on. The spring was early and the weather
extremely pleasant that day, being filled with a warmth almost as of
summer. The apple trees were already in full bloom and filled all the
air with their fragrance. Everywhere there seemed to be the pervading
hum of bees, and the drowsy, tepid sunshine was very delightful.

At that time Eleazer was just home from an unusually successful voyage
to Antigua. Mainwaring found the family sitting under one of the still
leafless chestnut trees, Captain Cooper smoking his long clay pipe and
lazily perusing a copy of the _National Gazette_. Eleazer listened
with a great deal of interest to what Mainwaring had to say of his
proposed cruise. He himself knew a great deal about the pirates, and,
singularly unbending from his normal, stiff taciturnity, he began
telling of what he knew, particularly of Captain Scarfield--in whom he
appeared to take an extraordinary interest.

Vastly to Mainwaring's surprise, the old Quaker assumed the position
of a defendant of the pirates, protesting that the wickedness of the
accused was enormously exaggerated. He declared that he knew some of
the freebooters very well and that at the most they were poor,
misdirected wretches who had, by easy gradation, slid into their
present evil ways, from having been tempted by the government
authorities to enter into privateering in the days of the late war. He
conceded that Captain Scarfield had done many cruel and wicked deeds,
but he averred that he had also performed many kind and benevolent
actions. The world made no note of these latter, but took care only to
condemn the evil that had been done. He acknowledged that it was true
that the pirate had allowed his crew to cast lots for the wife and the
daughter of the skipper of the _Northern Rose_, but there were none of
his accusers who told how, at the risk of his own life and the lives
of all his crew, he had given succor to the schooner _Halifax_, found
adrift with all hands down with yellow fever. There was no defender
of his actions to tell how he and his crew of pirates had sailed the
pest-stricken vessel almost into the rescuing waters of Kingston
harbor. Eleazer confessed that he could not deny that when Scarfield
had tied the skipper of the _Baltimore Belle_ naked to the foremast of
his own brig he had permitted his crew of cutthroats (who were drunk
at the time) to throw bottles at the helpless captive, who died that
night of the wounds he had received. For