I. Jonathan Rugg



You may never know what romantic aspirations may lie hidden
beneath the most sedate and sober demeanor.

To have observed Jonathan Rugg, who was a tall, lean,
loose-jointed young Quaker of a somewhat forbidding aspect, with
straight, dark hair and a bony, overhanging forehead set into a
frown, a pair of small, deep-set eyes, and a square jaw, no one
would for a moment have suspected that he concealed beneath so
serious an exterior any appetite for romantic adventure.

Nevertheless, finding himself suddenly transported, as it were,
from the quiet of so sober a town as that of Philadelphia to the
tropical enchantment of Kingston, in the island of Jamaica, the
night brilliant with a full moon that swung in an opal sky, the
warm and luminous darkness replete with the mysteries of a
tropical night, and burdened with the odors of a land breeze, he
suddenly discovered himself to be overtaken with so vehement a
desire for some unwonted excitement that, had the opportunity
presented itself, he felt himself ready to embrace any adventure
with the utmost eagerness, no matter whither it would have
conducted him.

At home (where he was a clerk in the counting-house of a leading
merchant, by name Jeremiah Doolittle), should such idle fancies