Hetty Wesley

Hetty Wesley, by Sir Arthur
Thomas

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Hetty Wesley, by Sir Arthur Thomas
Quiller-Couch
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: Hetty Wesley
Author: Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Release Date: October 17, 2005 [eBook #16890]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HETTY
WESLEY***
E-text prepared by Lionel Sear

HETTY WESLEY.

by
ARTHUR THOMAS QUILLER-COUCH.

TO ANDREW LANG. A GOOD CHAMPION OF HETTY.

CONTENTS.
* BOOK I.
* PROLOGUE.
* CHAPTER I.
* CHAPTER II.
* CHAPTER III.
* CHAPTER IV.
* CHAPTER V.
* CHAPTER VI.
* CHAPTER VII.
* CHAPTER VIII.
* BOOK II.
* CHAPTER I.
* CHAPTER II.
* CHAPTER III.
* CHAPTER IV.

* CHAPTER V.
* CHAPTER VI.
*BOOK III.
* PROLOGUE.
* CHAPTER I.
* CHAPTER II.
* CHAPTER III.
* CHAPTER IV.
* CHAPTER V.
* CHAPTER VI.
* CHAPTER VII.
* CHAPTER VIII.
* CHAPTER IX.
* CHAPTER X.
* CHAPTER XI.
* CHAPTER XII.
* CHAPTER XIII.
* CHAPTER XIV.
* CHAPTER XV.
* CHAPTER XVI.

* BOOK IV.
* CHAPTER I.
* CHAPTER II.
* CHAPTER III.
* CHAPTER IV.
* CHAPTER V.
* CHAPTER VI.
* CHAPTER VII.
* CHAPTER VIII.
* CONCLUSION.
* CHAPTER I.
* CHAPTER II.
* EPILOGUE.

BOOK I.

PROLOGUE.
"For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose
his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"
At Surat, by a window of his private office in the East India Company's
factory, a middle-aged man stared out upon the broad river and the
wharves below. Business in the factory had ceased for the day: clerks

and porters had gone about their own affairs, and had left the great
building strangely cool and empty and silent. The wharves, too, were
deserted--all but one, where a Hindu sat in the shade of a pile of
luggage, and the top of a boat's mast wavered like the index of a
balance above the edge of the landing-stairs.
The luggage belonged to the middle-aged man at the window: the boat
was to carry him down the river to the Albemarle, East Indiaman,
anchored in the roads with her Surat cargo aboard. She would sail that
night for Bombay and thence away for England.
He was ready; dressed for his journey in a loose white suit, which,
though designed for the East, was almost aggressively British. A
Cheapside tailor had cut it, and, had it been black or gray or
snuff-coloured instead of white, its wearer might have passed all the
way from the Docks to Temple Bar for a solid merchant on 'Change--a
self-respecting man, too, careless of dress for appearance' sake, but
careful of it for his own, and as part of a habit of neatness. He wore no
wig (though the date was 1723), but his own gray hair, brushed
smoothly back from a sufficiently handsome forehead and tied behind
with a fresh black ribbon. In his right hand he held a straw hat,
broad-brimmed like a Quaker's, and a white umbrella with a green
lining. His left fingered his clean-shaven chin as he gazed on the river.
The ceremonies of leave-taking were done with and dismissed; so far as
he could, he had avoided them. He had ever been a hard man and knew
well enough that the clerks disliked him. He hated humbug. He had
come to India, almost forty years ago, not to make friends, but to make
a fortune. And now the fortune was made, and the room behind him
stood ready, spick and span, for the Scotsman who would take his chair
to-morrow. Drawers had been emptied and dusted, loose papers and
memoranda sorted and either burnt or arranged and docketed, ledgers
entered up to the last item in his firm handwriting, and finally closed.
The history of his manhood lay shut between their covers, written in
figures terser than a Roman classic: his grand coup in Nunsasee goods,
Abdul Guffere's debt commuted for 500,000 rupees, the salvage of the
Ramillies wreck, his commercial duel with Viltul Parrak . . . And the

record had no loose ends. He owed no man a farthing.
The door behind him opened softly and a small gray-headed man
peered into the room.
"Mr. Annesley, if I might take the liberty--"
"Ah, MacNab?" Samuel Annesley swung round promptly.
"I trust, sir, I do not intrude?"
"'Intrude,' man? Why?"
"Oh, nothing, sir," answered the little man vaguely, with a dubious
glance at Mr. Annesley's