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The Rover's Secret A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba
CHAPTER ONE.
MY CHILDHOOD.
My father--Cuthbert Lascelles--was the great painter who, under a pseudonym which I need not mention here, was a few years ago well known in the world of art, and whose works are now to be found enshrined in some of the noblest public and private collections both at home and abroad.
He was a tall and singularly handsome man; with clear grey eyes, and a stern resolute-looking mouth shadowed by a heavy moustache which, like his short curly hair and carefully trimmed beard, was of a pale golden tint.
My mother died in giving me birth; and this, together with the fact that she was a native of Italy, was all I, for some years, knew concerning her.
One of the earliest impressions made upon my infant mind--for I cannot recall the time when I was free from it--was that my parents suffered great unhappiness during the latter part of their short married life; unhappiness resulting from some terrible mistake on the part of one or the other of them; which mistake was never explained and rectified--if explanation and rectification were indeed possible--during my mother's lifetime.
Having received this impression at so very early an age, I cannot, of course, say with certainty whence I derived it; but I am inclined to attribute it chiefly to the singularity of my father's conduct toward myself.
I was his only child.
He was a man to whom solitude and retirement appeared to be the chief essentials of existence. Though living in London, he very rarely mingled in so