It was as dark as main-top-tree holes by the time we got to Barnstaple; but we found no less than four fine lamps of sperm-oil burning, and tallow-candles here and there, in shops of spirit and enterprise. The horses were stalled, and the baggage housed in a very fine inn, looking up the street, and then the Captain told Toms and me to house up our jibs, while he went out. This we were only too glad to do after so much heavy rolling upon terra firma, as those landsmen love to call it, in spite of all earthquakes, such as killed thirty thousand Italian people, when first I took to the sea again.
But before long, Toms and I began to feel that we had no right to abandon our commander so. Here we were in a town that hardly ever saw a royal sailor, and could not be supposed to know for a moment what his duties were, or even to take a proper pride in seeing him borne harmless. And here was our Captain gone out in the dark, with his cocked-hat on, and his gold lace shining wherever a tallow-candle hung; also with a pleasant walk as if he were full of prize-money; though the Evil One had so patched up a peace that we never clinked a halfpenny.
When old Jerry Toms and my humble self had scarcely gone through three glasses, he said to me, and I said to him, that we were carrying on too coolly in a hostile town like this. And just at this moment the Navy was down in popular estimation; for such is the public urgency, whenever we are paid for, without being killed or wounded. Therefore Jerry and I were bound to steer with a small helm, and double the watch.
We beat up the enemy’s quarters calmly, finding none to challenge us; and then we got tidings of our Captain out upon the Braunton road. Jerry was a man of valour, and I could not hang back to be far behind him; and we had been concerned in storming many savage villages. So we stormed this little town, carrying our hangers, and nobody denied us. But before we were half a mile entirely out of hearing, the mayor arose from his supper, and turned out the watch, and beat the drums, and bred such alarm that in one street there were three more people alive ere morning.
Meanwhile Jerry Toms and I shaped our course for the Braunton road, and hit it, and held on to it. And, because no man, in strange places, knows what the air may contain for him, Jerry sang a song, and I struck chorus; with such an effect that the cows were frightened all along the hedgerows. This put us quite on our legs again; and a more deeply sober couple could not, or at any rate need not, be seen, than that which myself and Jerry were, after two miles of walking.
In this manner, steering free, yet full of responsibility, we doubled the last point of the road, where it fetches round to Narnton Court. And here we lay to, and held council, out of the tide of the road, and in what seemed to be a limekiln.
The coxswain wanted to board the house, and demand our Captain out of it; we had carried all public opinion thus, and the right thing was to go on with it. But I told him very strongly (so that he put down his collar from his ears to listen) that no doubt he was right enough upon a hundred thousand subjects, yet was gone astray in this. And if we boarded a house at night, after carrying all the town by storm, what ship had we to bear us away from the mayor and his constables tomorrow?
In this dilemma, who should appear but the Captain himself, with his head bowed down, and his walk (which was usually so brisk in spite of a trifling lameness), his very walk expressing that his heart was full of sadness.
“How much longer? How much longer?” he was saying to himself, being so troubled that he did not see us in the shadow there. “My own brother to have sworn it! Will the Lord never hold His hand from scourging and from crushing me? Would that I were shot and shrouded! It is more than I can bear.”
In this gloomy vein he passed us; and we looked at one another, daring not to say a word. How could a pair of petty officers think of intruding upon the troubles and private affairs of a post-captain, even though, since our ship was paid off, we could hardly be said to serve under him? “Blow me out of the mouth of a gun,” cried Coxswain Toms, in a shaking voice, “if ever I was so amazed before! I would have sworn that our Skipper was not only the handsomest but the happiest man in all the service.”
“Then, Jerry, I could have set you to rights. How many times have I hinted that our Skipper had something on his mind, and none of you would hearken me?”
“True for you, my lad. I remember, now you come to speak of it. But we paid no heed; because you looked so devilish knowing, and would go no further. Old Dyo, I beg your pardon now; there is good stuff in you,
