Unlike Susan, Jones slept very soundly that night. It was not until the next morning that he thought over the proposal he had made to Susan, and he did not regret it. He was attracted by her, more so than he had been by any other woman he could remember. He did not know the reason, and would have been the last person in the world to have thought about reasons in such a connexion. He simply believed he was in love with her, and not in quite the same way that he had been in love some twenty times before.

He felt happier now about going to Colon. The truth is that Jones, in spite of all his talk, had been rather uneasy about leaving Jamaica and going to a land where he might meet with no one whom he knew intimately. Susan’s will was stronger than his. Hers was a more determined character. That was one cause of the attraction she had for him; impulsive, uncertain, volatile, and talkative as he was, it was not surprising that a girl who usually knew her own mind in matters that directly concerned her, and who could stick to her own point with remarkable tenacity, should exercise considerable influence over him almost from the moment of their first meeting. Then she was good-looking, lively, and of excellent figure. She was not common either, he was sure, for she had not welcomed his advances at the start as so many other girls would have done. Consequently he was satisfied with the arrangements of the previous day; and he lost no time that evening in going to see her. When he appeared, Susan’s last doubt vanished. She was now quite certain of him.

Soon Mr. Proudleigh began to speak of him as his son-in-law, and Susan’s sisters regarded him as their brother-in-law. Calling Jones brother-in-law appealed to the girls’ sense of propriety, while it suited their aunt’s religious views to consider Jones as almost married to Susan. The family’s standards of respectability demanded that some deference, if only in words, should be paid to the conventions of recognized propriety.

Jones went to see Susan every night, sometimes taking her out for long car rides. Usually they were left alone when at home, for, as Mr. Proudleigh put it, “A courting couple don’t like disturbation.” On these occasions the rest of the family distributed themselves amongst the other people who lived in the yard, or sat together in the yard on boxes talking about Susan’s good luck. Both Catherine and Eliza would then dearly express the hope that a similar stroke of good fortune might befall them, for they were heartily tired of their present way of life. But whenever they voiced their discontent Mr. Proudleigh would ask them to have patience, assuring them at the same time that he was praying for them as he had prayed for Susan, and was expecting a similar answer at any moment.

One night it rained, and then all of them were obliged to assemble indoors. It was then that Mr. Proudleigh took the opportunity of mentioning certain fears that he professed to feel in regard to Samuel’s and Susan’s future; though, if the truth must be told, he had begun to think that as Jones already had a good situation in Jamaica, he might as well remain in the island with Susan and endeavour to be happy, instead of going to a place where he (Mr. Proudleigh) might not be able to follow them. Not without some hope of dissuading Jones from leaving Jamaica, he remarked:

“You know, Mister Jones, I been hearing dat Panama is a dangerous place for a young man. A person tell me this morning dat the Americans don’t like Jamaica people at all; an’ that the first word you say to them, them shoot y’u.”

“That don’t frighten me,” said Jones. “No American man is going to shoot Samuel Josiah. I can do my work, an’ when the work is done, I go about me own business, an’ leave the Americans to themselves. Besides, I hear that all y’u have to do is to tell an American you are a British subject, an’ he wouldn’t put a finger on you.”

“So I hear meself,” said Susan. “If you belongs to another race, them will take an advantage of you. But so long as them know y’u are an English subject, them will respect y’u.”

“Is dat so?” asked the old man, rather disappointed at hearing that British citizenship was such a sure protection against the dangers of which he was warning Samuel; “but how is it that I hear them sometimes illstreat folkses that go away from here?”

“It can’t be Americans do it,” said Jones, quite positively.

Now Mr. Proudleigh, although not gifted with particular quickness of wit, could perceive that there was something lacking in Jones’s reply. “Not reburting you, Mister Jones,” he said, “but even ef it wasn’t de Americans who half-murder the Jamaica mens, it was somebody. An’ those people didn’t seem to mind dat Jamaica people was British subjects.”

This way of looking at the matter was certainly of some importance; Jones, however, was not one to allow himself to be easily beaten in an argument.

“The Jamaica people couldn’t have been Jamaica people at all,” he answered. “For a British subject can’t be touched.”

“I don’t see how dat can be,” said Mr. Proudleigh doubtfully, “for those Jamaica people did really born in Jamaica.”

“Then they were a set of fools,” replied Jones shortly. “Most Jamaica people is foolish; they have no cranium whatsoever. I bet you those men never told they were British subjects. Now, if it was me, I would have made everybody to understand that I was an Anglo-Saxon, an’ that if they touch a hair of me head, war would be declared. That’s the way to talk in a foreign country. I wouldn’t make a man bluff me out. No, sir!”

“Dat is all right, Mister Sam,” said the old man. “But p’rhaps them wouldn’t care what y’u call you’self till after them finish beat y’u. An’ then I don’t see how it would help y’u, even if them publicly expologize to you as you are a British subjec’.”

“But why y’u want to frighten Samuel, papee?” asked Susan, who now began to suspect that her father had some motive in arguing like this. “Don’t y’u think Sam can look after himself? An’ don’t a lot of other people gone to Colon an’ nothing ’appen to them? Why you talking like that?”

Mr. Proudleigh may never have heard of the proverb which asserts that discretion is the better part of valour, but he certainly lived up to both the spirit and the letter of it.

“Y’u misunderstand you’ poor ole father, Sue,” he answered, with the suggestion of a reproach in his voice. “I only wanted to hinform Mister Sam as to what I hear. I know him can look after himself. Him is as brave as a . . . a . . .” He cast about in his mind for a term of comparison that would transcend all such other commonplace terms as “lion” and “tiger,” and finally came out with—“as a hedgehog.” He had not the faintest conception what sort of animal a hedgehog might be; but that in itself induced him to think of it as possessing remarkable qualities of courage. His children, who had read at the elementary school of the hedgehog and its ways, laughed outright; but Jones was not at all offended.

“You are right, old massa,” he observed, “if y’u put your hand on a hedgehog, he stick you with his porcupines, an’ that’s like me. I am a word and a blow all the time. If any man interfere with me, he get the worst of it.”

“But nobody going to interfere wid you,” Sue insisted. “Y’u will mind your own business, an’ leave everybody else alone.”

Given Jones’s temperament, this was highly improbable. But he agreed with her.

“Besides,” he added, “it is quite true that they can’t do what they like with a British subject. That’s undiscussable.”

“I wonder why dat is so?” asked Mr. Proudleigh. “I always hear so, but I don’t understand de reason.”

“It is the King,” explained Catherine. “Them ’fraid of the King. If y’u do one British subject anything, an’ the King hear about it, him send ships to fight for you. Him ’ave sojers an’ ships, an’ nobody can beat them. And as Jamaica belongs to him, him protect us.”

Catherine’s display of political knowledge deeply impressed her father. “I see!” he remarked. “It’s like what Queen Victoria used to do. I hear dat when she come to the throne she get up one day an’ say, ‘I don’t want any more slave in Jamaica,’ an’ the moment she say so, them send an’ free every slave! That was a good ooman. An’ that is why she live so long that I was beginning to think she would never dead. An’ her children take after her, or them wouldn’t protect us when we go foreign.”

“It’s not only the King,” said Jones, anxious to show that he knew much about such matters. “It’s the Parliament as well. The Parliament look after British subjects wherever them go to.”

“Yes, eh?” said Mr. Proudleigh, still more deeply impressed; “what is de Parliament?”

Jones thought for an instant, then answered, “It’s something like our Legislative Council. A lot of dukes; an’ they all discuss an’ argue. I hear, too, men ............