Then I asked Sir Philip whether the ancient builder over at Appledore had been sent for to depose to the boat; for we had brought that little craft on the top of our coach from Ilfracombe. The General said that I might see him even now examining her, if I would only take the trouble to look round the corner; but he himself was so well convinced, without any further testimony, that he did not even care to hear what the old man had to say of it, any more than he cared for the jemmyset. This, however, is not my manner of regarding questions. Not from any private fountains of conviction, and so on, but out of the mouths of many witnesses shall a thing be established. Therefore I hastened round the corner, to sift this ancient boatwright.
As surly a fellow as ever lived, and from his repugnance to my uniform, one who had made more money, I doubt, by the smuggler’s keg than the shipwright’s adze. Entering into his nature at sight, I took the upper hand of him, as my rank insisted on.
“Hark ye now, master ship-carpenter, where was this little craft put together, according to your opinion?”
Either this fellow was deaf as a post, or else he meant to insult me, for he took no more notice of me than he did of the pigs that were snuffling at beechnuts down by the side of the landing-place. I am not the right man to put up with insolence; therefore I screwed my hammerhead into the socket below my muscles, and therewith dealt him a tap on his hat, just to show what might come afterwards.
Receiving this administration, and seeing that more was very likely from the same source to be available, what did this rogue do but endeavour to show the best side of his manners. Wherefore, to let him have his say, here is his opinion.
“This here boat be the same as I built, year as my wife were took with quinzy, and were called home by the Lord. I built her for Wild-Duck of Appledore, a little dandy-rigged craft as used to be hired by Cap’en Bampfylde. To this here boat I can swear, although some big rogue have been at work, painting her, as knew not how to paint; and a lubber, no doubt, every now and then patching her up, or repairing of her. The name in her stern have been painted up from ‘Wild-Duck, Appledore,’ into ‘Santa Lucia, Salvador;’ three or four letters are my own, the rest are the work of some pirate. She be no more foreign-build than I be. But a sailor accustomed to foreign parts would be sure to reckon so, reason why I served my time with a builder over to Port-au-Prince. And I should like to see the man anywhere round these here parts, as can tuck in the bends as I does.”
Leaving this conceited fellow to his narrow unpleasantness, I turned my head, and there beheld Captain Bluett harkening.
“Come,” he cried out, in his hearty manner, “what a cook’s boiling of fools we are! Here we are chewing a long-chewed quid, while the devil that brewed this gale of wind may fly far away, and grin at us. Llewellyn, do you mean to allow—”
“Hush,” I said softly, for that low shipwright showed his eyes coming up under his cap. And I saw that he was that particular villain, after his scurrilous words about me, who would sell his soul to that wretch of a Chowne for half-a-crown a-week almost. Therefore I led our young Captain Bluett well away out of this fellow’s hearing.
“Davy,” said he, “we all know your courage, your readiness, and your resources. Still you appear to be under a spell—and you know you are superstitious about this cunning and cowardly blackguard, who frightens the whole of this country, as he never could frighten Glamorganshire.”
“I have no fear of him, sir,” I said; “I will go with you to confront him.”
“Why, your teeth are ready to chatter, Llewellyn; and your lips are blue! You who stood like a milestone, they tell me, at the helm of the Goliath, or like a clock going steadily tick, before we fired a shot, and with both shell and shot through your grey whiskers—”
“But, Captain, a minister of the Lord—”
“Master, a minister of the devil—once for all, today I go to horsewhip him, if he is young enough; or to pull his nose if he is old enough, and Old Harry be with him in choice of the two? Zounds, sir, is it a thing to laugh at?”
Rodney Bluett was well known to everyone who served under him for the mildness of his language, and the want of oaths he had; and so, of course, for his self-control, and the power of his heart when it did break forth. Everybody
