Read Online Heirs of Acadia - 03 - The Noble Fugitive by T. Davis Bunn - Free Book Online

see.”
    “Only so that I bring harm to none, sir.”
    “Tell me this, if you will. Are you a Christian?”
    “I hope and pray the good Lord will recognize me on that day.”
    “You are not certain?”
    Falconer spoke slowly. “I would like to be.”
    “But . . .”
    “I have committed many a misdeed, sir.”
    “As have we all. Yet the Lord allowed himself to be nailed to a tree for this very reason, that all have sinned and fallen short of grace.” The young man was of an age as Falconer, though his face remained pale and unlined, his gaze soft, his demeanor scholarly. “You have lived a hard life?”
    “Aye, that I have. Very hard.”
    “And gone far astray.”
    “Beyond the limits of your imagination, sir.” Falconer felt the sudden urge to confess to this gentleman pastor with the open-hearted face. Not to impress nor to shock. But for a reason that he could not even identify. The words welled up, such that he had to clench his jaw to keep them inside. I wasonce a slaver , he wanted to say . . . I have sold my own brothers and sisters into bondage. I am no better than Joseph’s kin . But he did not speak, since to do so could mean risking all.
    The pastor did not seem the least bit put out, either by Falconer’s response or the morose silence that followed. He had a way of seeming comfortable both by this reserved man and the hard parson’s bench where he sat. “What brings you to Georgetown, can you tell me that?”
    “Aye, I suppose, if the reasons stay between us.”
    “You have my word.”
    The pastor’s guileless face invited trust. “I have been living these past four years in the Windward Islands,” Falconer told him. “You know of them?”
    “The name only. They are British possessions, I believe.”
    “Some are. Others are French, Dutch . . . a few in the Antilles are Portuguese. I ran a chandlery.”
    “This is not a dangerous profession, at least in these parts.”
    Falconer shot him a guarded look. “Who spoke of danger?”
    “A man comes by ship out of the hardest storm any can recall this early in the season,” the young pastor replied. From his tone he might as well have been taking his ease among close friends. “He refuses to give his name. He lives as though he does not have a farthing to his name. He works well and hard at any task given him. And daily he visits the Georgetown port, seeking passage to Britain.”
    Falconer wondered if he had made a mistake in trusting this man’s demeanor. “You know a very great deal for a man who wears the cloth.”
    “I ask questions, I listen well, and I speak of nothing that might bring harm to another. So what brought you north?”
    “To speak of this might, as you say, bring harm.”
    The pastor smiled, as though he expected nothing else, and changed the subject. “Your ship was caught in the tempest?”
    “The tail end, nothing more. Even so, we rocked like a bell ringing out a midnight fire.”
    “Why Georgetown?”
    “I heard of the merchant ship yonder.” Falconer pointed out the window to where two of the ship’s three masts protruded above the rooftops. Resting at anchor was as fine a ship as any he had seen, a clipper sheathed below the waterline in copper. Falconer was stubbornly set against such new ideas, as were most seamen. Their lives rested upon staying with the tried and true. But a bosun’s mate who sailed with her claimed they had made the crossing from England in twenty-one days, slipping under the beam of the approaching storm. “I gather she is aimed for England,” Falconer went on. “But none can tell me when they will be off.”
    “Indeed.” The pastor laced his fingers across his vest. “Might I ask what mission takes you across the waters, and in this most perilous of seasons?”
    “The season is not of my choosing. As for the purpose . . .” He shook his head. “I cannot speak of it.”
    “You do not trust me.”
    “Forgive me for saying it, sir. But I have no reason to do