-stone of the country. The material of the edifice
itself was, as usual, the small, hard brick of Holland, painted a delicate
cream-color.

A single blow of the massive glittering knocker brought a servant to the
door. The promptitude with which this summons was answered showed that,
notwithstanding the early hour, the Alderman was an expected guest. The
countenance of him who acted as porter betrayed no surprise when he saw
the person who applie