The young soldier departed. His last words, as he got upon his horse, were
to Caroline. "Caroline, you will be married before I return."

But to descend to the common affairs of life. Whilst all these visits and
balls, coquettings and separations, had been going on, the Dutch carpenters
had been repairing the wreck; and, from time to time, complaints had been
made of them by Mr. Percy's old steward. The careful steward's indignation
was first excited by their forgetting every night to lock a certain gate,
with the key of which they had been entrusted. Then they had wasted his
master's timber, and various tools were missing--they had been twice as
long as they ought to have been in finishing their work, and now, when the
wind was fair, the whole ship's crew impatient to sail, and not above half
a day's work wanting, the carpenters were smoking and drinking, instead
of putting their hands to the business. The Dutch carpenter, who was
at this moment more than half intoxicated, answered the steward's just
reproaches with much insolence. Mr. Percy, feeling that his hospitality
and good-nature were encroached upon and abused, declared that he would no
longer permit the Dutchmen to have the use of his house, and ordered his
steward to see that they quitted it immediately.

These men, and all belonging to them, consequently left the place in a
few hours; whatever remained to be done to the vessel was finished that
evening, and she sailed, to the great joy of her whole crew, and of Mr.
Percy's steward, who, when he brought the news of this event to his master,
protested that he was as glad as if any body had given him twenty golden
guineas, that he had at last got safely rid of these ill-mannered drunken
fellows, who, after all his master had done for them, never so much
as said, "thank you," and who had wasted and spoiled more by their
carelessness than their heads were worth.